My husband had reason to visit Montreal at the end of April, and I went along too.
I arranged to visit with the curator of the McCord Museum, Cynthia Cooper. Thanks to the instigation of members of the Braid Society and Michelle Beauvais, the McCord Museum is considering an in-depth inventory of their sash collection. I would be very proud to assist them in this work. The current fingerweaving class is going very well. Five students have been very diligent, absorbing the technique like sponges. They have also been faithful to their homework, sailing through the tasks I’ve set for them, stipple, diagonal stripe, vertical stripe and sawtooth, and chevron. My daughter taught them the weekend I was gone to Montreal. She has her own approach, sometimes it’s a good thing to get a different perspective. Students reported favorably, did not seem to miss me much. As a testament to their ability, they all completed an arrowhead during class last Sunday. Two more classes to go, and the world will have five more certified fingerweavers. Such apt students remind me why I am teaching. Such a pleasure to teach people who want to learn. This past week I presented fingerweaving workshops to students at the St James Heritage Fair, as well as to the students of Lord Wolseley School.
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So, what have I been up to.
My nephew got married in Omaha last Friday. While in the Omaha area, I took the time to drive on down to Lincoln, Ne, to speak with the folks at the Nebraska Historical Society. They had a doll from the Red Cloud reservation with an interesting belt, and a curved piece of fingerweaving, a leg tie or headband. In their gallery they have a lovely bias weave beaded pouch. Tina Koeppe invited me to participate in the American Textile Society conference this Fall. I am definitely considering this. Back in Omaha I stopped in at the Jocelyn and spoke with Sharon Shald. She tipped me off to Pilcher’s Indian Store and Rebecca’s Trading post. I learned a couple of new words: old school yarn belts worn by straight dancers. Googling ‘yarn belts’ I came up with some lovely images of fingerwoven sashes. I had the pleasure of meeting poet Marilyn Dumont, exploring fingerweaving with her. She reminded me of the many metaphors that weaving provides, protecting the shed, creating a false weave, safety belts. I’ve also been working on several requests for sprang sashes. A friend of mine offered to help with the re-spinning of the yarn. She was amazed at the amount of work I put into these things before I ever start weaving. At her urging I did a bit of experimenting. The upshot of all this testing revealed that it is best to soak the wool before re-spinning it. I also found that the oven, at 160 degrees, is sufficient to re-set the twist, but I have to leave the wool on my niddy-noddy. I’m thinking I’ll have my wood-worker son make me a heavy-duty niddy-noddy for this purpose, so as to save my nice ones from drying out in the oven with the yarn. So, last Winter I kept getting e-mails, requesting submissions to the Canadian Craft Federation, for an international exhibit. I figured, what the hey. The theme was ‘Unity and Diversity’ and this is a thread that frequently works through my weavings. So I submitted a piece that was a collaborative effort: my son the woodcarver, created a canoe paddle, and I wove a ‘sash’ that wandered through several patterns. I figured the diverse patterns were all related to my personal historical roots, Iroquois in the 1600’s, my husband’s Quebec connection, the Métis culture where I currently live. Sashes are made up of diverse threads, working together they form a unity that is stronger than any single thread. Anyhow, to make a long story short, in April I received word that my (our) piece had been accepted. It now had to be packaged and sent off so as to be part of the exhibit in Cheongju, Korea. My piece ‘Mixed Heritage Sash’ was off to the Cheongju International Craft Biennale. Canada will be the official guest country to this, the ‘Cannes Film Festival of Craft’.
And then there was the e-mail saying that they were wanting artists to go to Korea to demonstrate their craft. What a wonderful once-in-a-lifetime chance to learn crafts from literally around the world! What an honor to be representing Canada! I am grateful to the support of the Manitoba Arts Council and the Winnipeg Arts Council who have contributed to help pay my way to this amazing event. I’m off to Korea on Sept 18, and won’t be back until Oct 2. Unfortunately the timing means I return too late for Mississinewa this year. But don’t fret, I do hope to be back to that amazing 1812 event in 2010. A good friend of mine invited me to come for a visit. How could I refuse. After two weeks of Folklorama I’m always ready for a good rest. Since it’s rained almost every day in Winnipeg so far this Summer, sunny British Columbia sounded like a lovely idea (the weather is usually reversed, rainy in BC, and sunny in Winnipeg). I was able to connect with some of the Vancouver Area weavers for their August Dim Sum meeting. Thanks for inviting me! I also visited Maiwa on Granville Island. What a lovely shop. Taking the ferry to Victoria we saw Orca whales, a whole pod of them. Sorry, I did not have my camera at the ready. In Victoria we toured around, the Burchart Gardens, of course. We checked in on several yarn stores, and happened on a Social at the Knotty by Nature yarn store. They invited me to give a quick workshop … just the kind of invitation I love. Off to Salt Spring Island. I’ve ordered lots of silk from Treenway, and just had to see their digs in person. The lovely rainbow display in their showroom is worth the trip. Afterwards, as we drove back down the road I thought ‘Darn, I should have taken a picture for my blog in there’. Oh well. Here’s a picture from the road In Ganges I happened in on Stitches, another wonderful yarn store. I did have some quiet time which I spent finishing that piece for the Manitoba Handweavers and Fiber Artists exhibit at the Manitoba Craft Museum and library. It’s a fingerwoven belt or scarf, done in a multiple diamond pattern, or ‘X&O’. Inspired by octapus bags I saw earlier this year, I decided to finish the fringes using a tape loom. People in British Columbia found it easy to remember my name. Carole James is the representative from Beacon Hill, Victoria, and also the leader of the NDP party there. There were many amusing moments, I came to introduce myself as ‘the other Carol James’.
Many thanks again to Gisele for the invitation. Now for preparations for my trip to Korea. July 12 to 25 I was in Quetico Park, near Atikokan, Ontario. In a beautiful pristine wilderness, I had part of a studio, and my own tent, and two weeks to weave. Some of the sights: While there I was to weave a ‘Quetico Sash’. I had already worked out the color and patterns ahead of time. I used the table in the studio to measure out the sash. Weaving was a very pleasant proposition, a lovely view, nice light, and away from the mosquitoes. I gave two workshops on finger weaving while in Quetico. Campers, Quetico staff, as well as individuals on the Paul Kane dig.
I eventually finished the Quetico Sash, and turned it over to the park. I’ll be Artist in Residence in Quetico Park July 12-25. Working with park staff I’ve agreed to weave a ‘Quetico Sash’ while there.
Based on the Quetico logo, there’s a pattern that’s been rattling around in my head ever since visiting this beautiful wilderness last Summer. For now I’m playing with colors. I need to decide which colors before Monday. Buffalo, it seems, is very near to Niagara Falls. Some of my friends and I decided to take a bit of a sightseeing excursion on Saturday afternoon and made it to the Falls, both US and Canadian views. And then from the Canadian side:
Tuesday, April 21 I was privileged to examine sashes in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum. In all I looked at nine fingerwoven sashes and two sprang sashes. Amazing pieces all. How to put into words all the things I saw is a challenge right now. I will make this information available to you eventually. Among the details viewed are the recovery from the situation where the center of the arrow wanders off to one side, recovering from weaving too far, short rows near the central arrow, and interesting plaiting technique linking the fringes and preventing them from tangling, evidence of splicing in new threads, and another detail that created an interesting ridge at the change-of-weft. All this is inspiring me to write up a set of ‘problems and solutions’, expanding on the ‘trouble shooting’ section in my book.
Eagerly awaiting the photos taken by the curators. The word to fingerweavers of the world is not to sweat when mistakes happen. There is clear evidence that this even happens to the experts. Many thanks to Karla, Christine, and Anu for their patience and support. So, April 20, here I am in Toronto. I was scheduled to examine sashes at the Canadian Textile Museum at 11. This gave me time after breakfast to check out Romni Wools … yes, there is a reason that Ontario weavers and fiber artists rave about this store. What an amazing collection of yarn!
Yes, I did move on the the Textile Museum. Roxanne had three splendid fingerwoven sashes out for my examination. All three were in the classic arrow-and-lightning pattern. One particularly captivated my interest. The weaver must have had a rough time. It looks to me like there may be evidence of a number of problems my students face … and some clever solutions. -losing the shed -weaving too far -checkerboardingOK, in the category of losing the shed. I recommend the use of a ‘safety belt’ to tie off one group of threads whenever you pause in your work to keep the upper and lower threads separate. The error I saw on this sash entailed two different spots where a whole row (or significant portion thereof) exhibited an awful disorganization in the threads. I am thinking that this weaver lost the shed, and instead of meticulously re-establishing the shed, this clever weaver just buffaloed on, and you don’t much notice until you look closely. Second problem, weaving too far. In the arrow-and-lightning pattern, weft-to-warp changes are supposed to happen at regular intervals. It looks to me like the weaver of this sash occasionally went too far with a weft. When this happens to me, I work backwards, unweaving as I go across the row to the spot where the change is supposed to happen. The clever weaver here did not work backwards, but rather just pulled the weft between the shed back to the right place, and dragged the proper color on over. With the next row, yes there were three threads in the shed … maybe this needs a diagram. It’s a clever solution to a common problem. The third anomaly in the sash was the presence of short rows. In knitting, particularly at the neck of a sweater, a person sometimes works only part way across, not using all the stitches before turning. This causes the work to grow a bit more in a selected spot. In this sash, I saw evidence of short rows at the outside color zones for the first half of the sash, and near the central arrow in the second half of the sash. Now, I’m not sure about these short rows at the outside edges. I have seen it before, and my theory is that the weaver felt that the thread in the outer color zones was perhaps a bit thinner than that in the central arrowhead and center color zones. This might be the way to make up for this difference in thread size. As I say, I have seen this in other sashes. Where it is present it is not always consistently done throughout the full sash. The sashes seem to lay quite flat, equally in the areas with the short rows and in the areas without. Anyhow, the feature of this sash that I think might be of interest to weavers was the use of short rows in the second half of the sash … in the lightnings immediately to the side of the arrowhead. I am thinking that this technique could help those weavers who are chronically plagued by checkerboarding. Extra rows, extending from the center and weaving through only the first two or three lightnings increases the length, relieves the puckering and eliminates the checkerboarding caused by too much tension on the center threads…this is my theory to explain the odd presence of this feature of the sash. After lunch I headed out to Peterborough by Greyhound. I had a lovely chat with Beth, Ipie and Jeremy, about sash weaving and sash wearing, and speculation concerning the origin of this special design. Then the real treat, a quick tour of the Canadian Canoe Museum. Any of you who read this and who are in the area, go visit the Canadian Canoe Museum and the Canadian Textile Museum. Both definitely worth the trip! The Society for the Arts in Healthcare is holding its annual conference in Buffalo, NY, April 22-25, and I’m going.
While in the Great Lakes area, I’ll be visiting sites and museums connected with sashes. On the list are Monday April 20, Canadian Textile Museum and the Canadian Canoe Museum. Tuesday April 21, the Royal Ontario Museum. Wednesday to Saturday, April 22-25, the SAH Conference in Buffalo Sunday, April 26 I travel to Rochester Monday and Tuesday I’ll be at the Rochester Museum and Science Center. Monday evening I’m meeting with members of the Weavers’ Guild of Rochester. Tuesday evening I travel to Niagara Falls where, on Wednesday the 29th I’ll check out sashes at the Lundy’s Lane Museum. Then it’s back to Winnipeg. If you’re on my route, send me an e-mail and maybe we can meet. |
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