Pounamu Wrap

It must have been in July a fellow fibre artist kept putting posts on faceboook for folks to enter the Franklin Arts Exhibition and as I had woven this rather special wrap I thought I'd support the exhibition by entering.  The parcel was left with my son to get in the post on the designated dates and Peter and I went off the Australia for a much needed break.  (We flew in to Brisbane and out of Sydney and explored the coast in between.)  We had only been home a day and I got a call to say I'd been award a prize and could I come to the opening so we repacked our suitcases and headed back to Auckland.  I received second prize in the Functional Textile section.  A thrill to be called up on stage and shake the presenters hand.

 The warp is 28/2Nm silk and the two wefts  are a devine merino I brought home from Rome last year.  I'll just say the draft is original, probably part of the twill family.  All yarns hand dyed.

Baubles and Beads

Every three or four years the Professional Weavers Network of New Zealand hold an exhibition.  These take a lot of planning and discussion and sometimes the best laid plans change as with the current exhibition.  The title and theme changed and I just could not get with the plan so decided not to participate.

Scroll back to our annual Seminar earlier this year and our long suffering Convenor put the hard word on us.  Not enough entries to make an exhibition.

 

Suddenly a light bulb lit up so I asked if I could enter even though the date for submissions had closed and she not only agreed, she liked my idea.

And so a couple of months of creation began.

I have to admit that if I wrote down records I have lost them but I'm pretty sure it was 48 thread per inch of Schappe-Seide silk which is beautiful to work with.  Two inches in the reed and floating selvedges for twill.  I wove one 6 inch length and stitched it to the cardboard hexatron and realised it was slightly loose.  Dropped two threads and that was enough.

Each piece of silk was dyed a primary or secondary colour to fit with the group instructions.

 

A friend had some black textured velour yarn I could "borrow" for the neck piece.

 

 

This piece I call a wall necklace and I loved working with the primary colours.  The small 1 inch hexatrons were a bit fiddly but fun when finished.   I found a necklace to repurpose with the perfect blue beads.

Ear rings and brooch complete the ensemble.

As they were displayed at the Percy Thomas Gallery in Stratford.

My regret is that I was working so hard to meet the deadline and didn't have time to remake the necklace in primary colours.  That would have held it all together much better.

A very fun project once I got my head around what to make for Angles.

Quick catch up

I'm so far behind here I thought I'd just do a quick catch up.

A machine knit and felted merino scarf with wonderful organic loops.

Another cotton warp for tea towels.

Didn't empty so many cones this time but every bit helps.

A batch of blankets reflecting the kauri tree.

This is Tuahu Kauri tree, reached by a short drive from home.

It is 12.8m to the first limb and has a diameter of 2.7m measured at a height of 1.5m.

Magnificent trees with a light golden wood.

Available from Pauanesia shop.

Desert Road t'towels

An exercise in using up cotton thread and exploring weave patterns.

Look at all the empty cones!

A mishap caused by not checking all threads.  See how the green is puckering; its not actually cotton.  When I did the burn test on a thread it went phewt and a ball of plastic was left on the bench.  Lovely if using a tea towel near a gas stove!

I wound some new warp in a darker green cotton, tied it to the old threads and pulled them through the reed and heddles and weighted them at the back of the loom.

The warp is a 5 end extended advancing twill and most wefts were woven with two shuttles.

I played in my software, turning half the tie up or turning half the treadling or cycling half the treadling or a combination thereof.

Some blended the stripes, some lines not so easy to follow.  The camera had trouble focusing.

This one below looks a bit like argyle and I like the border.

Hapara - Dawn Blankets

Three beautiful blankets which went to Pauanesia shop.

Creative Fibre Festival Fashion Parade

At the end of April New Zealand Creative Fibre held its bi-annual Festival, this time celebrating its 50th anniversary, in Palmerston North.

Highlights of the Festival include an Exhibition (to which I was one of three selectors), an Education program and the Fashion Parade.

  I managed to finish three entries for the Fashion Parade.  

This coat with the cascading collar in purple, wine and burgundy

 

has an interesting back view consisting of crochet scrumble motifs.

A lot of the motifs were crocheted while traveling on a trip to Italy last year. 

At one point Pete asked me if I'd brought all the yarn with me.  The joke was he couldn't see how much more was in my suitcase! 

 

The second piece is a silk wrap woven with two intersecting lines

and wee bead tassels between the silk tassels.

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of it spread out to show the path of the intersecting lines - due to my being late getting my entries in the post, as usual, chasing my tail.  It sold at Festival so I might have to make something else using the same draft.

The third entry was a hand knit jacket, knitted sideways with hand spun yarn.

It was fun seeing my entries on the catwalk and I always say there can only be so many award winner but if we don't enter there is no show.

Midnight Bush Walk blankets

How many ways to love these Midnight Bush Walk blankets.

In Pauanesia shop now.