Buellwood Weavers and Fiber Guild - February 18th Meeting Tapestry 101 part 2

^{Eric in his Handsome Jacket of Fabric he designed}

We had a great show and tell to start our meeting.  More finished garments from Mary Sue’s workshop last Spring were shared by Eric and myself. Eric modeled his handsome jacket handmade from fabric he designed in a class at Finlandia. Eric is a senior this year and is off to Corvelis, Oregon to do his internship with a professor who is studying a safer way of dyeing fabric from Fungus. Hence she needs Eric’s expertise with fabric to help her develop this procedure.

Mary in her toasty warm vest.

Jeanne Blue Scarf

Jeanne shared a weaving project, a lovely scarf she finished,  Jeanne is a lovely spinner but has been hesitant to weave. So it was nice to see a woven item from her. I am sorry I missed getting a picture of Jeanne blue scarf close up – but you can see Bonny checking out Jeanne’s scarf in the background.

'Green Lake'

Lynn shared her surface design piece titled “Green Lake”. Lynn likes to dye fabric and embellish it to create a well done wall piece.  It is nicely framed and ready for a show. 

Phyllis shared a hand felted hat she owns made by Jorie Johnson http://www.joirae.com/ who came to Finlandia to share her skills about 4 years ago. Phyllis also shared a fiber bracelet created by Audrey Chamberlain. We do miss Audrey’s smiling face at our meetings since she moved downstate.

Audrey Chamberlain Bracelet 

Jorie Johnson Felted Hat

under side of Jorie Johnson Hat

 

 Eve finished her Krokbragd wall hanging that she created for her daughter. Eve has spent a lot of time sampling to get these final results. She used brown sheep singles for this project and it turned out beautiful. If you want some sample drafts this is a nice site http://allfiberarts.com/2011/blkrokbragd.htm also a great explanation of this 3 or 4 shaft weave which has a Scandinavian origin can be read at http://tangleweave.blogspot.com/2009/11/making-of-krokbragd-tote.html. 

 

Eric with hand spun wool, handknit Sweater

Beside his beautiful Jacket Eric shared a Ikat woven scarf that he wove and a beautiful Handknit sweater made from his handspun yarn. He is showing us a knit cable he developed for this sweater. He called it the 'Fibonacci Cable'. What an elegant mans sweater he created. He told me he only knits in the round when making a sweater. Sounds like a very good idea! Since, I have sweater parts to sew together waiting in my pile of projects to finish.  Changing a pattern to knit in the round is a skill I will have to learn before I make another sweater.

Pekka aka Peter Olson

Pekka's wood carving samples

Pekka showed us his wood carving and described the wooden house he is building for Finn Fest, June 2013, which will be held in the Keweenaw.  This will be something to see! Pekka’s work is very original and very elaborate. He is also planning on building a shed to house his floor loom when this other project is done. His weaving will have to wait until then.  When he finishes his project he has offered us a tour of his workshop.  I am looking forward to seeing what he has added new since 2011! 

Brown Bag gift 'Iris Garden Scarf' woven by Jean for Lynn 

 Jean brought her brown 'bag project' that was our 2011 Christmas exchange.  Weavers wishing to participate brought in a brown bag with 5 or 6 oz of fiber to trade with others in our group to create a fiber piece. Only 4 of us participated and as you can see it took 2 years to finish some of our gifts. Jean wove a beautiful mohair scarf for Lynn with the yarn Lynn provided in her brown bag. Jean was inspired by Lynn’s Iris garden for this scarf. 

Leslie's tapestry mounted on woven linen mat.

 

Transparent tapestry techniques

Leslie shared more of her Tapestry work. She has been very busy with her weaving. She wove a linen mat to mount her 'Burning the Midnight Oil'  weaving which looks very nice and presentable. This was an experiment for Leslie in Mounting her work. She shared again her black and white Cat Tapestry which you can view on the December 2012 blog.
Then she showed us a weaving where she overlapped rectangles to create transparency on the surface. This is a very nice piece of work.

Nude tapestry sample by Leslie

At Steve’s request she has been working on a tapestry of a nude. She plans on weaving it in a much larger size, she shared her sample practice piece which is a great piece of work in itself! I am really excited about seeing this piece completed.  Leslie has been working with a tapestry artist in Florida via the internet for the past year to fine tune her tapestry skills. Then it was on to our program for February.

Tapestry weaving 101 - Part 2

Leslie shares some more of her knowledge on techniques of tapestry weaving. She had lots of questions but she did get to cover the different ways to join the color areas in tapestry weaving along with adding new yarn and ending the use of the previous yarn.  Everyone was pretty interested in learning these techniques. She quizzed us on tapestry terms that we had learned in the past get together and viewed some of the work by our guild members attempting to weave their own tapestries.

We are all excited about completing miniature tapestries with hopes of making another tapestry with a little more skill. More pictures of these tapestries will follow when I get them .

Next month  March 18th I will present 'Tapestry Weaving in Scotland' Slide presentation from Threads, Tunes and Ruins tour of Scotland 2012 with Nadine Sanders.See singingweaver.com for more information about a wonderful tour of Scotland. Planed again for April 2013.