Now back to work

It has been a busy week.  We have hosted five Thai students, which has been fun, but it has cut into the weaving time.  On Tuesday I took them to Mt. Vernon which is beginning to flower. 


In between times I have been warping and tying on another black and white warp.  

Here it is on the warping reel.

And here It is being tied on.  I use an overhand knot to tie on.  I find it more secure and faster than a weaver's knot--although that may sound heretical.  With fine threads it is not difficult to ease through the heddles, and there is no more bulk on the beam. 

Today I met Bhakti and her sister to visit a trunk show at the Harmon Center in DC and for a delicious dim sum in Chinatown.  

So now it is time to get back to tying the rest of the warp on.  This is one of those tedious parts of weaving that I cannot say I especially enjoy.  But it must be done.

Some catch up

There are a number things I would like to post that are not up to the minute--not created today.  But it would be nice to have them here for the record.  So some of this will be catch up.


It is wonderful to have a deadline again.  I used the excuse of Bhakti's visit to do a lot of work in March and wove two pieces.  The most important piece is called "Pixilated Forest".  It is destined for a large space above my living room fireplace--a chimney stack that rises about 20'.  So the weaving needed to be large or at least long.  The finished piece is 28" wide and 84" long.  It is also woven in four color double twill.  The sett is 45 ends per inch, and the four weft colors are brown, blue, green and red orange.  I achieved the block effect by radically reducing the pixels in the design and then blowing the design up again to 1310 wide.  

Here is a detail where you can see the weave structures much better.  I like all the color blending you can achieve with a choice of four wefts, two warps and three twills.  It seems very pointillist to me.

Stimulus, stimulus

I am just starting to come down from four days of almost non-stop stimulus and excitement.  Bhakti Ziek gave the program, a mini workshop and a two day workshop for Potomac Fiber Arts Guild this weekend.  She arrived Thursday to stay with me and joined our complex weaves study group on Friday.  We fit in a quick dash to the Textile Museum on Friday afternoon.  While I had met Bhakti earlier at the Denver HGA Convergence, we did not really know each other.  But my did we connect on lots of levels--personal and professional.  It was a joy to find such a kindred spirit.  Her workshops were full of insight, and she challenged us all to push ourselves.  The critiques were especially helpful.  She is such a generous, open and yet insightful teacher, so she drew concrete and positive analysis from us all.  I have a lot of new ideas gestating and this helped to give them some form and direction. Now I need some time to get back to work and let them percolate through my consciousness.   

Experiments in four color double weave

This summer after taking a very stimulating seminar at Complex Weavers in Albuquerque with Alice Schlein, I came home determined to try four color double weave.   So I got out my Woven Pixel by Alice and Bhakti Ziek and got to work on samples.  Here are the three attempts I made with images of iris.  The warp is end and end black and white in 20/2 sett at 60 epi.

Here is the first Iris in four color double weave.  The warp was 880 ends wide.  I reduced the file to 440 because of the double weave structure. The four colors are burgundy, green, orange and light yellow.  The yellow areas cast decidedly green, and I lost a lot of definition from the photo.  The weft is rayon embroidery thread.  It gives a nice shine.

The second attempt was more effective although the design was not any more defined. But I like the effect. This one had green, orange, blue and beige wefts.  The file was reduced to about 110 pixels wide, simplified and then enlarged to 880.  This produced the pixilated appearance that you see here.  I rather like it.

Here is the third attempt.  The four weft colors were red, violet, blue and green.  It makes a very dark composition.  I also used 4 to 1 as the aspect ratio.  As it turned out that was twice as many picks as I should have used.  But the elongated vertical pixels are rather interesting.  But at 162 picks per inch, I don't think I will weave much yardage like this.

Hello

After enjoying Alice Schlein's "Weaverly" blog for many months, I have decided to join the conversation.  A visit from Bhakti Zeik this weekend made this possible.  She has walked me through the setting up process and graciously provided many helpful hints.  While I am sure I will not be blogging as often as Alice, it will be nice to get some of my work out there and receive a bit of feedback from you, my readers.  So on to the new adventure. . .