Rebecca's Musings and Artistic Wanderings: Canaan Flowers Breakthrough

Friday, February 28, 2014

Canaan Flowers Breakthrough

Weaving Cloth for Coats

From an admirer:

"I loved your woven jacket. It seems so magical to have some yarn, weave it and then make a jacket.

Your creations are like a caterpiller that turns into a beautiful butterfly.

I never could have imagined the yarn in anything but a sweater or scarf or something knitted or crocheted."

Long ago I wove this art piece.
I think I was telling myself I would like to weave cloth for coats ... or jackets.

Olympic Weaving

The shuttle was my bobsled, the race was to the end of the warp!

During the Olympics, I set up a warp called Canaan Flowers from Marguerite Davison's weaving book. Because I am a novice to weaving, I chose this pattern as a stretch because it called for five treadles, something I had never done before. Following the charts as accurately as possible, it ended up that the raised part of the design emerged on the underside, like sliding blind. Because my yarns were not high in contrast, keeping track of the pattern sequence was a bit of a challenge, like the skeleton sledders who have to have the curves memorized and in muscle memory, or the giant slalom skiers peering through the fog trying not to miss the giant slalom gates. My eyes blurred, struggling to make out the boundaries. I sometimes had to remove several rows to get back on track. By the time I arrived at the finish line of the warp, I'd figured out how to reorganize the treadlings to get the design on top. The sun shone! However this no longer mattered much, because the last length was mostly tabby. Color and proportion became my new moguls.