New Healing Gemstone Necklace

This is my latest design for a healing gemstone necklace and coordinating earrings. Can you identify the gemstones I used?

Learn about this stone, and its healing properties, at my new blogsite.

Allegany Artisans Studio Tour

Handwoven scarves and handcrafted gemstone jewelry has taken over not just my life, but my home. Here's a corner of my dining room, set up for the Allegany Artisans Studio Tour.

Stop by my new blogsite for more photos.

Better yet -- visit me on the tour this year!

Still Life with Yarn

I enjoyed setting up this still life with tools of my trade. Visit my new blogsite to learn about these yarns, and why I set up this photo.

Painting with Nail Polish

It's probably pretty easy to see that I painted with nail polish, but difficult to figure out what the heck this is a picture of.

They are the heddle bars of my 8 harness Macomber weaving loom.

I took this unusual step in an effort to make my life easier. Time will tell if it works.

Is your curiosity peaked? Learn more at my new blogsite.

Rigid Heddle Weaving

I made these three handwoven bamboo scarves on my little rigid heddle loom while I was working the last show I did. People are always fascinated to watch me weave, even on this simple loom. I'm always happy to share the process with them.

Check out my new blogsite to learn more about these scarves.......and other things about life.

Scarf For Royalty

I'm still loving making the handwoven cashmere scarves. My latest warp of three scarves was in royal purple, woven in a more complex and tighter pattern than I've used for this yarn before.

Get more detail and see the other two in this warp at my new blogsite. I hope you'll stop by.

Royal Purple Handwoven Cashmere

I finished weaving another warp of three cashmere & silk scarves. I’m so glad I discovered the trick of preparing the warp so I can do three at a time without pulling out my hair!

This time I wanted to try a woven lace pattern that was a bit more complex, requiring me to use my 8 harness Macomber loom instead of my 4 harness counterbalance loom that I use more than 80% of the time. This alternate lace pattern also needed to b woven tighter than the other cashmere & silk scarves in order to produce the end result I was after. So instead of setting at 18 ends per inch, as I have done with the others, I threaded the reed for 36 ends per inch – twice as thickly.

I was crossing my fingers that I’d like the pattern, since it required 360 ends to give me a scarf that would end up being around 9 wide. That was a lot of winding on the warping board, and much more time consuming, a lot of threading through 360 heddles. I guess I wasn’t in exactly the right frame of mind while I was threading – not enough focus – because I probably ended up threading 500 heddles by the time I was done. How is that possible? I kept making threading errors that I’d catch at the end of a bundle of 50 threads (that was one pattern repeat) and have to take lots of threads out and re-do. Even so, when it was all threaded through heddles and reed, tied to the front beam, and I was weaving the fringe spacer header, I found another threading error. I SURE wasn’t going to unthread more than needed, so the easiest fix was to make two string repair heddles an tie them into place.

Anyhow....once it was all done, I started weaving the pattern, and I could tell immediately that I did like it. Yippee!

Nowhere near as thin as the earlier ones, I think these are beautiful in their own right. Granted, they don’t drape quite as softly, but they have more sheen. There’s always some trade off.

The center scarf is the first one I wove — a diamond huck lace pattern that I think is really pretty. On the right I changed the treadling slightly. It’s hard to see the difference in the pattern in this photo; it’s pretty subtle even in real life. On the left, I went back to the first treadling pattern, but dramatically changed the firmness of the beating. I think you can see that the diamond pattern is substantially elongated and the scarf is much thinner. I like it, too. I’d be hard pressed to choose which I prefer.

I’m anxious to see shopper’s reactions at the upcoming Elmwood Avenue Festival of the Arts. If you’re in the Buffalo area, I hop you’ll stop by and give me your input.

August 18th, 2010