Weaving Big

The cold winds of February make me hide inside and work on art. Often I find myself trying something new and so I warped my Hagen loom a whopping 20 inches wide. I was working big.

Perhaps not big to some but I rarely venture beyond ten inches. It's been a whole new mindset in my approach to design. Instead of working 10 warps in an inch, I'm down to 6 for each inch. Few choices, bigger groups of yarns to weave with. Pieces I wove 20 years ago were done this way and after so many years of tiny t's it's interesting to think about how this change of scale can affect the shapes I make. The slits are mighty big too, check out that "r" I use as my woven signature.

Just observations and no long term switch to "big" in the works, I have too many ideas to get through for that.

New Faces in Tapestry

The Birthday Bash continues.

Seven eager weavers meet in Minneapolis, ready for a 2 1/2 day workshop with the daunting task of creating new faces. What sort of character will they create?

This group was the most skilled class I've taught so far. I enjoy teaching beginners, explaining the bones of tapestry and watching their understanding emerge. This group already had the basics and there were no fires to put out. Let the personalities emerge.

When I teach a class about weaving new personalities I focus on surface texture and face expression. Ok, we are always thinking about value. And the farther we get to the finish line, the more difficult the use of value becomes.

Meet the new ladies ( why are there rarely any men?) I bet you might even know some of these folks.

Happy Graduation All!