If only this was all mine

Well Melly While I was having a little distraction from my job search, I can across this article and fell love with the bottom image that I have reposted here. Don't you just wish all this was in our studios? Now that would make you want to go there just to look and the beautiful threads wouldn't it?
Via designboom

Guess What This Is??

This would be a picture of my loom finally working! honestly I nearly cried. Of course, I do have a mechanical problem to work out - it still skips the odd lift but by and large it's pretty good! Onward weaving!
--melly

Onward to a New Scarf

Remember this sketch from yesterday's post?

 Well I decided that it would be my first to prototype and put into production. So I refined the design a bit.

 Decided upon precise proportions of colour across the warp. All the green areas are super fine monofilament because it's soft enough to wear.

 Next I had to decide on the structure. I'm restricted to 8 shafts at the moment so I had to play with 6 shafts for the pattern - the other 2 are for the monofilament. I also wanted heavy and light weight tiny squares to make some textural difference to the surface, even though it will be felted after weaving.

 Next I was onto dying. It's very tricky to take photos on my phone to show the right colours, but this was the closest with adjustments. Slightly veriagated magenta.

 The next is a kind of dark purple.

 I have also dyed some black wool but am considering also dying some tencel black to add yet more texture and shine.. but maybe I already have enough texture!

Am I insane? These are the two very thin monofilament warps. 20epcm .. hmm.. They will go into a lime dyepot tomorrow. Looking forward to it!
--melly

A Way to Get Moving

I made a quiet New Year's resolution to myself - three scarf designs a day. I didn't post any of them here straight away, because I wanted to make sure I would actually stick to it for a while - unlike so many other resolutions I've made.

So here are a few. They're very rough and need refining quite a bit before weaving, but they are a start. Even if I can't keep it up when I go back to work, at least I'll have something to go on.

I might post a few more tomorrow. I also have a few Lacroix sketches coming along too!
--melly

Painting at Sturt Summer School

My holiday treat this year was going to Sturt Summer School to do a class it oil painting with a pallet knife with David Middlebrook . David's paintings are devine and quite inspirational - make sure you look at the details. I've always wanted to take formal painting lessons and I think David brought out the best in all of us. The entire class was terrific - people, teacher, places we went, things that we drew and painted. And I'll also add that it was incredibly challenging and frustrating at times - but I looked on it as a personal challenge to stick at it until I got it - and it was really rewarding as a result. This is what I ended up with :

So they're nothing I'd put on my wall, but the main idea wasn't to have something finished, just exercises really. And we did lots of sketches too. I haven't done so much consistent drawing since art school. I'd highly recommend any of David Middlebrook's classes to anyone, at any level.
--melly

New Year's Weaving

I finished off and redyed the scarves I had on the loom -

 And this is the next warp - space dyed wool and monofilament double warp - to be dyed afterwards.

I just looove monofilament! I could never stop using it!
--melly

Dying Scarves

So I finally finished my problem warp, put the last one in the dye pot, and redyed one of the others. Mainly I just can't wait to start on my new ones - monofilament, rayon and wool.

 This one is in a kind of lime Lanasol.

I'm experimenting with over dying the rayon with Procion. I've left in in overnight so we'll see how it looks later.

And here's a couple of sketches I drew while I was on the train the other day.

--mel