Tag: Runic

I have a plan…

One of the joys of just doing, is the brain has a chance to wander, while weeding, watering, weaving, cooking, cleaning, spinning yarn, knitting, not so much playing music. That requires intense concentration. I do a lot of things that just allow my noisy brain to just wander…

One of the things that has been routinely popping up, as I spend time in my studio, is how much I would love to go back to my original three looms I started with, back in the late 70’s, and bring the sewing room up from the basement, consolidating all of my fiber work into one space again. The more I think about it, the more excited I get. A lot has to happen first, a lot more stuff has to find a home other than here. And my daughter has to be on board, as some of the looms are hers. But I have a plan, and it is formulating into a goal. I’m thinking maybe by the end of the year…

One can only dream…

Meanwhile, there are still more than 25 looms in the studio, of all sizes and types, and many of them still have warps on them. I’ve made a huge dent, my all time high was 64 looms, but when the last big one left in the spring, the 12-shaft 54″ Tools of the Trade, Duchess we called her, to live at Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, a huge amount of space opened up and I saw possibilities.

So I’m on a mission to clear off more looms. The really challenging ones are the remaining Structos, the little looms I used for teaching. I put long warps of fine thread on them, never thinking they’d ever get woven off. Silly me…

Last blog, I was working on clearing a Frankenstructo, made from odd loom parts, of a warp set up to do the Rosepath borders from the Carol Strickler book of 8-shaft patterns. I finished all of the 40+ borders, and the five swatches using the same threading.

This was serious fun. There is a little bit of warp left on the spools, and I’m taking the loom with me tomorrow to the convent to let my new student, a young nun, have a go at learning some new skills, two shuttles, following a draft, 8-shaft, floating selvedges, etc.

Meanwhile, one of my weaving friends is offering a summer boot camp in fiber for adults in Maryland, and needed additional inkle looms. Those I have. My stash is dwindling, but I had a couple to spare once I cleared the warps from them. This one was the sampler I used when I taught complementary warp design. I finished that one off.

And this one, I remember setting up for The Gathering, which was an annual or semi annual event at Sievers Fiber School in Wisconsin, where I believe I was giving the Keynote address that year. It was a weekend long event, and there were demos, and I remember setting up an Inklette loom, which easily fit in my suitcase. I looked at my resume and realized I set this loom up in 2014. 12 years. It was time. The pattern is free form, Ann Dixon in her book of Inkle Loom Patterns calls it Runic. I had to look at my Advanced Inkle Weaving Monograph to remember how to do this technique.

And then there is the Quigley sampler, moved to a floor loom from a Structo, a while back. I chug along, doing a new technique every few days, following my handout generously sent by Diane Click, who taught this as a workshop back in 2015. She graciously allowed me to reproduce the part I used, some 16 samples, and it is available for free from my eStore. I cut the warp off this morning, having finished all the swatches.

There was still a bit of warp left, so I looked at what I had woven carefully, and one of the motifs was exactly the size of the template I use for making my ginger jars. If I weave 6 of these motifs, I’ll have six sides for a ginger jar for the guild sale in November.

This is what the ginger jars look like…

Meanwhile, the gardens are lush and buzzing with activity. This time of year seems to be the peak of everything flowering at once, milkweed, Joe Pye, Purple Coneflower, Black Eyed Susans, Monarda, and a few other very cool plants thrown in because there are SOOOOO MANY BEES!

I sit at my window every morning and have breakfast and have immense gratitude for nature doing its thing, and for my ability to witness just a small part of it.

Lots of butterfly activity too, my lovely monarch just drifts in beautiful movements from flower to flower…

And I had never seen this one before, Google Lens says it is a Great Spangled Fritillary Butterfly. If anyone knows better, put it in the comments.

I grabbed this photo of my Astilbe, which isn’t native, and though I’ve pulled most of it out, there is one patch, and it is gorgeous when it blooms, and it too is covered in bees.

My neighbor, the one who comes out every so often to have a smoke, came to get me the other day, had to show me something. I was out watering in the back yard. So I followed him around to the front, and he pointed to the top of a telephone pole along the street, and there in all its magnificence was a Red-Tailed hawk. We stared at it for probably half an hour. It was gorgeous.

And of course, the produce is starting to come in, in spite of the ridiculous heat, followed by severe storms. What a summer…

Enjoy the photos, it is a jungle out there…

And of course there is lots of music, three of the groups I play with will be performing the end of August at the annual Medieval Fest in Montclair, but more immediately, NJ Early Music will be performing at the close of the Morris County 4-H fair Saturday night.

I feel like I’ve come full circle, when my kids were young, we were heavily involved in 4-H, my kids raised hamsters/guinea pigs, and had a couple of snakes. There is a wonderful photo from 2003 of my late husband holding our Mexican Rosy Boa, (I think its name was Al), at one of the fairs. And one with my son Eric, which made the local paper.

I would set up a fiber demonstration area every year at the fair, demoing weaving, spinning, and lacemaking. Both of my kids grew up demoing weaving at the fair. Everyone entered things, from animals to artwork, to photography, to weaving, and we all won many ribbons. I even had a 4-H prep group that met in my home every week.

So I feel like I’ve come full circle, now I’ll be performing at the closing ceremonies, Saturday night, I haven’t been to the fair in more than 20 years. I’ll have my cello and my bass recorder. And of course in costume.

Stay tuned…

Other…

Seems like everything I do, from doctor’s appointments to purchases online to attending theater events, gets followed up with a survey. “Tell us how we did!” I hate them. I understand their necessity, and it would be great if the people reading them actually took the comments to heart, but mostly all this extra paperwork just makes my sitting in front of the computer even more overbearing, when I really just long to be in the studio.

When I do fill out a survey though, most of my opinions don’t fit the questions. If there is a box marked “other”, I usually click it, because in my life, most things require an explanation. I’d be terrible on a jury. I can’t answer yes or no. Even in a class, students ask me questions and my answer is always “It Depends…” Life isn’t black and white. Fortunately. It is in breathing living color, and there are lots of shades and tints within!

So with that said, I have a bunch of different “other” looms that didn’t get mentioned in my last 3 blogs, bringing the total of named looms to 64 I think. There are about 20 frame looms in the attic, for teaching purposes, and about a dozen hand made Schacht Inkle Loom knock offs, also used for teaching. And I think 7 still in the box Inklette Looms from my years of teaching, and I didn’t count any of them. I counted the ones I use, that I named, and so, because I wanted to document where I am at this point in my life, I’m going to finish out the list with the “other” looms.

Every weaver has probably seen or has a Peacock loom. I even found an ad for one, when I was assembling a lecture for a guild a number of years ago for their 50th anniversary. I researched what was popular in the day when they got started, and it was quite a representation of where we have been as a handweaving community.

So I have a little 2-shaft Peacock loom, named “Peacock” which is pretty unoriginal, but there you go. I use it when I have a young person visiting and they want to “try weaving”. I have refurbished it with new heddles, which I made with a jig, and new roller cords, with heavy duty shoe laces, and it is a solid little workhorse when in the hands of a new weaver wannabee…

A number of years ago, my daughter called me while I was on the road teaching, about a Glimakra Band Loom for sale from one of our guild mates. I told her she wouldn’t like sitting sideways, but she persisted and I gave her the money to purchase it. I was right. She hated sitting sideways, and immediately redesigned the way the treadles worked so she could sit in front. That would be my daughter! This loom is named “Seven“, not the number but the Star Trek character. On it is a gorgeous warp, which she put on, plain weave, but hand dyed yarns that are wound in an ombré effect.

We own a card or tablet weaving loom, purchased from John Mullarkey years ago at a guild workshop. I’ve done card weaving many times, still prefer inkle weaving, and John and I have on more than one occasion done a “Battle of the Bands” performance at a couple of conferences. Tablet woven vs. Inkle Woven… That said, we have this loom, that my daughter warped a number of years ago, named “Rom“. I know the pattern is in one of my many booklets from John and I should be able to figure it out. My daughter isn’t big on accompanying paperwork. So I’d like to finish it off, in one of my outdoor weaving stints.

I also blogged recently about my Gilmore Wave loom, which I dug out and warped after a trip to a lace day sponsored by the local lace group, where I came home with a little baggie of about $200 worth of lacemaking threads, some hand dyed. I immediately set to work warping my Wave loom, called “Quark” and am really happy with the result. Warping was a challenge, but weaving is a breeze.

The rest are a large assortment of inkle looms, there are four Schact Inkle looms, seven Inklettes from Ashford, and a Beka, named “Beka“, which doesn’t have a warp at the moment, but I recently finished off a long warp for an Anni Albers’ Necklace project with my guild around the holidays.

I loved the Inklettes for their portability. I could fly somewhere to teach, and pack a half dozen of them in my large roller bag and be able to have a technique in progress to demonstrate with. I’d love to clear them, since I don’t do that anymore, but all of the techniques are part of my Advanced Inkle Weaving class (which I can do remotely), and there is a monograph available that details all of the techniques and how to do them. You can purchase the download in my eStore here.

“Bryce” has a beginning sampler with plain weave and Baltic Pick-up. I keep it as a “Learn to Weave” loom for inkle weaving.

“Adira” has a sampler featuring a complementary warp, light and dark, specifically for pebble weave. Warp yarns are Tencel.

“Stamets” is set up for Paired Pebbles, and I just keep repeating this small motif, for demo purposes, but it would be nice to have a finished band, maybe across the top of a small zippered bag! The threads are 12 wt. cotton..

“Tilly” has a sampler on it, for teaching purposes, supplemental warp and baltic pick-up.

“Nelson” is set up for a supplemental weft project, trim for a jacket, like the Chanel style.

One of my favorite patterns, from Ann Dixon’s book of Inkle Weave patterns, is something called Runic. It is free form weaving, you make it up as you go along, and I set this loom named “Owo” years ago, with hand dyed silk yarns from Treenway Silks. I need to finish it.

And “Detmer” is threaded for 3 shaft Turned Krokbragd, done on an inkle loom, which is a very cool thing. This is also Tencel.

That leaves the four Schacht Inkle Looms. “Rios” is a sampler, also for teaching purposes, threaded in a complementary warp, light and dark.

“Raffi” is another of my Learn to Weave looms, set up for simple Baltic Pick-up, or just plain weave.

“Jurati” is also set up as a beginning loom, with plain weave and Baltic Pick-up options.

And finally, yes there really is an end, is “Elnor“. I set this up in 2021, when I downloaded Annie MacHale’s newest book for Three-Color Pickup for Inkle Weavers. It took me a while to master the pattern, and of course I don’t remember what I did, so I’ll have to go back and figure it all out all over again, but that’s the point of all these looms, so I’ll keep figuring it out and one day have all these structures in my head ready to explain intelligently as needed.

My guild mate, who comes on Tuesdays to just play with all of my Structos, suggested a huge accordion file to store the paperwork for each of the named looms. The one she brought me wasn’t big enough with 30 something files, so I bought a second one and taped them together. Now to get paperwork for some of these looms from my daughter!

So you might wonder how I have shuttles for all of these looms, especially the Structos, which I talked about in the last post. I have a huge number of shuttles, stick and boat, but needed way more, and guild mates jumped to the task. Some I cut myself, from quart yogurt containers. I’ve also used take out food containers. The flat rectangular kind.

My guild friend who comes on Tuesdays went home and cut me a bunch from her cat litter tubs.

My other guild friend went a little crazy with her GlowForge and cut me a whole bunch of gorgeous stick shuttles and programmed in a sweet signature on some of them. In exchange I paid her guild dues. Small price to pay!

I mentioned in the last post, that I had already cleared one of the floor looms. That was a 4-shaft commission for another guild mate, for a friend of hers dining table. It needed to be 84″ long, and she wanted me to weave it in whatever structure I loved the most. The colors had to match the friend’s decor. My favorite structure is the one where I combine all sorts of different structures lengthwise in the same cloth. I have previously mentioned I documented this concept heavily in the Heddlecraft issue #38 I wrote on the subject. But I usually work with 8 shafts. I only had a 4-shaft loom available. So I reread my article, and revisited one of the 4-shaft drafts I included, from Oelsner’s Handbook of Weaves, and expanded it to include a straight draw twill, basket weave, and a broken twill. Using color and weave effects, I am so freakin’ proud of this cloth and its complexity, on only four shafts. So here is the runner on my own table, I can’t wait for photos from the client’s friend’s table.

And here is a close-up of the fabric. The draft and details are available in my eShop as a $2.99 download here.

I’m heading out next week for a very long overdue vacation. I haven’t been on a plane since March of 2020 when I barely made it home from the west coast before the world shut down from Covid. My daughter and I will be on a plane for 15 hours to Japan, where we will meet up with a tour sponsored by Tom Knisely and his daughter Sara Bixler, from Red Stone Glen. We will make a circular tour of the northern part of Japan, stopping at many textile centers for lots of hands-on experience and inspiration. Oddly enough, I’m trying to figure out what to pack, not clothing or toiletries or electronics, but what yarn I should bring. Because no good textile artist goes anywhere without a project. Socks to start, I ordered some lovely yarn from Webs, hope it comes in time.

If you do order from my shop, digital products will be available immediately since I’m not involved. Don’t forget to check your spam for the email with the link. If you order products that I have to ship, please be patient while I’m busy in Japan. I’ll resume shipping after the 18th.

So dear readers, until I return, I’ve given you things to inspire you, and keep you busy while I’m gone. My son will stay here off and on and check that all is well with the garden and the ponds. And my handyman will come around as well. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling any anxiety about leaving and going so far away for so long. I’ve been home for too long, so this is an important trip for me to regain my traveling feet. (And no, I’m not planning to resume teaching on the road!)

Stay tuned, there will be lots to tell when I get back…