Fiber Zelig
Do you remember oh-so-long ago when I said I was going to try the great suggestion from Diane Howes that I needle felt the fringe to secure it? Well, after failing to find my felting needles, and borrowing some from Ute . . . this is as far I have managed to get . . .
I do have an explanation(ish) for why nothing has been rolling off my looms or consequently my blog lately. My reason is that I have been doing a lot of technical editing and class preparation. So my mind and heart have been in the weaving arena even if my fingers have been firmly anchored to the keyboard.
Since the holidays and outside my preparation for the presentation on Hill Master Weaver Program, I have edited six weaving projects. This is where fiber-Zelig kicks in. Did you see the Woody Allen film Zelig? Here is a teaser clip: http://youtu.be/fsjt-lNtSfg
In the movie Allen plays a human chameleon – a man who takes on the characteristics of anyone he is near. This is how I feel when I edit a weaving project. Every time I delve deeply into a structure (so I can effectively edit), I fall in love, and my whole weaving priority list changes. The real irony is that the more I edit the longer my list of “must weaves” gets while my weaving time diminishes . . . ah, life!
Anyway, I was just working on a piece about sprang, and I needed some reference books. I looked online, but the Sprang bible – Peter Collingwood’s The Techniques of Sprang, wasn’t available except for copies selling for hundreds of dollars and our Guild library is only available during meetings. So, I did what I always do when I need resources or information or help or guidance – I called Ute!! My neighbor and friend Ute Bargmann is a weaving encyclopedia herself, but she also has the most AMAZINGLY complete weaving reference library you could imagine. Anyway, Ute said that I should come by, and that if she couldn’t find anything she would call me before I left. I drove the 15 minutes to her house to find this:
Not only Collingwood’s book, but Carol James’, Helen Skowronski’s , A German sprang book by Gerhardt-Wenzky, A sprang frame and multiple examples of sprang Ute had woven!!! What more could a person ask?? I wish every weaving enthusiast had an Ute!
In the hands-on fiber news – I am almost finished winding warps for a class I am going to teach in Michigan in March. Since these warps are the only contact my fingers have had with lovely yarn lately, I have been having a ball. It is pretty great to assemble experimental color combos, and see them come to life all at once in a class.
One more to go . . . any suggestions?
Susan
I’ve no what you’re going to weave with these, but you’ve got some lovely ones. The first one looks especially interesting to me. How about light teal, burnt sienna, & metallic gold, or dirty peach, and grass (old sofa) green, and a touch of royal blue? Maybe you have to be inside my eyelids to appreciate the intrigue of these combinations, and then, they might be dreadful. I didn’t know you travel to teach
Susan
above, no idea
Elisabeth Hill
Oooooh – dirty peach and old sofa green with a wee bit of royal sounds so good to me. I am going to do a wrap and post it. Thanks Susan, I love your palette so . . . lucky me Avalanche color ideas!
I loved a warp I did with dirty peach (can dirty peach be matte apricot?) and a bluish silver . . . sadly the student who got that warp wasn’t quite as thrilled as I was with it.
I have been doing a bit of travel teaching and it has been a ball so far. The thing I like most is that weaving guilds tend to be off the beaten path, so I get to see parts of states that I wouldn’t otherwise see. Also, weavers are really great people no matter where they are geographically
I send warps out to the students well in advance of the class. I do it completely randomly with the notion that one person might get a color combination that they love, another person might get something they didn’t know they liked, but will come to love and another will get a warp they hate, but that will just spur them on to wind something in their own palette. Just a theory, but I’m sticking to it:)