28 Oct 2015

Gloves needed

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Oh my, winter is suddenly very close. First the sun vanished into a chilly mist and this afternoon it started to rain… and rain… I am mightily thankful for the Gore-Tex lining in my boots. Unfortunately, I suffered significant glove loss last winter, and by March had only left-hand ones. Having failed to address this problem for the last six months, I am disappointed to find that new right-hand gloves have not grown in my pockets, so I will have to do something more proactive.

On the loom I have another Waterfront design underway. And next to the loom I have the heater on…

silver violet design

“Gloves needed” was posted by Cally on 28 Oct 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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24 Oct 2015

Round up

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Open Studios was not as open as intended today, thanks to a faulty fire alarm. It was lovely to see the intrepid few who made it into the building while that option was available, but in the end we had to close down for the day – and we’ll have another go tomorrow.

But it gives me a couple of hours I wasn’t expecting, so (having wasted half of that time resolving computer woes) I thought I’d do a quick round up of what’s going on here weaving-wise.

Last weekend’s students put on some lovely warps and started weaving. All three chose to use lambswool but their projects are developing very differently in terms of colour, texture and pattern.

margareta susannah warp

Jane's warp

And thanks to everyone for your positive comments on my Waterfront collection. It has been a glacially slow process, since my first experiments with double woven huck, to get to this stage. However, there is a new silver and violet warp on the loom and the next Urban Shorescape scarves are underway.

silver and violet warp

There are so many claims on my time this year that it is certainly challenging to keep weaving, never mind weaving creatively, but I persist in turning up to the studio and putting in as many hours as I can at the loom.

And if my blog here is a wee bit sketchy – well, more than a bit! – I am continuing to write instructional posts over at Craftsy. And some of my posts have now been compiled into a downloadable guide: Scarf Weaving with Confidence.

I’m not out of news but I am out of time, if dinner is going to happen today. I think it will happen, and I think it will include freshly made pesto. Sound good?

“Round up” was posted by Cally on 24 Oct 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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19 Oct 2015

The Waterfront Collection

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Here they are: the first finished pieces of my new collection.

deep harbour cowls

These are the Deep Harbour cowls, each one in a different colour combination.

deep harbour cowl

I’m calling the over-sized scarves Urban Shorescape, as the inspiration for these patterns comes from the remodelling of Dundee’s Waterfront.

urban shorescape dark scarves

The gorgeous photographs are by Mairi Helena Photography. There’s another little taste on my home page…

“The Waterfront Collection” was posted by Cally on 19 Oct 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

15 Oct 2015

Connections

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For someone with no social life, I have had a surprisingly social week. On Monday morning I had a visit from Jill Altmann, a designer from Reno, Nevada who is taking a holiday in Scotland – see her lovely website here (but note that it needs Flash, so may not work if you are reading this on a phone) – and so I was pleased that we had put on our sunniest October weather for the day, to make a good impression! We had much to say about yarns and sources of yarns, naturally. It is fortunate that there is a museum and café just across the road, so that her husband and friends had somewhere to wait out the discussion…

And then on Monday afternoon I met Andrew Kieran of weave4fun. I have been reading Andrew’s blog for years, but this was the first time we had met in person and, guess what, we had plenty to talk about too. Looms, mainly, in this case: what works, what doesn’t, what could be better. Andrew has spent several years in the weave shed at Heriot-Watt, first as student and latterly as weave technician, so he has met quite a bit of loomage.

Andrew’s floor loom now lives in Dundee MakerSpace, which is not a long walk from my house, and I have been meaning to get along to one of the Make/Share nights that they have started hosting once a month. And last night I finally did that. The theme was ‘collaboration’ and there were four speakers who introduced a very eclectic range of projects. I enjoyed hearing about them, but especially appreciated the question and answer session afterwards. There were some really searching and pertinent questions, such as: how do you collaborate effectively across disciplines that have very different expectations with respect to pay scales? Anyone got an answer to that?

Meanwhile, preparations are afoot for Open Studios next weekend (24/25 October) and this weekend new weavers will be warping up their first projects. I sneaked a few pictures of the design and sampling exercises last weekend, so here’s a taste of Jane’s colour explorations.

yarn wrappings

Should be fun, eh?

Oh, and while I was tying up skeins of yarn for more dyeing, I also caught the first part of this on iPlayer: The Story of Scottish Art. Looking forward to episode 2.

“Connections” was posted by Cally on 15 Oct 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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