"Let's go out in the backyard and play!" ~ Van, circa 1954

We played hide-and-seek, flashlight tag, and chase-the-dog.  We made mud-pies in the flower beds and sand castles in the sand-box.  We ran in the sprinkler, jumped out of the swing, and had "meetings" in the fort.  We even slept out in the backyard on a quilt one summer night.

My little brother was probably about 4 when he asked me to play with him for the last time.  He soon had his own friends and didn't want to play with a big sister.  But I never stopped wanting "to play" in my own backyard.

Throughout my life, I've lived in a lot of places--Texas, Alabama, California, Oregon, Colorado, Nebraska, some of them more than once.  And most places I've lived have had some kind of backyard, if you leave out the dorms at Texas Tech and a couple of apartments along the way.  My biggest backyard was in Oregon--2.5 acres.  My house here in Sun City, in northern California, has the smallest, but I love it so...

And now that winter appears to be finally over (except for this little cold front coming in tomorrow to dump a couple more inches of snow in the Sierra), I've been playing in the backyard this week--

                                 ...with my drumcarder...

                                 ...making batts for spinning...

But spinning is another story.   For now, Rosie and I will just sit and watch the birds...out in my backyard...

"...And we have just begun...Watching the river run..." ~ Loggins and Messina

Before Christmas, Jane Thornley http://www.janethornley.com/blog/index.php/site/index/ announced in her Ravelry group that there would be a new KAL (knit-along) after the first of the year and the subject would be "Knit Me A River."  That really called to me, so I started gathering yarns and ideas and project names.  My possible themes were many, and I narrowed them down to these--

• River Songs--Watching the River Run, Peace Like a River, The River is Here, Ol' Man River, Up a Lazy River, Cry Me a River...
•  Rivers I have known--the Willamette and the Long Tom in Oregon, the Yellowstone and the Firehole and the Snake in Yellowstone, the Missouri in Nebraska, the Feather and the Yuba and the Russian and the American here in northern California....and the rivers of my childhood--the Pecos and the Brazos and the Rio Ruidoso...

 As I was planning and thinking about the project, I went to Saori Santa Cruz in January to take a weaving lesson and buy a loom, then home to Texas.  When I got back to California, I found that I simply could not knit, but I had not lost interest in the project.  So I decided to "weave a river" on my new loom--a loom on which I had only woven one project.

I knew what I wanted to do--a wall hanging or table runner with a "river" running down the middle of it.  The river would be formed by inlaid yarns (supplementary weft), meandering along.  I liked the theme "Peace Like a River", and decided to go with that.

I wound a 3.5-yard warp in three bouts--here's the warp for the river section--

Using the off-loom cross-holder and threading-holder, I sleyed the reed and threaded the heddles on my desk.  I used my 5-dent reed, sometimes using 1 end per dent, sometimes 2 or 3, depending on the size of the yarn.

Then I move the threaded shafts and reed to the loom and wound onto the back beam, using thin corrugated cardboard strips to separate and line up the warp at the front beam, after tying on there--

I began to weave, using the clasped weft technique--the shuttle enters the shed from the right, is thrown across to pick up the other yarn on the left, and is thrown back across in the same shed.  So each shed contains two different-colored yarns and each pick is doubled in the shed.  As I wove, I also laid in mostly blue-to-white yarns in the "river" area after each double pick.  And I chose and cut each inlay from a group of 20 or so yarns, leaving fringe at each end of the inlay--

I had only woven a few inches when I realized that the project had chosen its own name.  This was not a "peaceful" river.  This was the Rio Ruidoso--it means Noisy Waters!

When I was a child, my family used to vacation in Ruidoso, New Mexico--the closest place to Midland with trees and water and mountains!  At that time, it was a sleepy little village in the southern New Mexico mountains.  My memories from those vacations include Fox Cave, cherry cider, curio shops, moccasins and Apache dolls and concha belts and turquoise rings...and playing with Daddy at the river -- the Rio Ruidoso.  Sittin' in the river was the coolest place in town--

Rio Ruidoso, 1955

And so, my project came together as I wove a memory--

The Rio Ruidoso--Noisy Waters...

Our stories continue to be told, and woven....and Rosie thinks it's all good....

"What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches." ~ Karl Menninger

In the life of a child, there is usually a handful of teachers whose positive influence causes them to be remembered fondly fifty-some-odd years later. Sometimes in that small group there is a stand-out, and Miss Blumentritt was that outstanding teacher in my life.  She was my second-grade teacher. It wasn't just what she taught, or how she taught, but that she cared so much for her students, and we knew it. Her impact in my seven-year-old world was huge--she had a gift, and she gave it to us.

Here's what I remember most about second grade in Midland, Texas--

• Phonics (fo-nix) 
• Spelling, and the spelling book where I tried out my eraser...
• Nap-time--we had nap-rugs
• Tornado drills, under the tables
• My Dale Evans lunchbox (I really wanted Roy Rogers)
• Miss Blumentritt liked me, even when I was un-likable.
• Miss Blumentritt thought I was pretty, even though I wore glasses.
• Miss Blumentritt told me I was smart, even when nobody else did.

Miss Blumentritt died last week, in Texas.  I saw the obituary in the Midland newspaper on line, and all those memories came flooding back.  My second-grade self is still alive and well, it seems...

Fast forward to 2004, Bellevue, Nebraska, outside Omaha--I had a small knitting business and sold at local shows, including a juried show to benefit the teachers' sorority.  I sold mostly knitted/felted hats at that show and at the one at a retirement home, and I named the hats after teachers from my high school days.  Here's a photo at one of the shows--me and my "hat model"--

Bellevue, NE, 2004

For some reason, I never named one of the many hats I made after Miss Blumentritt. 

Soooo.....fast forward again, this time to last week at Saori Santa Cruz, Jill Sanders' weaving studio.  I went there to weave--and I wove one of those cute Saori hats with the braids--

"Miss Blumentritt"

Yes, I did name this hat for my second-grade teacher, whom I remember fondly, and wish to honor.  Not only did she inspire a hat, she inspired me to teach second grade.  Thanks, Miss Blumentritt...Happy Trails...

"Tapestries...a kind of textured poetry." ~ Nancy Harvey, in her book TAPESTRY WEAVING

Perhaps this is the reason, or one of the reasons, that I have been drawn to tapestry-weaving for quite awhile.  I sometimes write a little poetry--I'd also like to weave poetry...

I chose my first loom, my Schacht rigid heddle, partly because it was my understanding that I could use it to weave tapestries.  I never did that.  Then I fell in love with the looks and quality of the Mirrix tapestry loom.  I bought one shortly before we moved back to California from Omaha...but it stayed in the box.  Then we moved to our current house in Lincoln, CA...and it stayed in the box.  I didn't have enough weaving experience and was intimidated--by the warping process, and by all the "shoulds" in the books I've read about tapestry-weaving.  Well, I find that I am not a person who deals well with "shoulds", but if I needed permission to ignore the "shoulds" (with a smile) and find my own way, my Saori weaving has given me that permission.

So two weeks ago, I un-packed my Mirrix loom, joined the Mirrix Looms and Woven Art group on Ravelry  http://www.ravelry.com/groups/mirrix-looms--woven-art , and got started.  The loom came with a video-tape showing how to warp the loom--but we don't have a VCR hooked up any more.  So I went to the Mirrix website http://mirrixlooms.com/ and not only found directions, but also lots of helpful information, along with links to Claudia's blogs.  Claudia is the talented tapestry weaver and designer of this wonderful loom.

I used a single-ply wool yarn by Brown Sheep as my first warp, at 6 epi--

Warped!

String heddles made and installed

Ready, set, .........

GO!

This is a continuous-warp loom, meaning that the warp is wrapped around the loom, and as you weave, you advance the weaving around to the back and up.  That metal rod in the back should be parellel to the bottom beam, but has slipped.  I asked about that in the Mirrix Ravelry group--it seems my warp is not quite centered on the loom (it's 3 dents too far to the right), so the bar tends to slip and the weaving becomes uneven.  I was told that I could tie the rod to the top beam, and move the tie every time I advance the warp--

It's working....

I also slipped a piece of gray foam-core board between the front and back warps--that helps me to see what I'm doing.  I wound my weft yarns around boat-shuttle bobbins, and I'm using my little tapestry fork named "Maggie".

This first tapestry is part of a series of small prayer flags that I intend to weave, probably five or six, using each to practice different tapestry techniques.  I'm concentrating on curved lines and outlining in this first one.   In traditional Tibetan prayer flags, the color blue stands for the sky, or space.  My prayers in this blue flag center on peace--inner peace, peace in my own life and the lives of others, world peace.... 

Meanwhile, I have wound the warp for my next Saori weaving--

...as my new Saori friend looks on--

And Rosie insists on helping with the tapestry--

To be continued...
 

“...Colors of time passing…brought together and made tangible...” ~ poet James Schulyer

I continue to find metaphors in my weaving, and many of the metaphors concern color.  Not texture, not intricate patterns, not involved drawdowns.  Color.  And that has been the essence of Saori weaving in my life. 

At the Estes Park Wool Market in 1999, I took a class from Valentina Devine--a class on color, using color, combining colors, losing one's fear of color.  Valentina is a wonderful teacher, and her attitude about color and free-style knitting set me free--free to combine colors in my knitting, and later weaving, in any way that makes me happy.

I've finished my Saori banner, with its emphasis on color.  Here are a few more photographs of various sections, on the loom--

I used my tapestry fork to beat in distorted wefts. 

The tag is the way I keep track of the lenth of my weaving--that's 180 inches...

That tag should say "210" inches, instead of "110"--nearing the end...

Only by viewing from this direction could I see more of the colors...

The completed banner(s) measured 216 inches on the loom--that's 18 feet, just right to cut it in half and make two banners for my entry hall.  I have 10-foot ceilings, so 9 feet each, plus fringe, minus shrinkage during the wet-finishing should work out fine.

I stretched the banner-off-the-loom down the hall--Rosie posed nicely, walked the "runway", and when my back was turned, she raced back down its length, rearranging it as she went....

the epitome of innocence...

The banner is named "Celebrate!"--celebrate my new loom, my new-found enchantment with weaving, and the continuation of our story.  Now that this project is done, I'm a little sad--so it must be time to warp the loom again for the next project.  Someone on Ravelry said this week that they always start to wind a new warp before their current weaving is finished--that's a good idea.....

"I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow..." ~ Kermit the frog

When it comes to weaving--or spinning, or knitting, or painting for that matter--color is the most fascinating element in my "play".  You can still give me a box of 128 Crayolas and turn me loose with a sheet of newsprint, and I'll be happy.  My friend Nancy asked me last week if there are any colors that "don't go together"--my answer was "No".  But fiber has captured my heart in a way that crayons never have, and so the tactile nature of the fiber arts comes in a close second to color.

A few years ago, I played around with acrylic paints and watercolors and chalks and colored pencils--all the things I never did when I was young.  "Art" wasn't considered very important in my birth family.  And so I studied math and language , and became a teacher.  But as I got older, the fun started!  Oh, I had been dabbling in knitting for a long time, but becoming a "crone" at age 60 really offered me the freedom to follow my heart....and Saori weaving and free-style knitting gave me permission.

 Progress on my Saori banners--

a blue "river" inlay

The yellow tag pinned to the selvedge shows 130 inches...

Colored bits of handspun waiting for the loom...

And Rosie bides her time....