HO VAY!

My tapestry bobbins work well in this weaving technique

The new greeting in the studio this past couple of weeks is Ho Vay! And it feels great to say it and it is also a wonderful technique that Alberta jumped into with an enthusiasm that has us all inspired and excited.....now a bit of background. The H.V. Technik is named after the handcraft school in Stockholm, Handarbetets Vanner -  a school that I had the opportunity of attending during a personal weaving sabbatical. It is an inlay technique that piggy backs in the same shed as the tabby foundation or background shed - another name being a 'half tapestry'. Alberta was  moved to weave using this finger manipulated weave, after seeing a vintage piece of weaving from Sweden that I was given years ago by my friend Ann, back from a yearly visit with her family in Sweden. Alberta is 'reflecting' the older piece with a newer one, using a linen warp (yes spray the warp with water as the linen delights in a moist atmosphere!) and her beautifully grown Shetland wool, hand grown, hand dyed in the fleece and then handspun......we all watch the progress with anticipation.

The new 'expansion' is keeping me busy and there has been a lot of weaving, spinning and other textile art happening in both studios. We are on our second community rag rug warp and we are setting up a community blanket warp and handtowel/runner warp. If you are interested in spending a day in a working studio and weaving, let me know. It is an inspiring and exciting place to be.

Jenna is weaving a rag rug and practicing her clasped weft weaving for a future project, although rugs are in the offing as well. Especially after we opened up an amazing box.........!

Gay, our Navajo Sheep Shepherdess, brought a few fleeces round in case were interested.........it literally was one of the most beautiful fleeces I have every seen and one of the biggest, a ram and as clean as can be. It literally was like a fleece of silver as it glinted in the sun - a truly spiritual moment somehow.
 The dye kitchen is steaming almost every day! Our newly designed dyepot is here, with four compartments with separate spigots for draining - awesome!



My friend Heidi oversees my booth.....



And then we all drove up to the 100 Mile Fleece and Fibre Fair in Parksville/Coombs.... We had a great time, all of us and the reception from the organizers was beyond superb. It was so much fun. Thank you Women of the Fleece!

So there we all are from the Cowichan Valley, Leola's Studio had Eastwin Farm Mohair, Sandy with felted West Coast mammals and sheep, my Cowichan sister, Liz with her beautiful handspun, handknit wares, Becky with Shetland fleece, Jenna with Pacific Sun Alpacas, Jan and Meghan with beautiful Romney fleece from Dunedin Farm and Devon from Hummingbee Farm with alpaca and mohair - we were all within the 100 mile zone! The Loom was also there with equipment, book and hand dyed fleece.

So again we are always amazed by the connected threads that make up our daily lives and the generosity of opportunity we are presented. This past month, Lily, a student of mine came back from Peru where she was visiting family and brought back some very beautiful cotton. She booked in for a consult on her second project. A wedding dress! I believed she had mentioned it to me at one point, but I filed it away. So we planned it out and found that she might not have enough for both warp and weft. I said that I had a huge spool of fine cotton that someone had given me and it came from the Dominican Republic. Lily was overjoyed as that is where her future husband, Emerson and she met! So there was a little belt on a table loom in the same weight of cotton, so we re-sleyed it and everything was perfect. Now what loom......I had been rummaging around my old studio at home and discovered a loom that had belonged to Lily Bolin, a well known Victoria weaving teacher .......well yes, you can imagine the perfection of this tale. Peruvian Lily is small and so is this little loom - although 36 inches, it is just right for our Peruvian Lily - and it is already set up ready to go. Emerson has had to assist in making some extra pieces, but we are all loving this story and hopefully we will all get to go to the wedding - we all feel so involved with this story. It is 30 epi and a straight twill - Lily wants to weave it 3 against 1.The loom is an old Glimakra. Lily tied all new heddles for the project - what a weaver. Lily has gone from being a scientist to an artist and will be attending the Kootenay School of Fine Arts studing the fabric arts - wow!



Can you guess what this is?


This is an old metal ceiling tile I use as a lid for my dye pots - very rusted and paint peeled, but I had dumped out some dye and it settled into the pattern and well, it just has to go into the inspiration book - isn't it beautiful?

And last but not least - I have a hundred other things to write, but already this is too long. In the last blog, it was so long, one had to realize that there was a 'read more' sign at the end of the first couple of paragraphs in order to read the whole thing. So much happens in the studio, that I feel remiss in not telling you everything.

Again my young students give me great pleasure. I have a home school family that is delightful - ages 5, 7 and 12 and they are all weaving, sewing, and printing with natural plants. Brandon and Aiden's first weaving is great.

Other projects to have come off the looms

Sax Point Blankets by Jewel

And Mary's handtowels - a sampling

Until next time..........

Happy New Year! Images from 2010 not yet posted

I just found some photos that I meant to post throughout the summer and fall, but was too busy to do so. The above photo is so pretty, and although out of season, I was drawn to the colours. The yarn is all from Eastwin Farm - my friend Ann's mohair which I love - I used to also have mohair goats and I have a soft spot for mohair because of it. The white skein is the original of the solar dyed yarn that it nests on. What rose is that? It could be Mary Rose, Constance Spry or English Garden - probably English Garden. I am still enjoying these skeins and have something in mind, but have yet to get to it.

Cochineal dyeing was another whim my daughter and I had this past summer, which was really fun - but our favourite was hydrangea blooms - a lovely green. I have had second thoughts about dyeing with cochineal - something like 5000 pounds of the bugs are imported from South America a year - I really wonder if this is a good idea....would love to hear some comments on this.

The darlings of Eastwin Farm - aren't they so beautiful? I have to say, they are my favourite fleece animal. They have such dignity. My friend Sandy makes the most amazing little needlefelted goats that capture their sweetness - she also makes wonderful alpacas, sheep (Shetland, Churro, Romneys...). I remember reading in my old goat husbandry book that mohair could protect you from nuclear fall out!!!!

And a beautiful Queen Anne's Lace which is one of my favourite natural dyes - with just a handful of pennies to bring out that lovely green.

Gates, windows, doors - I love the symbolism of which they portray......Eastwin Farm again......

speaking of churro sheep...

During my days in the studio or working at The Loom, I am often visited by shepherds, especially my favourite shepherd, as I call him, my own personal shepherd - he brings gifts to me, like a truck load of Churro sheep, the Navajo rug sheep - my goodness they are lovely and the fleece colours are remarkable. I have quite a lot now, and although it is long and seemingly soft, it spins up coarse - a rug one day I am hoping. The history of these sheep leave me in awe...spinning this fibre connects me to the past.

Ann and I love to 'talk' weaving and pushing the structures into different perspective - don't know how to explain it, but between us we have about 75 years of weaving experience. We have both done sampling until we look like those samples - great little squares of weaving. And if you have studied in Banff, we all have those green binders full of samples that dear Mary Snyder made us mount and of course in the days that I was there, there were no computers, just hand written and well, some of the samples are pretty ugly.........when I teach, I encourage my students to sample, but the samples are project based. So Ann and I wanted to push the envelope around corduroy - instead of rug weaving, we were heading for towels............using cottolin and and linen naturally - our favourite fibre after mohair....this is my sample - when we were 'sampling', everything around us took on the look of corduroy - Ann phoned me on her way home one day to tell me that she was passing the vineyards and they looked like corduroy - we were obsessed - what better thing to be obsessed about, eh? I challenge all of you to take your samples and mount your favourites. I mounted the vineyards onto a painted canvas - used french knots to attach the little piece and the sample is there, a pretty little piece mounted - some of the corduroy is cut and some not. By the by, we made some face mitts, washed and dried and they are very soft and held up well. Now the next little 'sample' I am still working on after making a few scarves, is just a 6 shaft basket weave, but my sample is yet to be woven - I want to use text as the weft and just haven't figured out what to use - lots of ideas, just have to step into it - crossword puzzles are part of it though. It was an interesting little bit of weaving - used alpaca and silk and alpaca blend with a little ladder yarn and then Mini Mochi as the weft - the blend was quite lovely - sold in a heartbeat of course - hadn't had quite enough of it.

Anyway, it is time to end - I have lots of pictures of the last few months, but I will add them to the next blog - which should be soon, due to the sale at the Loom. I will endeavour to bring everyone up-to-date. Spring is on the way, it is getting lighter every day. Still have bulbs to plant, however!