Complementary Colors at Sievers

No matter what sort of winter we've just had, I start to get itchy some time in March. Tired of my big red coat, heavy sweaters, and worn out mittens I begin to let myself think of summer. I still substitute teach, so summer spells freedom.

Complementary Cups, each square 3" wide

I found this dear old favorite of mine in one of my boxes. I've been interested in the special relationship of complementary colors ever since I learned the yarn dyeing process sometime in the early 1990's.

This summer I'm dyeing up a batch of each of the big 3 complement pairs and bringing them to Sievers School of Fiber Arts for a 4 day workshop on landscape weaving. Sievers, around since the 1970's is located on Washington Island on Lake Michigan and a pretty special landscape it is.

This was a fabulous view of the lake from Schoolhouse Beach, early in the morning before my class two years ago. When I came home I worked with orange and blue complements to create the interpretation below. To me it evokes the feeling of calm I had in that place.

about 9" wide, 10 epi...I put myself at the bottom

In the winter months I imagined more landscapes from my baskets of complements, this time thinking more simply with bands of colors.

These were all woven on the same warp, 3 1/2" wide, 8 epi

And you can tell I did this one during frozen January...

I wanted to weave a new sample 'on the vertical'

If you think you might be interested in joining me for this color blending fun, check out the workshop on Sievers' website here. It will be running August 16 through 20, a great time on the island.

Donut Man is Done

Donut Man is done so of course the question now is, what's next?

One thing for certain, I'm not wasting the other side of this loom, the tan 12/6 seine twine is one of my favorites of all time, so I better get busy. I'm hoping to take the donut fellow over to the photographers by June (ok, I'm not committing to which part of June).

I'm hoping for three smaller pieces inspired by the two years of sketches I've made daily after each substitute teaching job. I'm so glad I finally figured out I had a treasure of ideas to mine from every day. The sketches are very quick and often I write a word or two that will help bring back the memory.
Such phrases as; Make Me, Strawberry Cream Cheese Pop Tart, I Had a Bad Dream and of course a favorite, No.

The sketches below are drawn larger, in black crayon, from those originals.

We'll see what happens.