I recently saw a short video about an artist (whose name I of course cannot remember). Her philosophy toward making art is "you have to begin". The video showed her entering her studio to work and warming up by "playing" with some paint. At the time, I didn't know how to translate that to making fiber art, but now I do: spinning.
There is a large plastic tub full of roving in the closet in the spare bedroom. I found myself putting off spinning any of it until I became a better spinner. One day I realized I would not become a better spinner unless I spun, and it would be easier to improve my spinning if I spun good fiber. So now I am working with this lovely BFL.
My recent spinning has been over twisted, but I didn't know why. There is a clock that ticks in my studio, so I have been using it as a metronome, to try to slow down my feet and speed up my hands while spinning. I have to watch my feet while doing this, but fortunately my hands are in the same line of sight, so it works fairly well. I am pleased with the results.
After warming up with 20 minutes of spinning, I turn to weaving. I truly admire and envy those who can warp with ease; I am not one of them. It took me many days (and much swearing and not a few tears) to get the loom warped to my satisfaction for this rag rug. It is the first project in a series using up material from a duvet I "deconstructed".
Saturday I was going to intersperse some housework with weaving, but once the warp was ready, I just had to reward myself with a bunch of weaving. Sunday I wove some more, while waiting on yarn to mordant. I always try to leave a weaving project in such a state that I can just sit down and do it for a while, with no preliminaries. This keeps me eager to return to the loom.
Sunday is usually "date day" with my SO, but he was going over to his daughter's house for Father's Day burgers. I opted out, as I felt the need for some alone time. And what a great opportunity to finish mordanting the rest of the blank yarn! I thought I had sock yarn to work with, but instead it was ten mini-skeins of Cascade 220 and one of Lamb's Pride. I don't recall why I made such small skeins - probably thinking I was going to sample dye, which is probably what I will do with them.
I figured out what the rhubarb-leaf-mordanted yarn smells like: chicken noodle soup.
To top it all off, I also spent an hour or so knitting socks. No pic, but I am almost done with them. I am also almost done with listening to Ron Chernow's Grant while knitting. It's been a long slog for both of them.
Now back to "real" life.
1 comment:
It sounds like you have been having fun. I am loving the rag rug, such a great thing to have on your loom.
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