Painted Women Oops! I Mean Painted Warps

Alice,
I finally took a few photos of the painted warp scarf, the painted warp too-short-to-be-a-scarf, and the unpainted warp scarf for you. In fact, I wore the Mint Chocolate Chip scarf this morning to a meeting. (I promised myself just before Retreat that I cannot leave the house without sporting something that I have made/designed/created. Yes, I was inspired by Anita Luvera Mayer.) For this one I used UKI Boston Brown 20/2 as weft.


I think the Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake piece is destined to become a bag of some sort. The weft here is a polyester (where on earth did I get that???) I considered a table runner, but honestly, it doesn't go with anything we set at the table. Maybe I should be more open-minded.


The last scarf is one that I was particularly taken with when all was said and done. I still had warp that I didn't have time to paint (mostly because I was thinking too much and not playing enough), so there was enough un-painted warp to do one more scarf. I settled on a natural-colored silk noil weft.
When finished, the sheen from the rayon in the 20/2 cotton/rayon warp made it just lovely. I am ready to try more warps with that cotton/rayon thread. I do love white on white designs. You will see more soon...the cashwool/silk warp and weft is in process now. It is a little slower going than the plain wefts.

Canned another 7 quarts of tomatoes today. It is so good to see the pantry filling up again.

Enjoy this Indian Summer!
Nancy

OH! P.S. I saw the hummingbird again this evening. Yesterday I thought maybe she realized that it was Equinox and headed south....

Painted Warp...Woven!

...but not yet finished, Alice. Early this morning I finished the painted portion of the warp, the Chocolate Mint Ice Cream piece was finished days ago and the Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake piece was finished off this morning. I think I still have enough warp for a scarf; this end of the warp is unpainted since I ran out of time in Sarah Saulson's workshop. So, I have planned for a fringe, hemstitched, and started a white on white scarf that has a raw silk weft. It could be particularly lovely, and certainly a lightweight scarf...something for a California or Florida gal maybe.

Now the rush is to try to cut everything off before Friday when we leave to retreat! I wish you could be there, too.
Nancy

MLH Summer Workshops

Silks and Samples

Dear Alice,

What a fabulous time I had at MLH's Summer Workshops held in Holland this past weekend! I had signed up for the Shimmering Silks workshop, taught by Heather Winslow. What beautiful samples we made, and what a very good teacher Heather is!

The sad part was that there were only three students in our class, and the good part is that there were only three students. I was lucky to be in a workshop with two other accomplished weavers: Barbara
and Martha


We were so lucky that two of the MLH Board members dressed two looms each and brought them to our workshop so that we were able to have 7 samples each in our 'Round Robin' workshop. (Thanks, Cathy and Ann!)

The samples included point twills, transparent effect, collapse, two block twill, lace and a braided twill.





It was a small crowd this year and because of that it was easier to spend some more concentrated time with several people, a benefit, to be sure. The other presenters included JoAnn Bachelder, Christine Grimm, Russ Mason, Anita Mayer, and Robin Spady. Great workshops with beautiful work created by everyone who participated. I do hope that next year will be a blow-out--it will be the Golden Anniversary celebration for Michigan League of Handweavers! Alice, it would be fantastic if you could be there with us.

So good to be able to spend some time with you when on my way home. Take care!
Nancy

Frigid Days, Fine Selvedges

Dear Alice,
I have had several people ask about a close-up photo of the fabric for the jacket. You remember that I had gotten that beautiful eggshell reeled silk from you, that then I plied two together on the spinning wheel. Ohhhhh, a long time involved in that. Sometimes when I think of the time put into weaving that fabric I wonder how I EVER could sell that jacket! So here is the close up of the remaining largest piece. It had such a fine selvedge! That is the cord that I made from four threads of the silk and two of the cash/wool plied together.


This week I decided that I had better get a photo of my orchid that has been blooming since before Christmas before she loses all of her blossoms. A little fuzzy, but you can see how much joy she has given us. It has been so beautiful!



Flowers always lift the spirit, especially on these brisk days! It is only 9°F right now.

Hope this finds you well!