When I first met Mr. MemphisWeaver, one of the things I remember him saying was “Man plans, God laughs”. This from a well known Yiddish proverb, Mann traoch, Gott Lauch. We’re all laughing now, because at that moment we weren’t planning on marrying and being together for at least 26 years. But it’s true. Yes, it’s true.
And now I am planning ahead for some projects that will keep me busy for awhile. Short term are two art and fine craft fairs where I will be selling my handwoven scarves, accessories and handbound books. One is happening this weekend, February 20 at the Hutchison School in Memphis. The second show will be at Christian Brothers University in Memphis the last weekend in March (26-28).
Some of the items that I have been working on to include in these shows are handwoven scarves woven with bamboo, cotton and ribbon yarns, and also a series of handbound books made with hand made paper. The book bindings are varied ranging from herringbone, coptic and long stitch.
The long term projects I will be working on are the eight ceremonial prayer shawls that I will be weaving by commission for a large synagogue. The shipments of yarns required for this project recently arrived, and I will be warping my looms as soon as my production for the art/craft fairs has calmed down. The warp for this project will be 8/2 undyed natural tencel yarn from Webs.
The background weft will be the 8/2 tencel, and the pattern weft will be Bambu 7 from Silk City Fibers and a luscious hand painted 5/2 tencel from Yarns Plus. The friendly folks at Yarns Plus were especially helpful in guiding me in the preparation of the hand painted tencel, particularly in light of the fact that I will be weaving it with undyed tencel.
I’ve wrapped the yarn and color sequence around a foam board as a way of planning the pattern design.
The first set of four prayer shawls needs to be completed in time for the High Holy Days in early September. My goal is for this to happen! These are my plans and I hope no one laughs…
Filed under: book arts, Handwoven, Memphis | Tagged: bamboo yarn, Bambu 7, book arts, coptic stitch, craft fair, handwoven scarf, herringbone stitch, long stitch binding, prayer shawl, tallit, tencel yarn | 7 Comments »