Of waterdogs and black berries…

Fall is here!

The rain is back!

The term came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year"

  Classes start again. Tomorrow will be the first day of Better Bones and Balance. Can’t believe how badly i have missed that class. It so hard to exercise on my own, but I do.

Nostalgia strikes or is it really?

The leaves are turning colour. So many things not done. So many things ended forever. Autumn always brings a sense of relief. The hot weather is gone. Summer ended. The beginning of the rush to be ready for winter.  School begins and schedules change-not so much anymore now that Spencer is retired. But, Autumn always feels like change.There was a time in my life when summers end meant hours of canning and preserving.

Dad, Grampa and not so happy Chene at Giant Springs overhang.

The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form. The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of νόστος (nóstos), meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning "pain, ache". It was described as a medical condition, a form of melancholy, in the Early Modern period, and became an important trope* in Romanticism. Liberated from Wikipedia *a word that I love.

I no longer do this. I have been liberated and no longer have the time or feel the need with home life being just Spencer and I... To be truthful-Something I mostly, slightly, actually, very little regret. I grow a few vegetables, because tomatoes, cukes and peppers never taste the same as the store  “botten”-even when purchased at the farmers market. Makes me me wonder how much of the taste is real and how much the romance of the doing.  Wondering how much is enough  to last through winter and late springs? It was an urgency I inherited from my Grandmother who lived as a subsistence farmer in the Mountains surrounding Blachly. OR for part of her life-the later years.

 Time is viewed differently when you live as your ancestors lived. Her only concession was to build a house that overlooked a valley with old houses covered by Blackberries that made great places to tunnel into and read and draw. We only played in them by day because the cougars roamed and screamed too close and the waterdog protectors retreated into the safety of the mud or shapeshifted into something else at night. 

 Of course, we were also required to pick the blackberries, can,bake, dry, make fruit leathers with the berries, dye with the berries, and dig them out of the places they always seemed to be, but weren’t suppose to be…Check out those thorns. Occasionally, we were set to work dredging blue  Camas and eliminating white Camas from my Grandmothers pastures. Once we we were old enough and responsible enough to safely dig and separate the two. White Camas is deadly, Blue Camas is edible.We had to wait for them to go to seed, before we could dig Camas. So, that they could replenish what we ate.

         Good Blue Camas-edible-right

We picked and dried nasturtium leaves and seeds to substitute for black pepper and pickled fake capers. Then it was time to go to the Todd’s and my other Gramma was always so horrified with the deep stains and scratches on our hands, but even worse she hated nut stains from hazelnuts and walnuts that stained our fingers yellow like we had a serious nicotine problem. To her way of thinking Ladies might work and play in the sun, but should always protect themselves so it doesn’t show. Gramma Todd  was always concerned with freckles, but I have never had one in my life- a gift  or a legacy from my other Grandmother-that and copper eyes. She was always threatening that I would get freckles. AND,  so frustrated that I didn’t have any from not doing what I was told and wearing a hat.  Shane seems to have inherited all of the freckles with his red hair and light coloured skin.  Would I want to relive these experience? no. My mothers death last month has made things float through my mind to be reexamined and laid to rest-again.

My childhood was often not a pleasant place to be, but It made me what I am and I can truly say I am easy with the past and I have no regrets-now.  The biggest gift from my Mothers side of the family was thinking in symbols and symbolic languages, a firm belief in the unreal and myths and things that are not to be told but hinted at. Not a total loss.  

A piece I had forgotten about that was returned to me from my Mom’s estate. Done sometimes in the early 90’s for a mini textile show at Anger’s  in France that I was in. It’s 5x5inches.

Best of all's-

I have woven constantly for the last two weeks-6-8 hours-a day.  I am a fourth of the way done with my piece. I will weave every day for the next week. It is 19 inches wide. I am at the 7 inch march.Yes it is really going to be at least 24 inches tall- It just needed to be.  I hope to be a third done by the time I leave a week from Thursday. I will be leaving  to teach at EGLWC Conference in Chautauqua, NY. Unfortunately the class at Mirrix Looms didn’t fill. It would have been so much fun weaving with Claudia and all. SO, I won’t have the week in between for Museums and visiting friends. Next time.sigh!

  I thought I would have a Month before going to Albuquerque and teaching at Village Wools. Enough time to get very close to finishing the piece. It will be nice to see Diane and Shelley  and others-again. My plan is to arrive a day or so earlier then my class to do some research and visit friends. Two days in in Santa Fe, Albuquerque the surrounding areas. Yes, I am bringing Chene and Spencer.

 Then “And He” all slows down, but in a good way. I will be weaving as many hours, if not more, but on two pieces, two different formats and two different designers.BUT, instead, I am going to weave on a piece with Shelley Socolofsky- 3 days a week in her “studio” and 3 days a week at home. Shelley and I have woven several pieces together and it is always interesting and mind boggling. She designs and I weave. the last piece we wove together was based on  Fata Morgana  and other things or what between us we call Kathryn's piece. It was in the Corvallis exhibit of the 4 teachers and their students that she and I were in along with Dee Ford Potter and Rosalie Nielsen this summer. I am so excited the new tapestry includes Rya and is Shaped and it looks to be pretty large. I’ll know a whole lot more about it when I began on Saturday. 

My spare time for the last several weeks has been on finishing my PowerPoint presentation on warping the Mirrix loom for tapestry with a continuous warp. Haven’t quite decided whether to leave it as a slide show or make a brochure or small book showing the way I warp the mirrix. It’s something I get a lot of questions about. It has almost 50 slides and I need two more slides of turning the warp with a tapestry on it around the bottom beam and then it is done.

Chene trying to stay warm and hiding his bad haircut after being felted-accidently.

I am also in my spare time reweaving several samplers that disappeared while I was at the ANWG conference teaching. It’s the first time I have ever had samplers disappear from a class I was teaching. I keep hoping someone accidently picked them up and will return them. SO, I am taking time I don’t really have  reweaving my soumack sampler  and a small sample that illustrates what happens when you unbalance weft bundles. It is a series of hatches done in inch increments with different size weft bundles.

                                                       Gone Missing!

Please feel guilty enough to drop them in envelope no questions asked and return them to 604 first Avenue East, Albany, Or 97321.

FFP

is beginning to work on another booklet that will be ready for publication by Convergence 2012 at which Pat is teaching. Pat and I had fun choosing a name for it today.

It’s to be called-- 

The Viking’s should’ve. It’s  Pat’s  exploration into using felting, Viking knitting,  felting beads, felt dreads and other things. It’s really  cool. Viking knitting is a interesting metal working process that  is probably relate to nalbinding.  It’s really fun to do and Pat has some really interesting ways to use it with felt. The dreads as in dreadlocks are just plain fun.

Giant Springs on

a sunny day in

August!

Tell Next time!

kathe

WOW!!! and meanderings

WOW!! WE DID IT!!! SO WARPED IS WRITTEN, LAID OUT, AND BEING PROOFED!!! GOOD JOB, PAT, you are so good and getting better all of the time!!!!The book is now in/ready for pre-publication sales. We even have the cost and a discount for anyone who purchases it in advance. 35.00 After release and 32.00 for those who buy a prepublication copy of the book. The book has 110 pages of everything you want to know about warping just about any loom you can weave tapestry on with exception of the shaped tapestry looms which is in the Shaped Tapestry book. I am spending the weekend writing the press release and starting the announcements for the prepublication sales.
       Left is a picture of the cover of the book, but without the cool Mulberry coloured background.

BUT, first, it’s time to do my blog. It’s over due and nagging at my conscience to be done. This means I’ll never get anything done if I don’t take care of my goals for the year-Writing my blog every two weeks, keeping up my photo journal, and my weaving journal. Fortunately, for me I am having a very quiet day. Spencer is working at Block, Pat is off on a well deserved visit with relatives and the sun is shining but too cold and wet with rain burst to work in the yard. No one is aware that I even exist today. The phone is not ringing for a change. So, it’s me, my stuff, Wry, Chene and Brahms for the day with maybe a little Hans Zimmer to keep the energy level up.

One of the new things I have learned in the last few weeks is Viking Knitting. It’s really addictive. I can sit and do it for hours. Viking knitting is a type of looping that is done with wire to produce a chain that can be used in jewellery. After it is looped the knitting is pulled through a draw plate that extends it length and turns the rather ugly as in duckling thing into a beautiful sensuous chain. I have a bracelet that I have to wear all of the time so I created a bracelet from the chain. I had looped and attached the old charms to it and added cones and a pretty finding with a flower on it. It looks so much better then what I had been wearing. Pat is putting together a class on Viking knitting that involves using felt. It sounds really interesting. It’s a class I would take if I were going to a conference and taking a workshop.

I finished Kona Orange. I think I’ll leave it with that name. I am taking some teasing from family member’s about-Kona gold, Maui Wowie, and a few other such brand names. It was really good to get it off to the Enchanted Passages exhibit.

The studio has felt a bit overwhelming and imposing for the last month and perhaps a little sinister as in promoting guilty feelings. Everywhere I look; there are warped looms ready to weave on, but no plans to weave on them. It’s like someone gave into a warping fetish and obsession. Actually, they are looms warped for illustrations in the So Warped book, but it’s still intimidating. Let alone staring at the awesome sized space on my large Shannock with all that space ready to be filled for “and HE.”.

The Mirrix is warped and I’ll start the other Kona piece today and be able to stare at the blank warps for another piece that needs to be done by November, but at least I am weaving and not brooding over the other piece. The design still hasn’t come together, but when it does, I am warped. Boy, isn’t that the truth. It must be spring even the looms are waiting with a pregnant pause and the excitement of beginnings. There’s something so satisfying about the first touch of colour on a loom. Of course, another warped loom will be used for my Soumack samples I am trying to get together for my class in Santa Clara on soumack and the More! class I am teaching in August in Albuquerque. I am tired of all of the little bits and pieces of samples floating around the studio. If I get them, all together in one sampler I can lose it instead of just random samples that I need for the class and can never find while packing to teach a class. I keep telling myself this is a good deal! Also, one warp is on the Fine Fiber Press loom and Pat is making ranuu and pick and pick pillow tops so that’s her problem not mine-gr!  So I guess perhaps it’s not quite as sinister since many of the looms have a purpose other then making me feel guilty for not filling up the warps. I just need to find the time to fill up the looms.

These are samples  of soumack that I have been spending time getting ready to weave. It's not in my sample collection,yet.            The Linten roses, or Mayflowers or helleborus are blooming beautifully. Your choice for the proper name that you prefer. What I call them seems to depend on my mood at the given time I am discussing them. They are the one flower in the yard that doesn't seem to mind the heavy rain we keep having. I must have variations of 10 different colours ranging from greenish white to purple. They are fun to watch. They can't seem to make up their mind about what colour they will be. I am definitely going to use them in a tapestry.   I have almost decided that I don't like the upper right hand corner of "And He"  and may change it to the Lenten Roses, because they are so changeable and can be used to bring on dreams. Sort of an appropriate flower for the piece. Actually it would be the bottom right if turned it's final direction.

 This is where I wish I were today. Tomorrow It will be raining. It's already clouding up.  So enough about today and the past weeks.It is just so right that So Warped is finished! It's time to move on to the next project a book on colour and colour movement in tapestry and get all of those warps filled up with colour. .   But the timing to begin will probably be in September or later for the next book. So I get a few months of weaving and prep time for classes.  Cheers and all!