Tag: Denise Kovnat

Bittersweet Farewells…

Don’t worry dear readers, I’m not going anywhere. But there have been some changes that have me saying goodbye to things that impacted my life in some way, in many areas of my life.

The biggest news is a bittersweet farewell to the Duchess. I’ve blogged about her many times, this is a 12-shaft 54″ wide Tools of the Trade loom, a monster of a loom, challenging to weave on with this aging body. But weave I did. My daughter brought her here to live, picking her up from Rochester, NY, in the middle of Covid, and I was able to clear the warp she put on shortly after that, along with one I transferred to this loom, from a 12-shaft table loom, (which is now safely in Michigan) using a pattern I purchased from Denise Kovnat. I referenced that in my previous blog post.

I cleared the loom of that warp in short order. It is a very gorgeous piece of Tencel fabric, and no I don’t have any idea of what I want to do with it. It will sit quietly and be, for now.

I started packing the loom, stripping it down to reduce weight. Fashion Institute of Technology, in NYC was sending a moving van to pick it up and move it into their new weaving space. The movers came last Tuesday in the icy rain, two strong guys with a big truck and a lift gate, and within two hours, it was loaded…

…and installed at FIT. It looks really happy with the other multi shaft looms, looks like mostly Macombers. I hope it helps a new generation love weaving. Or at least get a good workout weaving on it!

Of course that left a huge chunk of space in my studio, which I filled by just rearranging some of the furniture that was already there.

I had moved my teaching set up, for zoom meetings, to the back corner of the studio, away from light and traffic, and that was fun staging a new look behind me as I taught or just tuned in to Zoom.

With all the space, and rearranging, I’m seeing things I haven’t looked at for a while, and getting psyched to start getting more things on the remaining looms… I have a couple that are empty…

It is also a bittersweet farewell to winter. It’s probably not completely done, but it reached 69 degrees today. I will say, that though for the first time since my husband died, I’ve given thought to how much this house is to care for by myself. This latest snow storm, of 14 inches, on the back of another one that produced about 15 inches, almost finished me. I worked doggedly every day to try to clear a pathway to my house, and to try to dig out the cars. Snow days are fun until you are the one removing the snow. My daughter was on her annual Star Trek Cruise in the Caribbean, and my son was in NC at Ft. Bragg for leadership training with the military. So they were absolutely of no help. This is the picture from the Ring Camera on my front porch, after I managed to clear the front deck steps.

I shoveled daily…

But it was really beautiful. The snow was heavy, and covered the trees, and one morning, after the first snow storm, after the roads were clear enough to drive, I actually pulled over on my way to the Shakespeare Theatre to volunteer, and just looked at the stunning landscape of everything covered in a blanket of white. I didn’t even try to get a picture. It would have never done it justice. This was the view out the window in my music room.

So a farewell to this winter, hopefully there will not be anymore storms like this for the rest of the season. The snow is gone now, with the warmer temps, leaving behind a dreary muddy landscape (we got 3.25 inches of rain in the last 24 hours).

And a sad farewell to my beautiful vine covered gazebo, which didn’t survive this winter. I’m debating what to do, I can’t fix it myself, and I can’t find a handyman, and I’m just sad…

But I did go out today, and start to clean out the vegetable garden, and planted some arugula, lettuce and spinach seeds. Spring is coming…

Meanwhile, I had hoped to say goodbye to my natural dye class I’ve been doggedly working through for the last number of months. I managed to use up all the exhaust baths I saved from my 18 dye adventures.

I washed samples that I’ve been sitting on for a few weeks before I divided them into thirds.

I divided up all the samples, these are the cellulose fabrics, into thirds, one third for an extensive dye notebook, one third for Iron Modifiers, and one third for an Indigo overdye.

I thought I’d be through the indigo unit by now, but alas… I needed 7 pounds of very ripe bananas. Really…

There are many ways to create an indigo vat, and Maiwa teaches making Banana mash and using it to feed the indigo. I’ve done other methods, but I’m good at following directions. You would have laughed hysterically at me trying to carry what I hoped was 7 pounds of bananas across the produce department in my Shoprite, in the very thin produce bags, to weigh on the scale, nowhere near the bananas, and watching the bags rip as I tried to lift them onto the scale. The other shoppers were quite aghast… The things we do for our craft…

So I wait patiently for them to over rippen…

Meanwhile, I try to weave every day. I’m doggedly working through the Quigley course Diane Click was gracious enough to send me a few years ago, when I mentioned in a blog I had put a Quigley threading onto one of my Structos. Having transferred that warp to a floor loom, I threaded it based on Diane’s extensive handout from a class she taught in Florida in 2015. I do a new sample every day. I think there are 19 samples in total. I love this structure, a four tie unit weave, though it is very slow and tedious, especially in 20/2 cotton.

And dearest gentle readers, this will sound really silly, but I’ve been in mourning every since I binge watched the latest season of Bridgerton, which for those who have never seen it, is a Regency era romp through life on the ton under Queen Charlotte, turn of a couple century’s ago, (you might remember she was married to mad King George), and it is so gorgeous, so decadent, so utterly ridiculous and so addicting, that I couldn’t stop watching until the last episode. Now I have to wait probably another year and a half for season 5. The costumes are incredible. The sets lavish and stunning. And Queen Charlotte’s head pieces, are the highlights of any scene she is in. I don’t have a TV, and I don’t watch television, but I started watching Bridgerton during Covid, on Netflix, and it has been the one decadent treat every couple years. I’m sad the season is over.

And finally, I took a one day workshop in Broom making at my weaving guild. It was so much fun. The teacher, Sue Muldoon, stayed with me and I realized how much I missed the one on one I used to have with my hostess when I’d travel. Always a new friend, with an amazing story, and I’m a better person for each of the wonderful people who hosted me over the decades I taught. Sue is a wonderful teacher, very prepared, and I made some pretty cool brooms…

And there you have it. My daily life at this point, with the coming spring is now a check list of ‘Weave every day’, ‘Finish the dye class’ (when the bananas are ripe), ‘Play in the muddy gardens every day’, and of course practice every day for all the music groups I play with at the moment, spring concerts are coming up, and the set lists for each group are growing. There are multiple rehearsals each week, and I’m improving in tiny increments each time I sit down with the cello. One day I hope to be competent…

Stay tuned…

Spring is coming…

…and I’m weaving as fast as I can…

I suppose it is a good thing that there is still a foot or more of packed ice covering all of northern NJ. And of course my gardens. And half my driveway (well that part isn’t so great). I try to spend each day chipping away at the ice piles in the driveway. But the gardens I’m told are fine. Snow is an insulator, and all will be well when it finally all melts. The good news is that may take a while, and there is nothing for me to do in the gardens until I see the actual ground. Which means I have some more time inside before I have to venture outside.

I’m still slogging my way through the natural dye class through Maiwa. Each of the saved batches of dye are being reused to exhaust them, no sense tossing perfectly good dyepots. I’ve got a routine, including exhausting the exhaust baths… Don’t ask! I think I counted so far that I will have done more than 75 dyebaths. And I haven’t gotten to the indigo yet.

I finished the 8-shaft Shadow Weave scarves, design from Webs, I put the link in the last post. They are sitting in my closet waiting for the guild sale.

I kept at the 12-shaft towels my daughter started years ago. I wanted that warp off. Good thing I have such good leg and upper back strength from weaving on this monster loom, because I need it shoveling mounds of icy snow.

Pretty soon, the sight every weaver longs for…

And I cut the roll of towels off the loom, and left them for my daughter. They are really hers.

Then I took my 12-shaft Voyager Table loom, (did I mention I hate table looms?) and slowly started to transfer the echo weave draft I got from Denise Kovnat, onto the 12-shaft floor loom. I wanted to finish one last warp before this loom moves to FIT in NYC. I knew I’d never get to weaving off this complex Tencel warp on the table loom, so I started sleying the reed of the floor loom, directly from the table loom.

I got all 574 ends threaded, 36 ends per inch.

And then releasing the brake on the table loom, I wound through the four yards onto the floor loom.

And I will admit, it took a while to get the sheds clean on all 12 treadles, lots of tweaking, but once I spent the time on it, it is weaving beautifully. I love this pattern. And I love that it is a single shuttle weft. My kind of weaving.

And just today… Knots… This makes me so happy. Probably one more repeat…

I pulled a box of sheepskin fur scraps from the attic, I’m making a medieval brocade vest, and I’ll line it with the sheepskin pieced together. It only took the cat about 10 minutes to find the box, and now it is his favorite place to rest.

I think I want to come back in another life as one of my animals…

I got my latest Shuttle, Spindle and Dyepot last week. It is the publication for the Handweavers Guild of America. I casually opened the front cover and there I was, with all these young faces, part of the Careers in Textiles symposium sponsored by the Handweavers Guild of America. I was reluctant at first to be a part of it, because the path I took to become who I am doesn’t really exist anymore. But then I thought about it, and it isn’t about the path, it is about seizing opportunities and learning everything I could about each of the components that helped me earn a living as an artist, handweaver, writer, and educator. So I’m the artist, handweaver, writer and educator on the panel. It happens in March. I have started writing my presentation, which I have so much fun with…

And I practice like a crazy person every day, cello and recorders, and a week ago Friday I had a performance with one of my groups, the Mendham Consort for the Folk Project. We played a colorful version of Greensleeves, which is a song about unrequited love, from the 16th century, at a concert featuring love songs for Valentine’s Day. It was so much fun. That’s me in the center, standing, playing bass recorder. Seated next to me is my cello teacher Loni Bach.

And one of my groups, New Jersey Early Music, has its spring concert on March 22, which is coming up soon, less than 4 rehearsals to go. I’m playing cello and bass recorder for that one.

And I was just asked to record a podcast with the SweetGeorgia Yarn company, out of Vancouver. I’m always up for a podcast. I looked at their yarns, all handdyed or handpainted. They are gorgeous.

So life is of course spiraling out of control, which is all fine. I choose all these fun things, and they sometimes collide, but I have a breather before I have to get outside and work in the dirt. In the next couple of weeks, two more looms will be gone from my studio. The 12-shaft Voyager Table loom is heading to Michigan to my weaver friend there, and the 12-shaft 54″ Tools of the Trade is heading to NYC to the weaving lab at FIT. And at the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ, we are working on costuming four shows at once. And this is the off season. My weekly volunteer day there is chocked full of entertaining sewing.

Stay warm my faithful readers, and stay tuned…

Highs and Lows…

I grew up in southern NJ, not far from a town called Clementon. They had an amusement park there, and a few times a year, my dad would take the three of us to the Clementon amusement park for the day. ( I checked, it is actually still in existence). I would patiently wait, because I couldn’t go on any rides that spun me around, some structural inner ear issue, I’d immediately start hurling. Motion sickness haunted me as a child. Now there are drugs for that, but mostly I just sat and watched my sisters spinning around in tea cups, the Tilt-a-whirl, and all the other magical rides that make up an amusement park. The merry-go-round was iffy. If I sat on a non-moving horse, and stared straight ahead, I might make it off the ride with my lunch intact. The only real rides that were safe were the Ferris wheel, which only went in one direction, but NO ONE could swing the seat, and of course, my beloved old wooden roller coaster. I loved the roller coaster. That slow climb to the top, barely making it over the crest, and then straight down, breathlessly screaming all the way!

That’s sort of like my last couple weeks.

The day after my last post, the reconstruction guys came and my beautiful music room with the view was complete. I was so very happy, and grateful that something really wonderful came out of a miserable situation. I still have to stain the wood around the new window…

The next day, yeah, not so much. My dryer broke, and when the service man came, he said, Yep, can’t get the parts, you’ll need a new dryer.”

This is something I’ve been dreading for years. I’m a textile artist. The Washer and Dryer are an important part of my design team. I need total control over the function of both. I don’t want appliances smarter than I am, I need to control the water level, I need to be able to open the lid periodically to check on how the fabrics are doing. Wet finishing handwoven fabric is critical.

I’ve heard horror stories from other weavers who have had to replace their washers. In addition to wanting a simple top loading washer, and even though it was the dryer that broke, the washer, actually the pair, were put in when we built the addition, in an alcove off the second floor bedroom, in 1989. So yeah, both were hanging on by a thread. I knew this day was coming, but really, did it have to be the day after the reconstruction was finished? (Ok, fair point, it could have been during the reconstruction…) Sigh…

Further complicating things, according to the repair guy, was that the alcove that housed the pair, was very shallow by today’s standards. He wasn’t hopeful I’d find a dryer that would fit the space. At this point, I’m bordering on having a heart attack…

I went to my local appliance chain, and looked at options. There were washer/dryer sets, like Speed Queen, that would do what I wanted, and not do what I didn’t want, but they didn’t fit the space. They sent a surveyor out the following week to check the space and see if there were any options.

Turns out, my original units were GE Profile. And who knew that GE still made roughly the same pair, same features, and roughly the same size. I ordered, and yesterday, an incredible pair of service technicians hauled my old set away, down two flights of stairs, and had the new set installed, in about 25 minutes. I cannot tell you what a huge relief this is, something I dreaded for years. I’ve done a couple loads and so far so good.

Last weekend, I drove a couple hours up to Newtown CT, where I had agreed to judge The Handweavers Guild of CT biennial fiber show. Denise Kovnat, the other judge and I arrived Saturday evening, and our lovely hostess Jennifer, whom I had never met before, greeted us, showed us around, got us settled, let us preview some of the work, and then we just sat and chatted. Can I tell you what a joy it was to be back with my tribe? Denise, whom I knew of, and had some online interactions with, but didn’t really know well in person, was just a delight, full of stories, adventures, humor and grace. My hostess was the same. We were like old college friends who hadn’t seen each other in 40 years. I needed this weekend away. (And Denise told me that there is a site that ranks blogs, and I’m number 7 in the country for handweaving blogs according to Feedly.com. Who knew!)

Judging is always tough, a huge responsibility, and I needed to give critical feedback on more than 60 pieces. I had a couple of scribes assigned to me, they were hard workers, very accurate, and helped me move the process along. I saw photos today of the exhibit, which was just a beautiful installation, and in one corner, there was a grouping of a couple of my pieces and some of Denise’s work.

I didn’t provide a link to the Handweavers of CT Guild, because apparently their site has some malware my software apps picked up. I’ve let them know. If you can get to the show, it will be up for a month, it is a lovely array of what handweavers do, this is why we do it.

Meanwhile, yesterday was my late husband’s birthday, he would have been 74. There are so many times I wish I could just sit and talk with him, get his opinion of this crazy world we are living in, he was so grounded and informed and thoughtful. In honor of his birthday, every year, I go out and buy pansies, and plant them. First planting of the spring. Such happy little faces on such colorful plants.

And this afternoon, I went into the vegetable garden, and planted a couple flats of spring greens, the lettuces, spinach, arugula, etc. along with collards, kale and chard. And of course peas and parsley. The universe is sending rain tonight, or maybe it is my late husband, since it is still too early to turn on the hoses outside.

And of course, because my life is about putting out fires at this point, we have a raccoon that has moved in, completely trashed the wood shop, and we are doing battle with it trying to catch it and remove it from the property. My vet tech daughter has some experience with this, so she is in charge. We put chicken wire on the underside of the eaves of the shed to prevent reentry, but there is a huge task ahead trying to clean up what looks like a drunken frat party in my woodshop. Every box of nails and screws has been shredded, contents dumped on the floor. Could have been worse, it could have been my yarn.

Each morning I sit by my window, eat my breakfast, and look at the yard, and see the little bit of green that increases every day. I’ve always wanted to do a daily sketchbook journal of sorts, I envy those who, have a committed practice. And though I can draw, I have a degree in fine arts, I don’t find it appealing. I don’t for me see the purpose. Even though I keep buying art supplies, sketchbooks, and take classes.

I participated in something last fall called the Sketchbook Revival. I even paid so I could continue to access the content. There was one session that really struck me as something I could do regularly. Melinda Nakagawa, the session leader uses a fountain pen, which was right up my alley, since I spent 8 years in parochial school writing with a fountain pen, and have actually very fond memories, and she would sketch a plant, a bird, add simple water colors, and write all over the page, thoughts, definitions, plant names, whatever was important that day.

So I sit every morning, with my breakfast, and my sketchbook, and my cat, and my tea, and I sketch something in the yard, something just poking its head up, and I research the common name, the Latin name, the traits, thoughts, and I’m starting to fill my sketchbook…

Oh, and yes, I’m still a weaver! I managed to clear another loom, and I’m keeping this one, a little Rep mat for my dining table.

When I used to travel, I’d always pray that my trips were uneventful. Now I just hope I can get through the days uneventfully. I would like to get off the roller coaster and just walk for a while. It has been going just a little too fast for my taste.

Stay tuned…

For the win part 2…

It is rare that I write posts back to back, most subscribers don’t want me filling up their inboxes with emails about a new blog post. But I’m on a role, and it is important to me to document this moment, with all the looms in my possession warped. It is a ridiculous amount of looms, I admit, but I’ve been asked if I had to downsize, which one would I pick. I can’t answer that. Each loom has a purpose. Until I have to move, or can’t weave anymore, they are all staying as a happy family. After my husband died, I went through a brief period of really evaluating all of my fiber holdings, especially since I am an educator and have 15 of everything, 15 drop spindles, 15 dog slickers for hand carding locks, 15 small frame looms, 15 inkle looms, etc. My daughter who caught me contemplating this, declared that I couldn’t get rid of anything because well, it would all be hers when I die. Did I mention she holds on to stuff like her father? With that idea of downsizing nixed, I just began to add to the mix when the opportunity presented itself.

So to continue the loom inventory from yesterday’s post, here are the main table looms. Starting with the Tools of the Trade looms, all are 25″ wide except this one, which is only 16″ wide and an 8 shaft. I really love Tools of the Trade table looms, they fold for easy transport, are quite sturdy, have metal gears, and the back of the loom drops away with the removal of two bolts making threading a dream.

This 16″ loom I found on eBay, years ago, and had shipped from maybe the Chicago area. I’m bad at keeping the provenance of my used looms. The outside castle frame turns out was a bit bowed, and shafts would slip out of the tracks, but I moistened the wood and put a huge pipe clamp on the side walls of the loom and that stayed on like a brace for a couple of years. It is fine now. Looms for the most part are pretty indestructible, though truth be told I’ve seen some pretty horrific mistreatment. Anyway, its name is “EMH” (from Star Trek Voyager, meaning Emergency Medical Hologram). I probably wouldn’t have picked that name, but my daughter loves to print labels, and is a Trekkie, so it is a magical combination. I don’t interfere. On it is a four shaft Doup Leno spread over 8 shafts. I use it when I’m demoing for an online class. The yarn is all handdyed cashmere I think, there was no label on it, but it is buttery soft, and took the acid dye well. Once the tension is released, it should collapse into a soft airy scarf. I think this will be one of my priorities to clear. I wrote a Heddlecraft issue on the subject of Doup Leno, issue #19.

Next to it is also an 8 shaft, but this one is 25″ wide. I remember buying this from my guild, because no one liked the loom, they thought it was heavy and awkward. My guild, Jockey Hollow Weavers, has loaner looms available and no one was using it, so they offered it to me and I paid a chunk of money to have another 8 shaft loom. It is precisely why I liked the loom so much, it is heavy and therefore sturdy. I can tighten that warp as dense as I want. This loom is named “Chakotay” (Star Trek Voyager) and on it is a Bateman Blend, #110, which I set up for the issue I wrote for Heddlecraft Magazine, issue #38, on combination weaves. I sampled, cut it off and washed it, photographed it for the magazine, and started weaving again. I don’t remember how many yards I put on, it is slow weaving, but beautiful cloth.

I talked about “Kim” in yesterday’s post, which has the Rep weave experiment. I ended up cutting off what I wove, washing it, tossing it in a hot dryer to see how much it would draw up. I’m happy enough with the cloth that I’ll leave it sett at 32 ends per inch. I laid awake last night thinking I should try to resley, but I’m glad I looked at the cloth after washing. Always a good thing. It is still slightly damp, so the color is probably a little richer than it will ultimately end up.

I have another 8 shaft Tools of the Trade table loom, also 25″ wide, and I have a vague recollection of helping someone who rescued this loom and refurbished it, with lots of pictures and support, and ultimately purchased it from her. I think my sister lived near her and did a pick up for me. There may be a series of emails somewhere in the archives, but that really doesn’t matter to me. I love the loom, and I think this one is cherry. Its name is “Tuvok” (also from Voyager) and though it is 8 shafts, my daughter set it up for a four shaft Split Shed workshop we took together back in the fall of 2019, with Deborah Silver. We each set up my two 8-shaft Tools of the Table looms, because I think the 4-shaft looms were busy. Her loom still has the warp on it from the workshop, so it isn’t mine to touch, but here are the samples that are on it so far. I would love to have the 8 shafts back in rotation again, but I have enough other looms to keep me busy.

I needed my 8-shaft Tools of the Trade set up for the Split Shed weaving class for the Bateman sample I talked about above. Because the Tools of the Trade looms are basically interchangeable, except for the size of the castle, I was able to preserve the leftover warp on “Chakotay“, by just swapping out the entire back of the loom with a 4-shaft named “Paris” (again from Voyager), so I could continue the technique. So now, my Split Shed warp is on a more appropriate 4-shaft loom, and I started a complicated design, which will probably take the rest of my life to weave off, and truth be told, I should have put on a different warp than the green carpet warp for the class, but I can recall the technique easily by sitting down at the loom.

The last of the Tools of the Trade table looms is one I set up just a couple weeks ago. It is for Zanshi fabric, which is a Japanese philosophy of wasting nothing. I wove a length of cloth in this technique a couple years ago, since I spent an inordinate amount of time in Zoom meetings at the start of the Pandemic, and just sat and tied all my thrums or loom waste together into balls. Simple overhand knots. The resulting balls get woven in a basic ground warp, knots and all, and I wove off the length of yardage in record time.

I wanted another warp to weave my endless stash of Zanshi thrums, so I set up the last of the 4-shaft Tools of the Trade table looms, “Torres” (again, from Voyager) with a fine black 10/2 cotton, and experimented with a couple different structures, plain weave, twill, ultimately settling on a rib weave, which is two shuttles. If nothing else, this should slow me down.

I should also mention that there are a couple of additional table looms in the studio, two of them are Leclerc looms, one a 12-shaft Dorothy, which my daughter bought from the estate sale of one of our own beloved guild members. She calls it “Data“. Right now it is the only loom without a warp, because it is my daughter’s and not mine to warp.

The other Leclerc is a folding Voyager, 16″ wide, also 12-shaft. We named this one “Janeway“. I bought it from another guild member, who is buying and selling looms all the time. I don’t think I ever sold a loom that came through the studio, I almost did once, but changed my mind at the last minute. My first Tools of the Trade 4 shaft table loom. I did permanently loan someone a loom, another Dorothy, a young weaver that needed a jump start, and I had a wooden Structo that got beat up in the garage before it was my studio, that I donated to someone in the guild who vowed to clean it up, but now that I have a real space for all these looms, I’m careful to protect each one. Anyway, “Janeway” has a 12 shaft Echo weave on it, which I wrote about just a couple of posts back. (The draft is from Denise Kovnat, from her collection of WIF files for Echo Weave available on her website. This is a variation.)

And finally my daughter’s folding 8 shaft Ashford table loom. When she went off to college in 2011, she wanted a loom to take with her. Friends suggested a rigid heddle and she looked at me like I had three heads. “Why would I want a rigid heddle loom when I can turn a jack loom into shaft switching!”, she declared. So the folding Ashford 8 shaft was her go to loom away at college for four years. It has seen a lot of yardage, because she is my daughter and that’s what we do. Unless we are specifically weaving towels, we never have a plan for what we weave. All that comes later. So, this is “Spock“, her first love in Star Trek, and her first loom of her own. Right now there is a warp that’s been there a while, from a couple of hand painted warps she procured from a Kathrin Webber class in my guild a number of years ago, and says that the 8-shaft structure is a modified Atwater Bronson from Strickler. Whatever she says.

I should mention the one remaining floor loom in the studio that isn’t a Tools of the Trade and caused a lot of Sturm Und Drang when it first came to me in very poor condition. I spent a lot of money rehabbing it, much to the consternation of the other looms, but they all seem to get along now, and each has its purpose. This one is a 25″ 8 shaft Macomber from the 1970’s. It is a full size loom with two warp beams. We call it “Mac“. Because it is a Macomber after all. I’ve never been a huge fan of Macomber looms, but this one does get the job done, and after all these years it is still a workhorse. And it was the loom that got me weaving one armed when I broke my shoulder the end of 2021. Right now I have an 8 shaft combination warp on it, from my 12-shaft draft I wrote for Heddlecraft Magazine, issue #38, which upon studying closer I found I could convert to 8 shafts easily. Sometimes I just amaze myself. Most of the yarns are hand dyed, which is something I tend to do in the dark winter months.

The rest of the looms are my collection of 26 Structos, and 5 Leclerc Sample looms, and multiple inkle looms including a Gilmore Wave, and one from John Mullarkey, all named after Star Trek characters. I’ll cover them in a follow up post, because they are all warped, or most of the inkle looms anyway, some are on loan to a guild mate who is doing a program for our guild.

Definitely stay tuned…

Happy Spring…

This past week was full of highs and lows, I sort of felt like a pinball. Monday was the first day of spring, and here in the northeast, we have been hitting temps of about 60 when it is sunny, with steady spring rain in between. I walk into town, and everything has the smallest of buds, ready to just burst apart in some kind of chorus of life. I can’t wait for some color. Even my daffodils are just straining to bloom, tall stalks of yellow confined in their green outer skin.

On Tuesday, I had the wonderful opportunity to moderate an episode of the weekly Handweaver’s Guild of America Textiles and Tea. I prepared hard for this, did my research, collaborated with questions, and was thrilled that it all seemed to go extremely well. The person I interviewed, a knotter from Colorado, Al Canner, was really interesting, extremely talented, and made the most gorgeous work from the lowly macramé knot, the double half hitch, a throwback from the 70’s and the jute plant hangers with the ceramic owl eyes. I still can’t wrap my head around the work he does now, with one foot in the past. My first job out of college was teaching in a mall craft shop in Paramus, NJ, macramé, specifically owl plant hangers. Check out his work, there is nothing like it that I’ve seen in the fiber world. And the interview is on the HGA Facebook page, and will eventually make its way to their YouTube channel.

On Wednesday, my late husband’s birthday, I found out that two people who I really really respected and who had tremendous influence in my life, passed away. One was a weaver in the Pacific northwest, who died suddenly in a house fire from what I understand, and I’m still saddened and stunned that such a spark of life could be so snuffed out in a heartbeat. She was probably the most enthusiastic student I ever had in a class, just a joy to teach, and she will be truly missed. Rest easy Dori.

The other loss was a close friend, here in North Jersey. Ed and I shared a lot of good times creating music together, working on huge projects for Montclair Early Music, and a lot of sushi lunches from my favorite sushi place. I will miss his gentle spirit and musical talent. Too many losses.

So on Wednesday, with news of both deaths, and yet wanting to celebrate my late husband on his day, my daughter and I headed out to the garden center for our annual early spring trek, for pansies and lettuces and I was really really disappointed to find out that no one had any in stock. Which shocked me. Everyone had pansies this time last year, and the year before that. It hasn’t been that cold. I’ve since learned of a couple of places, but the point was, to do something to commemorate my late husband’s birthday. On his birthday. So instead, my daughter and I dressed all the beds after an intense clean out, fertilized, topped off the soil, and planted whatever seeds were in the back of the refrigerator that could go in the ground now. Of course, the hoses aren’t turned on yet, so watering will have to be done by dragging buckets from the house. Not something I look forward to. As if my husband smiled on us, it rained the next day, and then yesterday, and it is supposed to rain tomorrow. It’s like he said, “I’ve got this…”

Which allowed me some lovely studio time. One of my guild mates who lives nearby, came over to work on one of the Structos. I have so many set up with interesting structures. She picked the one with 8 Shaft Honeycomb variants on it, from Malin Selander’s Weave a Weave, specifically the Isolde version. (They are named after operas,) She worked on it for a couple of hours, and I finished it off a few days later. That’s a flat surface, but the deflection in the honeycomb around the gold threads creates the illusion of a wavy fabric.

And of course, my last blog post left everyone hanging with the threading of 8/2 Tencel in an Echo parallel threading on my 12-shaft Voyager Table Loom. It is gorgeous. (The draft is from Denise Kovnat, from her collection of WIF files for Echo Weave available on her website. This is a variation) I feel like there are so many cool things to weave in my studio; I’m a bit addicted to setting up looms, but at some point, I really need to weave what’s on them!

While showing my guild mate all the options with my Structos, I realized that one of them, though threaded for a Theo Moorman technique, hadn’t actually been woven on. I had cut off the piece that was on it, re-tied onto the front, and just left it. So I found a cool photo of the pansies from this time last year, what should have been in my flower pots by now, printed it on silk Crepe de Chine, and started cutting it into strips to weave in an inlay technique. The ground is linen, and the tie-down threads are serger thread. Barely visible. The technique is documented in my monograph called Weave a Memory. It is available digitally.

Those needlework threads I talked about last time, that I purchased from the Lace Day event? They have been calling me. I sat down after calculating the repeat in the handpainted threads, and figured out how many ends, five yards long, I could get with what I purchased in a specific color grouping. Something like 153 ends. So I sat with my weaving software and did a few versions until I liked what I had.

I wound the warp carefully, starting and tying together each end in a loop by the cross, since I would be using a loom I haven’t actually used before, my Gilmore Wave Mini. We named him Quark, (from Deep Space 9, I think). I’m a front to back warper, but the design of this loom requires warping back to front. Normally I would have wound each color separately, and incorporated the chains in the reed, following my draft. In this loom, as in inkle looms, there is no reed, so I had to wind the entire sequence of 153 threads, and try hard to get the handpainted colors to match up. I couldn’t exhale until I had wound the entire warp, because I was so afraid of running short. My calculations held, and I ended up having enough, but that would have been pretty depressing to have had to go to Plan B…

The directions for setting up this loom are strange. The Lease Sticks, two fat knitting needles that slip into the cross, and mount on the back of the loom, work fine for winding, but they have you add metal supports to the warp beam to channel the warp into something like a sectional warp. It doesn’t work. I needed precision winding, to keep the colors from shifting. After winding on 5 yards, I ended up pulling the entire thing back off and winding my own way, which has never failed me; a couple of fat zip ties on the back support, and stiff interfacing for packing material.

Threading from the lease sticks which are suspended a good five inches from the eyes of the Texsolv heddles, which are very densely packed together because this will be a warp face band, proved ridiculous. I ended up pulling the lease sticks and replacing them with a cross tie, like I always use, and just holding the cross in my hand and threading the heddles like I do when I thread the reed. Worked like a charm.

There is always a learning curve with every new piece of equipment I use. Weaving is weaving, but each loom has a personality, quirks, and oddities that make it unique. It is a team effort. So now I’m happily weaving away on this incredible loom, now that it is set up. It does weave like a dream. I’ve never seen such a small loom have the ability to tighten a warp so tight you can bounce on it. And the colors are lining up perfectly.

Life throws you curve balls, and people come into your life and leave. I am a better person for having known Dori and Ed, and I wish them peace on their new journey. And for those of us left behind, I wish for the will to keep on planting, and designing, and playing music, and welcoming the budding trees and bulbs in a joyous celebration of life.

Stay tuned…