weaving of another kind

I'm working at my home studio for a few days; my nephew and his wife are staying at the studio this week.  They're in town so he can exhibit his photos at the Brooks Pennington Jr. Military Leadership Center at North Georgia College & State University.  He's a Combat Documentation and Production Specialist with the US Army Reserve and has served three tours in Iraq since 2003.   Several of his photos from Iraq are on display through October as part of several exhibits and other events being held during North Georgia Photography Experience.  Check out more about these events and also the Atlanta Celebrates Photography happenings in October.

My weaving here at home is two rag rugs for our kitchen.  I'm using a three-end block weave that's sometimes called double binding.   I have Maysville cotton carpet warp sett at 8 epi and cotton rag strips that are 1" wide.  The rug in the photo has the blocks change position to alternate the large and small squares near the edges; this is the second one of the two.  The first, rolled onto the cloth beam so it isn't visible, has no change of block giving a narrow stripe near each side.  The warp color is dark blue and deep red-violet for two 2" wide stripes.  I'll braid or ply the ends of both--not sure which yet until they're off the loom.  I've had them underway for a couple of months, just weaving on them occasionally.  Since I've turned my "real" studio over to the two young-uns for the week I'm hoping to finish these rugs.  If only Jacob & Connie would finish my big tapestry for me while they're there!

Back to the rag rugs... for the first rug I used a clip and link method of joining the strips.  That's sort of like linking the loop ends of sock loops for looper rugs or linking rubber bands.  With the fabric I snip a slot at each end of strips, put one end of the next strip through and pull the tail-end through.  This gives a bump of fabric which I don't at all mind in rag rugs.  Feels kind of nice to stand on with bare feet.  However, I'm sewing strips, end to end, for the second rug.  I'm doing this mainly because of my recent impulse purchase of a sewing maching!  Of all things I WASN'T expecting to do--buy another sewing machine.  But, at $39.99 how could I pass it up?!

I came across the machine on sale at Hancock Fabrics--was regularly listed around $50 +.  It's a Janome Sew Mini, has absolutely no bells and whistles, not even a light.  But it does straight stitch of four lengths and three width of zig-zag.  It will also go in reverse.  And as I use it to sew the strips it's working just great!  So now I've got a little 5 lb. sewing machine that I can easily carry around if I want to.  Nice when an impulse buy seems to be working out well!

My tapestry diary continues to move through the days with me.  The trips last month gave me quite a bit of white blank spaces.  It's about 30" high now at the tallest part.  Three + months to go until it's completed.

Right now, my plan is to start one for 2010 on January 1, a warp on a frame loom that I can take with me when I'm out of town.  I have plans for next year brewing that will take me away for days or weeks at a time: a week of teaching in March at John Campbell Folk School, a trip to the Southwest for Convergence and the ATA events in July,  two weeks of teaching at Penland in August, and a several week residency at the Lillian E. Smith Retreat Center in the first part of the summer.  Having the new tapestry diary on a portable loom will keep me engaged with it daily.

more weaving happening today...

I'm above the half-way point now.  More diamonds and pick and pick to come but wanted to be calm for a bit.

I just got a copy of Steven Aimone's new book today: Expressive Drawing: a Practical Guide to Freeing the Artist Within .  It's another wonderful book by a fantastic teacher .  One of the things I very much appreciate about Steve's books is that he includes artists both widely and not so widely known as he seeks out the best visual examples to illustrate what he discusses.  For instance, you'll find Rembrandt, Van Gogh, da Vinci examples in his book (as you'd probably expect)--but also works by Bill Traylor, Milton Avery, Renie Breskin Adams, among many others.  Steve's used works by many of his students, as well.  Pat Williams is represented with her drawing in preparation for her tapestry Kairos that you can see at her website.

LibraryThing

I finally took a look at the LibraryThing website this morning, signed up and began adding a catalog of my books. It's so easy--don't know why I haven't done so before. This looks like it may be a good way to share books with which I'm familiar with students. Not share the book itself but the list of things I've found to be helpful and inspirational.

I soon got beyond the number of books included in the free catalog and paid the $25 that's supposed to be the life-time charge for continuing to catalog as many to my library as I want. My studio books are what I've starting with--novels, exhibition catalogs and other things will follow, I'm sure!

Even though I've spent quite a bit of time entering books to my catalog today I've also had time to weave more on the big tapestry and to listen to the last CD of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (it's an amazing book). This afternoon I rolled the warp forward since the tapestry had gotten to the point it was too high to comfortably weave. I've said it before but I'll say it again... I really like this loom! I can see about 26" up on the woven area before needing to roll the tapestry around to the cloth beam.

More inches to be done tomorrow after acupuncture appointment! Oh... and when finding the link to The Story of Edgar Sawtelle to put here I followed one of the author's tangents to find Wordle. And generated the word cloud of the text at the top of this post... too much fun!

Back to the big tapestry after over a month away

I started weaving on the current large tapestry again on Monday. It's taken me these several days to get immersed in it again. I worked in spots that didn't require much thinking for the first day, then in the past two + days I've started tackling areas that need more concentration. The last time I posted the progress was July 27--my goal is to complete this by the first of November. Here's a shot of where it is today as I'm leaving the studio: