June Shows and News

My friend Lynn took this photo of me working on the hands tapestry at the Yellow Rose show in Seguin, Texas. We had a great time there staying with friends and catching up with friends we had met before at this show.

We also created some new Mirrix Loom owners. Some of them had talked to us at previous shows and decided now was the time. I will be excited to see what wonderful things come off these greatly anticipated loom purchases!

The enthusiasm of new Mirrix Loom owners is happily contagious and one of the reasons going to shows is fun and rejuvenating for me.

Another of the interesting things about Mirrix Looms is that they are so versatile that each person has a personal and unique idea of the kinds of things they are wanting to create.

After returning from Texas there was not even time to unpack before the Rendezvous show in Oklahoma City.

Even though our space was a little smaller than usual we managed to get most of our items displayed.

Laddie's tapestry drew lots of interest, especially among fellow Border Collie owners and the Sheep Sampler made a nice display for all the yarn spinners we talked to.

Here are a couple more photos of Lynn's showing the booth at Rendezvous.

We had the Ymmyarns among the beads, silks and cords and a whole table of Mirrix Looms with various projects on display.

The Kumihimo supplies were very popular at both the shows. Our beginning kit has a new project now and for $12 there is a portable loom, bobbins, instructions, cord and findings to make a great looking necklace. I found there was enough cord to make a double wrap bracelet as well!

Some of the new items I was inspired to start at the shows include some stones and beads I now have in the shop as well as some clay elements made by a wonderful jewelry artist, Libby Krause at https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliswomanDesigns?ref=l2-shop-info-name

This one in progress is made from a selection of hand dyed coordinated silk cords from England that I have recently added to the shop.

Here is a bracelet done in a half round braid that also includes one of Libby's elements.

The fiber is a hand dyed pearl cotton.

This is another item recently finished that uses the thread collections from England, clay elements from Libby with some bead and crystal embellishments. The Braid is an eight strand round braid and very easy to learn, the creativity is in the selection and mingling of materials.

Here is a detail of the focal elements.

Once the Rendezvous show was over and the shop was set up again I was off to a Vietnam reunion with my husband to Missouri. I will be writing more about that soon on the Sketching Around blog as I did lots of sketching on that little trip.

For now it is nice to be back in the studio and have some of my recent tapestries back on the wall. They will not be for long because a couple of them are going to be at a weaving invitational show at the 108 Contemporary gallery in downtown Tulsa. More about it here, http://108contemporary.org

Here is a peek at the Hands Tapestry as of today. it is coming along pretty well considering my absence from the studio for most of the month.

When I was deciding what approach to take with this one I had a few very different ideas. I chose this one and I am  happy with it so far but I keep thinking what if. What if I had used one of the other ideas? I may have to consider a series of hand tapestries so I can find out!

Here is a peek at the 2014 Daily Journey tapestry. It is getting close to the end of another month and as it grows its becoming a little harder to get a photo of the whole piece that doesn't look distorted.  Here is a quick attempt from this morning and shows through June 25th.

I have several projects on the horizon that I am working on including a guest blog post for the Woolery, a trip to Rhode Island for the ATA retreat and workshop with Susan Martin Maffei and another show, Fiber Christmas in July, Sapulpa, Ok the last weekend of July. More about that later, and even further down the road an amazing opportunity to take a tapestry class in October with Joan Baxter in Dahlonega, Georgia and to teach some classes at Mary Berry's Fiber Fest in Denton, Texas in February. It seems there are lots of reasons to keep my computer keys tapping and my looms busy!

Catching Up With the Tapestry Diary

I'm getting ready to leave for Texas and there is just enough time for an update on the 2014 Tapestry Diary project. It has been so much fun to watch this year proceeding and I am already thinking about how I will do something similar but different next year. I love having the whole year visible as I journey along the path for 2014.

This month I have been working with color blending and repeating some of the techniques I've already tried with some variations.




Below are some details from May.

Many of the new things I have tried in the daily practice this year are showing up again in the new Hands tapestry I have recently started.

















I have a couple of detail cross sections included also.

For the past few days I have been packing up most of the shop to take to Texas and I would have included an update of Hands On but it is already packed so I will share it when I get back.


Hope to see some of you at the Yellow Rose Fiber Producers Show in Seguin, Texas.