Following the Complex Weaver's Seminars (see previous post) it was finally, the beginning of Convergence. I picked up my goodie bag at registration and then headed off to Robyn Spady’s ‘Block and Tackle’ class. Where we learned about units, and I learned that most people in conversation refer to Huck lace has a block weave versus the half unit weave I learned in Madelyn’s book. That's what happens when you only learn from books! During the lunch break from class I ran over to the vendor hall and purchased a silk brocade scarf from Above the Fray, an organization that provides a marketing service to get hand wares from third world artists' and sells them in high end markets. This was exactly what I needed for the ice box of a classroom. Silk really keeps you warm, and cool oddly enough, when you first put it on it is cooling to the skin but it quickly absorbs your body heat and retains it. Then when you walk outside in the heat it absorbs the sweat and keeps you cool like air conditioning next to your skin. I think I might have developed an expensive taste. After class I went back to the hotel to get ready for that evening's event, the HGA fashion show. They had amazing garments, and a fun juxtaposition of down home country followed by a drag queen Dolly Parton. Hopefully, they had fun putting this on because there were a lot of wonderful pieces and fabulous people on stage! The next day was Saturday, and my first volunteer position from 10am-12pm at the Silent Auction. I love silent auctions but this one was a bit strange. When I arrived we were told to start setting out the materials on the tables. That meant I got to see all the goodies first thing, and start looking for what I wanted. There was a huge assortment of Indian textiles and lots of books, but very little in the way of gadgets, and gadgets are my favorite part. Bummer! The strange part was that it was supposed to start the day before and there were no signs or directions for the silent auction, so yeah, strange. Then it was lunch and off to 'Totally Tied weaves' with Jannie Taylor. She is definitely up there on my list of teachers because of how her mind looks at objects versus a repeating pattern. During the class she took a simple object that she had made, a dragonfly, then put it into several different tied weaves to demonstrate how the dragonfly subtly changed between the different structures! Now that is exactly what I’ve been needing! She also sold a thumb drive with her test examples on it and a very special folder that I would have paid for all by itself, several different kinds of tabby picks in wif format. These are to be inserted into your object design in the lift plan, and are different types of tabbies for your tied weave. It’s similar to an interleaving pattern but instead of it being another ornate pattern it is your tabby pattern. Something, else I learned that was a bit surprising to me was how the structure can change the size of your object. Of course your yarns will also have an effect but the structure itself lends itself to small details in the object or large swatches. When we were discussing it in the class I began to think of it as a paintbrush. As a painter chooses the right paintbrush for their image so a weaver chooses the right structure to best emulate the image they want. After class I went back to the vendor hall for another round of volunteering at the silent auction. And there was nothing official making it thee most awkward time ever. Luckily, I got to read the books that were for the auction. Like the Drawloom book/pamphlet, and a textile traditions from around the world book. Which, by the way, there was an amazing drawloom there that I got to play on and made me have loom envy yet again! Technically, it is two pieces of equipment, the Julia counterbalance loom, and the drawloom is an addition that you attach to the Julia Loom. I figure once I start weaving satins and damask routinely I can actually look at this. Until then I shall pretend it wasn't the most fun weaving impromptu experience. Then it was Sunday. Initially, I didn’t have anything scheduled for this day but last minute I decided to sign up for Robyn Spady’s Color and Weave class. The handout she gave with this class was huge! I think she got a little excited about all of the different patterns that can be created. I left wondering if there was a way to figure out how the color pattern would appear without having to go through the myriad of combinations to find them. Hmmm... Then it was off for my final volunteer shift with the silent auction. Finally, there was information about the thing I was volunteering for so fielding questions was easy peasy and since the questions were now minimized my volunteer comrades and I could switch off going and checking out the vendors. Like the Meridian Mill House where I found Seacell/merino wool roving and a Turkish Spindle from Shephard's WoodWorking so I could do something with fiber while I waited for my class on Tuesday. Oh, and more Camel/Silk blended yarn this time from Seaside Fiber Arts whose owner is very excited about natural dyes! That Or I caught her right after her coffe intake, hahaha! She was delightful! At some point me and Donna (my Zoom friend) walked around the HGA small expressions exhibit and the yardage exhibit. She is an amazing sculpture artist so we perused the small expressions area. And looked at the handwoven expression exhibits as well. These were my favorites in the expressions area. I didn't take pictures in the yardage area because they had called the 5:00 closing time, so we had to be quick. Monday was my sewing class day. In the morning I had prototyping garments with Susan Lazear. Finally, I had something to play with in class! Nothing I made there looked amazing but I did like how she gives you the concept of using shapes, like just use a rectangle and see what happens, then use gathers and see what happens, then use a rectangle plus triangles together. Simple but a very expressive and fun design method. Then it was off to lunch with my free HGA salad ticket, which was a half wilted spinach salad, ewww. But it was free?? Then off to my afternoon class which was sewing non bulky seams with handwoven fabrics with Sandy Cahill. In this class she showed us a wonderful method of sewing seams to minimize bulk, and our take home was a sewing sampler. Such a great idea! Finally, it was time for weaving in a parallel universe with Linda Hartshorn! We learned about how echo and jin are techniques, not a structure, and how to draft Moire, parallel, and 4 color double weave threadings! The color play in echo projects is so much fun. Since it has 4 colors you are spotlighting certain colors to make your pattern. Which means the others colors are also crossing but they now have a ripple effect. My warp colors were green-yellow-red-purple, and for the weft we worked with a single color to see what would happen. In the image below on the left you have Linda's scarf on the left and my weaving on the right. The first thing I noticed was that the inner part of the polygon, or circles on hers, is changing color. Then, when you look at the outside of the of the shape (polygon or cilrcle) it looks like the edges are getting bigger and smaller which is all from bringing up different colors but continuing in the same structure! So Cool!!! Maybe the image on the far right shows what I'm talking about. The warp is always green-yellow-red-purple, but from the side you can see I'm only pulling up the yellows. On the third and final day I think everybody was running out of steam. After being inside and not traveling for two years people were ready to go home! As people left Linda asked them to display what that had woven since you always have completely different things happening on everyone's loom with all this color play. This was my favorite from one of the ladies who decided to make placemats out of her yardage. On the last day everybody else was tired and leaving but of course I got inspired to play, haha! Since we were using only one weft color I wanted to see what happened if I took Brenda Gibson's idea of color gradients for the weft. Since green was the only color in the room that we had multiple shades of I made a sequence to slowly blend one green to the next. It isn't the best representation of what I think it can do, but for a 15 min planning idea and only 3 hours to do it I think it demonstrates the possibility very well. Below are my various samples on the left and my green exploration on the right. Then it was time to pack up all my crazy goodies: And say good bye to Knoxville, TN
0 Comments
|
Author: Vader
Archives
January 2023
Categories
All
This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of Cookies |