Category: distraction

Update

June 10, 2021

Things I have done since January 23, 2021

  • got my COVID-19 vaccination shots! I can hug people again!
  • accepted a commission for a piece for a friend’s parents
  • found work as a teacher at a micro school, two days a week, maybe a dozen kids, ages 6-14
  • addressed 35 years of paint on the dinghy my father designed and built, as a start to refinishing it
  • reached the one year mark for playing my guitarlele, and celebrated with a concert for a dozen children, all waist high or shorter
  • taught two Making Tiny Art classes for the Northampton Center for the Arts one online, and one (loosening restrictions and vaccinations) in person!
  • worked on a class description and syllabus for a fabric coloring and collage class for Northampton Center for the Arts
  • cleared off my desk twice (but you couldn’t tell right now)
  • went to see my mother in another state for the first time in sixteen months, hugged her a lot
  • mounted an exhibit of my work at the TDBank lobby in Amherst, MA
  • had people over to dinner, gone out to dinner and had a pique-nique at a dear friend’s house (hugs all around)
  • mounted an exhibit of the Daily Project in my dining room
  • helped a friend with her father’s terminal illness
  • answered questions to for the Northampton Center for the Arts Featured Artist spotlight(!!)
  • reserved a dumpster so we can get things out of the cellar so the mason can fix the (non-weight bearing) wall that is composed of melting(?) bricks
  • applied for a mentorship (I would be the mentee)

It’s been a while – what have you been up to?

all distraction, all the time!

April 16, 2020

I think this is now a blog of ways I am distracting myself – herein, more weaving.

Having done some more weaving now, I think I need to think more carefully about what to use for warping. I have used the Lion cotton yarn and it is fat, and some linen string I have lying around and that is skinny and fierce – there has to be some intermediate string that warps up nicely and can hold some tension. The franken-loom is surprisingly useful. The sett (the number of warp threads per inch) is close to 8, which means I can also warp it at twice that, 16 ends (warp threads) per inch.

I think I need to take the teeth-combs off the inside faces of the blocks they are mounted on, and mount them parallel to the strings and facing out – so that tensioning the loom pulls threads more firmly onto the teeth rather than letting strings slip or get bumped off the top.

There are all kinds of recommended choices for warp and weft and I have access to those recommendations courtesy of the Little Loom class I signed up for, but I also have a budget of basically zero and a lot of things on hand already, so found and repurposed has to be the majority of the weaving right now.

A newsletter of tiny things

April 15, 2020

I have started a new thing, as one does, particularly in times of uncertainty. If you would like to see a small artwork, or something else small and interesting, mostly daily, sign up using the form in the link. You can always unsubscribe if I talk too much, or you don’t like the pictures, or you have too many things in your inbox already. I sympathize. Nothing personal.

The first one is written, and I’m working on the next one!

distractions for a pandemic

April 13, 2020

Last year I signed up for Rebecca Mezoff’s class on weaving tapestry on little looms. She is a delightful teacher, and I enjoyed the class a lot. I was working on a loom I had cut from thin plywood using the laser cutter at Smith College – the first loom I made was too flimsy, and the next several attempts were respectively not cut all the way through, excessively burnt and off center. I decided I had enough things to work on in the fall and stopped weaving for a while.

With the pandemic and resulting directions to stay home, I have revisited the idea of tapestries, particularly weaving small, four selvedge pieces. After a good deal of thrashing about in the shop yesterday, I produced a prototype small loom with adjustable tension.

The “comb” parts came from one of the heavier failed laser cut looms. The rest is scraps and a large bolt scrounged from various bins. While I am pleased with myself for accomplishing this object, it turns out to be less than completely functional. The teeth are too fat to make a selvedge (a woven edge that does not need finishing) and the not quite deep enough to hold multiple loops of string for a string supported warp. I found these things through trial and error, and a series of false starts.

On the left, from top to bottom, my first, second and third attempts at weaving, along with another picture of the loom. Not shown, the various warp experiments that failed to stay in place long enough to weave anything. On the right, my first four selvedge piece, with a penny for scale. The side selvedges are spectacularly wobbly, but the basic idea is there, and I am pleased.

And I have ordered a Mirrix Saffron loom, because while I could indeed continue to work on this one, it will be so much easier to get going on a loom that is designed to do what I want from the ground up. And having had a lot of fun weaving, and a good deal of aggravation getting set up, I’m all about decreasing aggravation, and increasing the fun quotient.

I should likely talk about the Daily 100, and the creative project next time!