My Work at Handweavers Guild of America's Convergence® 2012 Long Beach

Two of my pieces will be exhibited at Convergence 2012, HGA's international biennial conference.  This conference has been held in various locations in the U.S and Canada and draws fiber artists and their work from all over the U.S., Canada and the world.  This year Convergence will be held in Long Beach, California.  One of my pieces is pictured in the Gallery Guide which is available online and for visitors to Convergence in Long Beach.

Check out the Gallery Guide for a sampling of all the fiber art work to be enjoyed.

Serendipitous Laziness - A Project in Plain Weave with Sprang

I'm weaving a piece in plain weave, with a large section left unwoven to work in sprang once it is off the loom.  This weekend I was hemstitching the border of this section, and while my hands were stitching my brain was processing the project's progress and plan forward.

The original plan was to use every 4th warp yarn to sprang, and the other 3/4 would just be snipped off and left as a little fringe.  But I decided that the sprang would be too open that way; I really should use the half-warp like I've done before on the doubleweave pieces.  But if I do that, the fringe will be too sparse, and I never was really happy with that solution in the first place.  If I could only fold the unused warps to the back side of the fabric... then the aha! happened: I realized I could indeed fold them back if I could weave them into a fabric layer of their own behind the sprang warps.  And here's where serendipity helped out:  I had threaded using 8 shafts, even though I could do plain weave using only 2, because I didn't have enough heddles on any one shaft, and if there's one thing (and I think the only one thing) that I dislike about the weaving process, that one thing is moving heddles between harness frames.

So, simple enough to just tie up a couple more treadles to always lift my sprang warps, and weave plain weave with the ones that won't be used.  This bit of fabric is weft-dominant and kind of loosey-goosey, but I think it will do the trick to allow the flap to be pressed back and tacked to the fabric like a little facing.

Journal Cover in Doubleweave with Sprang

Here's another warp photo... I think the warp looks so pretty threaded in these blocks, with the morning sun coming through.

One thing I like to do in anticipation of attending a conference is to make a special journal, just for notes and memories of that conference.  Sometimes I weave a cover for the journal.  This warp was for the cover I made for the jounal I took to CNCH last month.

I threaded it in doubleweave with some blocks allowing for sprang of part of one layer.  I tried out a few different Sprang "stitches" like a little sampler. 

I also used the properties of doubleweave to make a pen loop and closure tabs that wrap around the book and close with velcro.  The original plan was to use some cute buttons, but they ended up interfering with the pen when it was inserted.  So much for planning a...h...e..ad!

Here's the finished journal, after going with me to Oakland and back, so it's a bit travel-worn.

The ubiquitous sprang bag

Here's the bag from Stephenie Gaustad's sprang class at CNCH, after boiling it for a half an hour or so in laundry soap and washing soda, and letting it dry flat in the sun.  It softened it up somewhat.  It's still a little stiff, and letting it dry served to block it into a cuter version of its former self.  Now it has a nice little roundy shape to it.  To finish it off,  I crocheted around the top edge, starting in the loops that were around the top and bottom guide cords when it was on the frame loom.  Then I crocheted a long chain for a strap, going back over it with what I call a half-stitch (don't know a name for it), just chaining again over the chain.  I'm not sure what I'll use this little pouch for; right now it's hitched onto the castle of the Macomber, making a trial as a holder for my heddle and reed hooks.

Here's the before picture, when it was just a long twisty hairy tube.  The strap was very "live" and wanted to twist a lot, too.