Living the Dream

I have been interested in Navajo weaving  since dear daughter showed me the wonders of the American southwest in 2016.  Details here.

After our trip, I read lots of books on Navajo culture and weaving.  I finally got the chance to take a class last week.  Susan Meyers of Living the Dream arranged for a class by Roy Kady   Roy is a  master weaver from Teec Nos Pos Arizona and came to Frisco, NC to teach.

Hand dyed Churro

Roy brought looms, tools and beautifully dyed yarns to share as well as his gentle spirit and expertise.  We spent the first day warping our looms.

Judith tackles the scary part


 When Spider Boy brought the first loom to the Navajo , he fashioned it's frame from the power of the sun, the lashing cords of lightning and the warp strings of rain. Roy explained the importance of weaving and the signifigance of each step in the process.

We learned the hands on basics of Navajo weaving and history and culture as well.  There were only five of us so we got lots of personal attention. 

Susan, our host weaving on her rug.

Roy shows me how to ply the yarns for twining.

There is traditionally a twined or braided edge at the top and bottom edge of the rug.

Look at that beautiful twined edge.

Day one was warping and choosing four yarns for our weavings. 

 Day two we began weaving and settled into the weaving.  I love being in the company of other weavers, there is a sense of coming together in a common task that is extraordinary. 

Roy helps Sharon with her weaving.

Unfortunately,  the three days went much too quickly.  Our weavings weren't complete but Roy ensured we had the knowledge, yarn and tools to finish.

Susan was a gracious host, the other weavers were interesting, engaging women and Roy a generous and knowledgeable teacher.  It was a wonderful opportunity to spend a week in lovely Frisco and indulge my passion for Navajo weaving.

This is my weaving after day three along with the yarns and tools from Roy.  The back deck of our house was a great weaving spot with a stellar view.

Cool Curves

I am home from Arrowmont and reflecting on the highlights.  Of course, it was a good time spent with good people but it was also so much more.  It always amazes me that as soon as you pull into the craft school parking lot, the craziness that is Gatlinburg disappears.

Jennifer Sargeant speaking to us about this tapestry and
the choices she made regarding color and texture.

Jennifer did a great job of allowing each student to work at their own pace.  We had various levels of tapestry experience. It was such an encouraging and supportive group.  We shared not only resources and skills but tools and yarn.

Mary Jane and Lynn 

We all approached color differently

Mary Jane used a watercolor sketch as a starting point.

Jean was weaving using hand dyed raffia.  She and I shared a mutual love of Silvia Heyden.

Really excited about those curves in the upper right. Regular hatching on the diagonal.

I am glad to be home and inspired to continue experiments with color in wedge weve and push myself.

Disruption and Interruption

What a wonderful time I am having at Arrowmont this weekend.  It is SEFFA 2019 and I came to Gatlinburg Thursday evening.  Jennifer Sargeant is the instructor for "Woven Tapestry and the Language of Color."  I would normally not do a post about a class until it ends.  However, I need to get some lessons learned down before I lose them.

Yarns I dyed for Arrowmont class

For the record, I love color.  I just find color theory incomprehensible and choosing colors for tapestry daunting.  I have a handle on value but that is the extent of my knowledge.

Hand dyed golds

Cell phone edit to black and white to check value.

We started class with a little bit of color theory.  Jennifer kept it short and simple and we looked at Jennifer's samples.

The yarn packs Jennifer made for us of Vevgarn are on
 the table in front of us.

 We were able to start weaving right away and of course my mission

was to play with color techniques in wedge weave.  

Predictable wedge weave start.

At first I was taken aback by Jennifer's advice to break up the predictability of my wedges by distorting and interrupting the color or structure.  There is purple in there for goodness sake,  how more wild could this be?

End of day one, see  that disruptive little purple box?

Evening of day two

Jennifer encouraged me to use some traditional tapestry techniques to manipulate the color and see what would happen.  I was surprised by the results.  Warning, some wedge weave/tapestry geekiness is ahead. Lot's of details of the good, the bad and the ugly for future reference. 

First the bad, I was rocking and rolling with my giant purple wedge when Jennifer cautioned that is was dark and overwhelming.  She suggested breaking up that large block of color.  I did some unweaving to avoid a giant purple triangle (what I had planned).

I did some dashes by doing a full pass of purple and a half pass of gold.  

The effect was nice but here comes the ugly.. alternating the purple and gold creates a messy spot unless done properly at the beginning or ending of the weaving pass.

I did some alternating stripes by doing a full pass of dark gold and a full pass of light.  The colors are so similar the stripes are fairly indistinct and it looks like subtle shading. 

Notice the disruptive quality of those little purple boxes and how that is lost with the yellow on dark gold box.  The wedge weave is interrupted but there is virtually no impact on the visual interest of the tapestry.

Shy little yellow box 

I have enjoyed getting to know my classmates and will post tomorrow with examples of the work and more pictures.

Hard working and happy tapestry weavers.