Direct Warp Using Warp Board

Yesterday I tried something I've been thnking about since I put 18 feet of warp on my 10" Cricket rigid heddle a month ago.

 I love direct warping, but it has always been difficult for me due to the space needed. I've had to take over my dining table and the length of my living room, creating a blockade for however long it took me to walk threads 80-100 times from loom to the warping peg. Limbo skills were required to get to the bathroom.

I realized that I should be able to set up the warping board (mine is good for up to 10 yards) so that the footprint required would be much smaller for direct warping of a very long warp.

The experiment was a success! I can now warp using only the table in my basement laundry room right next to my studio space. No more trudging upstairs, shlepping an extra table, loom, cones of yarn. No more blocking living space and feeling I had to hurry to wind that warp. I can now pause when I need a break.   Behold:

Saori weavers call these 'fingers' or tabs. It's a little fiddly and slow, but I love beginning a weaving this way and I love that it makes use of what is often waste yarn.

National Spinning + Weaving Week

What a glorious autumn day here in Indiana! It's all the cliched wonder of a cloudless blue sky and russet leaves.  AND I just discovered it's National Spinning and Weaving Week.

On some level, I must have known it was coming - why else would I have spent some time last week turning this noisy hooligan of a space:

into this serenely waiting space:

And fitting, too, that I will be teaching a new Riverwools  weaving workshop at week's end, Adventurous Weaving / Freestyle Techniques for the Rigid Heddle Loom, a Saori inspired workshop. So many people have gotten rigid heddle looms here, I thought it would be a wonderful way of passing along the Saori joy. We'll be having creative fun doing a sampler with inlay experiments and and clasped weft work.  Here are some pictures from the sampler I made as I thought about doing this workshop.

I believe I will bring my rigid heddle loom up from my basement studio and weave outside today!

Where will you be spinning and weaving* this week??

Namaste!

*if  reports on such activity involve strong drink, must also include a spinning wheel, drop spindle or loom.

Arts Illiana Spring Exhibition

Last Friday, Arts Illiana (a local non-profit for the support of art in our region) opened its Spring Exhibition.  I'm thrilled to have several things there this season.

 

Textile Jewelry (pins & necklaces), Gnome Pots

Breach (2011) Cotton, silk, wool, woven, stitched, felted, 12" X 12"

Angel of Golden Apples and Small Green Dreams (2011) 

Wool, woven, felted, stitched, found pin

Finally, I'm very excited to have the first display of an Earthpeace Banner, the community weaving project I've been doing with the Saori loom for which I received a state grant.  This is Banner No. 2.

 

I really need to create a whole post on the Earthpeace Banner Project (and update that page!). It's been an amazing experience and I have probably had more than 100 people, mostly children, weave on the two banners.  Banner No. 3 will be started this weekend at the Earth Day celebration out at St.-Mary's-of-the-Woods.  I will be presenting Banner No. 1 to the White Violet Center for Eco-Justice and set up the Saori loom for public weaving during the event.

Maybe I'll see you there!