Catching Up

Here it is May 20th and it has been over a month since my last blog post! It has been a busy time so I have decided to do a recap of some of my adventures and bring the current projects up to date.

After we left for the Yellow Rose Fiber Producers show in Seguin, Texas we stopped for the first night in Salada. While there we stayed at the Stagecoach Inn, a very old and charming place that my traveling mate remembered from childhood growing up in Texas. By the time we arrived almost everything was closed, which was probably a good thing for our pocket books as there are many nice art studios and shops there. We did find a colorful Mexican restaurant open and we sat down, looked up and found the tapestry you see here hanging on the wall. We were able to enjoy it as we feasted on excellent fish tacos.

Here is a little detail of the restaurant tapestry showing some areas of exposed warps.













After dinner we decided to walk around the area a bit and happened on a park with ruins of Salada College 1859. It is unusual to see ruins in the US so we walked around and took dozens of pictures. I kept thinking there might be an idea here for something.

Here is a view of the college...

and a sample of some closeups I took.


















When we arrived in Sequin we had the task of setting up our booth for the show. Our thought was to spend a couple of hours setting up the booth and then get some sight seeing in.  In reality we spent the entire five hours setting up the booth, went back to the room and retired for the evening.

Here is one picture as we were setting up. The problem was changing out minds about how and where to place things.

I think this represents close to what we ended up with. The tapestries and the Ymmyarns make a nice display.

The beads are always popular too! It was a lovely show, well run and great venue with good lighting and facilities and we are planning to return next year.














After returning home and getting things back in order I was busy getting ready to do a program for the Tulsa Handweavers about the tapestry- bead bracelets and preparing for the Tapestry Study Group. At the same time as we were gone for the show in Texas, Tapestry Weavers South was having a great exhibit at the Quinlan Art Center and though I was sad to miss it my little four inch tapestry of Laddie did attend. After all that was accomplished I felt pretty determined to get back to the studio and do some weaving!

Here is a shot of the April diary.






I finished January through April as the first panel of the yearly project so I also have a picture of the finished panel on the loom. I decided to make a new warp and tie on to the old one so that I could put all three panels on the loom together. So I rolled up the finished one and started the second panel with May.








Here is a shot of the new warp added on. I took several shots of the process of warping and adding on the new warp so I may write a separate post about it. I am so grateful to Rebecca Mezoff for her great blog post about warping the Gobelin Loom as it has been very helpful to me. There is a link to the right if you are interested in checking it out.
















Next is a photo of the May tapestry diary coming along.









My next big ambition was to make some progress on the Mango Hunters.

Here is a photo of the work completed after the first turn and before the last.

Here is the progress to date.











A detail of the completed bowl of Mangos which makes me happy.

A photo which shows the END of the cartoon which makes me very happy. I feel like I have been running a marathon and the finish line is in sight! Only a few months away!

One more shot just to emphasize how exciting this progress is. I am already thinking about the next one. My optimism knows no bounds!