Happy Solstice!

The glorious days of summer are here!  I’m spending a quiet week at home enjoying the things I cannot do on a boat!

The gardens are looking great this year, with little input from me.  It’s been perfect weather to sit outside until the past couple of days when the heat drove me indoors and made me turn on the AC.

Our sailing grounds have moved to Eastern Long Island Sound now, but I did not weave on our last trip.  We had guests on board so there was little room for my loom.  Instead I did some crocheting and drop spindling.  We visited the newly built Ocean House in Watch Hill, RI, which is certainly as spectacular as the original structure must have been 100 years ago.

Now I am home alone for a few days, finally using the Toika that I bought from my friend about two years ago! This project will be a set of placemats for my older son and his wife.  The loom needed a lot of tweaking, at least for this old girl who is only familiar with jack looms!  I might be a bit old for learning new tricks, but with Sr. Bianca’s help, I think I’ve got the loom in great working condition now!  I’m a convert to countermarche!

5/2 merc. cotton warp with 8/1 linen tow weft in lots of beachy blue/green colors.  Each set of two will be slightly different, for a total of 8 placemats. The reverse side is quite nice too.  This pattern is from Jean Scorgie’s “Weaver’s Craft” issue 16, Monk’s Belt.

I’m working on the Archie project too and hope to have a new blog post there soon!

Weaving Destinations

The first dot on the map may be the most interesting!

Bonnie Tarses will be weaving in western Montana, at Flathead Reservation, in a bucolic spot called “The Garden of 1000 Buddhas.”  Through the internet I found this description from a Montana newspaper:

“Visualize a 10-acre garden with a thousand Buddhas to inspire visitors of all faiths to reflect on peace and find compassion and happiness within themselves.”

And now visualize Big Sky country, a peaceful garden for contemplation, and your loom at your side!  Does it get any better than this? The Dalai Lama plans to visit the completed garden in 2011. 

Where will you weave this summer?

Yikes!….I wrote this two weeks ago and somehow didn’t post it….

A successful few days of weaving while on board our sailboat, Pandora, has me thinking about where other weavers work during their travels.  What comes to mind first is a wonderful travelogue tapestry by Susan Martin Maffei that chronicles a train trip she took from New York westward across the country.  It’s a multi-panel work with 2” x 2” tiny tapestries mounted on the panels, depicting the landmarks and landscapes of her trip. Susan has also brought small copper pipe looms on airplanes and woven while in flight!

I imagine many weavers must bring looms on vacation (floor and table looms as well as frame looms for tapestry), and I’d like to know where you will be weaving this summer!  If you read this, please consider leaving a comment of where you plan to weave while you are away from home!  I’d like to picture all the wonderful places where weavers will be working on their projects.  I might make a map (if I can figure out how!) showing all the vacation weaving places I hear about.  Or if you plan to blog about your summer weaving, send me a link! 

I have just returned home this morning from a trip along the Chesapeake.  It started in Williamsburg (by car!) with a visit to my parents and some friends, and ended with a week of sailing in the Chesapeake.  For my part in this summer weaving list, I can say that I worked on my current tapestry in St. Michael’s harbor, Maryland, and at a lovely anchorage off Gibson Island in the Magothy River, also Maryland.

St. Michaels harbor on the eastern shore of Maryland.