Summer Time and the living is great-part 1

It’s been two weeks since my last post. I am enjoying my summer time. No deadlines unless they are mine. Doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot to do just that I am doing them in my own way in my own time, my own schedule, my own hours. Even spent one day out while Spencer went fishing. Tucked in my little tiny Lani mirrix, warped and wove beside a stream for a whole afternoon. The Lani says it’s a dedicated bead loom-gr, but to me it’s a perfect take along tapestry loom-that and a book and I am deliriously happy. It’s the beginning of another portrait of Chene. Looks huge, but the weaving is only a little less then 5 inches wide-maybe 7 inches tall. I adapted the loom by doing a continuous warp and then tied one of the warping bars that I don’t use between the sheds so I can weave faster. With one open shed I only need to pick one shed. I also had made small bars to go through the spring to stabilize the warps and hold them in place-just like the larger mirrix have. The whole loom fits in a very small book bag that’s about the size of a sheet of paper. I have no idea when I’ll finish it. Doesn’t matter! It’s meant to travel with me and be my entertainment when I travel or kill time while Spencer fishes.(Sort of a puzzle because he always throws them back. I don’t eat or cook fish.) This tapestry cartoon is a photo I took last Christmas of Chene when I was trying to tempt him into a walk in the rain on the beach. In a way it reminds me of the sly virgin in the Unicorn tapestries. He’s laying on a purple pillow that has edges of a tapestry(fake-Jacquard) loveseat.

Spencer helping with FFP so I get to weave more hours and he doesn’t feel guilty leaving to go fishing while I work. When he is not working on his EBay business or garage selling to find inventory. We spend a couple of days a week hitting sales. In another life I might have been a great picker. The sales were really good to me this week. I found 3 beautifully twined rugs(American Craft style) and a beautiful middle eastern storage bag that is both pile, flat weave and tapestry. The pile is so soft it’s fun to lay and sit on. It has a fringe on one side and you can see the back where it is folded back. The confusion in the photo comes from the kelim it is laying on. It’s colouring looks very dark, but actually has some turquoise in the pattern. I think it’s been wrapped and stored for a long time and I wonder if it will lighten as it is exposed to light making the pattern more distinct.

And, where I am at now-2/3 almost 3/4 of the way finished.

Before the turn--After the turn-back of the loom

The hardest part of this last 2 weeks has been worrying about turning “And He…” around the beams of the mirrix and not throwing the fell line and selvedges into unevenness. It’s really big and not as comfortable or as easy to turn as a smaller tapestry-21 inches wide. I found that If I wove fairly even across the fell line, inserted a Navajo batten with the sharp edge against the fell line, loosened the tension all the way, and used the batten as a two sided handle I could gently force the warps through the spring and the tapestry down and around to the back.(Very long run on sentence, but true) On the back of the loom the last picture of the 3 you can see weights hanging to hold the warps that I accidently cut with a spring loaded snips. The snips have been banished from the studio.

The order of things has been changed from the original post because the way I first had it wouldn’t publish to my blog. You’ll find more about Soumack after weft twining.

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Most all of the soumack outlining in the feathers is structural Soumack which means it is done along a fell line even if it is an eccentric fell line.

The Roman numerals in the clock face is vertical soumack that floats passes and is only controlled by where ever the next warp is that I let the soumack jump to. This type of soumack doesn’t have to go vertically. It can go diagonally, horizontally or vertically. It can zig zag back and forth over a solid area of weaving. Not the example of the back and forth in the pale green area next to the dark soumack line which is a structural soumack.

The quills of the 3 women’s feathers are structural soumack that has had the soumack twiners graded in different sizes-less or more to create the shaping and thickness of the quills. Under these feathers is another area of soumack—the outline of the puzzle piece that is under the bottom feather. This outline is both structural and vertical.

In the horizontal direction the line is structural soumack running along the fell line and then turns and moves vertically over several over several passes to become vertical soumack. To a certain extinct the width and thickness of the line can be controlled by the amount of passes that the vertical soumack passes over between encircling the warps.

This and That-Of Comic Books and Soumack

 Lately, I seem to be continualy surprising myself. In the last 2 weeks I have been on a Family trip to the  Bay area, managed to  weave more then I thought I would be able to, attended a Marc Adam’s Symposium-that I am still digesting, and managed to run through 5 major museums with Grandsons in tow+ Alcatraz-managed to sun burn my neck and back through 4 layers of T-shirt, scarf and heavy sports bra. Loved every second of it. My favourite place was the oh-so, tacky,unbelievable, so ethnocentric, confounding, laughable, mindboggling wax museum on Fisherman's Wharf. I thought I would never stop laughing and just being amazed about how these people were portrayed and sitting in front of Da Vinci’s last supper discussing it with Troy.

One evening in Alameda we went to see the Avengers with the Grandkids. Loved the renovated Alameda theater and all of the Art Deco frills that have been restored. It was designed by Timothy Ludwig Pflueger and built in 1932. I found that I have grown a little rusty on my comic book trivia. Spencer, of Alcatraz    course, knows everything possible to know about Spiderman. Major mistake on my part- Gotham City is Batman not Spiderman. Spiderman is NYC and DC not Marvel. I spent one evening on my I- pad researching old comic book hero's and heroines as a refresher.                Alameda Theater

Another Life time Ago:

The trivial amount of research brought back a lot of old thoughts and corundum's about my childhood. I wasn’t allowed to read fiction or see comic books. I later discovered the Public Library and realized that when I was home no one checked up on what I was reading and/or if the school and/or church approved or disapproved.

The Black Widow-from Wikipedia and Stan Lee, Don Rico; Tales of Suspense #52.First costume (and bouffant hairdo). From The Avengers #36 (Jan. 1967), art by Don Heck; Marvel Comics. By the time I pretty much grew up and went to WWC Natalya Romanov had the most incredible wardrobe imaginable-drawn, sewn and designed by me. Also borrowed from Wikipedia,1962;Journey into Mystery; marvel comics;created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby

I wasn’t allowed to read comic books when I was growing up-religious thing- again. BUT, my father had a hidden collection of comic books on the top shelf of the linen closet. I could just reach it if I stood on top of the space heater and didn’t tip the box too far so that it spilled into the bath tub. Those comic books fueled my love for animation and art that eventually lead to tapestry and the stylization that of my designs that I so love... I always wondered if he knew because I dropped a couple in the bath tub and put    

 Dad and Spike    them away wet.

                                                                      long road to nowhere and back

It was odd being nailed for reading Ivanhoe and Kenilworth by Scott and having to stay after school cleaning bathrooms as a penalty for reading the wrong book. I was in the 4th grade at the time.  When I did get  caught  it was heavily suggested to my parents that they should monitor my behaviour a little closer and come up with a fitting punishment.Usually more house work-not for reading-but the fact I shamed my parents by being called into the principals office.

I can still remember at a revival one of the Ministers suggesting that I would never reach heaven  at the second coming until I gave up my reading habits in front of 500 or 600 persons at the meeting. I had been caught under the stairwell reading an illicit book while hiding out from the revival meeting I was forced to attend as a school assignment by Mrs. Harrington and Mrs. Maclean-4th and 5th grade.  Mrs. Winters(English teacher-academy) did catch on  many years later and encouraged by  choosing to ignore it all.

      Thor-the comic book guy-fueled my interest in mythology another forbidden interest when I was growing up. The comic books  led me to research other things and a particular drawing style. Yea, probably not the best source, but My father gave me an Encyclopedia Britannica-Collegiate when I was in the second grade to help me with my home work. I blessed the door to door salesman a thousand/ million times  when I was growing up. Not only did I have the info to thumb through, but he showed me how to use an index. Totally low tech!

Serious stuff now-Tapestry Tech...

I think this section I am weaving best illustrates what  soumack is all about in pictorial tapestry-at least for me.

Soumack is basically done in 3 forms.

1. There is is what I call structural soumack, which is done along a fell line and becomes part of the weaving or the weaving itself. Best examples are Middle Eastern rugs and bags rugs.  Which is the patterned stripe in this picture. It actually becomes part of the main structure of the tapestry and is woven over by ensuing passes of plain weave or tapestry.Note in my sample above it is being done along the quill and shaft of the feather and around almost all of the petals of the flowers. The fell line is actually moving up at an angle that will support the lines of soumack that will create the quill and the shaft.

      To construct these lines I could have used an eccentric weft, but this would have created to problems I wanted to avoid. It would have increased the length of the float between two warps and perhaps looked loopy and created odd bulges  along the shaft  of the feather as the distance between warps became greater as the angle of the fell line increased as the angle of the fell line became greater. I REALLY NEEDD TO DIND SOME PICTURES OF THIS PROBLEM BEFORE I TEACH THIS CLASS AGAIN(#reminder to self). The second option would  have used many short burst of eccentric weaving along the fell line and  would still/could have a truncated bump or a very small slit between each new pass as it turned interrupting the smoothness of the line I was trying to weave.. Again increasing the chance of a loopy bumpy  look as the passes traveled up the fell line.

The biggest problem to deal with is that inherent in the eccentric weave structure is the problem of tension control and the chance of pull in on a steep angle somewhere in the tapestry as it is beaten down. It is almost impossible when doing several eccentric passes to use enough weft to both cover the warps and not create pull in problems as you continue to the weave the tapestry. The bubble has to be horrendously large and looks really terrible as you weave it in order to compensate when beaten against in future passes. The problems would most like become apparent many passes up from the original lines of eccentric weaving as areas of warp are pulled closer together. and the sides could pull in drastically  closest to the end of the eccentric pass. You would then need to un weave and try again or choose another technique-anyway or accept the problem.

By using structural soumack I can make the line look smoother then a woven line unless I split the weft which also would be too eccentric as it covers the hills and valleys of the turns along the fell line. I still need to carefully watch for pull in, but it is much more apparent and easier to correct then eccentric weaving. Where I place it it stays and one turn usually only controls the distance between 2 wraps of soumack. I can apply pressure to unsmooth places along the soumack and/or smooth the angle. Because of the nature of structural soumack. It doesn’t cause problems further up the weaving. Each twist of the soumack locks the line of soumack into place. The other great thing about this type of soumack is it creates  neutral shed and is a neutral shed.No problem with unruly wefts ending in the wrong shed and needing to be changed.

The other advantage is by controlling the size of the soumack weft bundle I can control the thickness of the line. In the brown and white soumack lines I am using 6 weft threads to create the major out lines of the shaft. The inside of the shaft or white is a pointed thinning line that thickens as it rises up the fell line. So in order to get the transition from smaller to larger, I started out with 2 threads of white in the pointed end then switched to 4  and then 6. in the first white layer of soumack. As I twine up the shaft with my initial 2 threads I can the soumack over the next layers of soumack by increasing the thickness with the over lay of the 2 soumack wefts on top of the larger bundles of soumack weft.

2.The second type of soumack is what I call a floating soumack or a vertical soumack. It rides on the surface of the tapestry floating over the tapestry wefts. The vertical grids in the lace on is this type of soumack. It is only controlled by the warps. Floating vertical soumack was used in the puzzle pieces and heart beat lines in red. In Too Little Too Late structural soumack was used on to create straight lines along many of the shapes. You can make the floating line thicker or thinner in look by going over one weft passes or fewer weft passes. SO, it is controlled by the warp and the length of the float to the next warp. It’s great for drawing very fine  lines and outlines on the surface of a tapestry. The one thing one needs to watch is that vertical soumack is either right handed or left handed depending on the directions of the turn.  What one needs to watch when using this form of Soumack is the size of the weft bundle. I purposely used larger weft bundles in the detail of Pax Chene to create texture and the soft look of the chenille bedspread. Generally to make the surface feel flat to the touch and so it doesn’t make a shadow is half of the weft bundle.

3.The third type of soumack is called long jump soumack. I have seen it in Turkish textiles the jumps between warps can be an inch or more and it is done very closely together across the fell line and creates a brocaded effect and a satiny look. Will discuss this next time as I start doing my handouts for a brocading class I am teaching-maybe-for a workshop that is still trying to decide which workshop they wish me to teach.

 

 

Chene is growing testy and bored and needs a walk!

Take care!

kathe

The pointy things always cause the problems

and the point is at the end of this blog

It’s amazing how much one can stuff into 2 weeks. I am little further along with my tapestry. No excuses  for the amount of weaving done. I am having a great time. I am delighted with the fact that I was able to weave 2-6 hours a day for most of the last two weeks. I am still on schedule for finishing by the middle to end of July.                                                        I still had time to work a little on finishing all-not all-some-there are many more to go- the small jobs in the remodel, get my new herb beds up and running, plus fill the other 3. We used 6 yards of compost gardening soil to fill them.The beds are taller then average by 4-6 inches.The path between the two beds I redid to make it safer and wider for  things like scooters and friends and students that have trouble walking and seeing. My metal gate with rays is finally hanging and being used. It will soon be turquoise.   I wanted Spencer to be able to garden in them easily without having to bend over too much.

       One of my goals is to plant  herb gardens with the dye plants that were used in medieval tapestries both for dyeing and symbolism. Not to actually dye with, but to be able to photograph and incorporate some of the pictures into tapestries-just for fun as a footnote to the long history of tapestry. Can hardly wait until I find an acanthus like woven in the Verdures.

 My other goal is to grow the fresh herbs I love to cook with. I set up my first not so perfect herb garden at my grandmother’s when I was about 8 and now I am 64. I love cooking with fresh herbs. Actually, I love to go out and smell the herbs. Spencer comes from a slightly different view he likes to grow vegetables as his father and Grandfather did. He has hills of potatoes scattered all over the yard, because it took us so long to get the new beds filled. His favourite things right now seem to be purple potatoes, limited amounts of tomatoes, onions, peppers, pumpkin for thanksgiving, and melons. Yes, we didn’t get our potatoes in by Good Friday-a Montana tradition or a Hooker family tradition... My other Gramma lived in Oregon and planted her garden as soon as she didn’t sink into the mud.

But best of all I have real flowers to work with in my tapestries.

About fiber for tapestry weaving. If I were going to manufacture the fiber for tapestry weaving I think I should try using Chene’s hair. It’s a beautiful black with parts of the undercoat being grey.  Poor Chene was up to 8.25 lbs-Now he weighs without the excess fur a tad under 6 lbs. He looked so miserable that I decided he needed his summer shearing. Figuring, if it didn’t warm up he could wear his sweater like he did last year.  So I removed the hair from his back and tummy, tail leaving only his mane  throat and leg banners. Some of the fur was 7-8 inches long. It took hours to do it because my electric clippers kept over  heating in the density of his under coat.

My Dad came for a week.

We are trying to get the days closer together and the stay lengths longer. In some ways I felt bad. He wanted to see what I was doing in the studio. But, I weave on a second floor with steep steps. Not something he could easily negotiate. So everyday. I would show him the snap that I take everyday that I weave. Not quite the same thing, but it was better then nothing. He was fascinated with some of the early animations that I did of earlier tapestries- a picture each day, set into a slide show. It takes around a minute from start to finish. I have been trying to figure out how to put them on this blog, but haven’t yet. I am still trying to figure out how to attach the U-Tube videos of the care and feeding of bobbins to this blog.

The pointy things in tapestry.

What you do with the pointy thing.

I can’t quite write about this without thinking  about Arya(Game of Thrones) and her problems of what to do with the pointy end. I had to do a lot of thinking about the pointed tree tops in my tapestry.

In tapestry points can go in two directions across the weft or up the weft.  There are eccentric variations that can turn points to angle up hills and down valleys. Example the tops of the trees and the grey beginnings of the bird wing in my this tapestry.

At 10 to the inch it’s fairly easy to make points look right because people often stand back away from the tapestry to get it full effect and maximum optical blending of colour and technique-optimum distances is usually 10 feet for 10 epi. %feet for small format. And, the points almost always look pointy from a distance. Small format is a little more difficult-not technically, but visually more challenging because people stand so close to the image-usuall within a foot or two.  People stand very close to small format/small scale tapestries instead of a theoretical 5 foot optimum.

The pointy end is the hardest-dare I say sharpest point to make look neat at that close of a distance.

There are things you can do to make the points stay in place. One can do a wrap and carefully  share the warp next to the point

Instead of moving on up as in the diagram. I would do a pigtail on the wrapped warp to stabilize the tip after I doing the share warp

with the two passes it goes between covering the extra weft join as the two passes are squished together.  One could do a double weft interlock on either side of the one weft     point. If it is especially long- one could do a series of cavendoli knots. Then making doubly  sure they are untwisted and stitch through the ridge to keep it to the back. One could do a tall wrap and then pig tail it off below on the first shoulder of the point. The other trick is to end the point in such away that the next pass has an open warp thread. that goes across it the first time one weaves over it.  The opposite of this also works if you want a lower point-begin it on an open warp if possible so that the beginning of the point sinks into a hollow thread.

The two obvious details of fat spiders and the directional use of  hatches, hachures are from the Lady and the Unicorn—smell and touch-not something wove even in another life time. They are very good examples of the inherent problems and solutions to/in dealing with pointy things in tapestry. I have spent years studying them to come up with the fat spiders and skinny spiders that are described in the Line and tapestry book I wrote.  Also notice that there are examples of eccentrically woven pointy things and hatches in the sense of smell.

The diagrams of technique were obviously done by Pat Spark as she illustrated the Line in Tapestry book.

Anyway, that’s some of the things to do with the pointy ends in tapestry.

Cheers and all,

kathe

Inch by inch-row by row-fast or slow

Inch by inch, row by row, fast or slow, it’s all the same to me. I am going make this garden grow…Paraphrase of Pete Seeger's Garden Song from 1979 correction-actually written by David Mallet, but covered by Arlo Guthrie and  sung at a Pete Seegar concert. I originally heard it sung on Sesame Street by John Denver

Chapter 1-
Tapestry weaving 
is one of those things that creates a quiet place that has a tendency to leave one open to invasive thoughts.It’s been strange. For days I have been humming this strange little ditty-just the notes. Some would call this cycling or repetitive word cycling-a thing that won’t go away. It’s  just relentlessly over and over.
        A little like an off the wall mantra-word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation" I could not remember the lyrics-just the sounds and notes. Every time I’d take on some new task. I would think inch by inch. At first, I thought it was a song by Elvis Costello’s-“ Inch by Inch”. I’d had the lyrics in my journal for years. Heavy metal to the core-not my thing, but it described something terribly important at the time. Asa introduced the words to me in another life time.

rip it open wider let no inch remain rip me open harder tear my soul and let it… molded facts keep faith in tact so close the text search within deeper examine every inch expectation nothing something you can’t quite… I burn so clean why can’t you see. Inch by inch-lyrics by Elvis Costello

It is so easy to wake up in the morning with dread. Usually, I begin my day with a list of things that I have to do. Note the words have to. Things for the last 6 months have been not so much difficult as fueled by daily rituals, injuries to knees death, Pat’s accident, remodeling, painting,  working with Shelley,deadlines, answering business e-mail, book keeping, house hold chores, that eventually would get in the way of everything I wanted to do-nothing for me.
I have a friend Andrea Furber- who I have known for 50 or 60 years. Andrea writes a blog called the Handy Andy-things I get to do today. reading her blog has become a treasured morning ritual. It’s all about one task she chooses to do each day.
I had an honest to god epiphany about the difference between what I have to do and what I get to do. I am changing my outlook and the way I word things. Words and the way one puts them together really do make a huge difference in the way one perceives things!.
My list when I wake up now is a positive-joyful list of the things I get to do. Sure, the not so enjoyable things are still on the a list, but not the one I wake up to. Makes a world of difference!
From a performance piece from the Franck Studio. By asking everyone who participates receives an incredible hand painted box of happiness. I understand that so far thousands have participated. I am in love with mine!
So I have managed to plan at least until Late September a tripless stay at home summer. I am excited I have until the end of September to do as much weaving and writing as I want daily. I’ll teach the students that come to the studio, but not trae any long distances to teach.  It does mean in October I'll be teaching back to two back classes in Colorado, a workshop in Georgia and a workshop in Mendocino, California.
I intend to finish “AND HE..” by the end of July and have time to do some very small pieces to finally get a little more a head.
I have accepted the fact that as long as I get my inch by inch and my row by row when I weave a day I am happy.

Chene’s idea of summer Bliss-
By the way turns out the ditty was the one I heard on Sesame street when Shane and Asa were little. We used to sing and pantomime it together. A very happy memory and it makes a nice mantra.
That said.
Chapter 2
       In the last issue of Tapestry Topics I wrote an article about Surface in the last issue.  After I wrote the article I realized in  one of those quiet moments filled with invasive thoughts while weaving that I had really not touched on something in my weaving that has become very important to me in the last couple of years.
     This story all started many years ago when a very good friend and mentor-Karen Zimmerman- committed suicide. One of the things I inherited was her sewing threads. She had perfect runs from light to dark in every colour imaginable.
  I still have partial spools left from her hoarded collection.
       Then a few years ago Jan Austin asked me if I wanted her Mother’s sewing thread. I said, yes and a box of threads showed up. I didn’t realize how much these two events were going to colour and invade my thoughts about tapestry. Many of threads that belonged to Jan’s mother were from the 40’s 50’s and 60’s. There were a mercerized boiled cotton and some were Cortecelli’s silk dress maker’s thread. There was this wonderful orange that I had never seen before as I wove it into one of my Kona’ sunsets I became aware of all of its beautiful colours, the feel of the spin, the lack of knobblies in the spinning, the richness of the colours. None of my modern threads-Gutterman, sulkies, DMC’s dual duty or embroidery flosses that I was buying at so many sewing stores had the same feeling of quality or often the same richness of colour. I have gotten hooked on these threads. My husband-Spencer- has an eBay business. He does a lot of garage selling to come up with

“Ephemera are transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek, meaning things lasting no more than a day. Some collectible ephemera are advertising trade cards, airsickness bags, bookmarks, catalogues, greeting cards, letters, pamphlets, postcards, posters, prospectuses, stock certificates, tickets and zines. Decks of personality identification playing cards from the war in Iraq are a recent example.” borrowed from Wikipedia

and things to sell. I navigate. We can hit on a good day in the summer 10-20 sales.  We do this one day a week sometimes two mornings a week.  I navigate and plan the route. I started finding the old spools of thread in mint condition at estates sales.  I started buying the old mercerized cotton threads to weave with in my tapestries. These old threads feel luxurious compared to the modern threads I have had to use.
 The next thing I knew I began to think about the unknown women whose things were being sold. Often times the sellers are relatives, friends or estate managers or clearers that didn’t remember what the spools were originally  used for or that there was a time when women made their own clothing and their children’s clothing.
       Often times the things made  were as transitory and as ephemeral as those things described as empherma. Used up and discarded leaving only the partial spool of thread after the garment or whatever was worn out, reused and or discarded. The spools a  reminder of what might have been.  I have started thinking about my Grandmother sewing  my clothes for me, teaching me to weave, sew and crochet for me and her many spools of partially or unused spools of thread thread.  It just feels appropriate that the spools of thread  should be used up and used to create another product that might be treasured or valued as a remembrance of things past, present and future dreams.
That’s it for now!
kathe