Zebra Inspiration

I am in the creating/planning phase of a design for a scarf that is going to be used as a raffle item. The proceeds will help pay for my little zebra friend Nemo. This little Zebra is living at Broken Road Ranch in Winchester where I board my horses. Deborah, the owner and manger of the ranch is Nemo’s new Mom. Deborah has a heart the size of Texas and wants to provide a special place that people can go to and interact with animals that they may never have had the opportunity to if not for her.

I think that is a wonderful idea and if you see one little kid feeding a Zebra named Nemo, I bet you would feel the same.

So why do I want to help Deborah pay for Nemo? Well besides the fact that I can see this as a magical thing for a child, I feel that it is the least I can do for this wonderful friend. Back in December, My beloved horse Moondance who is 30 years old, colic. She was sick and on the brink of death for 3 weeks. You would have thought that Moondance was Deborah’s horse.  We had to keep a 24 hour vigil for the first two weeks, it was cold and I was exhausted and emotionally spent.  Deb was there to relieve me so I could rest. She would feed her by hand, walk her through the night, blanket her when she was cold and loved on her when the pain was to much for her. I could not have done it by myself. Moondance made it through this ordeal and is now fat and sassy again. We have to have a special diet that Deb prepares for her each day.

So, the scarf…

I want to use parts of the design that God painted on Nemo. I found a overshot pattern that looks like shields  and feels some what Africa to me. I will use it for the Shibori part and I will paint the stripes on the fabric before I gather it much like I did with the goldfish scarf. Here are some of the pictures I took.

I love the pattern you see here that looks like a upside down Y.

 

 

Here is Nemo’s sweet little eye. I like the 4 lines above his eye and the two lines that run right under his eye.

This is his back legs. See how the lines seem to connect.

It is a little hard to see the line details on his forehead because he is fuzzy,  the lines form diamonds and the widest part of the diamond is his eyes.

 

His front legs sort of remind me of Birch tree’s . 

Next, I started looking for color inspiration. I decided to look at pictures of Africa . Here you see shades of orange, rust , yellow browns,and black.

 

This one has a rainbow of colors

 

Blues, purple, lavender, magenta

Yellow, pink, blue, and purple

 

Blues,orange, and gold

What colors do you think would look good in this design?  I'm using white 10/2 tencel and the stripes will be black.  I need help to pick the colors I use on the Shibori portion of the scarf.

Once I feel like I have captured the feeling and look that I want I will begin.

When I am finished we are going to sale raffle tickets for the scarf.

Do you remember The Mr. Ed Show???

In the beginning of the show while they sang the “A horse is a horse of course of course” song they showed pictures of Mr. Ed  looking out of his stall, well I snap this picture of Nemo the other day and it made me laugh and think back to my childhood.

Iridescence workshop with Bobbie Irwin

On April 12th, 13th and 14th, the Palomar Handweavers Guild www.palomarhandweavers.org  put on a wonderful  workshop called “The Magic of Iridescence”  taught by Bobbie Irwin from Colorado. The Antique Gas and Steam engine Museum hosted our event. All of the participants received a warp of 3 or more colors in 3 inch sections as well as 24  additional colors  for our wefts.

  Bobbie brought a boat load of samples to illustrate how crossing particular threads in a particular order causes an iridescences. It gives the fabric the illusion of the colors shifting.

She gave us a basic class on the theory of color and how that translates to weaving colored yarn.

We had a blast! The people that are in the Palomar Handweavers Guild as well as the San Diego Creative Weavers Guild  are some of the nicest people I have met. Kindred spirits. Here is some pictures I took at the workshop: 

On the second day, Bobbie taught us weave structure and how it relates to iridescence. Here, she was showing us how to warp using 2 color pairs so that they don’t twist and enables you to use only one shuttle.

Here are some of the girls I had the pleasure to share the workshop with.

Good Times!

I will post some pictures of the gamp I wove in a few days.

 

Ok so here is the gamp we did in the work shop. My warp colors are yellow green, green, blue green.

We used all the colors on the card as our weft.

I bunched the gamp up so you can see the iridescence effect the different colors created.

I really enjoyed the workshop and the colors inspire me.

The view from my studio

Here is the view from my studio.

Pretty Pretty.

Double weave scarf

In March, the Palomar Handweavers guild had a wonderful yarn sale. Of course I wanted to support my guild so I had to buy stuff, Right???? Well, anyway, I bought this pretty yarn and I decided to dye some 10/2 tencel to add to the warp for design interest. I used bubble gum, peach, and lavender.

Almost done!

 

 

This scarf is super easy and very fun to weave.

My Weaving Hero’s

My all time favorite weaving hero is Laura Fry. She has no idea that since last July she has taught me to weave. I go to her website http://laurafry.com/index.html which you can view educational video’s (i personally use as my tutor), see techniques and answers to just about any weaving question. As an example of how useful her website is to my weaving, today I made 3 guest towels.  I beamed it on my sectional warping beam, dressed my loom, and weaved, (wove, whatever you call it) in 6 hours. The towels are 18 inches wide and 34 inches long including hems, 2  inches on each end. I used Laura’s technique of throwing a shuttle http://laurasloom.blogspot.com/search/label/shuttle%20throwing. This also included a overshot band on one end of each towel. I will post pictures after I wet finished using Laura’s book “Magic in the water”.

I love her personality on her website, and her down to earth nature. I have emailed her a couple of times to ask a question and without hesitation she answered me with a detailed answer. Thank you Laura Fry for the education you continue to give us all and the inspiration you have given me.

Next, Sue Butler. As many of the weavers know, that belong to the Yahoo weaving group, Sue Butler has helped many of us out of a jam. She is so giving and a great teacher. My first encounter with her was back several months ago when I want to learn how to do a huck lace version of a dogwood flower. I had the hardest time trying to figure it out. Sue took the time to explain how to read the draft (profile) what sett to use and how to treadle the pattern.

I took a printed out copy of her email to the loom and I was able to follow her instructions and was successful with this new weaving structure. So Sue taught me to read a profile draft, how to weave, thread, and treadle a block weave structure. This has become very valuable to me. Sue opened a door to a more creative weaving experience. This is Sue’s website www.subudesigns.com. Thanks Sue for taking the time to educate us all through your book

UNDERSTANDING RAYON CHENILLE

 

 

 

 

and the yahoo weaving group.

Next, Tien Chiu,

Here is her blog.

http://www.tienchiu.com/category/blog-posts/

Check out her Wedding jacket and Wedding dress. AMAZING!

She is an inspiration to me. her work is lovely and challenging.

She helps me challenge myself. Along with Laura and Sue, Tien shares her knowledge with follow weavers. I can’t tell you how many times I go to the weaving group with a question about an idea and Tien writes me back with detailed and easy to understand directions to help me  reach my goal.

These 3 ladies win the first ever electronic golden loom award. They won’t get fame and fortune from this award but I can offer my heart felt Thank you to them.

 

Kathleen Waln,

I took a Woven Shibori workshop from Kathleen. She was such a GREAT teacher! We had such a great time learning. Kathleen did not hold anything back. Every minute of  her workshop was  filled with learning. I had no idea we where going to learn so much. I loved learning about Traditional Shibori as well as Woven Shibori, but what really inspired me was learning how to dye. This has inspired me in ways I can’t even explain. Kathleen is a gifted teacher and made learning several techniques so interesting and fun.  I think that I have only woven one thing with fiber that was factory dyed since her workshop. I primarily use 10/2 white Tencel and create my own colors from what I learned from Kathleen. Thank you Kathleen for your teachings and inspiration.

This is Kathleen’s blog: http://weaverkat.blogspot.com

Thank you Laura Fry, Sue Butler,  Tien Chiu, and Kathleen Waln.