Back from England

I had a great 8 days away in England.
The reason for going was the Complex Weaver's Study Day with Jennifer Moore on June 29th. This was organized by Wendy Morris from Handweavers Studio.

It was great to meet up with old friends and meet new.
Though I know quite a bit about double weaving by now, it was so good to have a day with a weaver who has double weave as her speciality and I did learn new things. Whenever you have a chance to take a course with Jennifer, I highly recommend going, if you are interested in double weaving.

I also went to the V&A to see the Ballgowns. Very enjoyable to see. This exhibition is on until January 6th.
Another day was spent at New Designers. So inspirational to see this, but I was saddened that there was so little weaving compared to surface design.
I also went to see these but found it very disturbing to see. Is this what society has come to now? But glad that I was able to see these tapestries for myself.
Another visit I made was to Buckingham Palace where there was a special display of some of the Queens Diamonds. Never been and very interesting to see all.

On the way out we walked through the gardens.

A lovely experience in all.
The Olympic buzz was there to see and feel in London. But I'm glad not to be there when the crowds come in for the Olympics.
I love the general buzz of London. My first visit was in 1967 and I lived there for a few years from 1969. It feels like home going back there.

Back home now. The cats were happy to have me home again. The garden has grown quite fast so lots to do there. I have not seen the Jay yet (the nuts were finishes when I came home) but the Blue and Great Tits are busy feeding (I put out more nuts).
My grandson is at his first pony camp this week with 18 girls and 1 other boy. Looking forward to seeing how he comes out of this :-). He will also celebrate his 7th birthday at the camp.

Just watched the Men's finals at Wimbledon. Quite nail-biting at times. It would have been so nice to have an English champion again after 76 years, but not to be this time. There will be another year.

Summer is still to come. Yesterday was a lovely day and it looked like dinner could be in the garden, but just as dinner was served the rain started. Today was a very wet day. But we keep positive and hopefully summer will come before autumn arrives.

Hope to be inspired enough to do some weaving soon.

A month gone by

How time flies, another month gone by.
The creative juices are not flowing, so not much to show.
I did however do some dyeing with madder on Shetland wool. I once bought some green, brown and grey Shetland and I thought I would improve on the colours with madder. I like how the grey has come out but not very much the green and brown yarn. But mixing them all up in a warp will work I hope. This will be a project for the winter.

I am enjoying the birds in the garden.
The last week I have had a jay visiting daily

 It's a joy to watch. The next photo is quite close to the house. It's sitting on my garden chair.

 Other visitors are busy too. This must have been a nest or more just flown out.

Also lots of great and blue tits coming daily and not forgetting the black birds.

Iridescent warp finished

This warp is now finished.
The first weaving from this warp was this

Next I tried out lots of colours

I found that I made a mistake in the threading, so I rethreaded after cutting off the above weaving
There was only about 50cm warp left to weave but I wanted to see the difference.
The above was kind of square and I wanted curves

I'm glad I did the rethreading as I did get the curves I was looking out for.

I should have been weaving for my double weaving course but life gets in the way sometimes. I will do the weaving after the course is finished now. Loom is empty and I can think about the next warp without stressing to get it all finished in time. Good decision made.

At the moment we are enjoying warm sunny weather. I better enjoy this, before it's gone again.

Back from visiting London

Last week I went to London for 5 days, mainly to meet friends and look at lots of exhibitions. Going with Eurostar is such a pleasant way to travel to London as you arrive in the heart of London.
I've enjoyed tremendously to be away from home for a change. It had been well over a year since I last went away.
My first visit was to the V&A to see the Spider Silk.

My main reason to go to London now, as this exhibition ends early June. It was so good to see this for real.

The scarf had a distinct crimping at one point, intrigued how this came about. Anyone any thoughts about this?  Difficult to photograph as there was glass before the scarf and windows shining in. This was in the middle at one side, the same at one end of the scarf.

Above photo is the cape, with detailed the top closing at the front.

The design of the cape was also there to see

I even went back just before I went home again, together with a friend who wanted to see it too. If you have not seen it and are able to get to London before June 5th, I highly recommend you to go and see for yourself.
The café at the V&A is worth a visit too:

The 2nd day it was to Tate Britain to see Picasso. We spent so much time there that we forgot to have lunch. It was so interesting to see the work of different artists together on show that had influenced each other. I have seen several Picasso exhibitions but I learned something new here. He designed for the theatre too, there were costumes on show.

The 3rd day was time for the Fashion and Textile Museum where there was an interesting exhibition on design.
Lots to see, here some impressions:

 I love these black and white pictures, although my pictures are not very sharp but difficult to photograph high above you.

Close to the Museum is the Shard under construction, very impressive

And another building worth capturing. I love architecture.

The 4th day was time to go to the Barbican Art Gallery to see Bauhaus, I had been invited by a friend to go and see this exhibition. Thanks Phyllis, it was great to see this together!
Again a lot of time was spent viewing and lunch was a bit later than usual. I could not appreciate all that was there. Some I found quite depressing but on the whole it was magic to see so much diverse work together and the textiles on show were stunning to see.

It was enchanting to see so much in flower in London













It was an inspiring visit and my next visit to London is already planned!

Visitor

Today I'm looking after Roos for a few hours whilst DD is having lunch with a friend. She is a wire haired Jack Russel, almost 6 months old.

My warp for Iridescent weaving is on the loom and I've started weaving. Can you see the pattern emerging?

These are the colours in the warp

The current weft colour is a purple towards the red. I will also try out a lighter colour so that the darker warp colours can come up more. Weft colours are always different from the warp colours.
I have my next lesson this Saturday, so a few days left to finish this warp.

The double weaving that I finished looks like this:

In above photo I've folded the cloth so that both sides are visible.
Below: alternating between up and under. From large block to very small and back again. Colour in weft are near colours in warp.

 Below: here the same pattern as above but using colour in the weft that is opposite in the colour circle.

More colour double weaving

I had grandson staying with me for Easter, so very little weaving done. Sunday was sunny and warm, a real surprise, so we worked in the garden most of the day. On Monday the whole family came and we had a meal together.

The warp is nearly woven up.

I'm finishing with different colours (complementary colours in the colour wheel from the warp colours), just to see how that comes out. It changes the warp colours completely.

 

Warp is almost done!

This morning I've made the next warp with the help of Marian, using the warping paddle. That was an eye opener, warping 8 colours at once.  Marian, thank you!

When the double weaving warp is finished (hopefully tonight) I'll put the new warp on the loom for my Iridescent Weaving Workshop a week on Saturday.
After that I'll have a week to warp and weave for the next Colour Double Weaving Workshop.
I will not be bored the next few weeks ;-)

The garden is very colourful at the moment with lots of feathered visitors:

Happy Easter weekend