Speed Weaving

Silly Cleo! You can't be a Shetland sheep!



Adrienne had to have her art piece to the SFMOMA by today. So, instead of relaxing like I wanted to after my river adventure, Adrienne and I maniacally wove a wall hanging. Every now and then I was bitter. Sorry, Adrienne. We did manage to finish it and it looks great. The warp is a 2 ply Shetland from Harrisville. The weft is the NY Times and the guard hairs from 2 fleeces: Shetland and Icelandic. Oh, and we also threw in a little bit of Habu cotton paper yarn. Wonderful stuff. Next time, I want to weave an entire wrap out of it.




Of course, the minute we took it off of the loom (at 7 AM this morning), I thought of a hundred more things we could have done -- or do in the future. Like make a bag out of the yardage. Weave the entire NY Times Sunday edition. Paint on it with Sumo ink. Add felt.

Today's Verbs: Weaving and Growing Dye Plants

I am sssooo happy. My dye garden is really taking off. Finally, we are seeing our first cosmos, dahlias, and chrysanthemums. Now, we are only waiting on the correopsis.


All three types of flowers will yield a range of yellows, oranges, and rusts depending upon the mordanting process. We plan on experimenting quite a bit, so, hopefully, we will end up with samples reflecting this range.

Otherwise, Adrienne and I began our weaving project. Adrienne works at the SFMOMA and they have an employee art show, so, we decided to a collaboration. She names the project "Tilth" which means healthy soil -- something Adrienne is rather obsessive about. We are planning on using a bunch of Habu that I picked up at Stitches 2005. And, we are going to drop spin some of the Shetland guard hairs from our fleeces that we bought at the BSG. Stay tuned! We plan to incorporate a little knitting -- to add a 3D feel.

Here's Adrienne hard at work!

Help! I am sinking into Ravelry!

Oh Ravelry. Its a dangerous place. I left my blog to the wind. It feels dusty. What has been going on around here? OK -- Obviously, I received my Ravelry invitation last week. Promptly signed in -- and was simply overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content, people, and organizational capabilities. A fire lit under my ass, I became superbitch to Adrienne, would not eat, and only wanted to upload things onto Ravelry. And everyone has all of these "friends" and I don't. And all of a sudden I am back to my first day at school. Whoa, step back from the edge. Not good.

I had other firsts as well this week. I don't know how many of you know this but I quit my job in january so I could pay more attention to my online fiber store -- and of course spin and knit. Well, this week, I decided to start a little marketing work for a friend. I plan on working about 15 hours a week. Well, the knitting side of myself gave me hell. Its as if I had decided to abandon the entire program and go back to work 40 hours a week. So, I had to sit down with Miss Crazy Knitter/spinnng woman and provide some perspective.

This week I have also decided that I must start taking vitamins again, exercising, and eating salads. I keep telling myself "Next week, I know that I will feel better and more energetic." Needless to say, this week I have been a little cranky. Oh, and I forgot to add my landlord is here and they are painting our house and the cottage in the back and building new gutters. We are on day 3 (out of 14). tap, tap, scratch, scrape, scrape, yelling. Our dye garden looks a little sad.

On a brighter note, I am almost done with washing fleeces. Adrienne and I have planned a new weaving project for the SFMOMA employee art show. She wanted to participate last year but ran out of time. I bought a bunch of Habu at Stitches West 2 years ago -- so, I thought that we'd play with some of that. Plus, I have been meaning to practice my warping all summer long and have not gotten to it. So this should be good.

I am busily spinning superfine merino for the new line of naturally dyed singles. Hopefully in the next week or so, I will get them into the mordant pot. Oh, more firsts! We receieved our first order of Earthues natural dyes. We are trying to get the web page for that up and running. I guess its back to work for me.