Carl's Weaving

A new shawl.

2011-10-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

I got a recent request for a large shawl. I like the color choice and size.

I think I'll have to make a few more of this size with different color groups.

I have the feeling that it would be warm to wear and it certainly looks dramatically beautiful. The color group is perfect for fall and into the winter. The only problem is heavy rain would not be good for the chenille.

Working bags!

2011-10-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

So I had some cloth that was not being used and I finally decided to make some bags. These are really nice bags. I must admit that I got the idea from a bag made for me by a friend. The underlying support is some plastic based Cat Screen. The material is used to make window screens that cat's can not ruin. That is a strong support for a good bag. I used wool based material for the edges.

In these pictures you can see how well they ended up. They each have strong grips for carrying good heavy contents.

I may soon try using one for carrying grocery when I go shopping soon.

A new dress and top.

2011-09-07T17:33:00.000-07:00

The past several days I have been working on making a dress and a matched jacket.

I finished the dress two days ago and went to work with the rest.

This dress was a lot of work.

Matching the lining was a lot of work.

I have also been working on making bookmarks.

These pictures were taken this afternoon outside.

The sun was shining and the picture came out ok.

Recent Clothing

2011-08-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

I spent this week making long skirts out of two different yardage that I made on my big loom.

I have been holding this material for quite a while well I thought about the pattern to use.

Unfortunately, I photographed these this morning and

there is not very much sun today. These pictures don't give all the extra gloss and shine that are available in this material.

Anyway, I now have a pattern set that works well and exactly works for my wife.

She has tried them both, and they fit her perfectly.

Now it's time to work on some different patterns.

I have more material, and I think I am going to start working on some simple long dresses.

I'll let you know as I make progress.

Here are some new pictures!! Now that the sun is out, I can take new pictures.

It is surprising how much better everything looks once they are taken in the light of the sun.

Went to the fair!!!

2011-08-07T17:21:00.000-07:00

Like every year, I went to the fair today and worked at the guild meeting demo area. It gives me a chance to meet people and talk about weaving. Why weaving is fun and comfortable and why it is worth their opportunity to get reconnected to fiber. I also get the chance to go and look at all the other work too. I saw two things that I really liked.

This item was called "Green Eggs and Ham". It is make of stone and metal and was submitted as a multiple materials art piece. I liked the presentation of the components and it caught my funny bone.

There were a number of other items that I also really liked. Near this one, was a stone Giraffe. It was very beautifully executed out of stone.

In addition to these items I also liked the three things that I submitted to the fair. The three things that I submitted all took 1st prizes. Obviously I was glad to win.

I'll have to put pictures out soon!

My new robe!

2011-06-29T15:23:00.001-07:00

There it is! I built this robe out of my recent big loom work! I had some variable cotton and I turned it into yard after yard of cotton cloth. Then I decided to turn it into a new robe. I definitely needed it and this one is spectacular. It's mine!

Now I am ready for new work. I am going to start setting up for a new cotton collection. Next output will be fresh kitchen dishtowels.

A new blouse!

2011-06-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

Well, today I was busy! I have been thinking for some time about a design for a blouse. I wove some beautiful cloth a while a go, but I have not been able to figure out the design for quite a while. I have made about three or four different designs, but I have not been happy until this morning. Today it came to me so easily. I took half of one design and half of a different one and together the appearance works. I used the arms of one and the front and back of another. Together the appearance is perfect.So today I cut the cloth and put together the blouse.

Now I can start thinking about the next project. I have some wonderful white cotton that I think will make great things to but on when going to the swimming pool.

Now I have to go to work on the design.

A new Tallis!

2011-06-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh, it is surely summer!! School is out and now that I am not working on the schools it is fun to be back to putting all my time on weaving and making clothing. I just finished making a new tallis today.

It is made of blended wool and silk. The color is blueberry.

The atturah has the complete blessing.

In the second picture is a close picture of the cloth so that the pattern in visible.

The pattern is a cloth weaving pattern that looks like woven threads.

It is good to be back on this work. After working so much on scarves, it is nice to be back working on a tallis again.

List of available scarves!

2011-04-22T09:58:00.000-07:00

I am taking the break to update my web and bring the webpage up to date.

It is hard to believe how much time it takes to get everything up to date. I shot pictures of all the scarves that I have available and added them to the web page.

However, I'm on vacation!! Now I get to spend the time walking on the beach and enjoying the warm temperature.

Yes, I'm still making a tallis.

2011-04-16T09:37:00.000-07:00

I just finished a new tallis design! I started with hand dyed silk and organized the warp with colors matching. The matched coloring gives me a better color structure for the tallis.

Then I went to work on getting a better atturah so that the blessing is better readable. The stripes are make of jewish stars. It is one of the best I have made so far. It has a very gentle color appearance. I think I will have to make a few more of this design.

Learning how to make a basket!

2011-04-07T20:58:00.001-07:00

What a great class! We learned how to make small baskets. The class went very well and really was a lot of fun. These baskets were done by the group that was working together. We all had fun and learned together. We were making "garlic" baskets. It was nice that every basket was a little different.

Now I am looking forward to the other basket classes that I will be taking in the future.

We added fans to the house in Port Hueneme

2011-04-03T17:23:00.000-07:00

We have added lights and fans to the dining room and our bedroom. The two rooms look good.

Nearly done with the closets!!

2011-03-09T16:17:00.001-08:00

Well the under the stairs looks great!

The rooms look great to!

What a pleasure to get the study room library set up so that it will look great and hold all the library books with no problems!

We also have the visitor's room closet done so that it wi

ll hold visitors clothing!

The color chosen looks good too.

I am glad that we made the choices. California closets did a really great job!

It's still winter here!

2011-02-27T13:59:00.000-08:00

We can clearly tell that it is still winter. We know because we can still see now on the mountain. It is quite fun that we can see the snow out there on the mountain while we walk along the beach on the sand. We can also tell where the heavy winter storms have worked on the sand. After the storm, rain and heavy wind, today was beautiful. It's still cool, but the wind was not bad and we were able to go out and walk along the beach. Yesterday, there were very few people on the beach, but today there were a lot of people on the beach and enjoying the sun. Some people had brought their chairs and were out there sitting on the sand. We stopped and watched some of the surfers. A group of four kids came down to the beach, stretched into their wet suits and started surfing. We were sitting on the sand on the other side of the pier than the area where they were surfing.

What a relaxing thing to walk out on the beach every day. Now we are waiting for a little bit warmer weather. Just a couple of days and it will be March. We are surely hoping that the spring will come soon!

Got our new table!

2011-02-26T15:38:00.001-08:00

There it is! The new table for our dining room has come! We definitely wanted to maintain the beach house theme so we went for teak material. We can easily serve up to 10 at the table. Now I need to get to work making brand new place mats.

We finally have a bathroom that has also goes with the beach house theme. You can see we have bathroom mats with beach house theme.

Today we also went down for a walk on the beach. Yesterday it rained an the storms were outstanding. Today when I woke up it was beautiful and sunny. This afternoon we decided to go

out and see how windy it was. When we walked out the window things were fine, but by the time we got to the ocean it was really windy.

I took a couple of pictures to catch how much the wind had changed the sand. We could not stand the wind to walk the beach, but we did walk out to the end of the pier.

I took a picture of the sand from the pier and you can see how the strong wind was changing the surface of the beach. I also took a picture of the water.

This picture clearly shows how strong the winds were on the water.

You can see that it was a beautiful sunny winter day on the beach. As we spend more time here, I will slowly get to know more about the weather here on the beach area.

Garage Envy

2011-02-22T08:10:00.000-08:00

This weekend we had the garage repaired. Now we are ready to start putting "stuff" into the new house. I took a couple of pictures when they finished working. On the left of the garage is storage and a swing up work space. On the right side of the garage are storage spaces where we can keep things. Both the appearance and strength of all this work are designed to keep things clean and out of way. This was clearly the first stage of our move. The other thing I did this weekend was the removal of all the closet setup from the initial build. The two lower level closets have now been cleaned out and the walls have been repainted. Those two empty closets will now be rebuilt by california closets soon.

Amazing what a difference a day makes!

2011-02-21T08:24:00.001-08:00

These two shots were from the same basic area between Saturday and Sunday. A day of rain followed by a day of sun and shine. The beauty of both days is one great reason for living at the beach. The cold and rain reduced the time we spent walking. The beautiful sunny day had us out on the beach twice.We walked much further now that the sun and warmer area was easily worth spending the time in the sun. Good thing we brought sun block. I think the ability to daily walk along the beach is well worth it!

We knew that the Port Hueneme harbor was active, but yesterday we were able to watch a boat come it with material to be downloaded.

Walking by the ocean!

2011-02-20T07:41:00.000-08:00

What a rainy cold day at the beach! It still has a unique beauty! We watched the storm headed at us from the off shore islands. We were one of only two pairs out there walking on the shore. We watched the waves crash at the shore.

The other thing that we notice is that the boats are leaving oil on our beach.

Usually our beach is clear and beautiful, but with the heavy rain and storm the black line of oil on the beach is a clear direction of all the big boats coming by and leaks from the nearby oil tankers and oil drilling near the islands.

It is a small ugly mark on the ocean. We hope it will disappear quickly when the storms are gone and the summer weather comes.

And now the day after the storm we have snow in the mountains! Living halfway between the mountains and the ocean gives us a choice of visits. Today, after the storms yesterday gives us a beautiful view of the snow on the mountains. Later on, we have to go and look at the ocean and see how it looks this morning!

What a great show!!!

2011-02-10T13:27:00.000-08:00

What a great show at the SCIART gallery. This is work by Russell McMillin and David Elder.

Their work is really interesting. One of the actors has focused on clothing that looks like models of people.

These objects appear a lot like something from Japan or China. I really find them fun to wander through and look over them carefully. At first, I did not realize how close they are and how similar they are. The fine similarity between them is really fun.

In addition to the models of people are objects that are models of clothing. The clothing items are made out of wood and other interesting materials. These items appear to be painted with really fine pictures.

When you first walk into the room you think they are clothes, but they are made out of carved wood. The whole show is dramatic and definitely worth seeing. These clothing designs are really fun.

The show is definitely something to enjoy. If you are here in the Camarillo area, you should definitely drop by and enjoy.

New Tallis.

2011-01-09T17:09:00.000-08:00

This tallis is being created for a young man who will become a bar mitzvah soon. It is primarily a royal blue with agua edges. It has been woven, but now needs to be sewn together.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-02T08:12:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time. I have not been updating my blog for far too long so I will put a collection of pictures and stories all into one big blog update in not any particular order.

First, It was pretty enough yesterday to take a few pictures of the front of our TO house. The plants we chose for the front desert area have gotten a lot of water this past fall. I had not really been paying attention to how fast they are growing.

Here they are before on the left and now on the right. The pictures are all of one year apart. Clearly the plant choices were really good.

Next, We chose the retirement home! Having wanted for a long time to end up living at the ocean has finally become possible. House prices have dropped and we have taken advantage of the drop to buy a condominium in the ocean area. We got our keys at the end of December. Now we need to worry about furniture and details here and there in the house.

Finally, this year I started developing patterned scarves. I produced a set just in time for the holiday period. Here are pictures of some of the scarves I have produced. I am working on producing better color choices and better pattern groupings for these scarves. I will keep this development up to date.

I am also working on the "seeing red" project for Designing Weavers. I will have to tell you more about it in the next blog update!

Have a Great New Year!! Welcome to 2011!

Pictureing us!

2010-11-22T11:51:00.000-08:00

Here we are as viewed from space!!!

350 event

2010-11-21T15:16:00.000-08:00

350 is a new topic of issue. I read the webpage and started looking for more information about Earth 350. It appears that the best atmosphere balance with Carbon Dioxide balance is 350 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere. We are currently at 388 ppm. It is part of the reason why our world is heating up. We need to work hard to encourage everyone to produce less carbon dioxide. That means burn fewer carbon. Fewer fires, less use of gas, etc.

One of the things being done, is creating events where people can get together and spread the word. Today, I went out to LA and got together with a bunch of other people who created a large picture of an eagle that was visible from space. As soon as the picture comes back and is available, I will add it to this page. In the meanwhile, I have attached a couple of the pictures that I took during the event.

This first picture was taken during the initial start of the project. These people are laying out solar warming frames that were placed on the ground. The frames have two sides a black side and a white side. The white side will be easily seen from space and provides the frame. The black side was warmed by being visible to the sun. That warmed up the surface so that it was warm for people to lie on these frames and keep them from blowing away by the wind.

This next picture shows us all lying down on the ground. You can tell that we are a large group of people lying down over a huge

area. Obviously they would have loved to have had a couple of thousand people there to better fill in the space. As was, we had 150 to 200 people. Given the heavy rain that we had the day before, I am glad that we had the number of people that did show.

Finally, here is a picture of my wife lying on the ground. As usual, by seeing her sitting out there with all the people trying to create the picture, I was definitely "seeing red"

Also, what do you do with a collection of people who have been lying on the ground for an hour? Well, we started doing Yoga!

Paper Art!

2010-10-20T15:18:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about visiting San Francisco and Berkeley in particular is the exposure to new and interesting art.

When walking through the art program area in UC Berkeley art area I spotted these interesting pieces.

I found all these interesting art pieces provide different appearances. They were all made out of paper pieces. I guess you can call these recycle-able art.

I like these pieces. Each one has a very different appearance than anything else i have seen.

In addition to the paper work, we interviewed the Egyptian research museum on campus at UC Berkeley.

The work there is also very interesting.

I talked with a person there who was putting together a facial mask from an egyptian mask. It had been originally put together with fiber material. The ancient linen material was falling apart and being put together with materials that will hold it together. I had a really nice chat with the worker there.

Traveling and Learning

2010-10-09T12:46:00.001-07:00

I can't believe it, but today we found an old wooden covered bridge. The bridge is still in use. We drove over it and ate at the diner we found on the other side of the bridge. We had a great breakfast there! Then we went to a another small town over near the place we are staying.

At the small town called Millerton we found a person blowing glass. It's called Gilmar glass. We watched them blow glass and talked to them about the process. They were making glass pumpkins while they were blowing the glass.

We ordered a pumpkin and got to choose our color and watch the whole process. This picture is the glassblower working on our glass pumpkin.

We also found a place selling knitting

materials. She had some beautiful bamboo material. She was also having a sale! I bought so much of her bamboo material that she sold the bamboo at 50% off!!! What a deal!

We found a place with really great tea for sale. We will have to come back tomorrow with our son so he can pick his favorite.

We ate lunch at the diner in Millerton.

It clearly has been a fun vacation getting ready for the wedding tomorrow. We are certainly getting ready for the event tomorrow!

The Tallis for the Lonia and Eitan wedding!

2010-10-05T17:49:00.001-07:00

It's time to get ready for the wedding!!

Watch for this tallis. Eitan will be wearing it when he is married.

I am so honored that they are willing to accept my work on this beautiful tallis and the chuppah under which they will be married. It was very quite an exciting process. I'll have more pictures once the wedding done!

It has been too long.

2010-09-06T07:52:00.000-07:00

I have been to busy with SHINDIG and getting ready for the start of school. Regardless, Here I am blogging again. Right now I have two major things in process.

First, I started working on a new jacket.

As you can see, it is still in work, but I have gotten to work on a Chuppah that is soon needed. The arms will have look like the one on the left. The clip or pin will be on the upper right. I wove the red lines to give it an interesting appearance. Also, the material is a blend of rayon and wool so it is warm, but it also has a shiny synthetic so the jacket gives a great appearance. I also have to finish the neck. I decided that the current appearance will be a little bit more coarse that I want it to be. I also have decided that it needs to be lined. So... Lining is just as soon as I have time.

The other project that

is taking my time is the chuppah on which I am working. I have started weaving the chuppah. It is wide enough that I have decided to double weave it. The pictures added here only show half of the final appearance. It is going to be like an orange sum at the center and the darker red/orange color fading into the appearance all the way around.and above and below. I took these pictures as I started weaving. I have also added pictures of the detailed areas so that the pattern is more visible.

The pattern will give the appearance have a thickness to make the material warm if used on a bed or as a throw that keeps one warm in the winter. As I have been weaving, I have decided that it will also need an added edge for strength and color. I will have to weave the edge separately once I have completed the chuppah. I have decided that that should be woven after the banner that I am working on.

More pictures will be coming once I have made more completion.

The Ventura Fair!

2010-08-09T17:43:00.001-07:00

This past weekend I sent to the fair! As usual, I spent four hours weaving at the Guild fair show. It is always fun meeting people and letting them know that people still weave. Anyway,I turned in three things and received two first prizes and one second price. It was pretty good to do that well.

The three things I submitted were one of the fire pieces, one of the jean's bags, and my recent tallis made of think silk.

Linda came with me. We had lunch there at the fair. After I had spent the afternoon weaving and talking to people, we went and played bingo. It was fun. I think we may have gotten more money from playing bingo than I did getting my 1st place awards.

Berkeley Kite Challenge!

2010-07-31T15:55:00.000-07:00

Here we were in Berkeley helping our son find a new place to live and what a surprise. It's kite day!

What beautiful kites. We found a house with surprising little trouble and then we went down to the beach. Here we watched all the beautiful kites.

We walked past the marina with a beautiful view of San Francisco. Then we watched all the kites. The kites were all beautiful and this whole experience was amazingly relaxed.

We can certainly use a few more relaxed days like these!!!

Bags!!!

2010-07-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

Well, after a great deal of work, I have completed a large number of bags. I have integrated a collection of items that I am hoping a number of people will want to buy. In addition to this first picture of bags, I also took pictures that give a better look at individual items.

If you are wearing a blue jeans and want a bag that foes with it, here is the solution you need.

I have finished the Tallis!

2010-07-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

The atturah was hand made by a woman. Her grand daughter will soon be bat mitzvah. I wove the cloth and sewed her atturah onto the the tallis. We will soon tie the tzitzi and then it will be done. I must admit her hand work is excellent. It really provides a beautiful piece for there grand daughter.

A Shiny Black Evening Jacket.

2010-07-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

You have to see this in the evening! I made a black evening jacket with a shiny silver fine thread in the black. It sparkles out beautifully and makes a great evening jacket. Given the cool evenings here in Southern California, this it he perfect thing to wear. It is unfortunately that the colors don't show as well as they could. The picture was taken in the studio with much to much sun shining into the room.

A nearby fire!

2010-07-13T19:41:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe that there was a fire so near to our area. While I was weaving this afternoon, I noticed the white and black clouds of a fire through our window.

I went out to the parking area and shot this picture of the fire. It is on the other side of the 101 and up into the hills on the other side. I sure help the knock it down right away without any problems. The good news is that there was not a heavy wind.

A new Tallis!

2010-07-06T18:21:00.000-07:00

Working on a new tallis. I have finished the weaving, but I still have the corners and atturah. I think it is going to be pretty. It is a blend of light and dark blue patterns with gold edges. Once I have put the corners on tomorrow I will contact the person who is making the atturah. Eventually, I will put the whole thing together.

What a great wedding!

2010-06-29T18:48:00.000-07:00

What a great wedding! The whole weekend was fun and I must admit that I was really glad to see that the chuppah fit perfectly and really worked out well. The flowers that were integrated into the chuppah frame makes the whole thing look just wonderful!

I must also admit that it was really fun to see all the kids get together. Weddings also increase the family size. So here they are all the next generation of our families. Now we are waiting for the birth of the next generation. Though we still need some of the kids to finish school and then more weddings.

It's great fun watching the family grow!

We are closing in on the wedding.

2010-06-27T05:45:00.000-07:00

As I write this, we are getting closer to the wedding. It is scheduled for this afternoon. The preparation events are over and now we are sleeping in and waiting for things to catch up. Friday was the betrothing of the husband and wife.

Yesterday was the blending of families. It took all day and two dinners to get all the people coming from all over to meet each other, eat together and get to start to know each other.

The hot dogs and burgers was out near the site where the wedding will be today. I have to admit that for me the best thing was seeing all the kids getting together. With my sisters two boys, with my two boys, and with my brothers four girls, it is great for them to all get together again. They have not had a chance to all sit together for almost 10 years. They have been together in groups, but not all together for a long time. I have not been able to get pictures of the whole group yet. Tomorrow after the wedding there will have to be a picture of all the cousins and their wives. The numbers are growing. Right now, we are relaxing, sleeping late and getting ready for the wedding this afternoon.

Last night we were at a museum. It was a great place for everyone to get together and as usual, there was some fiber material available there. There was one thing there that I took a picture of, was this tallis. It was made of cotton and the pattern is simple but pretty. I was surprised that it was put into the museum there.

The work is good, and I like the patterns on the corners. As usual, no matter where I am, or where I am, I can always find interesting fiber work.

Now it is time to go get breakfast! I am also getting eager to see the chuppah. If I get good pictures, I will update the blog tomorrow.

The Bags are done!

2010-06-22T17:42:00.000-07:00

Today I finished my blue jeans bags. I took a bunch of old blue jeans, cut the jeans into strips and wove the strips into new heavy cloth. I then make bags out of the heavy blue jean cloth.

Let me know if you like these. They are going to go on sale at the gallery tomorrow! I'll definitely let you know how rapidly they sell.

Actually, building them was a lot of fun. The weaving went pretty rapidly, and putting them together was also a lot of fun.

I hope they go to someone that wants to wear them with jeans!

What a great visit to the dying place!

2010-06-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went with the Designing Weavers group to the Newtons Yarn in Aneheim, California.

It is really

cool to see the huge

equipment to produce large volumes of material. This first picture is of the spinning and joining thread machine. This device brings in spools of single rayon, wool, and synthetic silver and blends it all together. Then once this collection is spun together, it goes in either a collection dyer or into a blended dyer.

This second picture is of the dyer for multiple color dying. In this device the long spools of material can be lowered into the dyer one color at a time. Then the whole spools go into a high speed spinner where the dye is cleaned out of the threads. After that process, the thread goes into a dryer to be stored for sale.

This last picture is of a collection of different material that has been dyed and dryed. The collection of beautiful colors was really nice to see.

It is really nice to see the whole process. I have to admit that after seeing all the work done there, I had no problem with going back to the sales area and buying up quite a collection of material to use.

I'll try to identify work that I made things using Newtons material.

Hear go the jeans!

2010-06-10T18:46:00.000-07:00

I have been saving my blue jeans and waiting for an opportunity to try doing something with them. Here I am! As you can see, I have been cutting the jeans into strips of big threads. I am planning to turn all these strips of thread into something interesting.

Here they are, four blue jeans stripped into nice threads that can be used to develop cloth that I can use to produce some clothing items. Right now, I am a little uncertain about how the cloth will look and how it will work when I start sewing it together into a jacket or skirt.

Well, I started weaving. The material is producing an interesting material. I can't wait to see how much I can produce! At least I have started weaving. It is interesting to see how it comes out.

I will keep you in touch now that I am weaving. As I make more of this material I'll take a few more pictures.

Old Leclerc

2010-05-29T09:43:00.000-07:00

What fun! I received from a librarian in Philadelphia a Catalog from Leclerc. I have not yet figured out when it was printed, but it is identified as number 172A. I am really excited about the contents that are listed within it. The basic designs and sizes of the Leclerc equipment is still similar. Of course there are no computerized looms. But MIRA loom, the FANNY loom and the NILUS looms look familiar, though I think that all the new versions are version two not version one.The most interesting extras are the Occupational Therapy versions and the Bed Patients Loom Rack. These two items indicate that weaving in your bed or weaving even if you are using a wheelchair is supported. I don't think I have seen these items in the current catalog.

I think it is really cool that people saw weaving as a good way to maintain your physical ability by weaving. activating your arms and legs by weaving is something that we weavers know only too well.

I will have to copy some of he pictures in this catalog and share it with you all in the near future. Meanwhile, I am trying to figure out the age of the catalog. If anyone knows the date for the publication of the catalog 172A, please let me know.

The other recent excitement was the opening for the show in the SCIART gallery. An old friend and her husband came to the show. I really had a great evening. Here are a couple of pictures of some of the item in the show. If you get a chance during the next month, I encourage everyone to dropping by the show in old town camarillo. Besides, I have a piece showing there!

An interested woven piece at the Bed and Breakfast.

2010-05-19T10:27:00.001-07:00

We stayed at a very nice bed and breakfast in Philadelphia. We stayed in their Blueberry room. Everything in the room was either blue or blue tinted. On one wall was this interesting blue handwoven rug that had been hung on the wall. It was double woven, and as I am a little interested in fiber work, you can see that i had to take a picture and share it with everyone. I don't know who made this, and I was unable to find out when and where it was made. The owner did not remember.

It does provide a nice model for anyone thinking about a double weave project.

As usual, fiber is everywhere.

I may be stuck in bed but I can still blog!!

2010-05-19T10:03:00.001-07:00

I may be stuck in bed, but I can still BLOG!! Besides, I have the pictures that my wife was able to take for me while we traveled and I have wanted to share some of them with everyone. The trip to the east had a number of important tasks. First was to pick up our son who completed his post baccalaureate program. The other critical this was to go to the sites of my mother's grave and my wife's father's grave. They died last year within a couple of weeks of each other and we needed to place the stones on their graves. Here are the pictures of the two grave stones. My wife took these two pictures. I guess that I will have to go there again so that I can stand at the place of their graves.

It is interesting to see the stones in place. It is a finalization of one thing, but also a beginning of the next part of our lives. My wife and I now look forward to new actions, new progress and new future. Even as we were saying farewell to our parents, we were bringing our son back to California with us so that he can start his Doctorial program at Berkeley.

The circle of life!!

Want to know how to mess up a vacation?

2010-05-14T14:58:00.000-07:00

I have never ruined a vacation quite a badly as I have this one. Here I am lying on a bed looking at the ceiling and waiting for my back to stop aching. At least I have been able to work on updating my blog! I picked up a traveling bag and it killed me! I dropped to the floor, crawled into my car and my wife and son finished packing up the back of the car. We have then driven down to Florida. We were supposed to take a couple of more days seeing things before we made it this far. But with me lying on my back waiting for my back to stop hurting and waiting for it to feed better the worm weather here in florida seems to be the right place to be. Right now we have Monday morning flights to california, and the big question is wether of not I will be healthy enough or not to get in the plane and fly home.

Oh well!

Great trip to DC!!

2010-05-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

What a great stay in DC, and what trip can you take without a picture of the reflection pool from the Lincoln Memorial. Even if the reflection pool is dry and being cleaned in preparation of the summer time when the visitors will all be visiting!!! We also visited many of the museums.Some of them were more exciting than others. I really enjoyed the new Museum of American Indians. One of the most exciting exhibitions was a collection of woven work by an american indian. The entire museum had an enormous collection of work by all different american indian art work both day to day activity and a large collection of material for religious activities. This picture is of some recent art work by an american indian doing really interesting recycling materials. I really enjoyed his work.

We also went to a number of museums with both Eastern areas and from art from all over the world. All of these museums also had large numbers of fiber related work.

These interesting collection came from the museums near the Castle. These two pictures are just a small collection of all the Fiber art I found in the museums. It is really nice that so many people are producing fiber art.

We went to the american collection of Bonsai trees.

Some of these are 100 to 200 years old.

This beautiful bonsai was trained since 1625. It was donated to the United states.

They have been store in one place and the collection is outstanding.

We spent several hours just walking through this beautiful park and enjoying all the bonsai.

Also it turns out that this is where the old columns from the capital are stored. When the expanded the c

apital, they moved the columns here and stored them. An interesting place to see them.

On our way headed for the south!

2010-05-09T17:45:00.000-07:00

We packed up our son and headed for florida! Meanwhile, we stopped in Baltimore and took a look at the east coast ocean museum. The jelly fish were really pretty, but I think that the show in Monterey is better.

The Chuppah is almost ready!

2010-05-06T17:17:00.000-07:00

I have been working hard, but I am getting near the end. Today I started putting the tallasim together and tried putting it on the frame.

I put the frame together in my studio and basted together the pieces. I had to take a few pictures to show how it looks. The colors seem good.

also took a few pictures on the inside of the chuppah to see how it looks.

With the picture form inside you can better see the tallis and see the back side of the banner.

I started on the atturahs and corners

2010-04-26T17:06:00.000-07:00

I started today on weaving the atturahs for the tallasim that will be part of the chuppah. The under or base of the atturah is black with silver shine. The stripes are a blend of the two colors used on each of the tallasim. A blend of the materials used. This integration of the two colors used of the two separate tallasim provides an integration.

This also provided an opportunity for me to use the double background and second bar on my loom. The second picture is that of the back of the loom with both materials being integrated.

It isn't very often that I get to setup my loom with multiple materials.

It is nice to see it in use.

Ventura Art Walk 2010

2010-04-18T09:23:00.000-07:00

What a great day! We went out to the Ventura Art Walk 2010. It was really nice and the fiber art show at the museum was great. This picture of two pieces on one wall were really nice. I love both of these pieces even though the top one is crisp color connections and the lower piece which is all black and white. It is rather amazing how much art can be done in either simple black and white or complex color.

The whole day was really great! I also ran into a lot of people I know. I ran in to a teacher form Lang Ranch. I ran into artists from SCIART. It was really a great afternoon. In any case, I encourage people to find the time to go to Ventura and enjoy the existing show at the museum. If not, then don't miss the fiber art show in Old Town Camarillo. The SCIART gallery fiber art show is definitely worth not missing!

Made it through tax day!

2010-04-17T09:26:00.000-07:00

Phew! I made it through tax day. Now I am working like crazy to get the Chuppah done. I put two items out for sale in the gallery as they started a fiber artist program. The things out there are really interesting and very beautiful. I am really impressed with one piece that is done entirely out of stone and clicks. It is really impressive. I can see some other ways to go. Also, I was really impressed with Michael's beautiful indigo dyed wool. He really has a a great deal of understanding about how to dye wool. Anyway, I am currently working on the banner for the chuppah. I'll put pictures out once I finally finish it. That will take a week or more.

This weekend we hope to get to the Ventura Art Walk. I'll add pictures once we have gone.

School break 2010!

2010-04-04T09:01:00.001-07:00

Here it is Sunday and the spring break is about to start. I am so looking forward to having a whole week to work on the chuppah which is my next big plan. Thursday and Friday I had time to spend some effort on setting up my loom for weaving one of the two tallasim that are needed for the chuppah. I am planning to start on the boys tallis first. Then I will weave the girls tallis based in part on the fact that she is a woman and needs a tallis that is a little less wide than his. Once the basic tallasim are done, I will work on their corners and the atturahs. His will be blue with some of her red. In areas there is a blend of red and blue to produce a beautiful purple. This picture presents the base colored silk for his tallis.

Her colors are red, burgundy and some blue. The represent their two previous colors. His is blue and hers in burgundy and red.

Her tallis will be mostly red and burgundy. His will be mostly Blue. Their corners and atturahs will be blended of both of there colors. Also, the entrance to the chuppah will have the statement "Ani l'dodi v'dodi Li." The banner will be woven in white with the lettering blended in the colors that they have chosen, blue, burgundy and red.

Since I am currently setting up the first tallis, I don't have any pictures to put up right now. As soon as I start weaving tomorrow, I'll start adding pictures to the Blog.

California Fires 1,2,3 and 4

2010-03-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

I have designed and started weaving a series of pictures. These are based on the 2009 fires. I have been able to take pictures of the first four weavings of the series. The first four of the fire based series are pictured below.

The first picture is the start of fire in the mountains. Just a flame hear and there.

California 2009 Fire #1

This picture is woven between the red and orange of the fire burning into the blue of the sky.

California 2009 Fire #2

Number two shows the first fires spreading onto the mountains. The sharp high flames are burning trees that will not survive. Meanwhile, the dry ground cover is starting to burn and spreading over the entire area. I remember watching the pictures on the TV as they were describing the flames and telling us about all the people that were leaving their homes and afraid that their homes would burn.

California 2009 Fire #3

Number three shows the increase of fire and the spreading of the flames as the fire rises higher on the mountains. The fire burns more steadily now with fewer sharp spikes.

California 2009 Fire #4

Number four is the peak of the fire. At this point it seems like it will never end and that everything is being destroyed. Regardless, there are some areas here and there that will survive. In fires 5, 6, 7 and 8 the flame reduces and things survive.

Section 5 is already mounted and it has been taken to the gallery. I will have to go by and take a picture soon. The last 3 pictures are finished being woven, but it will take a while for me to mount them.

I'll put the remaining pictures out as soon as I can.

Wedding Chuppah Information

2010-03-11T17:56:00.000-08:00

I have been working on weaving an entrance picture. Attached is the picture of the wedding entrance. This item is woven in cotton just to prove the thread designs. This says, "I am to my lover and my lover is to me." I need to weave another version of this in the silk materials that will be used for two being married. For each of the two people there will be large areas of cloth that will be sewn together to create the Chuppah. Then in front of the chuppah, this document will be attached over the entrance of the chuppah. After the wedding, this document will be mounted into a picture frame that can be hung on a wall of the home.

More pictures will be coming as I make all the cloth pieces that will be created over time.

More as I go.

I'm visible in SCIART!

2010-03-11T14:13:00.000-08:00

I'm in the AIR list in SCIART. I encourage you to check me out through

http://www.studiochannelislands.org

I encourage you to login and then look at the AIRS portion. It is good to see me in the SCIART program.

Starting to work on the Chuppah!

2010-03-07T15:42:00.000-08:00

I have started working on the front page of the Chuppah. The first letter is an alpha. As the weaving expands the words, I will have to take pictures and describe their formation. This first version is only a cotton test to verify that the design is correct.

Yesterday was the opening party for the studios. It really went well. I think we had a lot of visitors. It's great that people came over and visited. I am sure that they would not have ever been here if we had not had the opening.

I wish I had taken pictures of the visitors, but I am looking forward to pictures from a friend of mine that did visit and took a few pictures. I am will definitely put them in my blog once I have copies of the pictures. Meanwhile, I am taking the time afternoon to relax and take the time off to relax and get back my strength!

It's a Boy Scout Tallis!

2010-03-03T17:15:00.000-08:00

Today I put together a Boy's Scout Tallis. This Tallis is providing the boy scout colors. It is all made of cotton and provides a simple tallis that can easily be washed as often as is needed.

The atturah is woven into the tallis rather than sewn onto a base tallis. The corners are added. Hopefully, it provides a new and interesting process.

The seven lines represent one wide stripe. The wide stripe is based on the Saturday. The other six stripes are for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

I am no longer alone in my space!

2010-02-27T14:18:00.000-08:00

I am now sharing the room! I am no longer all by myself. Pat is a painter. She moved in, and you can see one of her pieces on the back wall. We have talked, and I expect that we are going to create a wall space between us. She needs more space into which she can use to hang her work.

In the mean time, you can see that I have started working on the atturah stripes for the boy scouts tallis that I am producing. In the next couple of days I will try to remember to take pictures of my progress in working.

Working on a Boy Scout Tallis

2010-02-22T18:01:00.000-08:00

I know that I have not updated my blog for quite a while. Things have been very exciting and I have had a lot to worry about. My son is in the process of dealing with applications to graduate school opportunities and getting well installed into the new studio have kept me busy! Attached are some new pictures of the status of the studio.

As you can see, I am now hanging things that I have made and things that I am working on. I have also cleaned up the area where I work. The table needs a little more work, but it is ready to go. Also, you can tell that I am setting up my loom right now. I'll have to put pictures of the things as soon as I make a little more progress on the boy scout tallis set.

I am also beginning to work on the design of a Chuppah for the soon coming wedding. I'll have to soon start putting up pictures of the designs for the Chuppah as I make progress.

Right now, I'm off to work on dinner for this evening. I'll add a few more pictures here at the end of the post so that people can see other pictures of the studio.

I think everything is now there!!!

2010-02-08T16:55:00.000-08:00

Boy does it need clean up and organization!!! As you can tell, I have moved everything into my space but I have not taken the time needed to organize all the things I brought. The looms, work space, spools of fiber and more are now in my studio room. The two small pictures are additional views of the space. The problem I have right now is that of organizing everything.

I have started working on using the big loom to make sure that I put it together correctly and to make sure that it still operates correctly. I am making some simple towels.

Once this simple work is done, I will go to work on all the other things that I need to accomplish soon. I have a number of ordered items that I need to spend my time. I also need to go to work organizing everything. Going through the piles and ordering things so that I can use this stuff officially!

The pictures are views of the way things looked at the end of the day. It looks to me like I still need a few things. As I figure out these things, I'll buy and add them to the space.

Starting work on the new studio!

2010-02-03T18:00:00.000-08:00

Here is the end of the first day of work in the new studio! I brought a lot of things with me just to start to get an idea about the area. It really filled in a lot of the space. I can't wait to reorder as I bring all the little things that need to go. I am sure that now I will be bringing a few things everyday. The critical weaving materials are there and that get's me started. I need to order some more material, but I thought I would get started anyway!

I picked up some of my existing cotton material and started on some new towels. I really don't care about the colors of the towels, I am most important about checking to make sure that the rebuild for the loom was ok. I'll now once I have woven for a while.

Tomorrow I will bring some thing that will make it easier to organize my books, etc.

I'm moving in.

2010-02-02T17:20:00.000-08:00

Today I started moving my stuff to my new studio. Here is the way it started and the way it looked at the end of the day. I have a lot more to move, but it will soon be much better than it is at present.

It was quite an effort to pack all this stuff at home. I took my looms apart into small pieces and carried them in my car and in the car of someone that helped me. I managed to get this to my room at 1:30 in the afternoon.

Then I worked all afternoon and by 4:30 I had almost everything organized. I still have a lot to move.

Tomorrow, I will pack up a lot of things move them tomorrow. I'll be sure to put pictures tomorrow as the studio fills in.

I am packing to move!!!

2010-01-31T09:29:00.000-08:00

I received a message that on Monday I will be getting my key to my new studio in Camarillo!

So.... Here I am packing up everything at home and preparing for the move!

As I have started packing, I am increasingly surprised of how much stuff I have.

I started by taking apart the looms. Then I started organizing all the other material. I started separating the various documents and all the books and magazines that I have been saving for designs and suggestions. I really want to keep the new room much better organized and better kept in order.

Below are a couple of pictures of the new room. As you can see, the new rooms will provide me with a lot more space. I look forward to being able to move all the sewing materials into this area too. Well, enjoy the pictures today. It will be a couple of days before I get started moving. I will have to take lots of pictures as I move things into the new space.

2010-01-22T14:58:00.000-08:00

Like everyone else, I am getting so tired of the rain here in southern california. But, one of the good news about rain is that when the sun comes out it does give you a rainbow. Here is a picture of one we viewed today. Now we are definitely hoping that the next couple of days will provide sunny days rather than rainy days.

Tomorrow is a the next Guild meeting. I sure hope that driving there will not add more rain.

A rainbow tallis

2010-01-17T16:55:00.000-08:00

I have been working on a rainbow tallis. I chose a collection of collors and stared weaving them with a white background and tried to make the colors show on the sides of the tallis. Here is the first few of the pictures. As can be seen, the stars appear on each of the colors. The use of the background shows all the colors. Clearly the stars expand well.

What a beautiful first Sunday of 2010!

2010-01-03T13:26:00.000-08:00

What a beautiful day to day. The sun is up a beautiful here so I went walking in the country here at home and got some great pictures. Walked up to lizard rock and passed the beautiful dessert pictures. This time of year is the time to see the beautiful pictures.

I also took a picture or two on the view from up at Lizard Rock. Also there was someone out there with a horse. We didn't get to talk with the person on the horse. In any case, the walk was really good for us. Now for a great winter day.

This last picture is a picture of the town taken from most of the way up to Lizard Rock.

Another Large Tallis

2009-12-29T09:12:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-12-19T14:54:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-12-04T16:31:00.000-08:00

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!!

2009-11-30T16:23:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-11-27T13:43:00.000-08:00

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!!

2009-11-27T09:25:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-11-26T16:49:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2009-11-21T09:37:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-11-19T21:16:00.000-08:00

The rocks are filling in the space!

Latest progress

2009-11-18T11:01:00.000-08:00

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

We have a sidewalk!

2009-11-13T05:44:00.000-08:00

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!!

2009-11-07T15:39:00.001-08:00

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!

2009-11-05T15:18:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-11-04T13:43:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-11-03T16:35:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-10-27T11:44:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-10-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-10-13T14:47:00.001-07:00

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

2009-10-04T21:17:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-10-03T15:01:00.000-07:00

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!!!!

2009-09-22T17:14:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-09-19T18:43:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-09-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-09-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-31T12:06:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-23T13:18:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-21T13:04:00.000-07:00

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!!

2009-08-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2009-08-16T10:21:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-08-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

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.

I won a prize!

2009-08-09T18:13:00.001-07:00

I can hardly believe how excited I was to find that both of the things that I submitted to the Ventura County Fair won either 1st place or Best of Show. The tallis won Best of Show. It is a pure silk Tallis and a pure silk bag, all hand woven. It also has a double hand pickup atturah make of silk and wool. The wool is woven with double pick up to create hebrew letters for the tallis blessing. It really turned out beautifully. Unfortunately the displayed it in a case with the bag on top of the tallis rather than the tallis on top of the bag. You can see the pattern I used in both the bag and the tallis. It looks like stars! Then I used had woven stars in the corners. The Jacket was nicely displayed. The pattern shows well and the size and shape was comfortable.

It's a shape that this picture does not give you a good look of the jacket. I will have to take some more pictures that have the proper color. But you can tell that the weaving and sewing was well done and shows up well. I could hardly believe that it had the 1st on it when I found it! In any case, it is nice to see that people think my work is good and well worth it's effort. Now I am relaxing and looking forward to seeing what happens next!!!

It's another summer Friday!

2009-08-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

It's another summer Friday! I finished the white cloth that I have been making. It has an interesting double diamond pattern. I washed it and now I am drying it in the back yard. Now I am relaxing at home and worrying about what to make for dinner. I hate the fact that summer is almost over and I will soon be working at school again. I dropped by the school yesterday because the power was cut off. Seems that the power company was rewiring the power grid here at Thousand Oaks. Now I am getting ready to sit and go to work on the latest cloth. This Sunday I will be weaving at the Ventura fair in the afternoon. I'll try to get some pictures of the newest cloth in a couple of hours and add it here. Then I think I am going to go to work on some more scarves.

Fabrics

2009-08-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

I have been working on making lots of new fabrics. They are blends of rayon and silk and wool with blended dyes. I am trying to make several yards of these so that there is enough to make clothing of either dresses or skirts. One of the biggest problems is make widths of useful form. Even if I set up the original width size of 48", after washing and drying the cloth always shrinks. I usually end up with only 38" to 40" in width. The shrink is not a surprise, but I often wish that I could better control it. In any case, the fibers should produce interesting clothing.

Wow, It works. Here's some more!!!!

2009-07-31T08:19:00.000-07:00

This is item two!! THis is a tallis I recently finished and is on it's way to the person who asked for one. I double wove the Atturah. I am also working on learning to take pictures of my work. I don't think I did as good a job at lighting as I could have done. Anyway, today I am starting to work on some new cloth that I hope to make into a skirt.

Well, enough of the blog work and off to the loom I go!!