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.

A busy time

So to back up a bit I sacrificed a long weekend in Auckland with family and grand kids to finish exhibition work on time.  I am delighted with the end result but was it worth what I gave up.  I doubt it, I miss the kids hugs and kisses, but I kept my promise.  Exhibition opens in Pataka Gallery, Porirua in June, pictures then.

The following weekend (long again), Thursday through Sunday, we were off to Napier, the New Zealand Art Deco city, to attend a wedding.  On the way down we stayed a night in Taupo and walked around the edge of the lake.  No, not all the way around, just a couple of kilometres and back again, very picturesque.

 Barely got my suitcase unpacked and the laundry done and I was off again to the annual Professional Weavers Network Seminar at the Rob Waddell Lodge, Lake Karapiro.  Bay of Plenty members had had a little input in the organising early in the piece but in the end we were asked to bring the essentials.  This is about half of refreshments.

 Going through the tiny country town of Hinuera, population about 5, we came to a police check point.  At least the bottles had stopped rattling by the time we stopped.  May I see your license please Madam.  Sure I said its in the back and started to open my door.  He took a look in the back, said, sure you have one.  Oh yes, its in the back.  We got waved on with smiles and thank you's.  Actually population of Hinuera is 891.

We had a wonderful weekend with more talking than you could believe.  We spent a morning at the Fashion Department of the Unitech seeing what the students do in the degree program.  There was a forum discussing where craft fits versus art.  We discussed a future exhibition.  There was a pop up workshop on network drafting using graph paper with Agnes followed by Rene showing us how to adjust patterns for different fits and looks.  Monday morning it was my turn to share some of the knowledge I have re shibori both hand stitched and loom controlled.  Have to say it was disappointing the number who stayed for the workshop considering the weeks I had spent preparing new ideas to show.

The commitments weren't over yet as Rene and I had the delightful job of looking through the portfolios of 5 new weavers for the New Weavers Award to be announced at the Creative Fibre Festival at the end of April.  Isn't it wonderful, 5 new weavers to support and encourage.

And, of course, I still have my business to keep ticking over.  This poncho is made of fabric woven on the knitting machine.  I couldn't face the thought of stitching in all the ends so made a feature of them.

 My first day back on duty at the Cargo Shed in Tauranga I discovered a note in the day book that said I had been appointed the display person even though I had said I was hopeless at it!!  So I took the bull by the horns, so to speak, and took the opportunity to have a major shift around.  Its a work in progress and I'm thinking each time I go in there will be more things to change.

Before leaving for Lake Karapiro I had put a warp on the loom for 5 metres of fabric, tied onto the previous warp but a change of tieup and treadling, this time 4 colour double weave.  This first pic of fabric still on the loom is the nearest to true shades.  It looks like old tapestry fabric to me.  I'm thinking a jacket.

 But was it a pig to weave, very sticky yarns, the weft wouldn't beat in properly and I'd have to stop and ease out the humps and if I missed one I'd have a loop sticking up out of the fabric.  Had to unweave back to the loop or use a needle and ease it out to the selvedge.  One warp thread is called aubergine the other was hand dyed in several shades of red including burgundy (a long time ago) and the weft of mid grey and red, Tex 110/2 wool.

Now I have a few tea towels to make to fill an order then its on to a big scarf order, to say nothing of blankets being asked for.

This one is for Jack.  Look who comes for breakfast and dinner on my back lawn.

Auckland weekend

My goodness, have two weeks gone by since we headed for Auckland for the weekend seminar of Professional Weavers Network.  The Auckland girls organised a wonderful four days with inspiring, stimulating events.  It was full on from the moment we arrived until the last piece of pizza at lunch on Monday.   I was so enthralled with all going on around me I didn't take a single photo!

We started at the Auckland War Memorial Museum where our group spent 40 minutes viewing some of the fibre artefacts in storage.  I do hope the staff make an effort to find out more about, and record information about, the pieces in their possession.  We could have spent 4 days there but we moved on to the Museum Library.  Who would have known there was such a wonderful resource available to the public.

Show and Tell is always inspiring.  It was interesting the number who had deflected double weave articles, some could understand how it worked and others like me, were still pondering the process.

We had an afternoon with Ailie Snow entitled "Between the Concept and the Creation" or Between the Idea and the Reality where we listened, did exercises, drew mind maps and played with leaves.  Different ways of progressing an idea to creation.

Susan Holmes, fibre artist extraordinaire, brought in many of her creations she has made for World of Wearable Art and installations for Textile Fibre Forums where she has been Artist in Residence.  An amazingly energetic artist.

Our final tutor was Susan Scarf, founder of the label Silkroad and more recently using her own name.  We had all taken along a length of handwoven fabric and had to design/style a garment suitable for that fabric and our body.  But we started by measuring ourselves and finding out what body shape we are and what styles suit us and surprise, surprise I discover I'm half way between sizes so no wonder everything is either two big or two small, I have square shoulders where I always thought they were round and I new I had a narrow back.  I designed a longish jacket for the variegated stripy fabric of a previous post then thought about where I live and my life style and decided a tunic would be more practical.  The way the wind has been blowing today and the autumn touch in the air I should be making it up!

In between all this we had our AGM and had much discussion about the next exhibition we plan on holding.  I was absolutely exhausted by the time I got to my kids place for tea.  Sorry I wasn't much company.  We cruised home on Tuesday calling on a couple of friends on the way.

Its always great to be away, especially to such an inspiring event, but just as wonderful to be back home.

Weaving and Knitting

First I should explain that the Professional Weavers Network (mentioned in the last post) is a small stand alone group of weavers in New Zealand who hold a seminar once a year usually alternating between the North Island and the South.  Much of the discussion at seminar is on exhibitions, either past or the next deciding what, when, how and where.  The exhibition is held every two or three years.  We also have very inspiring guest speakers and tutors.  The basic aim of the Network is "to further develop the art of weaving through pursuit of excellence and the promotion of handwoven textiles".  I can't wait for the weekend to start.

A couple of views of fingerless gloves.  The pattern was in a recent Vogue Knitting magazine and I've used a yarn of 50% wool 50% cashmere.  Just gorgeous!  I've borrowed a friend's slim arms to model them.