2nd Quarter Project - Louise

"Untitled"
Ideas - Concept - Plan - Strategy
Hand, one side = realitic, the other side = energy.

2nd quarter final project - Janice

"Headress for looking inward"

2nd quarter final project - Debra

"Tarnished"
As life progresses, we become more tarnished.
Copper, wire mesh on a gray velvet fabric background.

2nd quarter final project - Kaylin

"Red Scarf #1"
Machine stitched grid on a wash-away substrate, fringe and beads added.

2nd quarter final project - Hattie

A house with all the family members represented by blocks. I think she said she felt a bit like her family was falling apart with now the passing of both parents. So when you take off the roof the sides spring out with quite a clatter. Each block has the face, map piece on where they're from or live now and text about each person.

2nd quarter final project - Moxie

Baby book page in cross stitch.

2nd quarter final project - Mary

"Waves"
Mary wove the fabric with two different fibers which shrink at different rates causing the bubbling or waves to occur. Along with the colors, it makes a pretty convincing ocean.

2nd Qt Final Project - Sally

"First Flower"
Materials: I don't know the name of the basket materials, some kind of reed and copper mesh.

Inkle Weaving

Winter quarter class was over on Tuesday so I decided to treat myself to a day off work and take part in an inkle weaving workshop taught by a member of the Seattle Weavers Guild. The class was held in the recently reopened Southeast Seattle Senior Center's loom room.



In this two and a half hour class we were able to warp up our looms and start weaving. Inkle weaving is mostly a warp faced weave done on a fairly simple loom using string heddles and our hands to make two sheds.



The class warped up 3 types of weaves so we could at least have an overview of the different types by looking at what the others were doing.


We found out rather quickly that even though the weaving is simple, in warping the loom attention needed to be paid. We all made some kind of mistake which were turned into "teaching opportunities" by our instructor Marilyn.



First two photos are basic stripes, the next two were a warp pattern and the last the most tricky and time consuming to weave was a pick-up pattern, where you have to manually pick the separate warps to create the pattern.



I liked the class well enough to stop off at Weaving Works on the way home to buy some warp that was a little bit thicker and colors I preferred to work with. If you're going to look at something for hours, I would rather it be pretty.

Holding onto and letting go

4' x 10' dyed burlap panels with classmate Mary.


Another view. I liked the idea that it was large enough that you could walk around and through it.


Plus one more. I also had never created anything that was two-sided -- more to think about.



Details of each panel. If I did this again I would not cut out "windows" to sew my "pictures" onto, but would do the story items directly into the burlap for a more continuous and seamless look. I would probably also pull out more burlap threads throughout the piece to make it more transparent.

My final project parts - #2

I'm continuing to show the parts of my final project before being combined with the large panels. This one shows the theme quite simply. Holding onto and letting go.


Another hold on to the precious parts. The little velvet bag with the gem inside versus the rock that needs to be cast aside.


Another one for relationships. The good parts we hold dear in a special pocket. But when they go bad it's sometimes hard to rid yourself of the parts that now don't make sense. Hanging on to the past as if you can now change it and make it right again. Then its finally time to let go, completely move on, looking forward to the positive.


For this one I thought more of parents and children. Parents hold their children close, but one day they need to leave the nest and hopefully flourish.


Coming together and moving apart.

My final project - the parts

How many of us have hung onto someone too long, clinging to their shirt tails just because letting go is so scary. We finally get so tired, loose our grip and float to despair/reality... Finally we recover, find ourselves stronger, ready to move on to the next challenge whatever it is, unafraid.



I really like this one, so simple but yet... Creativity, we can keep a tight hold and not let ourselves explore, choke off and kill what we most want to have. But we learn to let go, just "do" for the sake of "doing" - the process is all that's necessary to let us find peace.



Sometimes we hold on so hard to something, we don't let it breathe or grow. Taking a chance and letting go allows things/people to grow. It isn't always easy (usually not) but finally letting go lets us take the deep breath we need.



This one is pretty simple, holding hands, together with someone you care about. What goes wrong? You drift apart, many times not really understanding until years later.

2nd quarter final project

We were able to do anything we wanted for our final project. Michael mentioned that an installation piece might be something to consider and having never done something on that scale, I considered the possibilities.

I had taken a photo of some raindrops hanging on a wire grid chair last summer and had recently pasted the photo in my sketch book wanting to do something with the grid idea. The "hanging on" of the raindrops became "hold on" and then the final theme "holding onto and letting go" for my final project.

I was thinking of all the types of things we hang onto - friends, relationships, things, ideas, and the things we let go of - friends, relationships, things, ideas. How sometimes we hang onto these item too long because we don't know what's next and sometimes we freely let go of these items because it's best for us or best for what we're letting go of.


I thought I would use my friend burlap again because it's cheap and takes the dye well. I hoped to hang the burlap panels at angles to each other, sort of like how the chairs were casually placed when I saw them with the raindrops. I thought I would cut holes or windows in the fabric that I would insert "pictures" depicting hanging onto and letting go. Hands seemed to be a logical symbol to use for many of the stories or vignettes I would portray.

The bottom photo is the three, four-by-ten foot burlap panels I dyed two Saturdays ago drying on the driveway.

Sharing - Sawatou

Sawatou inherited Janice's exquisite handwritten "In the Moment" piece. She ended up cutting it into strips and coiling the messages and putting them into a felted pouch with some of the messages breaking out of their confinement. Sawatou left early that evening so I didn't really get to hear her view.

Sharing - Sally

Sally inherited Karin's linen spiral about time. Sally had linen fabric to work with, stitched with phrases and words, some stones with text, leaves and a large shell. She chose to take the linen and rip it into strips that she then coiled around wire to create a basketry material -- it's the small cord going around the outside and is also inside the basket. She painted the stones black with one gold one and I think she said the actual basket was made from painted paper. I think it's a very pretty and intriguing basket, but I may be reacting to the color as much as anything else. I'm becoming more interested in basketry the more of Sally's work I'm see, maybe I should take a basketry class.

Sharing - Louise

Louise inherited Jan's record, cd and knitted casset tape. She said she really liked the knitted tape and didn't want to take it apart, so she used it in it's entirety along with broken record and cd parts.

Sharing - Janice

Janice inherited Kaylin's bright and colorful paper collage. Janice, as you can probably tell from her work, is not exactly a wild color kind of gal. The bright background of Kaylin's piece is actually on the back side of Janice's. She instead used the text from the bright collage as her inspiration for her work. She said that one of the quotes had the word "whole" in it that she turned into "holes." She found items with holes in them to create this spectacular found object collage. Janice has a way of using found objects to create her beautiful pieces in a way I never would be able to.

Sharing - Hattie

Hattie inherited Mary's beautiful quilted piece with moons. The pieces was full of wonderful colors in three vignettes. Hattie wanted to be very respectful of the piece and was hesitant to cut it apart. I believe she wanted to keep it as intact as possible and after placing the moon pieces up to many fabrics decided it looked best next to denim. Hattie had been wanting to created a rolled "hem" for her jeans for awhile so took Mary's moons and turned it into a colorful "cuff" for her spankin' new jeans.