Island Time

Tapestry Weavers South  celebrated a milestone tonight, twenty years!  Twenty eight weavers gathered on St. Simons Island Thursday for a three day retreat.

A beautiful setting to relax and connect with new friends and old.  

Lots of looms, lots of weavers and lots of inspiration.  As the retreat was a celebration there was plenty of time to visit with one another and weave.  The coolest thing about the weekend was getting to meet in "real life" weavers whose work you admired and facebook and blog friends.

Connie Lippert gave a talk on wedge weave.

Jon Eric Riis critiqued submitted work and gave us constructive feedback.

This portrait of a cocker spaniel by MJ Lord exuded joy.

Jon examines a finely woven piece by Molly Elkind.

Norsk Fjord Fiber's Sidsel  Moreb discusses her tapestry with Jon.

Sarah shared her approach to establishing and maintaining a daily tapestry practice.

This wonderful piece is by Pat Williams and one of my favorites.

This is Urban Decay by Betty Hilton-Nash.  Jon pointed out this tapestry looked great from every angle.

The three founding members of Tapestry Weavers South.  Pat Williams,  Tommye Scanlin and Holly Wilkes.

Tomorrow we will wrap up this retreat, say fond farewells and resume our mostly electronic communications.   There has been such a great deal of information and inspiration shared this weekend and we all need to get back to the studio and weave!

Filament - New Work from TWS

A small group of tapestry weavers created Tapestry Weavers South in the late
 1990s.  Tapestry Weavers from all over the southeast United States joined together to promote the artistry of tapestry.  On Saturday, May 6th at the Yadkin Cultural Arts Center Filaments, the new tapestry show opened.

Here are a few of the pieces from the show.
Betty Hilton-Nash  and Leslie Fesperson did a wonderful job of hanging the show.

Below are some pictures of the artists with their work at our most recent TWS meeting.

It was a pleasure to be part of this show and even better is being a member of this group.  Tommye Scanlon gave an inspiring talk about the process of weaving tapestry.  You can enjoy it here. TWS Filament.

Rust Dyeing

In an effort to not feel left out by skipping the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival a few of us got together for fiber pursuits.

First up, was some rust dyeing.  We wrapped some rusty bits in silk scarf blanks and then simmered the scarves in a pot of yellow onion skins overnight.

I tried a new to me technique using steel wool.  I got the idea from here.  Whenever I dye anything I start by washing it in Synthrapol.  With rust dyeing there is no need to pre-mordant.

The materials needed are basic, gloves, an empty wine bottle, a package of steel wool, some string or rubber bands, white vinegar and water.

1.  Wear gloves, the steel wool can cause small cuts on your hands.  I might have learned this the hard way.

2.  Unfold the steel wool into long strips and wrap around the wine bottle.

3.  Take the wet scarf and wrap it in a spiral up to the neck of the wine bottle.

4.  Secure with rubber bands or string.  I used an old rusty strip of metal.

5.  Place the bottle down in a bucket and spray with solution of 50% water and 50% white vinegar.  Try to saturate all parts of the bottle.

6.  Let sit 24 hours and then unwrap.  Following the instructions on other sites the first scarf I let sit for 4 days, spraying it each night with additional water and vinegar.  Unfortunately, the silk had a few holes where the rust "ate" through the fabric.  The second scarf I left wrapped for only 24 hours and it was intact with good rust printing.

I then folded the scarves between two blocks of wood and gave them a quick dip into the indigo pot.  Easy as pie!

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.