Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Weaving, Textiles and Tea,leaves, Freecycle, fish and shakshuka

Packed day yesterday. 

Textiles and Tea was a really outstanding basket maker, who has been involved in African art and has great respect  for African basketry skills. He's wildly inventive, as you see!











And I'd been thinking shakshuka this week, so here it is. The recipe uses peppers, I used spinach and scallions




with whole wheat pita, to make sure of all the sauce.

I was weaving and stitching, with interruptions, more like irruptions, from Gary, who's laying new floors, I know, I hear the tappity-tap at all hours, and winnowing as he goes. He just shows up, knowing I'll help rehome stuff. He tends to shop aspirationally, very good items, then somehow doesn't use them.

Such as



Nearly all of them I put on freecycle, got fast takers and a waiting list, and they're now on my step ready for their new owners.

Amidst this, I've been stitching, and here's where I am, 



with this in progress


Just in case you wondered, these blocks are all going to be mounted on a base fabric, yet to be decided on, grid style and with space between and around them ( yes,  this does remind me of a hot Elizabethan sonnet) for more stitching and probably beading. What you're seeing up to now is just the start.

Weaving is happening every morning (except today, eye checkup, dilation, all that, this morning) and yesterday there wasn't anything to show you, because I'd spent my weaving time tightening warp threads and pawing through roving, nothing pictorial happening. I think I'll use only wool roving, for the warmth,"not the cotton. It's already feeling very good, though my skills are still a bit wobbly with the big heddle.

With back strap, if you use a rigid heddle, it's suspended in mid air in the warp threads, no resting place, so you lift and hold with one hand, feed weft with the other. I don't have a big enough shuttle for this width, so I've been handfeeding the weft. I may create one, though, a bit dodgy hand feeding.


 Here you see my somewhat artisanal results to now, and here I thought you'd like to see the back strap loom setup.


Very simple, the bathrobe belt goes round my back, I sit on the stool, the white bar is in front of me, the dowel holding the warp threads up close to it. That's it. To maintain tension, you lean back, and the warp threads respond. It's very physically cooperative. To advance the warp as the work progresses, I turn over both dowel and bar, keeping the backstrap under tension between them, and it won't unroll. It's a real partnership, which is why I like it.

Yesterday I was talking languages elsewhere, mainly fluency, or the lack, and I included British and American English. They are very different in use. I mainly write American style, but with occasional nods to my birth language. 

It reminded me of a Russian home health aide, helping with Handsome Partner, who said, well here at work I speak American, and at home Russian. You and A. speak American to me, but in the evening,  when everyone's gone, do you switch to English?  We explained that they're very similar, but pronounced and emphasized differently, not quite different languages.

In a way, yes. When we relaxed into our natural speech, it was different. It's hard for people who hear me and think that's soooo Brit,  to realize that it's far from my comfortable range, which would be close to unintelligible to friends here. They don't notice the thousands of daily adjustments I make for their benefit, just notice the places where it's physically not possible. Not complaining, just observing. 

In other gripping news, a police report, this from a few miles west of here


evidently, a large fish hurtled down, bang onto a transformer, knocking it out, power out for thousands of residents.

Happy day, everyone, watching out for falling pianos and fish.




26 comments:

  1. I spent 10 days in northern Scotland for an international artists symposium at a glass art center there and the first few days I couldn't understand anything they said. same language but different pronunciations, tempo, tone. towards the end I had gained clearer understanding and didn't have to ask them to repeat themselves quite so much. one of the participants was French though she spoke english as well but even so had to struggle to understand american speakers. she told me I was the easiest to understand because I spoke so slowly relatively, me being from Texas where we aren't in a hurry to get our words out.

    down here it's squirrels that blow out the transformers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Southern speakers were much easier for me at the outset than the rapid fire Midwestern speech, and even faster New York talk.

      Delete
  2. I do enjoy your humor! You are making good progress on both projects. The police report is a good one! The outcome of the incident not so good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Judging from the size of the fish, I'm guessing an osprey, or a bald eagle. The eagles have been known to mug ospreys in flight, for their fish, and sometimes it gets dropped in the fight. I'm wondering if there was an aerial battle over this poor guy

      Delete
  3. That is quite a mystery about the fish. A raptor lost its lunch I guess. It had quite the aim too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My theory is outlined in my response to Sandra. But you're right, all conjecture until a stool pigeon squeals.

      Delete
  4. Wow, those baskets are awesome! And love that police report!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The police report is accompanied by official warning that if encountered, the public should not approach! It would fit right into one of your comic posts. It's public info, feel free to swipe.

      Delete
  5. Whenever people make a joke about basket-weaving, I always think, "God. I've love to learn basketweaving." Those baskets are amazing. I love the artist's outside-the-basket sensibilities in his work.
    Your words about weaving may as well be done in Greek as far as I am concerned. This is not a complaint! This is an admittance that I know absolutely nothing about it unless it's a potholder being made on a potholder frame with those horrid nylon loops.
    I think you are quite right about English versus American. We can understand each other, of course, but it's not always that easy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm a beginner in weaving, and I avoided technical terms, but I see how people do glaze over anyway!
      He's a truly good artist using fibers as his materials. No drawings, plans, nothing, just decides on color and general concept, then goes.
      Nowadays I need captions for British movies and tv programs, so far from the language now, and it's changed, too.

      Delete
    2. He is definitely creative in woven sculpture (not sure about their practicality as baskets). Loved the fish story (other people talk about raining cats and dogs, we prefer to call it raining fish and frogs).

      Delete
    3. He says it amuses him hugely when people ask how his art. works as baskets. As in how do they hold things.

      My sister once showed her quilting group pictures of my GreatTinQuilt, a large hammered metal modular piece. which I presented as a community event with the public taking part. They asked how that could work as a quilt. But I dont think your comment was serious!

      Delete
  6. Love your description of your loom, and it looks quite amazing. You can do so much with it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I really like it better than any I've built, because it's just three items I had lying around the house. I did buy a warping peg, because doorknobs were awkward, and fixing the warp yo a windowsill was easier. It's amazing what you can create with such small output for tools.

      Delete
  7. Sounds like it’s quite physical this weaving business.
    I do love the look of all the beautiful things you can make.
    Accents are a funny thing. I don’t think I have one. But apparently when overseas. Yes I do lol

    ReplyDelete
  8. You are doing a wonderful job with that rug. Actually, hand feeding is the way I made all wool roving rugs, as did two rug weaving friends who ventured into a couple of wool roving rugs. Even with a rug loom, it is difficult to achieve enough shed clearance for a shuttle loaded with roving. Keep going; it will become easier.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for the encouragement. This is so different! The roving isn't as breakable as I feared, but I need to wear a mask because I'm getting fibers in my mouth and nose! It certainly goes fast, though.

      Delete
  9. That rug is coming along beautifully. Can't wait to see the finished product. I hand fed the roving as it was too hard to wind onto the shuttle and get it through the shed, as Joanne mentioned. You will have abs of steel when you have finished!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's coming along very fast. I'm so happy you blogged about this idea, which hadn't occurred to me, of weaving raw roving, cutting out the spinning part.

      Delete
  10. Love the mystery fish problem! Are American and British English very different then? Some examples please.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm a northerner, Handsome Partner a Scot. Entire books have been written on the heavy influence of Norse on our speech. Many expressions and words unknown in Amerispeak. Constantly trying to remember who knew which words.
      Also see AC for other examples.

      Delete
  11. Try being a Canadian. It's hard to know when to write more British and when to be more American. For online spellcheckers, we have to choose one or t'other. I use the American one, but keep doubting myself when it doesn't approve of my doubled consonants as with ing endings.

    Meanwhile, I watch so much British tv that I usually feel comfortable with it. But I do use subtitles. 😎

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I notice the spelling tapdance that Canadians get into sometimes.

      Delete
  12. Geez - there's so much in this world you have to beware of and now flying fish from the skies. Yikes.
    Those baskets are fun - definitely art and sculptural and not designed for holding things. Perhaps calling them baskets is a misnomer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think baskets is the default name, since they rose from his practice of making baskets you could carry things in. Yes, do look out for fish. It's a good thing that one didn't fall on a person!

      Delete

Thanks so much for commenting. I really appreciate your taking the time, and taking part. Please read the comments and see if your question is already answered!