Here I am.... Summer 2016

Once again the lure of weaving has kept me away from the relative tedium of updating my blog, though it is fun to officialize (is that a word?) my weaving processes in this way.  As promised, a picture of a completed Purificator here being cold-mangled on plate glass.  This, along with other of my 'linen weaving rhapsody' appear in the pages of June 2016 Complex Weavers Journal Nu. 111

The damp linen Purificator is stretched out on plate glass, then rolled hard  in both warp and weft directions, both sides, and left to dry.  When dry it is peeled off the glass, folded and is flat, shiny and ready for use.

Oh, another finishing up from last post:  141-feet down and $8,000 later, we have running water again.  Hurrah! and ouch.

As to actual progress... selling enough weaving through the Thunder Bay Arts Council Gallery to keep my rent paid is a very encouraging thing.  Here are two recent sales, obviously related.  The first was a commission for folks seeking a 'hide' for their electric-service-box. The second was an inspiration from the remaining warp coinciding with the first crocuses showing themselves (over the septic tank).

The first,  "Organics - Symphony and Fugue" on the wall of the new Stepanski cabin -  photo by Stepanski.

The second to sell, "Organics - Crocus in the Snow"  The colors of the first are similar to this, in reality, just different lighting.  I don't know where this one now lives I photographed this in our breakfast room.

The Complex Weavers Seminars in St. Charles, IL, mid-June was like a great international family reunion. It began with an overnight with Julie Hurd and husband Al, then a luxurious ride to St. Charles with Linda van Andel driving and Julie navigating. I was spinning on my Hansen mini in the air-conditioned back seat. 

 

The Pheasant Run Resort was a lovely choice of venue with spacious and clean accommodations and a cheerful staff. The food was pretty good too, especially the plated dinner with cloth napkins.  It seemed appropriate that there were weave patterns on the walls and carpet. See illustrations below. 

 



Julie and Al, between bites and laughter, the evening before. Distances in northern Michigan are considerable and I was honored to stay with these talented (weaver/gardeners/woodworker) before our early-morning start for St.Charles.

 

 

My roommate, Patrice George,Patrice, of FIT, NYC   http://home.earthlink.net/~patriceny/   showed me some marvelous textiles from her collection.  I met Patrice at Convergence, DC in 1992 when she asked to attend my first-ever presentation on  Lithuanian textile research. I am incredibly blessed to know so many contributors to our weaving heritage.  I am so  grateful to have attended C W Seminars yet again.  Thank you Julie and Linda for urging me to apply with the promise of transport!  Love my weaving friends.



Patrice shows the beautiful shawl from her collection, of Tussar silk & cotton - she just learned that more like it are available at   http://www.original-women.com/scarves/natural-tussar-silk-and-organic-cotton-stole

John Malarkey, http://malarkycrafts.com/ another of the Seminar leaders, wears his band-weaving, here, very cleverly lining his shirt pocket, another band formed his shirt collar.



Linda, Julie, Marion & Cathy (friend from my years with WG of Kalamazoo) share fiber talk Saturday night before the fashion show.
 

After-hours room party at CW Seminars, St. Charles. Note the reverse-twill wallpaper and the plaid carpet. Julie and Linda gave a highly-acclaimed seminar "Beyond Scarves and Shawls: Planning cloth" using their award-winning garments with couture sewing to inspire us all.



In my Long-Eye Heddle seminar, the students played the parts of the missing loom frame so my 'Draw-loom in a Bag' would actually work.  Patricia Martin took the picture.

Our current Complex Weavers President, Lynn Smetko, takes a turn with 'Betty', the TC-2 loom at the Fine Line Creative Arts Center, where Seminar attendees were bussed to view the CW Juried Exhibit "Complexities" on Friday night.  Images of Lynn's delicious Shawl 'After Midnight' in silk and merino, can be seen, along with other work in this impressive show, in the pages of June 2016 CW Journal, and coming up at the at Riverside Artists Association in Milwaukee July 30 to August 8, 2016.

Lined up for the Informal Fashion Show following the plated dinner on Saturday.  Here guild-mate Marion Cook Jagst and the next-in-line model
wait their turns.

Another real treat was meeting and studying with CWJ Editor, Ruth MacGregor in her 'Silken Pursuits' seminar. Then I was privileged to have her in my seminar 'Through the Long Eye of a Heddle'.  Of course we did some hanging-out before and after, discovering and enjoying our many common loves - only she lives in France most of the time.

 

CW Journal editor Ruth MacGregor leads her seminar "Silken Pursuits" at St. Charles

The 'Poster Sessions' introduced at CWS this year was something totally new to me, but apparently common in academia.  It was interesting to see glimpses of research from around the globe and talk to those involved. After dithering and procrastination finally gave way to jumping in with both feet (with encouragement from Laurie Autio and Ruth MacGreggor), I prepared a poster and packed my own samples of Erica de Ruiter's tubular woven selvedges that have now been published in Complex Weavers Journal June 2016 Nu 111.

Another treat at the Seminars was the "Off the Runway" display where we all could see up-close and personal some marvelous weaving, including Tien's 'Musk Oxen'.  The conference was so well organized and coordinated all by VOLUNTEERS!  We are so fortunate that there are great executive and organizational skills within the Complex Weavers Community.  Hats off and shuttles up to everyone involved!
 

Here the folks from Northern Michigan load the big car (for the return home.) Kati, driver Linda, Marion, and navigator Julie

 

We packed up Monday morning to return to Northern Michigan from Pheasant Run Resort, but not before a quick walk around the grounds where I actually saw a pheasant running into the tall grasses on the course and spied a beautiful stump on the fairway.

 

Back at Treehouses Studio:  Last year I purchased a whimsical painting by gallery mate Pat Manning

A charming watercolor by Pat Manning - since it was not framed, I could afford it.

And I have now interpreted her painting in a warp for towels and placemats - and sold a set, with runner, to a gallery mate.  Love my gallery friends!

Our energetic Pat started a clever 'bouquet of owls' as a neighborly gift to new business the 'Owl Café'. Among the owls of felt,  paper, ceramic, metal...is one I formed from a bit of a tablet-weaving, but better-received was my inkle band with the words "Owl Café" woven in.

The "Owl bouquet" imagined by Pat Manning for the TBAC Gallery's new neighbor.  You can barely see the inkle band in dark green around the base.



The Northeast Michigan Weavers & Spinners Guild accepted their third annual invitation by the Alpena Farmer's Market to infect children and adults with our love of 'playing string', and for the third year, the market president's twins took to the weaving.  The boys were diligent and focused, finishing the entire warp in a little over 4 hours.  They are a good team.

Sam and Jack Cook remove their new runner from the Peacock loom after hemstitching the final picks. Yes, Sam did the hemstitching!

Weaver (and Master Gardner) Julie invited the Northeasters to her garden party and she and Marion conspired to celebrate my birthday with a chocolate castle cake flying Michigan tartan banners from all four turrets. It was
glazed with caramel and served with whipped cream. YUM!

Turning 75 with fiber friends is the absolute best way to celebrate.

The mold that shaped the castle cake.  Al reported that Julie despaired when it wouldn't come out of the mold, but the woodworker's 'dead-blow hammer' brought it loose in glory.  Keep those woodworkers and their tools close-by!

Julie's absolutely glorious (taller than I am)  "Queen of the Prairie" - just one of the beauties she and Al nurture.

Now, as I prepare to attend Convergence to pick up our Aussie, Kay Faulkner, I am seeing what I can produce for a new juried show called 'Black & White'. 

Deo volente, I will have some pictures for next post.   Kati 7-29-16

Winter 2016 report and HURT BOOK SALE

Hurt book sale - half price on Reflections from a Flaxen Past.

We’ve discovered some books with minor damage that we don’t want to offer at full price; so until they are in new homes, we are offering them at $24.00 each equaling half the pristine book price of $48.00. The ‘hurts’ are minor - scuffs or bent corners on the cover. So, here is a great bargain on a book that is still getting rave reviews. Click on the book button and you will find the hurt book option.

Happy 2016! Whoosh. How did we get here? Weaving and spinning and dyeing Oh My! Which is, of course, such fun.

My rocker finally got its new suit, a stripe-only version of the Michigan tartan. This is where I do most of my spinning, my little Hansen Mini-spinner on the keg in front of me. The throw on the arm of John’s Morris chair is one I wove of hand-twisted fleece with inlays of mohair and walnut-dyed fleece back in the 70's. We each have a throw since I long-ago separated the two halves of the ruana that it was originally.  What good memories of my artist-in-residence year in Gallipolis, Ohio.


 

Another project finally come to fruition was weaving up the flax I had spun when a spinning student gifted me with her stash of beautiful water-retted flax stricts. This lamp shade suits the diamond willow lamp by Tom Harmon. The inkle binding is linen, though not handspun. The remaining length of the thick & thin tabby linen will be a gift back to Karen Schnee as thanks for the fiber. You may recognize her name as the author of the picture-story "Cloth Aprons for the Loom" ppg 40-41 in Warp with a Trapeze and Dance with Your Loom.




Handspun singles linen shade for Tom Harmon's Diamond Willow lamp.
 

　

　

　

　

Lampshade cloth of handspun flax singles in plain-weave with every 4th warp and weft, the singles used four-fold
 a gift of Karen Schnee.
The binding is inkle-woven of commercial linen
 

Besides a marvelous trip to San Diego with our daughter to visit her brother/our son, his wife/our daughter-in-law, and her extended family in July, the studio was the focus of life --- until our daughter, two weeks before Christmas, encountered a falling martin-house pole resulting in a titanium rod in her tibia, a  fibula in shatters, and the gruesome (but leg and life-saving) surgery for ‘compartment syndrome’. I managed to get her out of the hospital and learned how to keep house for her and her cats - meal-planning - focused on protein and calcium, cooking, shopping, cat-box cleaning (all things my teenager does for me), nagging her to keep her leg elevated, rotating ice packs and praying for healing. We did have some fun too, watching ‘chick-flicks’ and, at the 6-week check-up, her surgeon was "amazed" at her healing speed. She only needed me about two and half weeks, but for an inexperienced care-giver, it was extremely intense.

In September, the day before the county mowed it all down, I had gathered a good bundle of the Big Blue Stem prairie grass that I was astounded to find growing north of the 45^th parallel when we first moved ‘out behind the cement plant’. Yes, I said a prayer of thanks for beating the bush-hog to the prize. Big Blue Stem was my father’s favorite. It grows over 5 feet tall and is identifiable by the glorious height, blue-purple stem, and a blossom that looks like a turkey foot. When a towel warp on the Lervad loom invited, I wove the beautiful grass (after it drank some glycerin-water solution) into a hanging - which sold within hours of displaying it at the Thunder Bay Arts Council Gallery. Gotta thank people with such discerning taste!


Big Bluestem

With a bit of warp remaining, the seed pods from "Olga's Mothers Poppies" got their own weave after a spray of gold paint.
　

　



Olga's Mother's Poppies

　
I have finished weaving the tags for the linen purificators and as of three weeks ago, they are all hemmed. It may be next report before I have pictures of the wet-finished pieces since are currently without water, thanks to a disintegrated well point. I might try washing them in snow-melt. In the meantime here is a tag on the inkle loom it is 70/2 warp, 35/2 pattern yarn. Also a picture of both sides of a completed tag. This is the technique I learned from the Lithuanians and detailed in Reflections. A similar technique fairly common throughout Scandinavia. This uses 7 pattern warps.



Tiny pick-up pattern linen labels for Purificators, on the inkle loom



Fiber, date and monogram on a tag, ready to apply to the Purificator. Back and front of the label shown.

After talking friends Julie Hurd and Linda VanAndel into applying to teach at CW Seminars, they talked me into applying, and all of us made the faculty! Along with a great gathering of great weavers, teaching assured our slots in the registration list. (So much for declaring a sabbatical.)

And now, I have been invited to offer a workshop to Central Ohio Weavers Guild, (my very first guild and a great introduction to the weaver’s guild system in the 1980's.) That guild membership came after years of weaving, exhibiting, a year as Artist-in-Residence, and teaching. The COWG is celebrating 80 years! - no, I am not a charter member, but most honored to contribute to their anniversary as the weavers and spinners that I met there provided an invaluable boost to my weaving skills and career. Colleagues there included Deb Menz and Marjie Thompson!

A sculptural inkle weave with wire called ‘Mild Fire’ and a quickie shibori warp dipped in an indigo vat at the Weaving Barn at Lynn Lake (Janney Simpson’s summer hangout) will close this posting. The scarf borders are Lithuanian stick-weave. See CW Journal February 2016 for details.





Mild Fire


　


Indigo Shibori on silk with stick-weave border

　

A Michigan tartan scarf ornamented with pine trees and 'beads-on-a-string motif, using that marvelous Lithuanian stick-weave technique presented in Reflections from A Flaxen Past.  See the Spring Complex Weavers Journal for details of both these double-harness weaves on simple 4-shaft counter balance looms.
 

Pray for Spring - and good water, Treadle with Joy, Kati