Today is a day of celebration for me. Although the stitches are not yet out of my hand, I have taken the bandage off and am delighted to discover that although I still have no sensation in my right index finger, it will bend and flex enough for me to type and grasp a pen. An orgy of getting caught up on my journal, studying, taking notes and tonight Knitting!!!! will ensue.
The first Tuesday of the month is always a fiber day for me since it is when the two guilds I am really active in meet. The morning and early afternoon is West Side Weavers, a group of ladies who all originally lived close to each other on the west side of Houston and have been meeting monthly for many years and have been kind enough to let me join them. Several are older and retired and are able to spend considerable time weaving and producing wonderful woven clothing, rag rugs, wall hanging and other art pieces, while Martha, the oldest at 80, a well known teacher of weaving in the 70's and 80's continues to come and keep current on everyone's progress, including the three ladies who are former students of hers. She also adds pithy comments and stories from her days as a production weaver.
Aside from a catch up on everyone's holiday activities, we spent most of the meeting discussing our upcoming project for 2007 which will be a study of color and weave. Each person who participates will do a short presentation on their project and make a finished piece which will be exchanged as gifts at next December's party.
We spent an active and hilarious time defining what color and weave meant in terms of design. I found this particularly confusing as all of the ladies except me work on large multi shaft looms, are mostly professional weavers, and casually throw around terms like gamp, shadow twill, double weave, progressive huck and the like with a confident familiarity while I, being a traditional Navajo weaver who works only with two sheds in a tapestry style, felt like I was surrounded by a strange and wondrous world whose vocabulary I couldn't quite understand.
Finally I got enough of a grasp and confirmation from the unofficial guru of the group of the concept that I decided that a traditional Navajo in the Coal Mine, raised edge technique would fulfill the project requirements so that will be my project this year, a study of Coal Mine Technique.
A quick gym workout after the meeting and a walk around the block with the new dog filled up the afternoon and then came the evening meeting of the Tall Pines Spinners and Weavers, the second large guild both Phil and I are active in.
The major part of this meeting was a representation of the rolling fiber exchange we had done in September, October and November. (see previous blog about the tea cozy)
Each participant donated 2-3 ounces of fiber which a second participant spun and a third participant made something out of before returning the finished product to the original fiber donor. As each project was presented the three participants starting with the spinner, each talked about the challenges and processes used. What wasmost striking was how truly each project seemed to fit each recipient although it had been so frustrating for the other two participants to spin and produce something without knowing anything about the recipient. So it turns out that the tea cozy, mat and coasters I made went to Julia, who drinks tea constantly and didn't have a tea cozy, while the bag Phil wove went to someone who collects folk art and needed a new purse and ours was not a unique experience. All but 2 of the seventeen participants followed through and got a product from their stash spun and made by someone else. Everyone agreed that their bounaries and skills had been stretched and their imagination challenged and everyone wanted to do a similar exchange soon so it was obviously a success.
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