Pin Weaving and Gallery Opportunity

I am involved in a monthly textile arts group that inspires me (and many others!) to learn and use different techniques using different materials and processes that I may or may not have used before. Every month we get a packet of materials for accomplishing this and are shown some examples and given some ideas of what do to and how to do it. Then we are sent away to experiment and hopefully return the next month with a sample of how we used the technique/materials in a project. The exchange of ideas and the different ways that each person uses the packet is inspiring and motivating. I just love this effort and truly thank the women of In Good Company of Hamilton, Montana for sponsoring it. It is called "TARTS" (Textile Arts) and in February we will be having our 2nd Annual show and sale called "An Affair of the heART" over the Valentine's Day weekend. You can check out the blog that reviews the projects for the TARTS classes at
http://ingoodcompanytarts.blogspot.com.

The project we worked on this month and shared yesterday was Pin Weaving using a foam core board and pins to hold the warp and a tongue depressor to hold the warp threads apart for weaving.
It is a great way to use all of those fun and funky yarns and trim pieces that you just had to buy but don't know what to do with! I particularly like the fuzzy, hairy, and slubby yarns for great texture and combining them with silk ribbon---beautiful! We also did weaving of two (or more) different fabrics cut into strips which creates a very usable piece for backgrounds or whatever. I haven't done anything yet with the piece I made from fabric strips, but my effort at pin weaving became part of a somewhat sophisticated looking wall hanging with couched fibers and beads.

I used the couched yarns and ribbon to echo the lines of the pin weaving. I spent a long time with the piece up on my design wall trying to determine placement of the beads. I use long quilting pins to try to pin the beads up so I can stand back and evaluate it. I have a hard time laying the piece on a table or the floor to evaluate this since the perspective is not quite right. I have done that and stood on a chair to try to evaluate, but if I can pin them on my design wall it seems to work better for me. I must have moved them around 30 times before I was happy with the balance and design. I started with the red beads and some other beads that I did not end up using. I had just purchased the bone beads this weekend and I thought they worked well for the piece.

Last week my mom and I made a trip into Missoula (1/2 hour north of us) to visit a couple of galleries and hopefully make some appointments to show them some of my work. The first place we stopped was Whooping Crones Gallery and the owner said she had time and wondered if I had brought any with me. Being rather an optimistic person and always wanting to be prepared for an opportunity, I had conveniently placed a number of my works in the back of my car. I brought them in and she was very interested and will be showing several of them in her gallery for the month of January! I was so excited at this positive reception of my work and her interest in having fiber works in her gallery. Currently there is a show hanging in the Gallery for the month of November and December of works done by members of the Surface Design Association which are wonderful and worth seeing. I am honored to follow them and have my work shown in a gallery that is displaying fiber art in such a respectful and professional way.
If you are in the area, please visit the gallery at 508 E. Broadway (across from the Children's Theatre building). I believe my works will be hanging from First Friday until the end of January.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot! Check out the Studio Art Quilt Associates auction on www.saqa.com. I have donated a piece on page 2b that is up for auction right now called "Birds of a Feather" (see it at the bottom of my blog), but there are many other wonderful pieces. This is a reverse auction where the pieces start at $750 and go down each day until they get to $75.