Was a happy camper

...when we were up at the Pioneer Day Festival in Barberville, FL. That was a lot of fun. Good music and lots of crafts. I got to meet the resident weaver, Steve. He was really nice. And above is Barbara the spinner, who was totally cool. I want to be her when I grow up. She had some good stories.

These are manatees that live in the spring at Blue Springs S.P. where we camped. See the ity wity babykins poopy doopy doops! Isn't he cute! He was so tiny (compared to all the others). It was chilly at night up there, but this time I did not freeze to death. Gerry took me to the HD and we got a lovely little space heater for the camper. That made all the difference.


This is the stash rug I was working on a while back. I'm not loving this at all. I was hoping for a more sporadic color combination and more knobby-ness, if that's even a word. Che liked it a lot, however, so I gave it to her. I'm going to weave a mat (smallish rug) next on the rigid heddle. I've got this white, bulky 3 ply wool that I have a ton of. It's like on an industrial size cone or something. I inherited it along with Kessy. I got some wine and tangerine Rit dye so I'll see what kind of damage I can do with this wool and dye.

This I am happy with! The colors came out just great. I love card weaving. This is from a pattern, but you can really go coo-coo with card weaving and come up with your own ideas. It's just a matter of how you turn the cards. Oooo that sounds very metaphorical, doesn't it?

Slower than slow cloth

...that should be a separate category for me. I weave like I went to college...changing majors every semester and now with weaving, changing designs every rug.


You probably can't see this very well, but this is my pattern so far. Not crazy about it. Not at all. Believe it or not, it's supposed to be a straight 2/2 twill, 12 pick color sequence. It looks like pancakes!

So I'm thinking of switching to this Krokbragd pattern from the book I just ordered, The Handweaver's Pattern Directory. Even though I've never done Krokbragd. How hard can it be? HA HA HA HA HA!!!! Well, we'll see. I'll do a little test run. I am sure that I want to add this yarn color...

My friend and I had a little dye fest up at her place. She made a big batch of this lusious Rit dye that we made by combining Wine and Tangerine. I dyed this yarn, originally natural color, and she dyed some baskets. They came out real pretty. I didn't even know you could dye baskets! Check out the Rit website. They give you formulas for different color combinations.

On the animal front....I don't know if I mentioned this, but I found this little turtle on the side of the road, after I watched a car hit him and send him flying. He's the little guy at the bottom of the pool. He is a red ear slider and not indigenous to Florida. So I brought him home and put him in the pond with big turtle. That was about a week ago. Now, he's not in the pond anymore. I hope Sammy didn't tell him to "get in ma belly!"

And here's a parting shot of Littleman's left buttock hanging off the chair.

My dyeing day

I measured out some of the natural color 3 ply yarn I bought at the Mannings. I am planning on using this in the next rug. Well, my original plan was to make it black. Black and white, or technically natural. And as you can see...

...it is gray. A sort of greenish gray. This is because I am a dummkopf. I had a little jar of Procion out and was reading the directions from that. But instead of using the Procion powder, which would make complete sense, I accidentally put the Dylon powder in the mix using the Procion directions. Yeah, we're talking Mensa material here. However, I really sort of liked the funky greeny gray and have decided to call this one of Marcel Duchamp's "happy accidents".

I love dyeing and now that the cooler weather, (i.e. the air is air once again instead of humidified liquid air), I can start dyeing in the garage. The problem is I must get my DH to get his crap out of the garage!!! There is a busted up awning, courtesy of Hurricane Wilma, that is still moldering in the garage. It's like he's attached in some strange way to this thing. And that's just the tip of the junk iceberg.

In this picture it looks more bluey/gray. Anyway this color has inspired a totally different design in my head. I'm thinking more of a quarter of the rug in gray 2/2 twill, morphing into a 12 pick color sequence and then into white. I'm loving the idea already and can't wait to get started. Unfortunately, I have to thread the heddles first. Poo.

Also, wanted to share this little book discovery. Got a copy of The Handweaver's Pattern Directory from the library. What a cool little book! It has all the basic 4 shaft weaving patterns with drafts and color suggestions. It is so clear and concise.

Mannings

I almost forgot...the class I took at the Mannings was wonderful! It was, "How to Use Your 8 Shaft Loom", taught by Thomas Knisely. He was totally cool and a good teacher.

Above is a view of the twill gamp we worked on. This is the first time I've done an 8 shaft pattern and it was so awesome to watch the pattern take shape. I ordered a copy of Strickler's book from the library. I'd like to try to do a table runner when I finish the rug I'm starting.

The whole experience was neat. There were 7 other weavers there. The first part of the class was drafting. Then after lunch we hit the looms ... table looms. I've never used a table loom before and it was nice. Of course the idea of purchasing one flitted briefly through my mind, but no. Must be good. I did go shopping after the class though. Bought a big cone of 3 ply yarn, new spindle, and 8/4 rug warp. I love the Mannings.

Let the food fest begin!

Yep, we're in PA. I've only been here 2 days and have already eaten pig in two or three culinary incarnations. Night one, BBQ pork sandwiches. Night two, ham and cabbage. And then something else yesterday but I can't remember. It wasn't ham balls though. I'll have to try ham balls before this vacation is over. We did split a pumpkin whoopie pie yesterday. That was pretty stinkin' good!

I love eating my way through the state of Pennsylvania. These people know how to eat! None of that sissy S. FL exotic fish or tropical dishes here...healthy garbage. Hell no! You're going to eat ham dammit! And beef. Good beef too. These people don't play.

Here are some Canadian geese. I love these guys. They're so pretty. We didn't eat them though.

Now, this was cool and no I didn't make this...ha! obviously. I couldn't quilt if my life depended on it. We went to the Long Park Arts and Crafts show yesterday in Lancaster. It was a lot of stuff I've seen before, but there were some artists that stood out. This lady was one of them. Ann Brauer was an incredible colorist. Her work was just beautiful! And she was super nice too.

I noticed at this festival that many of the artists and craftsmen seemed to hide a bit behind their booths. Ann wasn't like that at all. She was up front and friendly, which was smart. She was making sales. She had her bread and butter items out (like above) as well as her more expensive works.

Sorry, I just figured it had been a while since I mentioned ham. Anyway, I spoke to the only weaver there. His work was really pretty cool and he did rugs and tapestry...the same as I like to do. So I was truely interested and wanted to know about his work. His pieces were all warp face. He warps the loom in the colors/patterns he wants and then uses fiber (yarn or bamboo) bundles as the weft. So you know, the weft really doesn't matter...sort of like card weaving. Anyway, he's all chatty at first and I ask him what kind of loom he has and he says a Cranbrook. I say cool, I have an 8 shaft Kessenich and I weave rugs too....well that's where the conversation ended. Like abruptly. Ha ha! He just said "Thank you" curtly and walked away. I couldn't figure it out. What did I say? I just laughed. I don't know but I think, and I don't want to get flamed for this, but I know that many "arteests" have big egos. Add testosterone to that and it's all over baby. Plus when he realized I weave rugs, I probably wouldn't be buying anything from him, so he wasn't going to waste his time on me. I get the feeling that the artists / craftsmen had paid a lot for the booths at this show, and seemed to be just a hair bitter about it. I can't blame them really.

Well, more adventures today. Perhaps ham will be involved.

Loose ends

I'm trying to get my looms in order and ready to weave when I get back in two weeks. Haven't been doing much because thanks to hurricane Danielle and now Earl, there have been waves. We've surfed all weekend, and after the crummy flat summer and having to drive 2 hours up coast, it's been real nice to get some local action, so to speak.


I fixed the broken apron string. I hope this string holds, as it was a bit thinner than the string that was already on there.

Then a little Olde English lemon oil to spruce her up a bit. Changed the heddle to the 5 dent. So I'm ready to start that next rug when I get back.

Then onto the rigid heddle. I was starting to weave a sampler/wall hanging and I just wasn't feeling the love. So I cut it off. This is what's left. I started measuring out the warp for something I'd like to try when I get back. I want to play around with an idea for a rug using lots of stash yarn that I haven't used and can't see any use for in the immediate future. It's part of my clean up, break down, simplify, use it up "thing" that I'm going through. Or menopause...whatever you want to call it. Anyway, it should be neat. We'll see.


One of my art buddies, Larry, gave me this nifty little folding album. So I decided to make it a Sumi album. These things are cool but a little nerve racking because if you screw up a painting, it's stuck there in your album. You can't rip the page out because you're album will fall apart, which would be a bummer.

Van Gogh and the weavers

I was reading about Van Gogh last night from the DK Eyewitness Book series. It's a kid's book series. I love the Eyewitness books. Anyway, the book talked about Van Gogh in Nuenen and his interest in the weavers there. The town of Nuenen is in an area of the Netherlands called Brabant, ... "an area in which weaving had always been important, and Vincent felt compelled to illustrate these 'Brabant artisans' ". He painted many pictures of the weavers of Nuenen and sent them to his brother Theo to be sold. He told Theo to keep the drawings and paintings if they did not sell; writing, "It would rather disappoint me if you sent these little weavers back to me."

I had never heard of these drawings and paintings before. I love Van Gogh even more now!

This one is my favorite. See the baby in the high chair to the right?

And speaking of weaving...this is the finished band from my first card weaving endeavor. I really like the way the pattern came out. I just kind of flowed with it and let it go whatever way it was going to go.