Friday, November 29, 2013

and even more...


This was on the day before Thanksgiving.


These postings are sort of like a web-cam for this tapestry, I just realized.  As interesting, too--as in NOT VERY!  Oh well.  No one ever said tapestry was a speedy process.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Fourth fiddlehead complete now




Thirteen more to go!

Friday, November 22, 2013

more fiddlehead and fern growth today




Tuesday, November 19, 2013

more tapestry progress


I only wove for a few minutes today today--lots of other things going on around and about.  But at least  I was able to almost complete a fern and background underneath the next fiddlehead that needs to be woven.


And here's the state of the tapestry I'm weaving for my niece--I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm using one of her paintings as the basis for the design.  Her gouache painting is on the small easel at the left of the loom.  I'm working on this tapestry slowly since most of my weaving time is spent these days with the fiddlehead/ferns.







Sunday, November 17, 2013

Saturday, November 16, 2013

One down ... sixteen more to go




Friday, November 15, 2013

Fiddleheads/ferns grow more today




I'm working around fiddleheads... avoiding the challenge for as long as I can!  But soon I'll have to begin these tricky spirals.  Can't put it off much longer.


Atlanta Area Tapestry Study Group's Field Trip

I had a nice visit from seven of the folks who are in the Atlanta area tapestry study group yesterday.  Terri Bryson posted a bit about it at the Tapestry Share blog here.

It's gray and not too cold in Dahlonega today... a perfect day to sit in front of the fiddlehead/fern tapestry and dream of spring!

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Growth of fiddleheads/ferns


More passes woven in the last couple of days.  Bit by bit, it grows!



Thursday, November 7, 2013

More green yarn came today!




Hooray!  The mailbox held these three skeins of Vevgarn today.  I'd sent Noel at Norsk Fjord Fiber a frantic email a few days ago to order more of this particular green.  The remains of what I had on hand are in the tiny ball beside the skeins and in the couple of butterflies in which it's combined with a dark brown.  Now that I have everything I'll need for the rest of the tapestry (she thinks), I'm happy.

Here's where the piece has gotten to by this afternoon:


I can't get a shot of the whole piece without having it at an angle because of where the loom is placed in the room.  Here's a bit of a detail so that the color change in the background can be seen more:

By the way... all those blips of white are my stitching-on threads that hold the cartoon in place.  They will be snipped out when they're no longer needed.

I hope I can spend most of the day on the tapestry tomorrow.  This week has held assorted tasks that needed to be done outside the studio so I've only been able to weave, at most, a couple of hours each day.  But with tapestry, any few minutes spent putting weft into warp ultimately makes a difference!

On another note, I just learned of the new American Tapestry Alliance online publication called ATA CODA.  It's a digest of several articles and images from the past year's Tapestry Topics, the ATA journal available only to members.  It holds several thoughtful articles about current tapestry practice throughout the world.  And--I was quite happy to find one of my tapestries shown among those in the gallery section.  



Monday, November 4, 2013

Wouldn't you know it... I have every green on the sample card but the one I'm running out of!



Yes, once more I've worked myself into a corner by choosing a color to use with my weft blends that's now down to the last few yards.  Here's my palette of wools--and the green that I'm about to run out of is just out of view at the top of the assortment--


I've emailed to order more of the color and I'll have it by the end of the week.  In the meantime, I've got other areas of the tapestry I can work on.  See much change from the last post?  Probably not too much although there really have been several hours of weaving since then.  Watching a tapestry move forward is sort of like watching grass grow, I guess.


I'm continuing to finish the fiddlehead sample woven earlier in the spring.  I'll be sending it for the American Tapestry Alliance small format show next summer--here's more information about that exhibit.  I still have the mounting tapes to sew to the back, according to the instructions for hanging provided for the exhibit.  


The small format, non-juried show is always one of the most exciting ones offered, in my opinion.  I've entered a piece in every version of the show since the beginning in 1996 in Portland, Oregon.  That one, called It's About Time, was spearheaded by Kathe Todd-Hooker and several other tapestry artists in the Pacific Northwest.  

Several of us from the Southeast saw the 1996 exhibit and wanted to be sure such a wonderful concept for exhibit was continued.  The desire to make that happen played a large role in our forming the regional organization that became Tapestry Weavers South.  Since Convergence was to be in Atlanta in 1998 our fledgling group took on the task of the exhibit.  Encore! was the title we gave the Atlanta version of the show and it truly was an amazing experience--a few people put in lots of hard work and drove many miles several times in the months leading up to it (it was a 1-2 hr. drive to the city for most of us who worked on the show). In the early 2000s, American Tapestry Alliance became a sponsor and has continued to seek volunteers to mount the exhibit in locations of Convergence events (Providence, Rhode Island for 2014).  

I continue to believe in the concept of a non-juried exhibit, limited only by size restrictions (maximum size 10" x 10").  Seeing work by well-know tapestry artists hanging beside the first tapestries efforts of others is always inspiring.










Saturday, November 2, 2013

Fiddlehead tapestry grows slowly but surely


I've worked consistently on the new tapestry throughout this week.  Here's were I'm leaving it today:




So far the contrast isn't great--the dark rust of the background and the dark, dull greens of the ferns and the bottoms of fiddleheads are close.  Squint your eyes to look at it and the tone blends together.  That's what I want at the bottom, but as I move up into the piece, the background will lighten and the contrast between it and the plants will be stronger.

Earlier today I blocked a small sample of a portion of the design I'd woven in the spring at Hambidge Center. I'm going to enter it in the ATA small format show since it's within the size limits.  



I find working on the fiddleheads of the tapestry particularly poignant right now.  This week,  a young man who grew up in this community died suddenly--he was only 26 years old.  His was a gifted musician, admired and loved by all.  Zak McConnell was a founder of The Fiddleheads, a group of contemporary bluegrass musicians.  They became more widely know when they were finalists on a TV show, America's Got Talent, a few years ago.  Here's more about The Fiddleheads at their website

For his family and friends his passing is tremendously hard.