Omniart Notebook July 2016

 

Summer brings the urge to be playing outside with tree branches.

In my life this is also a moment of new things, kittens and babies, and tiny old great-grannies. Kittens and babies are growing while old great grannies seem to be shrinking...

 

I feel drawn to basics. Handmade looms, cheap looms, simple looms. Even simpler looms. Small looms. Tiny looms. 

(This one is just warp wrapped around two sticks tied together, with clouds woven directly on:)

 

(I have no idea what this thing will turn out to be:)

 

A challenge arises! How many looms and other fiber projects can I juggle at one time? It is a matter of how thin I can spread myself. Why would I want to do that? Multitasking is supposedly a thing most people do very badly. 

 

But really? How do we define that? Is it not natural in the world for all sorts of things to constantly swirl all around us? In fact, linear-ness is an unnatural concept we impose upon a chaotic world so we can have power to do stuff. A tool only. An arrow of linear intent we send off from our bow of thinking. We made it up.

 

Just because linear mono-tasking may be, on average, measurably more efficient, as defined by speed, at accomplishing one particular, separate, study-able task, so what?! What about a garden, a class of students, a group of musicians? Each one is a veritable multitasking super swirl.

 

I wonder how it might be to sort of dance through the day of thoughts and things like that. So, I set as many fiber projects going at the same time as I can...here are a few:

(This is on a 24" wide peg loom. I'm not sure sure what it will be yet:)

 

I start this tapestry loom sampler in silver and gray. This is a cheap little loom I got online but it changes sheds nicely.

 

 

I have it set like an art canvas on an easel from the art supply store so I can stand up to weave. The easel is a darling French made portable that folds into a neat box with a handle. It's designed for "plein air" outdoor painting and works well for all sorts of my painting: yarn tapestry, ipad painting, and regular painting.

 

I crack out the box of gifting looms that I made summer before last. Each one is a unique peg loom I designed around a small box or bag, then I drilled pegs and holes into, and then decorated with pictures, paint, and glitter. I select one to try out. What fun! It feels like a gift. I have never actually used most of them. 

 

 

This one is a real pleasure to use. It has the pegs set close together and they are extremely long. So I am able to see half my pictorial tapestry style weaving before I must pull the pegs for the first time. 

 

One stick loom idea fails. Too much warp tension keeps pulling it out of whack. Bad design. 

 

But I end up taking it apart and using the sticks as a frame for the peg loom piece.

 

Problem is, I get really into whatever I may be doing right now, and darned if I don't just keep finishing things! Like juggling balls that grow wings and fly off after a while.

 

In one day, this art work (above) just pops out of the frame loom that I made last month. It's like a momentum has built up...

 

This little yellow and gray cell phone holder rolls off the frame loom too.

 

Now I'm trying the BIGGEST piece ever on the infinite S shaped knitting loom. It will be like a giant rainbow flag. Or knitted blanket. This baby can knit ten feet wide or so, depending on the stitch and yarn type. I can make it as long as I want, maybe say, twenty feet?! So far I'm just on purple...

 

 

I teach myself a new and very silly fiber artist's skill, how to make pom poms! I decide to attack the basket of chartreuse yarn and end up with a nest of greenish yellow pom poms. 

 

I spin up little bits of hand dyed mohair locks to use in the 12"square nail loom.

 

 I learn how to weave squares of several sizes on a loom of nails. 

 

 

They slide off the nails with already finished edges; nice. It is really fast to make a tiny 2" square and a length of yarn only measuring from one outstretched hand to the other!  

 

Talk about instant gratification weaving. Now if I could just figure out what to do with all these little squares..

 

Now I'm starting a hook rug surface using this adjustable stand thingy that I got from a fellow who makes them. It holds your backing up with side brushes so you can access it from below and work on a table or lap. I wonder how that will work. 

 

So, these are some of the things I'm juggling in my fiber game this summer...