loveFibre

These are all woven with my handspun on a 12 inch Ashford Knitter’s rigid heddle loom.

I made them at the end of 2010. It’s high time to warp the loom again, since the New Year it’s been all spinning and no weaving.

Work is frenetic at the moment but I am making time to go to a weekly patchwork class on the island – two peaceful hours with likeminded people, and lovely log cabin to play with.

And out of this something very exciting is being born – the new Tiree Tapestry Group – tapestry in the sense of community tapestry, using a wide range of creative textile techniques. We’ll have a web site soon but there’s a little bit about us on our Facebook page. Our first meeting is on Friday – I can’t wait!

I finished my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project and posted it on Wednesday. I didn’t get started till the Christmas Holidays so it’s a bit slapdash, but on the other hand that stopped me from being too precious about it, and it’s basically a whole lot of ‘I’ll try this and see what happens’. I had chosen Lines and Grids for my theme, but I couldn’t think how to approach it, till I had a dream that I had stitched pairs of pages together to make them thicker – so that’s what I did, and worked into them with various media, and a bit of weaving and lacing. I would like to have spent more time on it but it was fun and I’m pleased I finished it.

I’ve uploaded pics of the whole thing to Art House Co-op, and on Flickr as a slideshow.

However, I recommend virtually leafing through some much more timeworthy sketchbooks, for example,

Fibrefrolics
Mixed Media
Dreaming Spirals
Stitching with Schnauzer and Siamese
Anita Bruce
Elly Wright

I needed a blogging break after finishing my course but it grew rather longer than I intended. If anyone is still here reading, this is what I’ve been doing since then.

In July, I was given a couple of Tiree fleeces, a Jacob and a Suffolk, by a very kind crofter friend, and spent some time learning how to turn this

into this,

and then to this.

August brought visitors and walks by the sea.

In September, we sadly said goodbye to Tansy, our darling companion of almost 17 years – this photo was taken in the spring. She loved to run on the beach and the machair right up to the week she died. I miss her so much.

In October I collected blues, yellows and greens together and made some little pieces of felt for the International Day of Felt. But I didn’t get myself organised in time to get other people involved as well – I will next year, I hope, when the colours will be Red-Purple-Blue.

While all my flat surfaces were filled up with blues and yellows and greens…

I spun some of it too.

In fact, I’ve been spinning a lot in the last few months. I’ve woven scarves with some of these yarns now, but the basket keeps filling up again.

I think my birthday visit to the mainland deserves a post of its own, for another day. I don’t quite know how this blog will evolve without the focus of the OCA course. Mostly textiles still, of course, but maybe a bit more of life as well. I’ve tried keeping a separate blog for ‘other stuff’ but since it’s a challenge to keep one blog alive, let alone two, a more eclectic mix may be the way to go from now on.

I’ve signed up to get a sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project 2011 – run by Art House Co-op in Brooklyn. A little scary, but I (virtually) know quite a few people who’re taking part – and anyone can join in – it should be a great project to be part of. My sketchbook hasn’t arrived yet but I think they come quite quickly after you sign up. There are lots of very different themes to choose from and I chose ‘Lines and Grids’ – I thought it might provide inspiration for weaving as well as being fun to explore.

Of course as soon as you start to look there are lines and grids everywhere – these are some from my Flickr photos:

1. lobster pot, 2. bramble leaves turning, 3. patterns and textures at Jolyons, 4. nets at Praia da Vagueira, 5. lines in rock, 6. sculpted by nature, 7. rusty fence, 8. light and waves, 9. fibre and tines, 10. prints in the sand, 11. patterns and textures at Jolyons, 12. netted rock, 13. under a sunlit chair, 14. creel, 15. waves, 16. grass shadows on the sand

I also think there are lots of expressions about lines to play with, e.g. ‘crossing the line’,'line of enquiry’,'taking a hard line’, and probably also some about grids though they don’t spring to mind so readily!

While I was looking at napkin rings and cuffs on Flickr, I saw this beautiful forest poetry cuff by Cathy Cullis, and it gave me the clue I needed for the final element in my hospitality piece. I loved the combination of fabric and text, and the frayed ‘wabi sabi’ quality, which echoes with my ‘imperfect’ theme. A cuff, writ large, could be a table runner. With that thought my objects suddenly turned into an installation.

I had the fabrics (and had already used most of them in the woven napkin rings).

I had the words, collected in my theme book. And I had – just – the time.

Piece, piece, piece and stitch, stitch, stitch.

A day later – much later – and I had a table runner. The fabrics are all my own hand dyed indigo shibori pieces from various workshops long past. (Now I need to dye some more!). The text includes words from the Bible and quotations from Christine D Pohl’s Making Room and Jennifer Kavanagh’s The O of Home. I had puzzled about how to attribute these if I’d stitched them on a napkin; in this format it was easy, with a label on the back of the work.

So this is it, the culmination of all the work and experimenting and agonising and learning. The photos were taken in a bit of a hurry and a bad light before it all went into the package to catch the post (you have to get to the sorting office by mid-morning here, as the mail goes on the plane to Glasgow at lunchtime). When it comes back from my tutor I’ll take some better pictures and put them on Flickr.

There isn’t really anything I would change about it, a few small technical things maybe. I don’t think I’m really cut out for distance learning but I’m glad I stuck with the course and managed to finish with something I like. I couldn’t have got through this last week without the large amounts of encouragement and coffee provided by Alan, he was wonderful. I’m off for a walk by the sea now, and the next big thing is Woolfest – I can’t wait. I’ll be there both days and would love to say hello to any blogging friends who are going.