Sampling

I’ve wound a warp holding these two yarns together and am doing the parallel threading exercise from Robyn Spady’s class on weaving twills.

I chose this rather neutral deep teal for the first pattern,

and was really pleased with how the colors reacted with each other.

My next yarn was a light yellow.  Can you say dud?!!  I completely forgot about keeping the values in the same range.

So I did the pattern again with a yellow of equal value.  Much better!

The last pattern I wove today was with a deep purple and it was really successful.  I’ll weave the next pattern with it too.  I have five more patterns in the exercise and the last two are with two colors and two shuttles.  I wove with a solid warp in class and like the parallel two color warp much better.  It’s a challenge to thread and I made two errors, one which I caught and fixed and one that I missed.  The key will be figuring out a way to proof the threading before I ever start to weave.

The treadling on my direct tie-up loom is really a challenge.  Each pic requires two feet.  The chart is the page on the right.  I don’t know how long it will take me to complete this exercise and I didn’t want to tie up one of my two Gilmores.  It’s okay for a workshop once a year, but just once a year.

This is what the threading looks like, 180 ends and they’re traveling up and down without repeating in the 60-thread sequence.  The results are worth it but I have a ways to go before I’m totally comfortable.

I have a couple more towels left to weave on Arthur and then I’ll warp Maudie Mae for the next set, freeing this loom up for Robyn’s eight-shaft exercises.  When you take a class from Robyn Spady, you absolutely get your money’s worth and more.

Yesterday was my last day at the High Desert Museum for the summer season.  The grounds are sprinkled with beautiful bronze statuary and this guy caught my eye as I was walking out to the living history area.  I hadn’t noticed him before, nestled in the plants.  He almost looks real!  I told Linda that I’ll do special events if she needs me but otherwise, I will wash and hang up my costume until next summer.

I’ve changed my mind about which prints to subject for the member show in December.  The deadline is early, October 15th, a little more than two weeks away.  I found the prospectus today and printed it out so I could clarify the objective.  It says, “A6 Artist Members are challenged to create original prints and artists books that elicit a feeling of deja vu in the viewer - prompting them to wonder, “Have I seen that before?”  I’m going with this pair.  The Weaving Guild’s holiday show is one month away and I need to spend as much time weaving as I can.