Weaving Song

Taking tapestry classes is one of my favorite things and  Tommye Scanlon is one of my favorite tapestry weavers.  I admire her work and love having the opportunity to take another class with her.  The  Triangle Weavers Guild  brought Tommye in for a Beyond the Basics class. The Triangle Fiber Arts Center is a great venue for classes.  Happy tapestry weavers! Friday, day one we discussed looms, warping and setting tips. Tommye has dozens of woven samples to illustrate different techniques. This sample was woven to demonstrate the use of blending with complementary colors. Decreasing, increasing, hills and valleys oh my. Saturday, day two involved specific techniques, attaching the cartoon and inking the warp. Tommye talks about her design process. One on one assistance with hands on by Tommye. My yarns and sampling progress.  You may remember these yarns from  here .  I dyed them ages ago for a project entitled Holding Space.  I have bee...

they rise in a stiff sweetness, in the pure peace of giving one's gold away. ~Mary Oliver The scientific name for goldenrod is Solidago which means "to make whole."  This weekend involved experimentation with dyeing wool with freshly gathered goldenrod. Norsk Fjord Fiber  vevgarn Frid is imported from Hiilesvag Ullvarefabrikk, a fifth generation spinnery on the west coast of Norway.  This is my favorite yarn for tapestry.  It comes in multiple natural shades of natural grey and white, which made for fun dyeing possibilities.  Dear hubs was alarmed when I explained my plan to gather goldenrod along the highway.  He decided adult supervision was required. 3.25 pounds of goldenrod. After washing all the yarn in Synthrapol, I mordanted it.  Some in alum (4 tbsp in 4 gallons of water) and some in iron (2 tbsp in 4 gallons).   After mordanting and rinsing the yarn the goldenrod was placed in a large enamel pot and covered with water.  The pot was b...

I may need to explain a bit.  My sister, Janet and I made a commitment to one another.  It was over breakfast at First Watch in Deerfield Beach in August 2016.  We each had dreams that we were procrastinating pursuing.  Janet was a writer and as most writers had trouble dedicating time to write without distraction.  I am an aspiring tapestry weaver with exactly the same problem. One of my favorite authors Anne Lamott when asked about waiting for inspiration said no writer waits for inspiration.  You sit down and do what it takes to "keep your big fabulous butt in the chair " and write.  I shared this with Janet and we decided to commit to being accountability partners, calling each other weekly with a butt in chair or BIC report.  Her goal was a writing submission and mine was to enter a tapestry in a juried show. We faithfully did our BIC reports and reviewed the ways we kept ourselves from spending time writing and weaving.  We encouraged a...