Progress

I am back from the vacation from Hell, almost over my pneumonia and back to weaving. I have so many ideas and need to organize them. I want to get a lot done be Ann Arbor. That is generally my big goal for the year, have the booth filled for Ann Arbor.

I wove some rugs out of "by products from the textile industry." I sold two of them this past weekend. I am weaving more. I thought that I had more of the forest green "worms" from Pendelton. I am hoping that I have enough to weave a rug. If not I am going to weave them singularly and not doubled. I might be able to do a twill weave that way. I opened the big case of wool scraps that I have. I was not aware that there was fringe on these pieces. I did some test cutting, I am going to have to sew the ends together before I cut, the pieces are just not long enough the way that they are. I think that I will take four pieces, trim the fringe, then sew ends together by lapping them. then just cut and hope that I have guessed correctly. I am cutting them at about 1" wide. I will see if this has to go plain weave or if I will be able to do a twill weave.

We toured the Crafts Center at Berea, KY. There were some beautiful things there. A man wove rag tote bags. He made the handles out of the weft. As near as I can figure he would leave about 6 ends out, braid them then weave those six ends back into the body. These handles were not going to go anywhere. I had decided that I wanted to weave some tote bags, I think that i will be sewing my handles on unless I suddenly figure out how he did this.

I also finally figured out what I am going to do with the sari silk that didn't work out. I am going to put on a 5/2 black perle cotton warp and weave some bags out of the sari silk. I can put those really cool buttons on that I bought from Terri.

OK, lots of plans, now how much will I actually get done before the next show?

Today

Today I went to a meeting for Creative Arts Council. Donna and I are trying to get this group back on track and actually focus on marketing. We got a little bit accomplished, but left a little frustrated.

Donna brought a tote bag that she had made on Cafe Press with the logo of the "Fine Art at the Village" on it. I am going to look at that again. I want to get a tote bag with my logo on it. I might even get a shirt made. The shirt would be nice to wear for shows. Someday i will loose enough weight so that I can weave something that I will wear at shows.

Last night I finally got my www.etsy.com site set up. I showed that at the meeting and started to explain how to set it up. It really isn't that hard, just hard if you don't read the directions. My "store" looks cool, I got my logo on the top of my page and it really looks nice.

We met at Terri Voight's house. We went downstairs to look at her studio. She had bins of fused glass buttons sitting out. This was a very expensive meeting for me. I have some awesome buttons. I may make some purses for these, or put them on jackets as just decoration. Then Terri showed us how to needle felt. I had been thinking about this, now I really want to try it. Janome makes a needle felting machine, that is all that it does is needle felt. Terri's needle felted purses were so cool. She printed fabric for the linings. I got so many ideas, but I don't want to copy, but I loved what she did. Oh well, this will have to wait until after my next show.

Progress

I signed in today to post something hopefully interesting and found out that I have a follower. YEAH! Thanks, Debbi.

Yesterday i wove three rugs. All of the rugs on that warp so far are from recycled materials. Things that would have previously gone to a landfill but I am now making used of them. I want to make a sign for my booth something like "Ask Me about My 'Green' Weaving." People always like to hear what these are made from.

Yesterday when i was weaving I saw an ad on TV about getting a reusable shopping tote. Inspiration, I could weave tote bags on this warp. I wonder if people would be willing to pay enough for these. I have several balls of denim strips from cut up jeans. I think that would make some good bags. I also have rolls of material cut from the ends of decorating yardage. They would not be as heavy duty, but colorful. So many things that I want to weave and so little time.

A Good Day

Today was a good weaving day. I woven 2 1/2 rugs and would have woven more but I had to go upstairs upstairs to wind more bobbins for the headers. The current rugs that I am weaving are done with the trimmings from girls' uniforms. Someone gave me a big bag of these strips. I thought that these would be just from the hems of individual skirts. I think that it is the selvedge from entire bolts. It is nice, I have long pieces, which is nicer when you are doing this sort of thing. I have two different colors of plaids. This one is mainly white with medium and navy blue. Then I have some that are navy blue and forest green. I figure that I will weave that one with a forest green heading.

Today I also finished off my waffle weave towels. It is alternating blocks of plain weave and waffle weave. It has stripes of red, blue, purple and yellow. I woven the towels out of each of those colors and black. The black looks very striking. The red is OK, the purple and blue look good and the yellow is, um, bright. I am making a twisted thread loop that I am sewing in the hem of each towel. I got the blue and the purple towels hemmed tonight. Tomorrow I hope to get the rest done.

I also need to make warps for deflected double weave scarves. So much to do and so little time.

Ann Arbor

I made it, I got my spot in the Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair. I had hoped for the other side of Main Street and further down. I could get other side of street and further up or same side of the street and further down. I took the latter. I will be in spot #194 just a couple of booths from Williams. I will have electricity so that means fans, YES! There is a parking lot and a parking structure right around the corner and the shuttle bus stops at the end of the street. I am closer to the food and the hospitality area.

Now I just have to hope that this will mean more customers, at least more customers who have money to spend.

One warp done

I just cut a cotton scarf warp off of my little floor loom. These are cool scarves. There are stripes of a lycra cotton yarn alternating with stripes of a textured cotton yarn. The lycra shrinks when it gets washed so it a bumpy scarf. I washed one and will see how it looks tomorrow. I wove these longer and narrower than previously. People want scarves that they can fold in half and loop through. These will be nice summer scarves.

I also got another towel woven today. They are going faster than I had thought that they would. I hope that this ambitious streak holds up. I could have a lot of work done for my shows this summer.

Handwoven Items that I Sell

Here is a list of the handwoven items that I sell:

^Scarves
^Shawls
^Jackets
^Vests
^Rugs
^Greeting Cards

These are the fibers that I use for weaving:

^Silk
^Cotton
^Tencel
^Wool (merino)
^Rayon
^Bamboo
^Alpaca
^Silk/Wool Blend
^Bamboo/Cotton
^Bamboo/Silk