Tien Chiu – Daryl's Blog

I’ve seen the future and it’s looking bright…

I’m writing this on the plane, flying home to Newark from an amazing four days in Northern California at the CNCH Conference. That would be the Conference of Northern California Handweavers for those not in the know… First, I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to be asked to teach at this particular conference. Eight years ago, I was scheduled to teach at CNCH 2002, and six weeks before the conference, with sold out classes, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had to cancel a number of teaching commitments that spring, and CNCH was one of them. Eight years went by without another invitation, and I always felt bad that I never had the opportunity to make up for having to cancel.

I taught four classes at the conference this past weekend, Friday morning I had a large group for my Photographing your Work seminar, followed by a class called Warp Fast, a seminar on warping techniques that involve methods using multiple threads, paddle warping, sectional warping, and using an AVL warping mill. I had a very large class for that seminar, and I got a lot of very positive feedback after both classes, which always makes me feel good, that I’ve inspired and encouraged others with new information and sometimes a new perspective. Friday night was of course, the fashion show. Always a conference favorite, I had a front row seat, which I appreciated, since I would be giving the technical critique of the garments on Sunday morning. I had spent Thursday afternoon previewing the garments as they came in, so I had a chance to look up inside, check construction details and techniques.

I had already sensed that there was something different about this conference, a different energy and enthusiasm I haven’t felt at a fiber conference in a very long time. The conference committee was doing an exceptional job, the facility, the Santa Clara Conference Center, attached to our hotel, the Hyatt, so we never had to leave the building, was first class, my classroom perfect for my needs, all my classes in one room, and the food at the Hyatt restaurants, outstanding and very reasonable.

So my weaving buddy, great friend and roommate Robyn Spady and I sat up front for the fashion show, and what a treat. I found the garments to be largely in one of two groups. There were a number of lovely jackets, beautifully tailored, made from exquisite handwoven, sometimes handspun and handdyed fabrics, and the makers of the garments, or their friends modeled them on stage. They were so proud of what they had done, and celebrated the moment. The show opened with the wedding ensemble, the year long undertaking of relatively new handweaver Tien Chiu, who has painstakingly documented every thread woven and every stitch taken on her blog.

Then came the rectangles. A large percentage of the garments were quite the throw back to the 60’s and 70’s when handwoven clothing was a series of pieced together rectangles. Yet, there wasn’t a single bog jacket, that Bronze Age shape made from a couple of strategically place rectangles, based on the garments found in highly acidic boggy ground water. When I started making handwoven clothing in the late 1970’s the yarns available for the average handweaver were nothing like the yarns available today. Colors were classic, understated, and dyed more for rug weaving and tapestry than clothing. As a matter of fact, my art school, where I first learned to weave, had bins of rug yarn, and carpet warp for our use, and not much else. The first garment I ever wove was from a coarse wool, and it was actually a modified bog jacket.

Note: this photo, of a garment I did in 1976 represents how NOT to take a photo of your work!

Fast forward some thirty years and the yarns available to the average handweaver would blow your mind. We have the knitters to thank for that, and the brave spinners out there who have taken handspinning to a new level, spinning with the most amazing fibers that didn’t exist in the 1970’s, (like bamboo mixed with Angelina and soy silk) and the rectangles that are coming out of small simple looms are anything but classic. I’ve known that the knitting community has found handweaving and is embracing it with an excitement and an enthusiasm never before seen, but I hadn’t actually seen this phenomenon in action. Armed with the Knitter’s loom from Ashford, or the Rigid Heddle loom from Schacht, and some incredible yarn, in unbelievable color combinations, these new weavers are single handedly resurrecting the craft of handweaving, and taking it to levels I could have never imagined. And by young women half my age with pink hair wearing lime green hand knit socks they very competently knit themselves.

I don’t know if there is a Project Runway influence here as well, but the rectangular shapes of the garments that came parading across the runway were not the shapes of yore… I’m going under the assumption that since home ec is not part of the current curriculum in most schools in the US, that these amazingly talented young women are learning fashion skills somewhere else. The influence is pretty clear, since the rectangular clothing up on that stage was thoughtfully draped over someone’s body (a dressform?) and folded and tucked and seamed, stitched and embellished into some extremely creative clothing.

Alas, I have no pictures. I’m hoping the CNCH website will eventually provide some shots of the fashion show, but trust me to say that I was SOOOOO excited by what was in front of me. And in many of my classes, including the Saturday workshop on making a jacket pattern, there were numerous new weavers, first time conference attendees, and some amazing enthusiasm. The torch has been passed. And to my complete delight, the aging handweaving community seems to have opened its arms and embraced the new blood and the new creativity that has blown in like a fresh breath of air.

Keep in mind that this is California. In my travels, every new trend seems to originate here. It will probably take some time to make it across the country, but even in my discussions with the HGA Convergence Albuquerque committee, an international weaving conference happening in July of 2010, registrations have gone beyond all expectations. I have seen the future for handweaving and it is very very bright indeed.

Saturday night’s keynote address was given by Syne Mitchell. I first met Syne probably five years ago, a 30 something former Microsoft programmer with a very young son, she took my class in making a pieced vest in Seattle. Syne was a new weaver, coming from the knitting world with a huge background in technology. It didn’t take her long to find a need, and Syne jumped right in there to fill it. In a few short years, she has united the global handweaving community, connected them to the knitting community, and turned the fiber world upside down with her podcasts called Weavecast, (I’m episode 26) and her online weaving magazine Weavezine. ( I have agreed to write a monthly column on handwoven garments for Weavezine, stay tuned for that.) Weavecast has been listened to on six of the seven continents, still waiting for Antarctica to come on board. Syne gave a keynote that brought the global sources of handweaving found on the internet into the laps of everyone in the room. She showed the conference attendees what could be found with just a few keystrokes and a couple of URL’s. Online weaving publications, like Handwoven Weaving Weekly from Interweave Press; handweaving.net, developed by software engineer Kris Bruland with over 60,000 weaving drafts; Weavolution, an online global community of handweavers, blogs, and resources and information have revolutionized how we think, create, and interact with each other. Syne ended her keynote with some weaving karaoke that you had to be there to see, and she had the audience laughing with her through the entire address.

Keep in mind that this conference is right in the middle of Silicon Valley, and it isn’t just the 20 something pink haired knitters turned weavers armed with a drop spindle that are revolutionizing the handweaving community. Sunday night, after the conference was over, I went out to dinner with Syne and Tien Chiu, of wedding dress fame, and Tien’s significant other. I’ve always been one of the youngest of the handweaving community, having been trained in college and shortly after making a career of handweaving, but now, in my mid 50’s, I sat back listening to the discussions at the dinner table over Pad Thai and Ginger Chicken, about solenoids and dobby’s and software and 24 shaft looms, by two technologically savy women and a non weaving soon to be spouse of a weaver, and saw that the technologically trained programmers and software and web developers have not only found handweaving, but are running forward with the available technology at a speed that has left me in the dust. Tien is a web developer so it isn’t a surprise that she began her journey into handweaving finding a medium that would challenge and satisfy her amazing brain and blog about the journey so that others around the globe have followed the creation of the wedding dress, every intimate detail of it. Syne, Tien, and others like them are taking handweaving to places I never thought possible. It is all so very exciting, and I feel oddly enough like I’ve simultaneously gone back to my roots while feeling like I’m peering in the window of something truly wonderful and I want to come in and play too.

I do know how to spin, quite well actually, and I had a real desire to dust off my spinning wheel and find my drop spindle, and try some of that wonderful colorful stuff available at the conference. I only had an hour or so to wander through the vast displays in the vendor hall, but I did manage to pick up some beautiful silk/mohair roving to spin, hand dyed in gorgeous purple and orange shades by Red Fish Dye Works, and in the back corner of the vendor hall, at the booth next to the pen with three alpacas, I bought the first fleece from Montana, a baby Alpaca, and I’m going to start spinning some yarn. It was hard not to get caught up in the new enthusiasm of the future of handweaving, and to my great delight, in addition to all of the wonderful things to spin and weave and knit available at the conference, there was a Janome sewing machine dealer who was doing quite the brisk business selling sewing machines. I heard more than one person telling me about retiring that old Singer from 1940 and moving on to something that would inspire creativity and get them sewing again. Along with the rebirth of handweaving is the potential for a rebirth in the sewing world as well. Which makes my heart sing, since I keep a foot in both worlds. I weave cloth, to sew into clothing, and suddenly the possibilities have exploded and I couldn’t be happier. I have seen the future and it is indeed bright.

This morning, I had breakfast with Nancy Weber, one of the key organizers of the conference, and she showed me the “conference scarf”, woven by a committee of weavers, as a gift for all the organizers. It was based on my weaving buddy and guild mate Sally Orgren’s article in Handwoven Magazine, Nov/Dec 2008, on eight shaft and four shaft dimity. Can I say they were exquisite? The colors were hand dyed, and can I say I coveted one? I have a loom, I have tencel, and I have that issue of Handwoven Magazine. In addition, the table runner across the breakfast table in Nancy’s home was woven from self patterning sock yarn. Who knew? The beautiful ikat effects were just yarn that was engineered to pattern a pair of socks. My head is spinning with possibilities. These are perfect projects to put on all my baby Structo looms. Can you tell it was a mind blowing weekend? So now I’m heading back to NJ, on my last leg of the trip, sitting in first class, with my wine, and thinking that life is really good. And the future is very bright indeed…

Blogging is not publishing…

Or so the word came down from the mountain last night, as I finished up my blog post. I’m guessing Julie Powell (of Julie and Julia fame) would probably disagree, look where her blog got her, and of course TLo, with thousands of followers, probably the best source for who is wearing what in the fashion world, a fashion icon in and of itself, I’m going to guess they would probably disagree that blogging is not publishing. It all doesn’t matter really, as long as the answer is, for the purposes of HGA and entries into their Convergence exhibits, “Blogging is NOT considered published by anyone’s standards.”

So there you have it. Thanks to those who emailed me about this subject, and thanks Cally for starting the conversation. I have so loved following the whole design process, especially in bloggers like Tien, from the initial idea, “I’m going to weave my wedding gown…” to the final days of hems and appliqued lace, and beaded trim. It would be so great to see a garment you’ve been following like that in a Convergence exhibit, so I’m glad to hear that blogging doesn’t count as publishing as far as the HGA is concerned.

That said, I woke up this morning, and rethought how I finished the piece I pulled off the loom yesterday. First, the piece is titled, Rest in Peace. It is a diptych, for those who haven’t studied a lot of medieval art (like my poor husband who said last night in the pizza restaurant, “What’s a diptych?”) here is the definition courtesy of Answers.com.

diptych n. A work consisting of two painted or carved panels that are hinged together. An ancient writing tablet having two leaves hinged together.

Having looked at my share of ancient art, diptychs and triptychs have always fascinated me, two or more images that tell a story of sorts, where the images together tell a more powerful tale than each alone. With that said, I had two images that I thought, needed to be “hinged” together, and so I wove them side by side in my inlay technique I’ve used for much of my two dimensional artwork over the last two years.

Here is the shot I showed yesterday of the two images before I cut them off the loom and separated them into two. The image on the right, is of my two children on top of the World Trade Center, in August of 2001, two weeks before 9/11. We decided on the spur of the moment, to take a couple of days at the end of the summer, 2001, to take the kids into Manhattan, we live so close we never think of it as a vacation destination. The view from the Top of the World was breathtaking. And I noticed that all around the perimeter of the tower, behind the fence they were leaning on, was barbed wire, coiled high, to prevent the ultimate suicide I guess. Little did they figure two weeks later…

The photo on the left was a shot either my husband or I took of the towers, graphic, like monuments rising to the sky, like tombstones in a graveyard. (We both shot lots of images that day, and are both claiming rights to this one…)

I created little postcard packets from each of the images, like I’ve done with others in my Personal Post Series. And then I went in search of a way to hinge the two together, like a book, like a diptych. My first attempt didn’t work at all, I took apart a small notebook, but the spine wasn’t a continuous spiral, and it was too big and cumbersome.

My second attempt, shown here, was to hand sew jump rings between the two halves of the diptych. The rings were small, and problematic, without soldering them together, they kept slipping out of the thread connections that held them in place. I didn’t want to have to take a trip to a store to look for round rings that weren’t split. So this is where I left off last night.

This morning I woke up with a brain storm, I keep a stash of office supplies in the guest room cabinet, and I rooted through to see what notebook spines I could find that could work here, like a spiral tube. I found the perfect spine in an old notebook of my son’s. (He would start a notebook, three pages into it, he’d lose it, so I have a lot of almost knew notebooks from his school days, with only two or three pages written on…) How poetic. So I cut off all the jump rings and replaced them with this continuous black ringed spiral which so much more resembles barbed wire. Or a kid’s copybook…

I called the piece “Rest In Peace”, it tells the story of two buildings that were brought down in a horrific way, and I paired it with an image of my children standing on top of those buildings, the day the towers fell is the day my children’s childhood ended. Life would never be what it was for them before 9/11. They now live in a world where people are willing to die to make a point, where orange alerts, and bag searches just to go visit an art museum are all very ordinary. They now live in a world where we are at war, in places they had yet to study on a map in elementary school.

My son is in boot camp, as I write, training to fire an M-16, to become a soldier. (On a brighter note, I got another letter from him today! Woo Hoo!) So this piece is pretty powerful to me. I don’t expect a juror looking through hundreds of images on a computer screen to get all that from my drab little piece, but I’m really happy with it. Here are the final shots, with the barbed wire/copybook hinge.

I’m in heaven…

Phyllis Hirsch led the guild in making a holiday ribbon ornament. What fun!

Wow, this was one of those rare gifts of a day, where the planets just align and someone says, Daryl, you are going to spend the whole day having fun. Actually, the fun started last night, in the dreary cold rain, my daughter and I drove to our Jockey Hollow Guild meeting, where one of the members, Phyllis Hirsch led us in a holiday make-it-take-it project, making a ribbon ornament. I like little projects like this, first because it is quick, and I can see doing something like this with handwoven scraps, and secondly, it is one of those kinds of projects that allows you to work on it and chat non stop through the whole meeting. 🙂

In the middle of the meeting, my dearest friend Candiss Cole called on my cell phone. A rare treat, I didn’t expect to hear from her for awhile, since we got together and played last month! Candiss, turns out, was in NYC, and had an extra day to hang out, and called to see if I could come out and play. Woo hoo! We scheduled a lunch date for today, and I went back to the guild meeting.

This morning, after I got my daughter off to school, I headed over to the cancer center, and had my annual check-up with my oncologist. There is always this tiny bit of apprehension when I go, fear that maybe she might find something that could start the whole breast cancer scenario all over again. But I went, and the visit went well, and I got a clean bill of health and was told to call in December of 2010 for my next visit. Woo Hoo! 🙂

I picked up Candiss at a hotel in NJ, and off we went to play. We hung in the studio for awhile, catching up and looking at each others ideas and directions, something we always use to do regularly. We headed off to lunch, Candiss knows my Thursday Philosophy Club ladies, and we all had a delightful lunch, and afterwards Candiss and I went SHOE SHOPPING! This is one of those things that works so much better with a shopping buddy. A new DSW opened not far from me, how did Candiss know about it and not me? She lives in Arizona! So we went to the new DSW and OMG! I headed right for the back room and the clearance shoes. We had so much fun trying on the Steve Madden and the Stuart Weitzman shoes, I tried on shoes that nearly broke my ankle, after all, I’m over 50. And I ended up buying some very practical pairs of casual shoes, and one killer pair of leather lace-up boots. Candiss and I both wanted them but I won!

I dropped her off at her hotel, quick hugs to her husband Rodger for giving her up for the day, and I headed home to find a quiet house, and boxes everywhere in my living room. UPS, and the USPS had a field day at our house. We are buying most of our Christmas presents online, we usually do, so we let the Brown Santa do all the traveling. Speaking of the Brown Santa, my son is now working as a seasonal driver assistant for UPS, and it was so cute when he walked in around dinner time, in his brown uniform. Since he leaves for boot camp on January 4th, the seasonal work was perfect for giving him some extra cash and a reason to get out of bed in the morning…

Anyway, if you are a handweaver, you are most likely following Tien Chiu’s blog, she is a very talented complex weaver, embarking on weaving her wedding dress. We had some correspondence earlier in the year about some interfacing issues. And you should know that Tien is one of the founders of the online weaving community Weavolution. Tien has been taking a break from weaving and has picked up one of her other specialties, making chocolate, and I’m not talking a couple of milk chocolate eggs here, I’m talking combination’s that I can’t even begin to imagine. She has been carefully blogging about the whole chocolate experience, and I had to replace my keyboard twice this week for drooling too much while reading about it.

So, back to my living room full of boxes. I worked through the Amazon boxes, hiding the presents from the family, and then I got to a box that had Tien Chiu’s return address on it. What could be in this box? I opened it and well, I screamed for 20 minutes. Good thing no one was home. I don’t know what I did to earn a box of Tien’s chocolates, but there is was, in the Priority box from the USPS, and I ran right up to the computer to write a thank you note. Wow. The first one I sampled was the square white one in the front, Coconut Tequila Lime fudge. OMG! Tien if you are reading this, I LOVE YOU!

I'm having fun making hot mats and mug mats from coiled handwoven strips and the sewing machine.

Writing this blog has been a wonderful experience this year, I’ve met so many readers through it, and gotten some terrific feedback. After my last post, reader Diane thought that the little bowls I was making from coiled scraps of handwoven fabric would make great hot mats for the kitchen or table. I had actually made a hot mat first, to get back into the technique, and then played around with the bowls. Diane had a point, a hot mat is a usable functional item, and would be a great gift, a fiber bowl isn’t the most useful thing, and it is hard to dust. It is a lot easier to just zoom around in a circle on a flat mat, and so I did. I made a couple of 8″ round mats, and then thought about how smaller versions would make great mug mats.

Caution Spoiler! If you are in the Frances Irwin Guild, do not read this paragraph! For everyone else, the guild is having its annual exchange at the holiday luncheon this year, and this year’s exchange is mug mats. Weave six and get six in return. I hadn’t planned on participating, but these little mug mats are so cute. So I am going to make up a half dozen of the 5 inch size and take them to the holiday luncheon on the 15th.

Speaking of my blog… Jenny, one of my most prolific commenters (and I do love when people comment!), mentioned to me last night at the guild meeting, that my anniversary was coming up. I took a minute to think what she was referring to, and then I realized, I’ve been blogging for almost a year, December 16th, 2008 was my first post. With almost 250 posts, I’ve had a great year of writing about and celebrating the creative spirit and am really grateful for all of you who take the time to read my posts.

And, in case you haven’t gone back to follow the comments for one of the previous blogs, the one where I made the plaid skirt from the handwoven skirt panel from Avoca Handweavers from Ireland, there was a string where I attempted to locate a source for the Burda Style Magazine, the current issue, for one of the blog commenters who loved the skirt pattern. I did an online search and didn’t find anything but how to order a subscription, which won’t help the commenter get the December issue. I called the US distributor for the publication, and they were completely sold out. But they sent me an email with two online retailers who sell individual issues, and have the November and December issues available. One of the retailers is Fashionista Fabrics and the other is Sew Baby. I love this magazine, and I’ve been subscribing for more than 10 years. Each issue contains over 60 patterns, and I love the style and engineering of the garments. The directions are scanty, one needs to know how to sew, and the pattern pieces have to be traced off of a large sheet of paper that looks like a road map from hell, but once you get use to it, the patterns are always at your fingertips and just leafing through each of the monthly issues gives me tons of ideas and possibilities.

And, on a final note, I caught the first episode of Bravo TV’s newest launch for a fashion design reality TV show, and I actually enjoyed it. Called Launch my Line, it involves fashion designer wannabees who are already known in another field, and they are paired with designer/experts, who can actually sew, and there was some exciting stuff. So, until the next season of Project Runway starts in January, this is a nice early winter treat.

Did I cover everything???

And for Something Completely Different…

Well, I accomplished a lot today, none of the things I was actually suppose to do, I got distracted…

I did get the scholarship applications judged, that was a tough one, all the students were equally qualified. I’m glad I wasn’t the only judge. And I did spent a few hours getting all the work caught up for my guild programs for next year. But that was yesterday. You see, last Friday night, my church had a service auction, and I donated one of the scarves I made in Barbara Herbster’s class the week before, and to my great surprise, there was some furious bidding, and the scarf actually sold for $135. I talked to the woman who bought it afterward and she told me she was prepared to go to $200. So thanks Barbara, for a beautiful warp, but it really got me thinking… And thinking…. And thinking…

Sidebar: I did craft fairs from 1979 – 1989. I’ve been there, and done that. I have such a distaste for the whole affair, total burn out. I enjoyed the people, and the lifestyle, for awhile, but making stuff, lots of stuff, to sell, putting a price tag on creativity, trying to figure out the market, spending every weekend of your life sitting in your booth selling your soul, well, let’s just say that I swore, no matter what happened in the future, I’d never, ever do a craft fair again…. And I also said, I’d never, ever, ever sell my work again, put a price tag on it, and some of that is sort of understandable because what I do best is clothing, and once I make a garment now, I’m largely done with it, and it is nearly impossible to reproduce what I make, even if someone where to pay me handsomely for it. Making handwoven clothing in production is no picnic, which is what I did for 10 years, I bought huge amounts of yarn wholesale, put on no less than 30 yards at a time, (weaving it off in one day), spent huge amounts of money on booth fees, spent ridiculous hours making stuff to sell, filling orders, running a business, and everything else that goes along with that lifestyle. I had no life.

However, I was so enchanted with the scarves I made in Barbara’s class, mostly because she opened up a new way to look at color and blending, and using small amounts of whatever is on the shelf to make it work, which Barbara really does do best, and I got to thinking, really thinking…

So I basically got the jacket cut out, because it was laying across my floor and I couldn’t walk in my studio until I got it cut out and off the floor. I got all the tailor’s tacks in, and played around with interfacing. I also experimented with seam finishes and topstitching. I tried couching with a novelty warp yarn, and it really does define the seams. And I’m hoping it is pretty flexible.

But the whole time, I’m thinking, thinking…

So, I finally gave up, and started poking around the studio, pulling yarns and skeins, and cones, and bits of stuff, because you really don’t need much here, to put on a warp for another round of scarves. Oh boy was this fun…

So I stared at the pile for awhile, and played around with a draft, and wrapped a card to see if I could get a clue how this would look. Barbara just grabs yarn and starts winding. I’m not nearly that confident, but I can see how after awhile, this would be a great way to warp, and I can see doing this for yardage…

I had a number of variegated yarns, and some novelties, but the one thing I didn’t have was any of the flat tape yarns that Barbara used for the supplemental warp. I didn’t want to duplicate the scarf I did in Barbara’s class, after all, that was her design, but I liked the idea of having supplemental warps in some key places, and I actually found a small swatch of a knitted tape, which I carefully unknitted and washed, and then painstakingly pressed to get it to return to its flattened state. I had about 14 yards, which would work for this warp.

I’m also intrigued by the possibility of combining doup leno with this technique, to provide even more surface texture, but I’ll experiment with that down the road… At this point, it is about getting something on the loom…

So, I grabbed my AVL warping wheel, I figured this would be a perfect use for it, because I’d be unloading it onto a sectional beam. So I could wind the warps as I had them on the card, and then every two inches, dump the warp under tension right onto the warp beam. I love this tool, it is a shame it is so expensive. I bought mine at a long ago Convergence when AVL first introduced it, at about half the price it is now. I remember waiting 9 months for it to come…

Once I finished winding two inches, I carried the wheel over to the loom, and slipped the end of the 9 yard warp over the back beam and hitched it to the cord for the section I wanted to wind on the warp beam.

I love this tool!

So, I have 2″ beamed in my 6″ scarf warp, and this will ultimately give me four scarves, and if I like them I can

give them away
add all four of them to my wardrobe
sew all four together into a bigger cloth and make a garment out of them
have a big ‘show and tell’ at my guild
give them away
donate them all to my church
I’m running out of ideas
OK, I could actually sell them.

My guild, the Jockey Hollow Weavers, has a fabulous sale in November. So far I haven’t participated because, gee, I refuse to sell my work. So, depending on how these turn out, I just might actually have something to sell this year. Stay tuned…

Meanwhile, the placemat exchange is coming down to the wire…

Score: Mom 7, Bri 6

Bri came into the studio tonight, and sat down and did another mat. The front beam is groaning under the weight of the 13 mats, it is a pretty small loom, and this is the one where the warp beam cracked, so I’m crossing my finger that the front beam holds as well. After Bri finished her mat, she had about a half hour to kill while she was waiting to leave for the High School, the spring band/choral concert was tonight. So she grabbed my camera, and shot some pictures of her latest obsession, finger braiding. She is making all kinds of bracelets from floss, which she keeps in a box and whenever she gets bored, the box comes out and the braiding begins. I had to share some of the patterns she has done, these adorn her wrists at the moment, and she had to photograph them on her wrists since she can’t get them off.

So there you have it, a productive day for the two of us, and one of the best High School concerts I’ve ever attended. I didn’t work on anything I was suppose to, but you know what? I had fun…

One more note:

I did spend a couple hours this morning alpha testing the new Weavolution site. It isn’t up for viewing yet, but this should be an awesome web connection for handweavers of all levels and disciplines, Tien Chiu is one of the principal designers for it, and coincidently her blog is one of my favorite must reads. She talks about the site on her blog today, and the team was mentioned in the last Weavecast Podcast. One of the features I’m playing with on this new site, is the ability to post a project, and the draft and all the specs. I got to thinking how I should be doing that with the pieces I’ve designed and executed since I started this blog. I’ve been thinking about that anyway, extracting all the entries for a particular piece into one document, with the draft and yarn sources, and providing it as a PDF in the extras section of my website. But for now, I spent some time playing with the Weavolution site, some of the early bugs are getting fixed, as we find them, but it is yet another opportunity to spend your days reading about weaving and getting inspired to get something on that loom, or if you haven’t joined the ranks of handweavers in this country, this will surely inspire you. I’ll keep you posted when Weavolution is finally launched…