Shuttles Blazing... With Kathrin Weber

Our Fiber Guild of the Savannahs hosted a three day workshop May 1-3 with Asheville's Kathrin Weber aka Blazing Shuttles.  What an energetic engaging teacher!  We spent two days exploring shifted warps and I played with a faux repp weave (ripsmatta) structure after having my loom prewarped with an orange cotton carpet warp dummy warp.  The third day was intensive dye day where she shared here technique for dyeing her unique warps.

Creating an Art Yarn Rainbow

What fun it was to explore the Rainbow at SWAY... the South West (Florida) Art Yarn Conference in Sarasota, Florida!  Hubby and I took off for a learning vacation in late April.  I had gotten info on SWAY the last few years and loved the work of one of the organizers Picasso's Moon fiber artist, Deb Lambert... so I teased my hubby and he agreed... since we'd never been to Sarasota... it was TIME.

The featured presenters were Wool Wench Suzy Brown from New Zealand and her cohort Arlene Thayer of Spin Artiste... together they are Fibery Goodness and are the goddesses of art yarn!  

The focus of the weekend was spinning a rainbow and using all kinds of tools to prepare the fiber from the brand new Magacraft drum carder and others, to blending boards to lethal yarn combs and dizes.  What fun!  I pushed my little Kromski Fantasia to her limits and was excited to find an adaptor I had already purchased to turn the oriface into the perfect art yarn spinner!  While at the workshop I forced her to take up the bulky yarns I was creating.  But once home with the new adaptor, it was delightfully easy!

It was a wonderful weekend exploring the area with my hubby during down time and falling in love with color the rest of the time!  I even picked up a great pair of vintage well worn cowboy boots and a dress made of vintage fabrics from one of the vendors as well as fibers to spin and some wonderful super big wooden knitting needles in a leather pouch!  WIN, win, WIN!!!

Getting Caught up in Four Stages

Has it really been 4 months since I last posted?  Here we are up at the lake with time to reflect... but the internet connectivity is LOUSY!  Even my iPad has been slower that slow.  But I'm going to give it a try.  I have had some wonderfully inspirational learning experiences  this spring... and have created some interesting things... and our Fiber Guild of the Savannahs Show and Sale was quite successful... so bare with me... I'm going to split this up.  I wish there was some way to back date things... but I guess that's not fair...

Frolicking

How my heart sings when I am back in the mountains.  So it was this past weekend when I had the opportunity to frolic with other spinners, knitters, felters and weavers and fiber artists of all kinds at the Carolina Fiber Frolic in Sapphire Valley, North Carolina.  

I was invited to teach some weaving classes on the rigid heddle loom by Frolic organizer Jan Smiley.  I was excited to share the idea of playful exploration on an affordable portable loom like the little Schacht Cricket loom I got last summer.  I made a Saori-inspired bag to carry my Cricket and lots of paraphernalia (tools, shuttles, yarns, etc) from my handspun alpaca yarns and fabric that my good friend Cathy Hill gave me a while ago.

Saori® Is a registered trademark for a Japanese company that makes very adaptable easy to use floor looms, but it has also become known as a philosophy for weaving freeform, Zen-like, textured and colorful designs on whatever loom you have available. I was excited to share my joy in weaving this Saori-inspired way.

Shortly after arriving after our 6 hour drive (the last hour happily winding back and forth and up and down through mountain roads in early early Spring) I settled down with my 3 eager students to learn how to warp their looms for the Sari-inspired Rigid Heddle Loom class I was facilitating the next day.  It's always a challenge finding places to attach the loom to a table (difficulty I I possible on a curve) and the peg 2+ yards away.  We managed to put a coffee table up on 4 rolling chairs to make it a more comfortable height for one weaver.! Fiber artists are nothing if resourceful!!!

Saturday morning at 9am after an early morning soak in the hot tub and delicious waffle breakfast... Our group of 9 weavers were ready to roll.  Some felt comfortable with being playful and experimental while others felt challenged to relax and explore, but by the end of the 3 hours, I was delighted to see everyone finding new ways to interlace weft with warp yarns to create unique one of a kind pieces.  It was delightful.  Several of us who had not scheduled an afternoon workshop met in the sunroom in the afternoon and 4 were able to finish weaving the length of their warps and excitedly pulled their creations off the loom and tied the ends.  What will they be... What will they be???

Each time I have the opportunity to teach I am made better for the experience. I absolutely love facilitating creative expression!  It reaches in and nourishes my soul!

Reunion of Fiber Guild of the Savannahs friends new and old... me, Sarah DeRoo (aka Copper Corgi), Fran Wilson (aka TallFran) and Jennifer Reardon

Painting the Big Apple RED

...actually I've been weaving the Big Apple experience in red...

Here is my finished piece titled: 

February 23, 2015, NYC

or does she want to be a scarf... 

I title it in honor of On Kawara whose work my daughter, g'girls and I explored at the Guggenheim during our recent adventure in the Big Apple.  On Kawara painting stark images of dates and then created cardboard boxes for them and stored them with a newspaper clipping from the day.  I love the idea of creating memory pieces... so this piece is a bit of a diary of that day... the day we went to Loop of the Loom saori studio in the Upper East Side NY and the yarns I bought at Lion Brand Yarns and Purl Soho which I used in the woven structure with my handspun yarns.

I wove it the week after I returned from NYC incorporating the open free weaving technique I saw demonstrated while memories of all I saw were still fresh in my mind...  the freezing temps, the warmth of family and friends new and old, the lights and energy of the city, the intense memories of the horrors of the day of 9/11, the bold red of most of On Kawara's paintings... and the textures that were everywhere I looked.

Here is the piece being woven that inspired me at Loop of the Loom...

Inspiration

There is nothing quite like a trip to the Big Apple to nurture the creative spirit!  Using a free ticket on United as a result of them loosing a part of brother Jeff's easel I was transporting home after his death, I planned a trip to New York City to meet daughter Kristin and g'girls Abby (just before her 10th birthday) and Chelsea (8 1/2).   

I flew out of Savannah Sunday 2/22/15 leaving early in the morning expecting to get there for an afternoon at Loop of the Loom Saori weaving studio.  My plans were asked by high wind advisories canceling my flight so to get there I was re routed through Chicago and didn't get to the Bentley Hotel where We were staying until 4:15 Sunday afternoon after the studio closed.  No worries... After a brief rest... I took off for Brooklyn to see my old buddy Jeanette Vuocolo who Imworked with at the Corland Arts Council in the 1980s.  Had it really been 30 years or more since aid seen her? Wr quickly caught up where we'd left off... JV is now working as arts administrator for an emerging artist Jazz grant at the Classical Music Association (CMA). Her condo boast an exquisite collection of Gabbeh carpets handwoven by Nomadic weavers from Iran that were rich and wonderful.  She shared a video about the process that can be seen here...  https://vimeo.com/47184738. I was proud of myself for navigating the F train subway to Brooklyn despite having little sleep and the frigid temperatures (2* and strong winds!). I am warrior... Hear me roar!!!

Kris and the girls were arriving at noon the next day by train, but a I had a delightful brunch with Juliet Martin, Saori fiber artist who I met in Atlanta last July at the Saori weaving Conference.  We shared a lot of Saori info and she suggested several fun things to do with the girls in the city.  As I was disappointed that I missed my opportunity to go to Loop of the Loom, which Juliet uses as her studio, she suggested I try to go today... And take the girls!  What a super idea... I'd ask them when I see them.  

What fun it was to see them at Penn Station!  (After a quick trip to Lion Brand Yarn Store in Soho and the Apple tech to offer advise for my iPhone that was loosing charge because of the COLD) We ate lunch at Cafe 31 across from Madison Square Garden and caught up on their lives since I last saw them after Xmas... Then hailed a taxi and headed up to 86th st and Loop of the Loom!  It was even better than I'd expected!  Such a peaceful yet inspiring space full of a wall of colorful yarns, woven items and 8-10 Saori looms warped and ready to play on.  Abby and Chelsea quickly got started creating.  I had to remind myself not to instruct but to let them learn by experimenting.  Chelsea was hooked... Abby enjoyed it but lost interest ("I'm tired.") after about an hour.  So... I sat down at her loom and played.  There was a woman weaving on a 4 shaft Saori loom using stripes of pattern weave in between plain weave but the weaver who caught my eye was weaving a gossamer construction without tension on a widely spaced bulky textured warp.  I wanted to try that and quickly added it to my to try list for when I got home!  In the meantime, I played with the idea of beating the weft with my fingers to space the warp in different ways... Juliet had encouraged me to try.  What fun!

So... For $105... Both g'girls and I got to explore Saori for 1 1/2 hours and each girl had a woven piece to take home to make into a wall hanging, pillow or handbag!  A bargain!!! And a fun birthday present for Abby!

It really was a wonderful adventure... From the On Karawa exhibit and seeing friend Sharon Vatsky at the Guggenheim, to the American Girl Doll Plaza and Legoland, to Dylan's Candy Bar and Serendipity Restaurant, to the angels at St Patricks Cathedral, to shaking hands with Willie Geist at NBC Studios, to yarns stores Soho Cafe and Lion Brand Yarns, to the Textile Guild's exhibit, Squared at the chapel gallery at Citicorp, to an emotional experience at the World Trade Center 9/11 Memorial Museum... Incredibly inspiring!!!