robknits

Tapestry tools

Little by little, I have been trying to get the room I designated as my studio in order.  Things were piled up, unassembled, unpacked boxes are under tables, etc etc.  So it was not an environment conducive to getting things dones.  So a bit at a time I cleared some floor space.  I put a tiny tv that used to be in my kitchen in my old house in a corner. The studio is still not ready for prime time, or publicly posted photographs, but I have started spending time in there.  If I spend time in front of the tv in the den, I either knit or just slouch there feeling bored.  If I turn on the tv in the studio, I end up playing with the materials in the studio.  So since I have been wanting to weave tapestries, I picked up the small Hagen loom I have, which already had a warp on it, and just began playing, using scraps of weft from earlier projects.  Here is the scraps basket:

 

Then I began playing with tools.  In my tapestry classes, we used ordinary dinner forks to beat the weft once it is placed.  I have tried some other beaters:  this wood one from Schacht for example.  But I didn't particularly like how it felt.  Kathe Todd-Hooker, a tapestry weaver with an interesting shop, now has a manufacturer add weights to dinner forks.  You can see them in her video.  But I dunno -- I guess while I like the idea of improvisation, I also like nice tools.

When I was in the latest tapestry weaving workshop at the Southwest School, I found another beater on a shelf.  I really liked using it, so I decided I needed to find out who sold it.  I don't remember how I discovered it, but it turns out that Lacis carried it.  So I ordered it, and it arrived earlier this week.  I really like using it, and the size (really the spacing of the tines) works well with the warp EPI I tend to use.  So I turned on the tv (barely visible from where I sit), and I began to just randomly weaving using scraps from the basket and my new beater.

Nothing gorgeous is resulting, but that is OK.  I am just going to continue to weave, and will experiment with colors, and knots, and lines.  It is like knitting a simple sock for me at this point -- I am doing the tapestry equivalent of mindless knitting.  And soon I will tackle getting a warp on the big loom and starting a tapestry with a bit more of a design and a goal.  In fact, I can use this little random tapestry to practice some of the techniques I want to use on the larger one.  Knitters call it swatching.  Weavers call it sampling. 

As I cleaned up the desk where the small loom sits, I found the tapestry I did in last month's workshop.  And it turns out I like it a lot more than I did when I finished it.  The colors are nice and subtle in their variations, perhaps more than shows on the computer monitor.  And the little improvisation I did with the remaining warp is kind of interesting as well.  I have decided that til I block my finished tapestries, I should at least pin them to a cork board, rather than leave them in a jumble somewhere.  So that is a project for the near future as well.

Temperatures are in the 90s and there is still no rain.  I wa trying to plant some groundcover (that will survive drought) on Sunday.  I have planted in that part of the yard before (more of the groundcover, in fact) but this time when I dug in my shovel I discovered about 2 inches of soil on top of hard limestone.  I moved over -- same thing.  I managed to find spots to plant two of the pots of Asiatic jasmine (and rake up live oak detritus) before the heat got to me and I spent the rest of the day in the house with a wet washcloth on my head.  I still have to plant a few more pots of Asiatic jasmin.  If I can find a place to plant it, it will eventually grow over in those areas with just an inch or two of soil over the limestone.  But it was a graphic illustration of a geological fact here:  my part of San Antonio is located where the Balcones escarpment  and the Edwards Plateau meet, and also meet up with what's called Houston black clay. 

Limestone, found in the Hill Country and much of central Texas, is a sedimentary rock formed through a process of precipitation of calcite and other minerals.

Caliche, a calcium carbonate, also has great reserves in Texas and is commonly used in the manufacture of Portland cement, the most common general cement

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Building-San-Antonio-Limestone-is-still-a-873842.php#ixzz1KebQcuCU

So I have limestone, caliche, and black clay in my garden.  Limestone plus a common ingredient of coment and black clay. And the black clay is where I am lucky.  Sigh.  I also put in some Katie ruellia.  Someone warned me it could be invasive.  We can only hope.

Drought

I still haven't figured out who we need to appease to get some rain around here.  This is a summary from a Texas-based meteorologist's Facebook page:

San Antonio... 

 

March 2011 was the 2nd driest March at San Antonio with 0.01

inches of rain... and the 12th driest October to March... with

4.22 inches of rain from October 2010 to March 2011. January

to March 2011 rainfall was the 40th driest January to March 

at San Antonio since 1871... with 3.16 inches of rain... 2.14

inches below normal for January to March. 

 

The worst drought in 44 years, or so this news story says.   West Texas is on fire, with the latest fire already having burned half a million acres.  No fires (yet) near San Antonio but it is so dry.  I am watering the new shrubs and my pots by hand.  This weekend I am going to buy some soaker hoses, which we are allowed to use under current water restrictions.  I am going to have to think about rock gardens.  Or carpet.  I have decided not to put in a vegetable garden, even in pots.

Other droughts show signs of ending.  I did a crepe paper collage of the scene I described a couple of entries back, of a spring green tree and a cardinal on a wire against the sky.  Now to reimagine it as a tapestry.  This one might go on my big floor loom, and that would be the first time I put a warp on that one.  The one I have is the larger one in this picture, which is from a catalog.  I am used to working on the smaller size, which is the 24" wide model.  I bought the 40" model, which was only about $40 more, figuring it would be more versatile.  Which it will be, but silly me has been a bit intimidated about putting a warp on it.  The first thing I have to do (tonight maybe) is hold a ruler against the top horizontal board and the lower horizontal board and mark the inches.  It's the same process as putting a warp on the smaller loom, but the larger size of the frame might make it (or me) clumsier.  But I won't know til I give it a try.  The size of the collage I did will be a good size to work this tapestry, I think, giving me room to work the techniques I want for the leaves and for the cardinal.  And I am thinking of weaving all of it -- leaves on the trees, bird, and sky -- in shapes. That is, even if the sky will be blends of light grays and blues, I can weave it in wedge-shaped sections, which will add some movement to the large light gray area. The idea of weaving the abstracted green area of the tree gave me the idea -- I will weave abstracted leaf shapes, and continue that into the sky portion of the tapestry. 

Working full time makes weekends valuable.  Two weekends ago I was traveling.  Last weekend I spent in bed.  That means this Saturday has too many conflicting obligations.  Nice ones, but still, I am going to have to choose.  I was going to go to Seguin, Tx, about 40 minutes away, to the first Yellow Rose Fiber Festival.  Then a colleague announced he is having an open house tomorrow afternoon when his neighborhood, King William, becomes a focus for one of our Fiesta activities.  And another invited me to visit a local nursery with her tomorrow, where I can buy more shrubs to put in my wizened yard.  I decided I really don't need to buy more fiber, spindles or yarn.  We all know that.  I don't need to buy, I need to act.  So ... the garden center for soaker hoses, so that my new xeriscapable shrubs can get the water they need this first year, so that they will be able to withstand next year's drought.  Some other xeriscaping plants for the bare dirt section of my yard (and ditto on the soaker hoses).  And a visit to King William in the afternoon.  The rest of the weekend will be spent planting, watering (according to water-saving guidelines), weaving and knitting.

Because the knitting drought shows signs of ending too.  I have to add another cardi wip to the pile (the Que Sera) but I did sit and knit for a while on the Arwen wrap. 

Flu-ette, flu-illa, une petite flu

Actually, I think it is a cold with ambitions.  I got little baby versions of flu symptoms -- a low fever for just a couple of hours, achy bones but only for a day -- but boy do I sound like I have a cold.  I spent the weekend in bed, and now apparently my ears are filled with cement, but my energy levels are already back up.  Last night I tried collapsing on the couch after work and got bored.  Not bored enough to pick up any of my WIPs though, but I think that is because they would have required some thought, to remember where I was and what I was doing.  I am going to try to go through them tonight, figure all that out, and have them ready and waiting for some knitting urges.

I straightened out all my weaving yarns, so I am ready to get going there as well.  I was just going to improvise something but might need a bit more of an idea to get started.  Today as I left the house for work there was a brilliant blue sky, spring green leaves on the trees, and a brilliant red bird on a wire.  So tonight I might start weaving something like that.  Just to play.  Or maybe I will make a collage of it, play with it on the computer, and then play.  But then it is no longer improvisational, is it?

To keep me honest, here's a list of the WIPS to get to:

• the Featherweight cardi.  I recently got an update to the pattern from the designer, which might have served as a push to get this done.
• the kimono cardi in the scrumptious yarn.  As usual, I got through it very quickly until I hit a spot that required some other kind of effort, in this case sewing two teeny tiny shoulder seams.
• I suddenly remembered Sausalito.

So with not much effort I could have 3 cardis done.  Yeah, well.  We'll see what happens, OK?

 

 

 

 

 

Art skills

I took my courage in my hands and signed up for another drawing class for the summer term at the Southwest School of Art.  Their blurb for the intro level class is that drawing is a matter of eye-hand coordination and can be taught.  I do think of drawing as a tool.  I want to be able to "take notes" of the things I see. Of course, it would help develop my skills if I tried drawing somewhere other than in class.  It does require practice.  I stopped carrying the little sketchbook I bought, because I found myself very self-conscious about taking it out and trying to draw.  I take pictures instead, now that I have a phone that takes pictures.  But then I ought to try drawing from the pictures.  Anyway, another attempt at improving my drawing skills. Due to the schedule, I am taking the intro class again (Saturday mornings) which is fine. 

My other plan is to warp a couple of the tapestry looms at home.  Just to play, to be improvisational, and to keep weaving.  Tommye Scanlin, a tapestry weaver and teacher, has been keeping tapestry diaries to keep herself weavng every day, and also has just posted about a challenge she set herself.  So in a small way I would like to do something similar. 

And for the next two weekends there are two fiber festivals happening locally.  The first is happening at the Old Oaks Ranch this Saturday, where they will be shearing alpacas and spinning directly from bunnies. That's in Wimberly.  Next weekend is the first Yellow Rose Fiber Festival in Seguin.  I think I will be working on planting in my yard this weekend, trying to move it from bare dirt to something interesting, but I do think I will drive to Seguin (less than an hour from my house) next Saturday.  The organizer said she has never had a successful sales day on the Sunday of a weekend festival, so instead she planned this for Friday and Saturday.  So I had to tell her, while she was trying to drum up enrollment for the classes, that the classes I wanted met on Friday, and I was going to be at work myself.  So we will see what they do with next year's scheduling. 

It still has not rained.  I think it last rained in January, or maybe early February.  Even with water restrictions, we are allowed to water new plantings, and I will be using buckets and handheld hoses to try to keep things alive.  I think I have already mentioned that even plants good for xeriscaping need water to get established.  We really need rain.  Two weeks ago, I swear, a thunderstorm cell moved east from Mexico, split about an hour west of here, with part of the storm passing north of us and part passing south.  I don't know what we did, but somebody really pissed off the local rain gods.  Anyone know what rain gods eat?  Gotta figure out what (or who) to sacrifice.

 

LIVE, from New York...

I am back in New York.  A conference in Philadelphia led to a visit to my mother in New Jersey led to a few days in New York at my sister's.  While in Philadelphia I was totally unaware of a Sheila Hicks exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art there.  Rats.  I would have liked to see it.  I have become a rather passive traveler, and no longer do the research before a trip that I used to do that led to all kinds of interesting experiences.  I will have to be more careful.  I did however check to see what was on exhibit at the Museum of Art and Design in NY and lucked out: a tapestry exhibit!  What's more, the tapestries on exhibit were designed by Judy Chicago and woven by Audrey Cowan.  So they had Chicago's drawings, paintings and cartoons next to the completed tapestries.  The two women had met when Cowan wove the table cloth for the Eleanor of Acquitaine place setting for Chicago's The Dinner Party, and they went on to work on these tapestries.  There are a series of portraits of male heads, and a large tapestry called The Fall.  You can see some of the images here.  At one point I think I was making the guard nervous: I was standing very very close to The Fall, with my head tilted as far to one side as I could get it, so I could see how it was woven.  I was very impressed with the "painterly" way Cowan wove with color to achieve the human form in the tapestries.  A very very interesting exhibit.  And of course I bought the catalog to the exhibit, since it has some very nice reproductions of sections of the tapestry, good for study.

Today I walked down to Spring St., in Soho, where Kate's Paperie is now located.  I found them years ago when they were on 13th St, very close to my sister's place.  While they have all kinds of beautiful paper goods, what is really unique about their store is their stock of handmade art papers.  I splurged and bought several sheets of gorgeous handmade and handpainted papers that I am hoping to use to jazz up my very boring, very Lowes/HomeDepot kitchen cabinets.  I am going to take pictures of the project as I go along -- it is going to be a sort of DIY, decoupage, collage project.  The saleswoman at the store kept suggesting that I frame one of the pieces of paper, and not ruin it by putting glue on it.  Hmm.  That's kind of like buying fabric that is too beautiful to cut and sew.  We'll see.

Finally, the only picture I took, while walking along the High Line after brunch on Sunday.  You can see a little tiny bit of the Hudson River in the background.