Second Wind Farm and llama wool

My friend Tim has created an October tradition called "Chubbs Farm" bringing together friends, pie, llamas, and his family dog, Chubbs. His parents moved to a farm in central New Jersey some years ago and they now have four llamas, six hens, two kittens and the aforementioned pug Chubbs. It's a pretty glorious day for all, especially the "trip to the country" feel about it. The llamas had been shorn in spring and I bought some second-cuts (the fiber cut from the second passing of the shears) from all four llamas. Tim's mom has the first cuts separated out by llama (including photos of each) and it was awesome to know who it came from and to see the color and fiber differences. If anyone is looking for beautiful raw llama wool in first or second cuts, let me know!

Eduardo is a cream color (look at that face!) and a Heavy Wool llama.

Carbon Footprint is a black llama with a white chest (a little tuxedo!). He is a Silkie llama.

Jim-E (Extra Extra Read All About It) is a multi colored fellow- white with a brown/black saddle. He is a Silkie llama.

Clemente is a reddish brown reverse appaloosa. He is a Heavy Wool llama.

I'm planning on felting tea cozies with this wool. (I'm also hoping this inspires me to start felting again.) The new apartment is much much colder than the last, and the tea cools down so fast! We've also gone through an enormous amount of tea already, and have found a favorite tea shop. Premium Steap at 111 North 18th Street in Philadelphia was recommended to us by some dear tea-loving friends, and the woman who runs it is really knowledgeable and helpful.

Soft Heathered Blanket

After weaving a pair of double weave blankets a year ago for two weddings, I received a request for one more in custom colors. The customer wanted a mix of blues, purples and one green to be muted by greys, creating a soft heathered look. The warp is 100% mercerized cotton and the weft is charcoal cotton/wool fleece. The blanket measures 48 x 72". I loved the finished look to the cloth- muted, but still colorful (grey is one of my favorite colors!) I sent it off a few weeks ago, just as the seasons have turned. Although I am still having trouble with my sticking shaft, this blanket went much more smoothly than the first two, and I am thinking of making myself a blanket in 100% wool- perhaps in orange and cream. We'll see!

Time Tapestries

Here is what became of the small tapestry frames I was making- four infographic time tapestries, each representing four different spans of days. Each color represents a different activity, with certain colors being threaded throughout the series. The yellow-gold, for instance, represents eating. And the darker purple/navy represent sleep. The warp was calculated for it's full capacity of yarn and then divided into hours based on how many days I would try to fit into each frame. One hour was about 1.5" of yarn. So each activity was recorded, measured, and woven into each frame.


October 13-18: The first was done over a wedding weekend in Bucks County, PA. The turquoise here represents socializing, the cream hygiene like brushing teeth, showering, etc, and the orange dancing, or exercise. So the third day from the top is the wedding day, made obvious by the gigantic amount of time getting ready and then hours of eating followed by dancing.




October 27-November 1: The second tapestry was made during another wedding weekend in Newport, Rhode Island, only two weeks after the first. I enjoyed changing the palette each time, seeing the different relationships between colors and the random patterns made with each quantity of time.




November 9-16: The third tapestry was made during a hum-drum week in New York, with the gray representing the workday, a splash of ocre for meals, and the last two days filled with turquoise socializing and brick television/movie watching. Must have been a cold weekend!




November 23-28: The last tapestry so far in this series was done over Thanksgiving weekend while visiting my grandparents in Yorktown, Virginia. Full days of turquoise socializing peppered with navy naps (in the second and fifth days) and a whole lot of food (yellow). My favorite holiday!



I believe I'll continue this series- the frames were really satisfying to make, and weaving on the subway is a lot of fun. And I still have a lot of yarn left over!

Woolen City : Wearable Architecture

The last weeks of 2010 were a whirlwind of working. I've been meaning to post all the works bit by bit, and here's the first. This is one I've been working on for quite some time, and I greatly underestimated how much work it would be. It's a Woolen City: wearable wire wrapped in grey wool yarn. After constructing the armature, I built up pyramids, domes, towers, skyscrapers, caves and arches. Each bit of wire was then wrapped in grey wool yarn, creating a slightly fuzzy line drawing of architecture. It's a wearable urban structure that has just a bit of coziness from the yarn, and the citizen wearing it can feel the scale of a city/citizen relationship shift.

Architecturally Woven Scarves

After a hectic end of the year, I am finally ready to get back to daily life- seeing friends, cooking, eating good food, and setting up shop. I have opened one here with architecturally handwoven scarves made of wool, merino, cotton and tencel. It has been a long time in the making, but they are now ready!

It is amazing to see them all together, ready to be wrapped around necks! Winter in the northern hemisphere, of course, is about halfway over, but cool days are still ahead! The wine & dark heather gray scarf is a sleeker, shorter scarf, while the grape & heather gray scarf is ready to wrap multiple times around your neck. The cerulean and gray scarf is reversible and the widest of the bunch.

I wish I could keep them all, but they must go out into the world to keep others warm! For more photos, visit my flickr at www.flickr.com/spaceandstructure.

Building Tapestry Frames

In all the time that I went without a floor loom (a sort of two-year creative desert for other reasons) I very often thought and dreamed about weaving. But somehow I was holding myself back, restricting my thoughts on what I could and could not do in regard to weaving and so I focused on other projects. Since the Baby Wolf floor loom arrived, it has seldom sat vacant. It also seems that I have been weaving just as much off-loom, from my P2P piece, Weaving the Grasses of America series, and now a still unnamed series in progress. I am weaving more than ever!

Another revelation has been tapestry. It snuck up on me- I have dabbled with it from time to time, but it hadn't stolen my heart until recently. Portable weaving! To start this next series, I built four frames from 1/2x2"s using a mitre box, drill, clamps, brads, wood glue and my weaving stool as a workbench. It is time for me to start using the woodshop down the hall! The first two frames above were for working out the kinks- a bit of uneven drilling went away with practice. I'd love to use a drill press for the following frames. After assembling the pieces, I stained them with the same stain I used for the Weaving the Grasses of America tapestry loom I built and then warped the frames with cotton carpet warp.

I'd like to keep the project under wraps for now, but the last picture shows the yarn I will be using, sent to me by my lovely aunt Beth- she has been so generous with yarn!

the weaving stool acts as my work bench for now

the frames in progress

deliciously colored tapestry wool

Pics to Picks: A lesson in work ethic

Deadlines. I have always had a shaky relationship with them. Throughout my schooling, I would procrastinate until the night before, then try to pull everything off in a matter of hours, with no regard for sleep. As I've gotten older, I've pushed myself to start earlier and earlier, but somehow I am continually guilty of procrastination. I am also guilty of overachieving. "As I've brainstormed and sketched for quite some time now, using up a bit of time that I should have been working, should I tone down my idea, make it smaller? How about postcard size? No, that would be too easy. Let's go for a hearty 17x24" (43x61cm) needle woven piece. Only have two weeks? No problem! I can do that!" Sadly, usually time will win. Part of the project was to do as much as we can, or to go as far as we wanted to. If I weren't so guilty of procrastination in my day to day life, I think I could have gotten away with it. But I have to come clean. I would have loved to finish. But the deadline has passed! Must move forward, post what I have to show for myself!

After sketching ideas for each image sent, I decided to use this one as a starting point. I didn't want to just copy it in weaving form, but I loved the diagonal lines. I thought of tapestry, huge chunky twills, then of kente cloth. If I wove strips of cloth, only to sew it into a sort of twill? Then I dreamed of ikat details, to mimic the light in this photo. An ikat kente cloth of greys. As I worked to get my tea towels off my loom, I realized I would not have enough time to get another warp on the loom. A change of plan. I could make a frame out of wire and weave onto it. A sort of needle weaving. This would also be a great way to test out this idea, as I have a neckpiece in the wings needing finishing, and I have been thinking of weaving onto it. I did my work to a marathon of Murder She Wrote and at lunch during work, carrying it on the subway. Another lesson in space- the smaller the better on the subway. So here it is, in all its unfinished glory.

Using wire as a shaft

llot llov light love

I came across these lights in researching wire and wool for a work in progress, and had to share them. They are from llot llov - a collaboration with la la berlin. Wire can be such a beautiful sketching tool, and of course I am partial to the knitting and wrapped wool. Such a delicious mix of hard and soft, light and grey, sweet and distressed.

What is on the progress list for me currently is wire and wool- it has been slow going since summer 09, but i have a deadline of 4 weeks from today, so I have hit a stride. However, after wrapping all the wire to make the connections between pieces, it occurred to me that a soldering iron might make my life much easier, not to mention quicken my pace significantly. So, it's off to soldering research for me! I love adding tools to my collection. The more tools and skills that are mastered, the more precise an idea can be executed... must keep learning! there is so much to learn.