Monday, March 16, 2020

Weaving in a Time of COVID-19: How About an Online Show and Tell?

My show and tell piece: a 16-shaft Echo design using a 4-color parallel repeat. 
10/2 cotton warp sett at 36 epi. 20/2 cotton weft.

Well, here we are: Confined to our homes for the most part, working online, washing our hands, even avoiding friends and family during this crazy time. Others are working in health care or serving the public or daily taking health risks in order to keep food on the table and because they are good people who believe in what they do. Hardship and worry. Toilet-paper shortages, even!

And yet... So many of us have much to be thankful for. I, for one, am able to wind warps and plan projects that I had no time for just last week. I'm communicating with weaving friends online rather than face to face, but it's better than no communication at all. Weaving matters to me and so do my weaving friends wherever they are!

Which brings me to the subject of this post. Because of social distancing, those of us in the weaving community aren't able to share and talk about what we do, as guild meetings and classes and workshops and gatherings at friends' homes have been shuttered. I miss that already!

So, how about an online show and tell? If you're game, please send me a photo of what's on your loom or what yarns you're planning to use -- or just send me an email about what you're working on or what you're planning. It doesn't have to be weaving: It could also be knitting or spinning or dyeing or sewing or felting or beading or crocheting or any other wonderful technique that falls under the loose heading, "Fiber Art."

My email is under my "Contact" page just under the heading of this blog. Thanks in advance for sharing!

So, to begin, I will do an online show and tell on what I just finished. Looking ahead to Convergence 2020 -- and even that may not take place -- I am teaching an advanced course on Echo and Jin for 8, 12 and 16 shafts. As always, I'm weaving up a lot of samples.

The photo at the top of this post shows one of my favorite samples to date. I've named it "Perfect" because it's symmetrical and, quite honestly, because I created so many poor designs before I came up with this one -- so finally one was perfect!

Here's the drawdown.


Let me know if you're interested and I will send it to you! Here's how it looked woven up.

This is my first sample, treadled as Echo. 

Believe it or not, the colors of the warp are turquoise, red, lime green, and purple. The weft color makes all the difference, even though is a light 20/2 cotton. The weft in the above sample is a teal blue. 

I'll spare you all of the variations among my samples -- unless someone really wants to see them and lets me know -- but I will share two of my favorites.

This one is the same threading, but treadled as Jin. 
Bonus: I was able to name this "Perfect Jin." Get it? Perfection? 



And this version is treadled as Double Weave. I had to re-sley it to 48 epi, 
but it was surprisingly easy to weave.

So there you have it: My online show and tell in this time of social distancing. I hope to hear from you -- but if not, I do understand! Thanks for reading.







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