My Fiber Slaps in Handwoven

My Taqueté Fiber Slap Bracelets

These are my taqueté slaps that consumed my life for the first couple of months of this year.  They were designed and woven for an article in the May/June 2012 Handwoven magazine that I wrote.   These are great bracelets, which slap around the wrist, since they are light, colorful and fit pretty much any size wrist.   I designed a simple repetitive pattern for the bracelets which used three shuttles; silver, turquoise and black yet appeared to have three shades of turquoise through an optical illusion.   By swapping the positions of the three colors; six different bracelets are possible with the same shuttles.  I also did a few from different parts of the color wheel.    I felt like a mom sending her kids off to pre-school when I mailed them off to Colorado for their photo shoot.  They should be home again soon.

Now, only one more big project and I can get back to tapestry weaving.  I have several ideas churning through my brain.  Is it time for another addition to my butt series or perhaps a poem in silk or....ah I can feel the excitement increasing...

Not Much Studio Time

Not too much time in the studio this month since I am working on the catalog for the Pacific Portals exhibit which will be held in Long Beach in conjunction with Convergence.  The exhibit will be up for two months at the Long Beach Public Library - Main Library.  This exhibit is the American Tapestry Alliance's unjuried small format tapestry exhibit.  It's a great exhibit to see since there are tons of tapestries in one place and the wide variety of images and techniques is astonishing.

I am working on the photos of the tapestries right now which is quite fun since I get to see all 150+ tapestries up close and personal.  It is interesting to see the various ways that the tapestries have been finished on the back.  I see them when I photograph them as well as when I tweak them in photoshop as well as when I insert them into the catalog.  I figure I will have them all these memorized real soon!

Our tapestry group submitted a group entry called Pacific Portholes... here is a shot of my tapestry; not the catalog shot.  It's called Three Sisters on Vacation.  I was trying for a cartoon look of me and my two older sisters peeking out of the portfholes.

All of our tapestries are white with two blue stripes and all have portholes of course.   We were limited in size to 5 inches in one direction and between 5 to 10 in the other.   Mine is close to five by ten. The others are more square.   It's pretty lumpy tapestry since the portholes poof out. It is woven at two different setts, with the white at the top and bottom at about 8 epi woven in a basket weave technique.  The portholes are at 16 epi woven with silk singles.

It was fun experimenting with different setts in one piece.  I would have preferred a bigger piece because then greater detail in the faces would have been possible.  I wove the portals from the right to the left and each got better and better as I figured out how best to handle the different wefts. I find this always to be true; by the end of any piece with a new technique; the later parts are better than the former.   I thought about going back and redoing the ones finished earlier but thought better of it.  

Sense of Place

Empty Spot in Time

I have spent the month of March considering 'sense of place' for my small tapestries and beetle weavings.  I never have been satisfied with how they were framed.  All small pieces need a way to preserve and protect their spot on the wall so the eyes of the viewer go to the piece and not be distracted by other things nearby. It is so easy for small pieces to just get lost and be overlooked.  I am happy to say I have had several breakthroughs on this issue.  My beetles now have a new mounting method and I have a new way to weave small tapestries that I will try out for ATA's Small Tapestry International Exhibit - Outside the Line.    More on both of these later...

Today I wanted to share how excited I am about this tapestry's new sense of place.  This tapestry is my first tapestry poem and the start of a series of works that combine both weaving and creative writing.  I have had this piece framed in several ways and never been satisfied until today.  I think this new frame is a 'keeper'.

I built the frame myself from small pieces of wood which came from an old printing press.  It was like a giant puzzle trying to figure out the best way to put the pieces together to form the frame around the tapestry.  I wanted to minimize the number of actual cuts I would have to make  and not make the frame look too uniform nor too busy.   A number of pieces of wood had numbers on their ends so if you look on the edge of the frame you can see them.  I also cut some small ends off and had the numbers show on the face of the frame.  The wood blocks play well with the colorful blocks which form the letters of a line of poetry woven in the tapestry.

Where did I come up with idea?  I found a box of the wood printing press pieces in my stash.  They had belonged to my Mother who had collected them from somewhere. She collected 'stuff' and had everything organized in labeled shoe boxes in her closet.   This box went from her stash to mine where it sat for seven years without being opened until this year.   I often find it hard to use things of my Mother's since I would rather treasure them than use them up.  But the line of the poem which I wove into this tapestry, was one I wrote when I was a kid.  My Mother has treasured my writings and had kept them.  After she passed away, I received not only her stash of yarn and art supplies but also a box filled with my writings; poems, journals, books... from throughout my life.  What a treasure!  

Framing a tapestry of a poem that my Mother treasured for a lifetime with the woodblocks from her stash seemed the natural thing to do.

A Sense of Place

I am spending lots of time finishing this month.  My to-do list is long.    I've got seven pieces completed in the last week which are now ready to hang. But I am most excited about one that isn't even on my 'to-do' list.

I am piecing together a frame for one of my favorite tapestries. I have had it framed three ways and never been satisfied. This new frame is made of small pieces of wood from an antique used printing press. There are few pieces in the same color or condition.  Many of the pieces have numbers on the ends.   I found a box of these pieces in my closet.  They came from my Mother's stash.  

Having put all the wooden pieces together to fit around the tapestry with a few cuts here and there, I am now carefully gluing the pieces together.  The shuttles, antique iron and block of wood are keeping everything straight.  Once glued, I'll need to mount it on a board and attach the tapestry.

This will probably take another week or so to finish up.  But so far so good.  The blocks of wood work nicely with the blocks of letters in the tapestry. I do believe this tapestry has finally found its sense of place.

Intentional Wedge Weave

My Wedge Weave Pin

 I took a wonderful workshop this week sponsored by the Southern California Handweavers Guild on Four Selvedge Wedge Weave taught by Michael Rhode.  

What a fabulous weekend.  Michael is a great instructor on a tricky topic.  If you have a chance to take this workshop - do so.  You will not regret it.

This is the first time I have intentional tried to weave a wedge weave.  In my early attempts at tapestry weaving I often got wedges without intending to...

Intentional Wedge Weave

The photo above is my first attempt at wedge weave  - and it's now a charming little pin reminding me of a distorted rainbow.  I think all 17 of us in the class successfully completed our own wedge weave pin.  Nothing better than coming out of a workshop with something completed!

I also had time to finish a mini tapestry which included both wedge weave and regular tapestry. This second piece is about six inches long with plain weave in the middle with wedge weave all around in indigo dyed silk. I just love the charming little scalloped edges that resulted from the wedge weave technique.

At the next tapestry meeting, I'll be warping the cute little loom I bought from Michael with that four selvedge technique I learned...

I know, I know, just what I need, another loom!