altivo

Well, these days we say "weft" usually, but "woof" seemed more appropriate somehow. ;D

Hauled the loom, tools, and a box full of various colors of weft yarns over to Ridgefield. Gary came along to help me unload it and set it up. We were the first ones to arrive, but a helpful maintenance guy at the church (they were working on wiring or air conditioning or something) let us into the workroom.

An hour later we were ready to begin. Margaret had brought booklets of pattern drafts for us to weave a sampler with about 20 of her color motifs in it. She also had woven examples to hang up so we could consult them. The patterns are complex, and make me feel like my brain is being twisted inside out, but I'm starting to see what she does and how. Like original native American design motifs, much of her color patterning is laid out in rows of rectangular cells, and the summer and winter threading lets her divide the surface of the fabric in just that way, filling in blocks with color from the weft or warp.

For some motifs, she simply says "Use two complementary colors" or "Use a primary hue and a lighter tint of the same hue." For others she is more explicit. One required pink, and it seemed I was the only one who had brought pink weft thread. My 20 year old cone of pink (pink isn't my favorite color either, so a little of it lasts forever) circulated to much of the room at various times.

Unlike other teachers I've experienced, Margaret is not a "formal" weaver. She is largely self-taught, and her lessons are more about concepts than technique. I would describe her as an artist who adopted colored thread as a medium, rather than as an architect of woven structures who seeks to find artistic expression. The former starts with an image and finds a way to express it in reality, while the latter starts from a known medium and looks for a way to make it expressive of abstract concepts. I tend to work in the second mode, so this is a stretch for me but not, I think, entirely out of reach.

Through all this, we had the first really rainy day in about a month. I hope the tomatoes don't all split their skins. Things have been very dry here.

Rather oddly, I'm quite tired from standing most of the day, yet I want to be weaving. The studio loom is over in Ridgefield, as I'm not hauling it back and forth for three days. There's no warp on the Norwood at the moment (though I have one planned) so I can't weave tonight.