Another Large Tallis

The break and free time here at home has given me time to build a large black and white tallis. Attached are pictures of the tallis. Ready to go and looking beautiful. This tallis is made with a simple pattern.

Weaving hand towels.

A few days ago, my brother's daughter came to visit and we started working on some hand towels. She wanted to learn about weaving and I had plenty of left over cotton. We just had time to get the towels started when the day was already over and she headed back home. Attached is a picture of the starting of the towels. As I work on this blog page, I have already finished weaving them and I have cut them off of the loom. Now, they need to be washed. As soon as I can, I'll take pictures of the finished towels and then mail them to my brother. I hope that they will get there before the new year!

I have seen the new studio space!

Today I got to visit the studio space that I will have in camarillo. Below are pictures of the room. We visited two rooms so the pictures are from two rooms, but they are both the same. I am quite excited to think about being able to go into this space. As you can see, these rooms have wonderful light and great space.

The house entrance is done!!

Today they came and inserted the plants. Then they updated the walk and sealed it so that it will look finished. We are really pleased with the final work.

As you can see the area looks like desert area with desert plants.

First hike in Joshua Tree National Park.

This morning we drove to the Joshua Tree National Park and hiked through a small part. I took a couple of really nice pictures. I am really impressed with how wonderful this area is. It is really wonderful to be able to walk through this park. I am also getting ideas for weaver patterns. I can understand part of the way Navaho patterns may have come from the trees and rocks of the open desert land.

Morning in Joshua Tree!!

What a beautiful morning! I got up early with the sun rise. Had a great breakfast and now I have been sitting outside drinking my coffee and feeding the birds and rabbits (conejo). What a beautiful morning! This promises a great weekend here. I now know exactly how I will want to have my morning.

The house here is well away from most of the town. It look

s like all the homes are sitting about an acre or so of land. This helps make sure that sitting out hear will provide plenty of quiet and peace.

Here are some pictures of the visiting animals. As you can see we have rabbits and many birds. We even had a collection of quails.

Thanksgiving Desert Vacation!

We are on Thanksgiving vacation in the desert!

We are staying in Sunset Terrace.

By the time we got here the sun was headed for sunset. These quick pictures of the house, and the back yard five you a view of the outside of this house. It is really nice and we are looking forward to the complete sunset and the stars that will fill the sky.

I am sure that I will have lots of pictures during the next couple of days.

Now we need plants!!!

The rocks are now in place and the next thing we need are plants to fill in the front yard.

Next week we will be picking the specific plants. It will be a few days before we put anymore pictures. We have a few days with change, but there will be more time devoted to weaving!!!

Now you can tell that the basic idea is that we are living at a desert where there is a river. The light colored rocks are rock rivers the light yellowish rocks is the desert. The remaining plants are those of the desert. The whole area will have very low water usage. Obviously we still have more to do, but it is getting very good looking.

Rocks all over the front!

The rocks are filling in the space!

Latest progress

They have prepared the front and started preparing the rocks and plants.

We have a sidewalk!

Here you can see. We have a new sidewalk. It looks as great at you might expect. The concrete was stamped to look like rocks. Now we just have to get them to rebuild the grass and rebuild the room.

Meanwhile, I am working on scarves and things to sell at the upcoming holiday sales.

I also have to get further on working on new move to the new studio once that is possible. It's not far away, and I am very eager to get there. Well, hope all likes our new entrance! More pictures coming soon!!

We are ready for concrete!!

OK, It looks like we are ready. The next step is sand then concrete and finishing on the walk way. The flattened things out and prepared the sidewalk. We have to wait now for a day and then on Monday they are supposed to pour concrete and stamp the steps. Meanwhile, I am weaving and getting ready to start next week in my new computer position. I'll have to tell all about the changes on Monday.

The entrance design is getting there!

We have designed the shape for the concrete and the sidewalk. The entrance will lead people into the front door. Right now we are looking forward to the concrete stamp plans.

Tomorrow they will be finishing up the design but Monday the concrete will be delivered.

Second Day Of Effort!

Here is the start of the new entrance. You can see the new edge on the right of the entrance for the stairs. It is going to take a lot more effort to go forward. I look forward to seeing how much they get done today!

Our entrance is being rebuilt!

This picture was taken this afternoon after the first workers had made a great deal done today.

Here is a pictures of the start of changes in our house. The existing sidewalk and all the entrance was chopped up today. It will take a couple of days before we have walking stairs.

I will try to get out more pictures as changes go forward. We are trying to get rid of the green grass and rather have a desert.

I's Halloween, October 2009

Well, I can't believe what a great pair of outfits! Attached is a picture of the two of us all dressed up in the same outfits. It's just that she is a lot younger than I am! The outfits at Halloween at Lang Ranch Elementary School always has a really fun parade. The interesting outfit is that her hair is set up as much older than I. I hope everyone has a happy halloween.

Ok, I finished some scarves.

I have been trying to build a number of scarves. This less set came out pretty well and look pretty good to me. I was a little surprised by how long it took me to get them finished.

Here it is on Tuesday and I can hardly believe that I will be done at Lang Ranch by next Friday. Having less than two weeks is going by fast. I am also a little surprised that I have not heard from who ever is going to take over my position. Since I have daily things to repair, I am surprised that they have not yet picked someone to replace me. Well, it's not my job, and in the mean time, I am glad I have the opportunity to start worrying more about what I will be doing with cloth. 

Soon as I can, I'm going to start on more scarves. Right now I am worrying about a new design.

New scarves using black.

I got my hands on a lot of black so I am making a large number of scarves while I play with the colors. Here is a start of what I hope will be pretty black scarves. You can tell that I have a while to go before this stuff is ready to be washed. 

While I am working, I am also waiting for a visit from my sister's son to visit. Orion is should visit this morning and I am looking forward to seeing him today. Also, we will hear him play tomorrow. What a pleasure!  Well, back to work now! I need to continue to work on these scarves!

This tallis is done!

      

 

It looks like it is ready to go! This tallis has taken a lot of work, but it seems to have ended up really attractive. The colors and the atturah turned out very beautiful. I now need to make two bags. I have also added the picture of the corner material and the pattern. I hope to finish this today and go to work on some of the other things that I need to finish. This was certainly one of the hardest tallis I have made.

Drying in the sun air

So, I washed a new tallis after weaving it. The lightly washed was let out to the sun for drying and preparation for sewing and building of a new tallis.

The corners and atturah are prepared. Once it is completely dried and I have a chance to iron it, I can start sewing it together and making the bags for it. 

It's another holiday!

I can hardly believe it! This time of year is always full of holidays. Two weekends was the new holiday of Rosh Hashanah. Last weekend was the start of Kol Nidre, and now this weekend is the start of Sukkot. It seems like I never have time to really get to work on all the things I need to do. The last compute of days I started making more kitchen dish towels.  These are simple cotton dish towels that I hope will soon be ready to go.

This past Thursday was also meeting for the Guild Weaver's conversation group. It went well and we had a good conversation. Now I need to get an email out with a design form for everyone to suggest what they want to do for the next few months. Hopefully we can all figure out about a project that we can share our results and discuss the differences. 

Also, we are all getting ready for the October meeting. Elections are almost there and new officers are on their way. Hopefully the new people will bring a good new set of directions for the guild.

I got two things in the show!!!!

I can't believe it! I got two things in the show! The 10th annual juried membership exhibition show is going to have two of my things to show.  This tallis was chosen as well as my brown jacket. These will be out at the Studio Channel Islands Art Center from September 26th til December 5th. Having it out and visible is really exciting. I'll have to keep working on something better to put out there in the future.

I got my book today!

I got my book today!! It looks great!! Apple really did a wonderful job. I now have to get everything put together so I can send it in to Studio Channel Islands Art Center.  I also spent all day today looking at everyone's tallis. They all gave me some good new ideas! 

More again soon!

I've been working on a book!

I decided that I don't want to just turn in a cd of pictures without some explanation of what I am doing and why. So... I have put together a book about weaving and the type of weaving that I am doing. The pictures for the book are not visible until I get it back from Apple page system. Oh well!

This picture is on the front of the book. I'll look forward to showing what it looks like once I get it!

Still working on the corners!

So the Aturah is done, and now I am working on corners. It goes faster since I only have stars in the corner. I know it seems like things are going slowly, but I have been off to Philadelphia to help my son move to University of Pennsylvania. Now I am cleaning up his room here at home. The start of school hasn't helped any either.

While we were in Philadelphia, we went to the history museum at Penn. I got too take a lot of pictures of ancient weaving work. Here are two of the pictures I took at the museum. There were a large number of beautiful things.

Another Aturah!

Well, here I am working on another Aturah. I love doing double weave, and here is an opportunity for me to do double weave with pick up. I spun silver thread with the blue and red wool that provides the base surface. I am using pickup to bring the white wool background into letters on the blue and red surface. You can tell that when I took this first picture I had started into the blessing. The first letters provide "Ah-sher" and the next part is the "Gid-sha-no". 

Ok, The double weave place mats are done!

Ok, I finished the double woven place mats and I'm now working on an Atturah. I'll have some pictures as soon as I have something working. Right now I am trying to survive the high heat. Also, working at the school is taking far too much of my time.

Anyway, when I finished weaving the place mats I washed them, sewed up the edges and laid them out on the kitchen table. There are four different basic colors. They match each of the different chairs, Green, Blue, Red and Orange. They all have white and red on one side and either green, blue, or orange on the back side. The pattern worked out pretty well. It was also a good way to get new place mats for the kitchen!

It's Sunday and school is starting soon!

I can hardly believe that its Sunday and that the schools are going to start soon. This coming Thursday is the first day for kids to be at school! The next couple of days I am sure that I will be very busy making sure that all the classrooms are ready to go! Meanwhile I am working hard to get the new place mats done. You can tell that they are wrapping up as I work on them. The next one will be red, white and blue! Not much else right now! I need to go back to weaving! I'll talk to you soon. As I make progress.

New place mats

Well, I finally decided it was time to make some new place mats for use in the kitchen. We have four different color chairs and I wanted to work them into the kitchen. So... Here is the start of a set of double weave place mats. It is a pattern recently listed in Handwoven. I am using green, blue, orange and red that match our chairs. As you can see, I am just starting to weave and there is lot's of weaving to keep me busy!

I went to Solvang and got stuff for projects!!

We took a drive out to Solvang and visited Marsha and John. They have the best place for buying materials for weaving. I got a lot of cotton because I am planning on making new place mats for the kitchen table. I want to make a set of flatter place mats. Also, I got new white wool and silk to make a new tallis and I got a pile of multi died silk for a tallis for Steve. I think it has the colors for which he has said that he prefers. Now I need to sit and do some design before I go to work!

The drive to Solvang was a little slow and the fire behind Santa Barbara darkened the sky. When the car was parked in Solvang we found it covered with ash from the fire. I should have taken a picture of the car, but I forgot to take my camera with me. 

Also, we got to see the area that John and Marsha are moving into. Actually it will just expand the area that they care currently using. They have opened an entrance area between the two stores. They have started using that area as a storage space. They have moved all their looms to that space, but they really need to clean it up and reorganize everything. Right now the problem is that the person doing the rebuild is also a fireman so..... right now he is fighting the fire rather than working on the room. I am sure that he will get back soon!

Well, time for me to go to work!!

The Rabbits are eating my grass!!!

I got a picture of this guy this morning. There he was eating the grass in the back yard. There he was eating the grass. I think I startled him when he heard me open the window and take the picture of him. I used the long range of my camera or he would not have waited long enough for me to walk up to him and take his picture. After I opened the door and went out, he ran away, but now that we have reduced the watering level because we are having water problems here and are only allowed to sprinkle 3 times a week the grass is browning out and the rabbits are getting bolder about eating from the grass. There aren't enough coyotes out there anymore. We built all the houses and there aren't enough open spaces near by to support he coyotes. Obviously we do have enough open space for rabbits though!

Starting to use Kumihimo.

So I may not have mentioned that I took Deborah's class on Kumihimo. It is a Japanese braiding technique. It is an ancient Japanese art. I thought it would be fun and it gives me thinking to do while I am waiting for airplanes, etc. Here are some of the first few braids that I have made. The one on the left is in process right now. I had to go out and buy some material, but it does not take much. Only some cardboard and some thread are required. I also got started thinking about making some scarves. So I pulled out some material and I am thinking about designing some scarves with interesting color combinations. I have lots of brown so I think I will blend brown with some other colors and see what happens. I thougth that using a little gold and white will put a nice contrast to the browns and tan. I also have some strong red and I am thinking about putting a little red in the contrast. If you see colors you like, let me no.