Returning

No, not to the US, sorry Kerry & Cheryl & Mom!

Returning to the blog. It's had a long nap. Also returning to Complex Weavers, my membership now renewed. I miss my extended tribe of weavers, spinners, and fiber enthusiasts. In renewing my membership, I joined the Designing Textile study group. It's led by a weaver I have a lot of admiration for, and it's membership is comprised (to my delight) of some wonderful weavers. I'm excited to be in their company. I approach this as designing textiles for a purpose. My purpose has been for clothing, and I've promised to write up my first adventure in weaving cloth for clothing. Stay tuned.

We spent time in Montana last week visiting my husband's cousin on her organic farm. We did very touristy stuff: horseback riding (wonderful, and came away with sore sit bones!), fly fishing from a boat on the Bitterroot River (more of this, please), hiking up to Blodgett Overlook Trail (longer but less arduous and not as high as hiking up Mt. Teide). My sister-in-law Leslie and I ran the Lake Como trail, though I would have to categorize it more as run-walk-stumble-wade through running water. It's about 8 miles, really beautiful with some drop-dead gorgeous waterfalls, but we were there after a week of heavy rains so it was wet. The trail itself was mainly rocky, at times was a small stream, lots of large puddles, and in one case washed out by a small waterfall which we had to walk through. Also, we were admittedly a little anxious about meeting bears. We didn't, but toward the end of the trail we started hearing things and we were completely soaked and ready to be done!

Also in Montana I attended a pipe ceremony. This isn't something I'd normally sign up for but it was scheduled on the farm to celebrate solstice. So, when in Rome (Hamilton, actually)...I'm proud to say that my urbanite self wasn't entirely closed off to the ideas shared and the woo-woo nature of the entire thing and I found myself hit with inspiration for the 2018 study group topic ("write about a specific object or experience that has inspired you to transfer it into your own weaving, and how you translated it"). So in the middle of this pipe ceremony, the smudge smoke told me it was the object of my inspiration.  I wasn't high, it was just sage mixed with some other grassy/herby stuff, nothing hallucinogenic, and the smoke didn't actually say anything. But it was while each person in the circle was being "blessed" and I was staring into the smoke coming from that smudge stick thing that it popped into my head that the smoke and the objects on the "alter", for lack of a better description, should be my inspiration. And to be fair to the ceremony, it was a strong inspiration and there was absolutely no doubting it. 

I jumped on it right away the next morning in my journal, jotting ideas. In fact, I think the finished textile really popped into my head already formed; the brainstorming is mainly about how I'm going to execute it. 

As with all things, I'm limited by the width of my loom, so nothing goes on wider than 20". Technically, I'm also limited to 8 shafts but the ground cloth structure can be a "simple" plain or twill weave, and I sketched this on the plane coming home. It's the smoke that is the complicated part, and I've been googling this for inspiration on how to incorporate it. It needs to give a sense of lightness and movement, of dancing across the cloth.  I want to see curves. Supplemental warp, damask, inked images on the warp before weaving, ribbon sewn onto the warp after weaving - these are all potential approaches and all are on the table, even the damask if I were to construct a drawloom-thing. It's not out of the question. At the moment my browser is full of tabs on these topics. Today my running brain (the part that isn't putting feet to pavement to make sure I stay upright) will be put to work solving these design mysteries, and I've pulled out all my weaving books and CW Journal past issues for inspiration. As Fox Mulder says, the truth is out there. 

Right now, the dominant colors are dark grey and black/near black with occasional yellow (there was a guy in a bright yellow rain coat) and dark red (there was a dark red bandana on the "alter" which quite stood out against the greys and near-blacks), and then the light grey representing the smoke. 

I currently have two weaving projects wound into chains, but they'll just go in the weave queue. I don't want to put anything on the loom until after August 7, our move date. When I do put this project on the loom, it'll be a sample length proof of concept. Due in December, I have a few months to figure this out, weave/finish, and write about it. 

-E