Weaving Update: Perception

My larger weavings take some time so it's time to celebrate that I'm past the half way point on my current word-based double weave. I have a lot of additional ideas for this one. It doesn't seem...chaotic enough. So I'm thinking about adding bead embroidery and sequins for additional texture on this piece. I haven't done true bead embroidery on my weavings so I'll have to weave a sample piece I can play with. This fabric is a little loose and airy and beads can get heavy quickly. It's just a thought right now.

The middle of this weaving is all orange and black.  It fades out into other colors on either end, but the orange is the central glow. I'm laughing at my younger self because orange wasn't really a color on my creative radar and I kind of hated that my high school colors were orange and black. Here I am staring at orange and black while I weave and it takes on a new brilliance for me. I'm surrounded by orange on a daily basis due to my day job and it's definitely ended up taking the front seat as a color I like to work with in my fiber art in this moment. 

This piece is "Perception" and it calls back to a time in my life where everything felt like it was spinning out of control and what someone else viewed was completely skewed from what was actually happening. I knew what the lies were but the gas-lighting and drinking had gone on for so long I had lost all trust in myself. I have my confidence back...along with some extra that I had never had before in my life. 10 years makes a big difference when you start going in the right direction. I used to joke that it takes me 10 years to get over something, but now I really think it's true. The dramas of my past and the artwork ideas sketched during that time have started to come into physical existence. The first being "Playing with Fire" last spring. Once these ideas become a finished piece of artwork I seem to just...let it go. 

Bruce "helping"

Perception feels timely for this year too. I'm delving into my artwork in the safety of home and friends because I feel on-guard out in the world. Some days I still expect to open my back door to go outside and see the world on fire. I'm working on accepting and moving on, or moving...got my passport updated and have found myself looking into how to immigrate to Canada or what it would cost to move a house of furniture to Europe (mainly for my looms)....I think between myself and my husband we finally have our studio/offices set how we want them and have our equipment upgraded to what we've been dreaming of (my looms, his gaming and music) so I'm not desperate enough to move. I love our house, property, Lansing and our cozy little kitty-filled home.

Gratitude is celebrated regularly here in our home, there was a brilliant full moon this month and I love how quiet and haunting the snow-covered night and shadows feel in our back yard. This giant tree casts the best shadows. 

Night & Day Cowl (Is this Ska?)

I'd been eyeing some checker-esque cowls on Ravelry and with Bryan's help finally picked one out to knit myself for my birthday. The Night & Day Cowl by Andrea Mowry was the perfect project to become obsessed with. I'd usually take a little more time knitting something like this but I had 2 or 3 days of being sick which landed me on the couch knitting when I wasn't sleeping off whatever has been going around. Thus, I knit this up in 12 days. 

I had gone to Woven Art to get the yarn for this project and Meg was super helpful with suggestions, as was Bryan. I landed on a Rowan Felted Tweed in black and Berroco Renew for the off white. I bought 2 balls of each but ended up only needing one of each. I almost used all of the white, but not really since I had done a sample swatch with it too. I had plenty left of the black tweed.

When I initially read knitting instructions I feel a little overwhelmed, like, I-cord edge? That sounds hard. It's literally part of the pattern, I just needed to start knitting, follow the, very clearly written out, instructions and it comes together beautifully.

One of the reasons I loved knitting this is because it uses stitches/rows in 4's for the "checkers." I love multiples of 4. Nice even numbers that my brain is drawn to. My favorite number is 4. I try to keep to multiples of 2s and 4s in my own artwork because it's just so satisfying for me. So, this pattern was a dream. 

Lois models it's progress

This pattern isn't true checkers, so is it ska? Sarah says it's ska-adjacent. It's much easier and faster to knit than checkers and gives a nice illusion of them. I enjoyed knitting this so much I offered to knit Bryan one, his is on the needles already. 

Bryan's colors are both in the tweed

I still keep a pair of socks on my needles for when I'm on-the go. The pattern is just too easy at this point and it rarely takes my attention from a meeting, movie or coffee dates so I'm on my 38th pair of socks (which I started knitting when I started going to AA meetings) which I'm thinking I'll wear at the I Voted for Kodos show in Chicago in May. I'm excited about these socks, the pink is black-light responsive...and it's weird being excited about pink. I recently saw a post that said "girlhood is realizing the "I hate pink phase" was never actually about pink" and that resonated so deeply. I like pink, but on my terms, don't you dare get me something pink, especially a pastel pink. It feels like pressure to be girlier and clearly I'm not alone in that lifelong fight. My last tattoo my artist wanted to add pink, and I balked, but let it go because it's his art style that I wanted, we discussed my issues with it and visa versa, he's always liked pink because of the neon pink in motorbikes he's had...so there's some pink in my colored thigh tattoo.  I could rant about pink for forever, so we'll leave it at, this pink I like, especially with the black. 

Pink and black stripe sock in progress