I have been asked how I made the ‘Godwits’ hanging. It was done in my devore technique with a cream wool warp and a blue cotton and cream wool weft.  There are three banners, 2m x 60cm, hung together so the shadows show through. I removed all the background by burning out the cotton so only the wings are left in the cotton and wool. I call it reverse devore. Usually I burn out the design area so this was reversing the positive and negative. It took ages to remove all that background!

The Godwits fly into New Zealand from Alaska every spring, then fly back in Autumn. What an amazing distance to travel.

Anne

Last weekend I went to the Festival in Blenheim. It was a great weekend. Excellent speakers and very friendly. The final events on Saturday evening and Sunday morning were real highlights for me.

Our Professional Weavers exhibition was on at the same time, and it looked good. My work needed lighting from the back for the shadows to show up but the next gallery in Nelson, where the exhibition will be shown, has some natural lighting so that will be an improvement. Then the exhibition goes to the Bowen in Parliament buildings in Wellington.

I only have two more weeks with my shoulder in a sling so it will be a big relief when I can use both arms again. The shoulder is improving all the time, and it is less painful than it was before the shoulder surgery so that is good. It is nearly 15 months since I tore the tendon taking the warp roller off my AVL loom, so it has been a long time. And I want to get on to weaving the fabric for Chapter 14!

Anne

I am getting as much weaving done as I can before I get my shoulder surgery done next week.

I had this great idea while some of our Christchurch guild members were showing us some knitting they had done at a weekend in Dunedin recently. There are gorgeous sock yarns out there now, space dyed with amazing colours. One such yarn is Zauberball , a German wool/nylon yarn.  Because it is reinforced for socks, it is strong enough to use as a warp even although it is a singles. I have just finished threading up the Baby Wolf loom for a wall hanging with this yarn as a warp. The fun part is that I didn’t know quite how the colours would come out until I wound the warp so it is an adventure all by itself. The colours are amazing, it is like weaving a rainbow.

Then I have some fabric to weave for Chapter 14 and I have finished the first draft of the book. After that will come lots of tidying up and writing the appendices. Chapter 14 will be making some fabric which will be cut up. Beginner weavers hate cutting up their fabric as they think it will fall apart, so this chapter will hopefully get them over this hurdle.

I have also finished my origami sweater, I will try and get a photo of me in it to put on the web site. It is all handspun wool and will be very warm for winter.

Anne

Anne

Hi all,

I have now got a Ravelry group up and going, started yesterday, so I invite you all to join me there. My good friend Sandra has done all the work, I just do what she tells me. It is all new to me so I am learning as I go. www.ravelry.com  Next I have to learn how to put photos up.

Apart from that. I am still weaving Chapter 9, had to redo it with different yarns as it is a collapse scarf and I thought the first go was too difficult for beginners to get the right yarn. I have chapters 10 and 11 in my head so just need to get the words out of there and onto paper (well screen really). I have the surgery on my torn tendon on the 11th April, so will be a bit one-handed for 6 weeks as I have to wear a sling for that long. But I intend to go to the Creative Fibre Festival in Blenheim at the end of April. Luckily I am right handed and it is my left shoulder that needs the surgery.

I got the first weaving off my AVL loom last week, a collapse weave scarf in hand spun and commercial yarn and it went well. I still have a bit of fiddling to do with the weights and the springs underneath but there were no problems.  My next warp should be for some rayon chenille fabric for a commission, and that will be a real test for the loom. I use the Baby Wolf for my book weaving.

Anne

Hi All,

I have just returned from a weekend seminar with our Professional Weavers Network group. This is a group of New Zealand weavers who meet once a year in different parts of New Zealand.  We have interesting ‘Show & Tell’ sessions where we show our work, and because we are nearly all long time weavers, many of us specialize. It is interesting that the group has been going long enough that we can show work that hasn’t succeeded as well as work that has, and I think that is a measure of the supportive nature of this group.

We had Maryann Stamford from Australia talking to us, and we visited several exhibitions  near Wellington. At this seminar we also spent a lot of time discussing our next exhibition which is called ‘Flight’. Every three or so years we hold a large exhibition, and this one will open in April at the Creative Fibre Festival in Blenheim. Then it will travel to Nelson and then to the Bowen Gallery in Wellington. These exhibitions are showcases of our work, and the aim is to push the boundaries for each of us in our work.

I find these seminars very rewarding as it is good to be with, and supported by, my peer group. There are certain criteria for joining  so if anyone reading this is interested in joining, let me know and we can discuss it.

Anne

There was a very timely discussion on the Weave-Tech list last month, about whether weavers should use ‘recipes’, such as those in Handwoven, or whether we should be designing projects from scratch. The new book I am writing is about learning to weave using projects, starting with the very simple and graduating to the more complex.

I thought about it and have decided there are three types of weavers. There are those who always weave projects designed by someone else.  Then there are those who start with projects, and when they have more knowledge and confidence they change the projects to suit them selves, and gradually move to designing their own. The third group is the weavers who always design their own projects. I think it is mainly a matter of confidence

A good comparison is cooking. Do you start by giving someone some flour, sugar, an egg or two and let them make something, or do you give them a recipe? They may invent some great dishes, or they may get so dispirited that they never cook again and eat in restaurants for the rest of their lives!!

My own learning started very young. I wove a very odd scarf at school when I was about 10, then later got my grandfather to make me a rigid heddle loom. Then, living in an isolated part of New Zealand with very young children, I bought a four shaft table loom and a book. It took me 3 days just to get a warp on the loom. Because I started spinning before I started weaving, the only yarn I had was my own hand spun. By necessity I was a ‘design your own’ beginning weaver. Because I had no teacher or fellow weavers nearby (this was the 1960′s) I made every mistake I could, and even some new ones that no-one else had even thought of. This has probably made me a more understanding teacher, but it was slow learning. It took me a year before I understood that overshot patterns have a plain weave background!

Because I was so young the fact I was slow didn’t matter, I knew I had years of weaving ahead of me, and the mistakes and the slow pace didn’t make me give up my passion. But I would like other beginners to benefit from my experience and I want to pass on what I learnt so laboriously. Hence the new book. I am up to Chapter Eight, which is a reversible cocoon and I am having fun thinking up projects that are fun, interesting and will advance the learning process.

Anne

I now have a proper space to work in, I didn’t realize how much I missed somewhere relaxing to weave in . It is 11 months since I lost the studio, in 5 minutes last February it was gone, and it seems to have taken ages to recover to the stage I am at now. What I have is different but works well.

Christmas Day was not spent having the usual snooze after a big dinner, as my son-in-law Tony, Jane and I put up shelves, sorted the yarn, and the next day got the AVL up and running. Jane and I coloured 2400 heddles (It is a 24 shaft compu- dobby loom, Series A, 30ins wide), and then mainly stood around making admiring noises while Tony did all the hard work. We used wardrobe shelving for the yarn, which has a small lip at the edge, turned it upside down, so the ledge prevents the yarn from falling off, and the shelves run all around the room at ceiling level. Thanks to Sandra Crompton for showing me her well organized studio and letting me borrow the idea.

The AVL is up and running, with a warp on,  I have all the yarn named and sorted by fibre content, I have weaving and posters on the walls, and I feel at home. I have been weaving on my Baby Wolf surrounded by banana boxes of yarn and stuff, now the boxes are gone.  I bought a hair- dressing trolley, which is perfect as it holds the lap top, and has lots of drawers and I can move it from the Baby Wolf to the AVL.  I have one of Walt Turpening’s  benches and it is a dream to sit on. The cat likes it too!.

So here are the photos of the new studio.

I have a collapse weave warp on the AVL, with 1 inch stripes of handspun, and commercial yarn, enough for two scarves, I have lots to learn on this new loom so am not starting with anything to complex. Also I still have problems with my torn tendon in my left shoulder (luckily I am right handed) so will need surgery on it in a couple of months, so I can’t weave for any length of time.

So life is returning to a new normal, we are still having some biggish quakes, two the day before Christmas were quite unsettling, people were crowded into the shopping malls and there was some panic but no injuries and little damage.Ii think what can fall down has done so and I haven’t replaced the broken china anyway.

Anne

My new AVL (24 shafts, 30inches wide compu-dobby) loom arrived the week before Christmas. My son-in-law and daughter came down for Christmas so, after eating a big Christmas dinner, there was no time to have a post-prandial snooze, as they were only here for 2 days. By that evening all my shelves were up. I bought wardrobe shelving which has a 2in lip, turned them upside down, and they are up around the room near the ceiling. The lip has stopped the yarn falling down as we are still having lots of quakes.

By the end of Boxing Day the loom was up and running. It took Jane and I about 3 hours just to colour all the 2400 texsolv heddles. I have a collapse weave warp on, only 17 ins wide, not quite finished threading yet, but nearly ready to go. All the yarn is labelled and I have got rid of all the boxes. For the first time since February, I feel I have comfortable, relaxing weaving space. I have put up posters and weaving on the walls and have yarn hanks hanging down. I didn’t realize how much I missed my ‘proper’ weaving space.

One thing I found very useful. I bought a hairdresser’s trolley. It has wheels, my lap top can fit on the top, it has five drawers and is very sturdy and only 12 inches wide. So now I have somewhere to put all the stuff you need while weaving, shuttles, darning needle, etc. I could even colour my hair while weaving, as I have a little dish which fits in the top!.  Perhaps I can use that for pins!!! I bought it through the internet from Hairquip, NZ$81 + postage.

I will get some photos up of my new loom room, when I have some good ones.

Anne

We had two big shakes the day before Christmas, the first a  5.8 and the second a 6, both quite shallow, so we certainly felt them. Edward was coming down in the lift for the first one, but it continued down as we didn’t lose power, although lots of other parts of Christchurch did.  We lost a  few small bit of china, but as I haven’t replaced the last lot yet, there isn’t much more to fall down.

Because it was a big shopping day, the malls were full so there was a lot of panic. There was more liquifaction and flooding, mainly in the same areas as the February quakes.  The  sand and water needs to be cleaned up before it dries out, as it then turns to fine dust.  We feel we are taking one step forward, and two back with these quakes. There were only minor injuries this time, but many of the damaged buildings and houses that were repairable before may now need demolishing.

Our Weavers and Spinners guild has a email round robin that we can all reply to to say we are OK, a godsend to those who live on their own. However, we are all shaken with these latest quakes, and feel we have had enough. After the big two on the 24th, we have been having swarms of after shocks, some quite large, and we know these will continue for some time.

The AVL loom is up and running, so I now need to put the first warp on it. I will give an up-date on that in my next newsletter, hopefully with photos.

Anne

My AVL loom arrived yesterday!!!!.  Two of the boxes are damaged  but I won’t check the contents until the weekend, when I have help to put the loom together. What a great Christmas present. I also have ordered one of Walt Turpening’s stools, so that is an extra treat.  On Christmas Day, I usually have a little sleep after eating a big Christmas dinner but this year I think I will be helping put the loom up. I can’t do the heavy lifting but I need to help as then I will know how everything works.

The loom is 30in wide, with 24 shafts and is compter-assisted. It also has the 100 pick cloth advance. My old loom ( I had it for 22 years and it is still sitting in my damaged Arts Centre Studio), only advanced up to 32 picks, and over that I advanced by hand.

We have a barbecue on the evening of Christmas Day. I can’t imagine a cold Christmas, as I guess those of you in the northern hemisphere can’t imagine our hot day.  It is also the beginning of our long summer holidays, so most things shut down for a few weeks. Our daughter Jane and son-in-law Tony are coming down, Tony is the one who will help with the loom, he also did this web site for me so is a useful lad. He is bringing down a new warping mill he has made for me, as mine is again still in the Arts Centre. Jane weaves full time and Tony makes fine furniture (www.jointworks.co.nz) in their studio near Nelson.

So I now think I have everything I need for the new studio. It is now 10 months since the big February quake so I can hardly wait until I get set up properly. The Baby Wolf has been a godsend in the meantime, and I am up to project 5 for the current book, all woven on this loom.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Anne