Penland- The Real Magic Kingdom

Today, I met the other members of Tapestry Weavers South at Penland School of Craft.  We were fortunate enough to visit Tommye Scanlon and Bhakti Ziek's weaving class.  Their lucky students are immersed in an eight week concentration of tapestry and floor loom weaving techniques.

We shared our work with the students.

Genie talks about the inspiration for her glowing people.

One of the students  hard at work.

Meg gets some insight into this student's use of a colorful warp.

A tapestry sample.

Tommye discussing Holly's tapestry.

The class diary, each student is assigned a color and they weave a small bit each day.  They insert a slip of paper for those days they are out of the studio.

The dye studio upstairs.

In case you doubt the magic of Penland, this is the hand tiled bathroom wall.

Fighting the Low Lazy

"-You ain't get nothing for staying low, lazy.  The world only tremble at the feet of the few craziest doers ever lived."  Olawale Daniel

When I am faced with self doubt I procrastinate.   I knew I wanted to complete a tapestry for the Tapestry Weavers South show at the Yadkin Valley Fiber Room.  I even posted the cartoon, chose the yarns and warped my 22 inch Mirrix loom.  All set right.  Uh, nope.

I kept putting off starting, clicking down the weeks.  No problem, five weeks is plenty of time...Tapestry is incredibly slow especially for this beginner.  The calendar screamed three weeks and I knew my original plan was too ambitious.

As I procrastinated, I wasn't totally idle.  I thought about the fierce resistance I was experiencing and what was behind it.  I wanted to do a tapestry I could be proud of and was having trouble picturing my weaving  hanging in the same space with my more experienced friends.  What a blessing to be in a group of such talented, amazing weavers but how to avoid comparing my work to others?

I continue to work on that but know the more I weave the better I will get.  I have faith I will find my personal niche as a tapestry weaver and develop the skills so the pictures in my mind can be brought to the loom and executed with skill and grace.

This is Red Rocks, the simplified version.  It will be delivered tomorrow in preparation for the Tapestry show.  It is hard to see but there are three juniper berries woven into the bottom. 

 The Navajo call these ghost beads.  Some say they represent the interdependence of man, animal, plants and earth.

Note the skinny linen on the left and the thick linen on the right.  Both off the same spool of black linen.

If I judge this tapestry by lessons learned it was wildly successful.  I used thick and thin linen from Martha Matthews estate.  I loved the color and the roughness of the linen.  However, thick and thin yarn results in a very eccentric weave.  I like this look but found it difficult to maintain my selvedges.  In addition, I really need to do more preparation before beginning to weave and ideally no deadlines!

Oh Pear!

A few weekends ago when Riley stayed over we did we did some watercolors.   I was inspired by this napkin on the counter.

My rendition of a pear.

This was a fun watercolor, I didn't stress over a perfect likeness.  My watercolors are for weaving cartoons not final products.

Making a good start, using my 12 inch Mirrix loom with cotton seine twine with a sett of 8 epi.  Weft is Appleton 2 ply tapestry wool.  Three strands bundled together.  Above you can see I am weaving the area surrounding the bottom curves of the pear.

Can you spot the Oops?  I have blocked in an area by weaving too far on the exterior of the pear.  Total rookie mistake!

Meet and separate.

Bubbling.

Finished!

Tomorrow I will cut this off and mount it.  This was a diversion, I really should be weaving Red Rocks for the Tapestry Weavers South show in May.

Red Rocks

After finishing Road to Mamers it was time to plan the next tapestry.  Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective I have more tapestry ideas and enthusiasm at this point than skills.

I admire the work of tapestry weavers who also draw, sketch and paint, like Tommye Scanlon, Sarah Swett and Janette Meetze.  Alas, I do not draw or paint.  I did take a gazillion pictures when Rachel and I were in Arizona though. Each day we were surrounded by gorgeous vistas that took my breath away.  I blogged about it here.

So I went through all the photos, chose one and played with enlarging it and isolating an interesting piece of the picture.

The view from our room at Sky Ranch Lodge.

With some computer manipulation  I isolated the part I wished to weave and used the cartoon effect to edit the image.

I pulled out my Navajo weaving books for inspiration.  Should I border this with some stripes or Navajo motifs to honor the region and culture.

The next step was to determine the size of the tapestry, the yarn to be used and the desired sett or number of warp threads in an inch.  I really wanted to use yarn I already owned.

This is my collection of single ply Churro yarns, definitely the choice most in keeping with the Navajo weaving materials.  The colors were somewhat limited though.

Eventually I settled on the collection of linen yarns I purchased from tapestry weaver Martha Matthews' estate.

I decided on the linen yarns I purchased from tapestry weaver Martha Matthews' estate.

I don't want to take all the credit, I had help.  Montana has a keen color sense.

With the linen, I decided on a sett of 8 per inch and decided to use my Mirrix Zach loom.  Time to get warping.

My yarns and cartoon.

The Road to Mamers

In 1993 we moved to Sanford, NC and I began a new chapter in my nursing career as a hospice nurse.  One of the first tasks was to get to know the local physicians and the roads.  In service of this goal I set out for Goldston, NC to meet Dr. Holt.

I dutifully asked my coworkers for directions and headed out on Highway 421.  I drove and drove and drove, enjoying the sunny day, the beautiful countryside and getting to know my new home.  Needless to say this was before cell phones and GPS so when I felt like I had driven quite far I stopped at a small convenience store.

Walking into the convenience store was like stepping back in time.  Several ladies quilting around a frame looked up at the stranger at the door. When I asked how to get to Goldston one of the ladies said "oh honey, you can't get there from here."

My first watercolor ever!

I had traveled south on 421 to Mamers rather than north to Goldston as planned.  Fast forward to 2016 and I wanted to do a tapestry to capture that day in the sun with all the fields of corn, tobacco, cotton accented with the orange of the ditch lilies.

Choosing yarns.

Getting started was the easy part, vertical curves for my road not so easy.

Love my little  8 inch Mirrix.

Saturday, I went to a tapestry study group at Triangle Weavers Guild.  It was held at the Triangle Fiber Arts Center.  It was so nice to see all the looms and weavers.

Have Mirrix will travel.

These are donated yarns for tapestry weaving, some from Silvia Heyden

It was fascinating to listen to the other weavers talk about watching Silvia weave and what yarns she preferred.

It was the kick in the arse  I needed to finish Road to Mamers.

Of love, loss and socks

I have lost the urge to knit.  Normally my hands and brain seek out that rythmic calm movement.  But not recently.  I think it is the socks.  I started them as we do all knit projects with high hopes.  An elegant pattern, Irish Oats and a very simple natural yarn.  I started the socks on a dream trip to the southwest with Rachel.  All the wonder of Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly and especially my joy of a week with dear daughter knit and cabled together.

  They languished on the needles, got lost during our move and surfaced in December.  Back to knitting during meetings and car rides.  These socks have a lot of miles on them.  Not the literal miles to Arizona but all the miles my heart traveled in the knitting.

  

 When my sister fell at my house on Christmas Eve and was airlifted to Chapel Hill along came the socks.  Stitches knit through three weeks of waiting, worrying, praying and crying.  One sock done, the second well on it's way.  A few stitches knit as we  sat with Janet during our last moments together.

When I drove to Florida to celebrate Janet's memory with her close friends the faithful socks came along but they stayed in the bag.  They are still in that bag.  They might have to stay there.  It feels like the weight of the world is in those socks.  I love them, I hate them.  I want to hold them close and not let go. But no I do not want to finish them.

Stupas, Massages and Falling in Love

After breakfast at The Coffee Pot we visited the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park, this is in the heart of Sedona and a lovely place to wander and wonder.

There were peace flags throughout the park.

Not only beautiful this is also a sacred place.

Could we wish for More?

We headed to a Sedona Spa where Rachel had us scheduled for luxury pedicures and a sweat lodge massage.  It was my first massage and I was a bit apprehensive but Rachel put me at ease and went first.

The massage was wonderful, just when the heat was almost unbearable they put ice cold wraps on my face.  It was a really unique experience.   I never would have booked it but so glad Rachel did!

We then headed to one of my new favorite places, Jerome.  We had lunch at the Haunted Hamburger.

Rachel enjoying an adult beverage at the Haunted Hamburger.

Do not ask, I do not have a clue what this represents.

Rachel in front of a smelter.  Jerome was a mining town that collapsed economically when the mine closed.  Believe it or not it was saved when the hippies discovered it and moved in.

This describes Jerome beautifully.

The old elementary school was turned into art studios and galleries.   We met Robin Anderson who demonstrated etching on metal.