Weaving off Extra Warp

When I prepare all of my large weavings I always put on extra warp and often have extra weft yarn. Most of my larger weavings take me up to 2 1/2 years to create and in that amount of time design choices I made early on can change or I might want to play with something at the end of the weaving.

Sometimes I get to that extra warp and just...play. When I weave in Double Weave Pick Up, it's a plain weave at base. Remembering what twill looks like when the loom is already tied up for it is nice. I do my double weave tie-up as any normal tie-up, 1, 2,3,4. This week I started a very simple twill and just kept going.

I was mesmerized, I had the time and quiet space, I had bobbins of weft to use up. I started day-dreaming of what the fabric was becoming and what I could make out if it. I have a thin strappy satin top that I love the shape of. I could start with something like that....Beaded or loomed straps....who knows. I forget how quickly straight-weaving goes. Still not fast by any means but much quicker than 1/4 of an inch per hour.

Or it could just sit in my stash for years like so many other fabrics. I'm trying not to add projects beyond my focus for new wall/installation pieces. I'm part of a group show this September 2023 and I'm really excited but nervous that I won't have much new work.  Either way it'll be fine, but having a deadline is really helpful for me to get work out of my brain, into the sketchbook and then into reality so I'm using it as a driving force.

*Bonus Content*

I did my first Instagram Live video cutting this piece off the loom. I didn't realize I was recording so I look dumb for the first few seconds 😂. You can find that HERE.

2020 and 2021 in Review

2021 Top Nine (I finally figured out how to do that...)

Sometimes I do a yearly review, sometimes I don't have much to say.  The last review I did was in 2019, and to be honest, 2021 still felt like 2020. So I might as well merge the two.

That start of the pandemic and general shut-down of society was...strange.  I don't follow the news much (I learned early that it's too stressful and I need to focus on what I'm doing, not what everyone else is) so when I came in to work and was told we are "shutting down for 2 weeks" and we need to prepare the store for that (all cash drawers and iPads in the safe, we unplugged the mini fridge and moved it into the bathroom with the drain to defrost etc), I went home and tried not to panic.  2 weeks sounded so vague and I didn't like it. So I applied to Home Depot that night.  Some retail establishments were going to be considered "essential" and stay open with limited capacity. I applied to everything that was available. I figured that the application and interview process would take about 2 weeks, that's normal.  That was Tuesday, March 17th.  I had an interview on Friday and started my orientation on Saturday. So much for thinking I'd have some extra time to get projects worked on. 

I hired in to Millwork. I had no idea what Millwork was when I interviewed. My Assistant Manager who was interviewing me told me I'd be fine. I'm a slow learner, I don't memorize well and sometimes numbers are really hard for me until I can relate them, but since we had only 50 people in the store at a time it was slower than usual and my coworker Russ who likes to know everything about everything had plenty of time to train me.  Understanding the swings of doors, lingo, what measurements mean, designing doors to fit spaces and eventually understanding how it would look trimmed out to explain to the customer came with practice. As much as I miss some of my co-workers and customers at Talbots, Millwork turns out to be a really great fit for me. I never knew I'd love doors so much!

I wasn't that inspired to work on my big projects.  At first at home I busied myself with making masks. I wasn't going to do it at all, but the writing was on the wall that I would have to eventually wear them, so I wanted to make custom to fit comfortably. Of course requests started coming in and I figured out how much time and energy and cost would make it worth what price point.  I had fun buying fabric, supporting Seams (what a year to open a fabric store!) and I really sunk into my knitting in the evenings. When the heat of the summer turned we started dismantelling the rotting roof of the garage Labor Day weekend 2020. I have so much support and people to talk things through at work that I finally felt confident reroofing my garage. It was a lot more involved than it looked like, but I usually expect house projects to go that direction anyway. Fall 2021 the garage is 98% dry, we ordered custom windows and I installed them with everything I learned talking about installation in my department.  Next year I have one more edge to wrap with roll roofing dismantling and all the trim work to do.  The back North corner of the garage is really rotted and that the last big patch I have to work on while I trim it out.  We purchased all of the boards I need this year so they can dry out and I'll paint them before putting them on. 

I worked on my door fence in 2020 but not so much in 2021.  I've picked up a few doors from customers so I need to get back on top of painting them and putting them up.  Some of the doors have survived the years and some are falling apart.  I wanted them to have a worn look so it's working out. As some get too bad outside in the weather I just swap them out.  I've found once you start looking for doors, they pop up everywhere. I also know what it looks like when someone is gutting a house. I obtained some solid wood interior doors on my way to work one day, I saw them sitting in the back of a pickup on top of a pile of garbage and simply asked the guys that were going in and out of the house if they were throwing them out, and if so could I have them. They were happy to help my load them into my vehicle.

Valeta's Gears Bangle

I did submit a few pieces into MLH's online exhibit. It was nice because I was able to show anything and since I made a bangle commission for a friend it never got to make the exhibit rounds but I had good photos and submitted it, so it got some view-time. The lack of creating new work came from a pit in my stomach of "what's the point" because as many photos as I can take to show what my work looks like, fiber pieces really truly need to be seen in person. It's hard enough going to a fiber show and not being allowed to touch, but at least you can see each thread, stitch and handwork in the pieces up close. Most of the shows I submit to have to have work finished in the last 2 years. So that was another reason for not finishing any big pieces, not until they can be on display again and they have that 2 year time period of being able to be submitted.  I'm back to trying to finish the large "Leaf Me Alone" piece, once that's done I'll allow myself to get back to my current doubleweave "Is There a Thing to Which Brings Us Less Joy Yet We Devote More Time".  I'm a bit tired of looking at greens and blue of leaf me alone, the black and grey of the next one is exciting because I have individual threads spaced through that have little pops of verigated color. My brain is also starting to dream up the warp for a Theo Moorman Inlay weaving that will be next.  I havevariegated  to roll around in my head how to get a drip or smear feel in that piece. 

Jewelry pieces have just been falling out of me on occasion. I find that I don't feel as stressed out to follow fashion color trends or make new pieces now that I'm not is clothing retail.  I'm letting Pinterest and my bead stash speak to me more. My work style now is hand knit socks, the Barley Light hat all winter, often handknit neck wraps gaiters and some of my earrings. I've fallen in love with the firehose flex cargo pocket pants at Duluth trading company.  I thought "I'll never use these cargo pockets"....I'm pulling so much stuff out of them when I go to throw them in the wash! I still can't really pull off a flannel, I'll always be more into hoodies and I found a new favorite the tie-dyed Wanakome hoodies. I also find that the dryride Burton zip hoodies are great for work right now in case I'm moving a lot of doors and get hot, I can take them off.

Speaking of moving doors... My arm muscles are bigger than they've ever been. One day this summer I was stocking a large shipment of interior doors and thinking about how the previous summer I was so exhausted putting away a few pallets of doors. Not this summer, I can pick up and throw around the interior doors easily. I still struggle with the weight and awkward shape (the attached brickmold adds a lot) of the exterior doors, I just don't quite have the wingspan/height to get those picked up too high, luckily there's plenty of help at work too. This 2-week at home with COVID is going to have me out of shape but I'll get back to it, I am enjoying being this strong and healthy.

Fabric Scrap Playing (beginning, back, front)

As much as we've been wearing masks, distancing and staying in (which I rather enjoy) we still managed to get this round of COVID. So I've been home since the 20th, the first week was awful. I've never had to take so much ibuprofen before. The body aches would wake me up, and I mostly slept the first week. As my health returned my motivation to work on my artwork came on full-force. I got back to make leaves to finish Leaf Me Alone. I've started the beaded edging for the piece that's on my loom, I started doodling  thinking about fabric and making cat patterns, plus some scrap fabric play.... it's like it's been a 1-week artist residency. Bryan and I are both on the other end of it, thankfully.  

Lastly, I'd like to rave about Bryan...he's so easy to be with, 5 years has flown by with him and I'm still shocked that 2 weeks quarentined in the house together has pretty much been a breeze. I feel so thankful for him every day. Being an artist is hard to juggle art, day job and relationship. I'm lucky to have found someone who can entertain himself and also respect the space that I need in my life to do my artwork. I have so much creativity to get out of my sometimes its overwhelming, I'm much better at taking it one day at a time, one stitch at a time, one bead at a time lately.  I now understand that there will never be enough time in the day but I can make the best of the 24 hours I've got. 

Lastly, I had this all written up, then last night at midnight we opened a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne and Bryan wanted to a toast, which led to our engagement! He had it all planned out to do it at the We Are the Union's Ska show that we were going to but COVID...I guess it was finally going to affect something big for us.  We still dressed up (above), ordered in a lovely meal for 2 from Tannin and played games and talked. Things are always so perfect with him despite having to change plans. <3

I love love love my ring, it's so sparkly!!

Speaking of sparkly, we ordered custom shoes for the NYE Ska show

Mine are pink glitter Converse with leopard print tongue, 

his are Vans with leopard, checkers, and a glitter side stripe. 

Fiberside Chat on February 18, 2021 is almost here!

I'm terrible at posting video, but with the way social media is right now, I'm trying to get used to it.  Unlike the 45 takes it took me on the last video, I tried to just roll with it his morning before work (with only 9 takes this time).  This is me, lots of "uummmm"s but very excited to talk about my weaving with Fiberside Chats on February 18, 2021, 6pm EST 4pm MTS.

Register HERE.  Pick a yarn shop to support, anyone can join!

Beginning Weaving for "Is There a Thing to Which Brings Us Less Joy Yet We Devote More Time"

I started this post on 1/6/2021 and have gotten a bit further than the above photos, once I start to weave I can get on a roll and other things (like this blog post) may be overlooked or forgotten. 

It seems like it's been a long time since I've tried to add float warps to either side of my warp in order to try to get my selvedges looking better. I still pull in too much on the left side. I haven't a clue why I still struggle with selvedges, but I'm trying on each piece to get them better. I know that part of my selvege struggle lies in the fact that I make 2 passes with the weft before beating it.  I'd be fine if I only did one pass, but then that's twice as much time spent picking up the warp for the pattern. It already takes me about an hour to weave a quarter of an inch, maybe I'll do one pass on a future smaller piece.

If you want to see a LIVE DEMO of me weaving this piece on Zoom, it's coming up in February!  I have been asked to be the feature for a Fiberside Chat session hosted by Longmont Yarn Shoppe. I'm very excited to be doing my very first Zoom talk about how I use supplemental warp structures in my weavings. Don't worry, I will not get too technical. It's more about my work, what inspires me and my weaving process.  It's $20 and you can register HERE. 

 

Winding Warp #1 for "Is There a Thing to Which Brings Us Less Joy Yet We Devote More Time"

 

This piece is probably 2 or more years in to the thought/design process. These start by floating around in my head and in sketchbooks before I finally getting around to drafting the design, printing/taping it and choosing colors to then starting to wind the warp.  2020 seems to be a good time for the culmination of this piece as we have become more dependant than ever on keeping in touch through Zoom, social media and having a general dependance on the internet; yet it also becomes the thing that can mess with our psyche the most.

As far as color I wanted to go dark on this piece, I even thought about black on black but I'm not up for driving myself crazy while weaving in 2021. I decided on a black warp and a grey warp. I also have to admit to myself that there are some little, occasional, bursts on positive things that happen over social media so I picked a few colors to put into each warp.  Just one strand every 10 or so ends. 

The above time lapse video is 2 hours into 3 minutes.  I'm winding the first warp and the strands of color that will go into this warp. You can also tell when I'm counting warp threads that I'm watching TV (Blacklist, so good).  Even with a warping wheel winding the warp is a tedious process. 

I made a small sample wrap to get a color idea before I started winding this warp.  I rarely do this, but I'm not used to working in black and grey with little other color.  The sample shows the color coming in every 7th warp but I decided I want them more spaced-out so it's about double the amount of black between the strands.

Once I have 3-4 solid hours I'll get the next warp wound. 

Design Process: Putting Together My Cartoon

 

This is my very first time lapse video! So bear with me as it's not the most flattering view, but it's about an hour of work sped up 30x showing how I put together the cartoon for my next weaving. 

I started by designing this in Photoshop.  Once I have the file layers merged and resized to the width of my warp I'm ready to print.  I could take the file over to Staples and have them print it out on one big sheet, but I've found that cutting and taping the cartoon together helps me get to know what's going on with the image that I'll be looking at under my warp. I can also make any alterations to the design at home on the spot. 

So I guess here's a sneak peek of the design for my next piece.  I have not finished the large Leaf Me Alone piece yet, I needed a break from it, along with a change of color. 

Large Leaf Me Alone Weaving Update

So. Close. To. Done.... with the weaving portion at least. There's still hours of finish work to do once I have this off-loom. I'm weaving the reaminder of the header today.  I always make my warp about a yard longer than my pattern plans for.  I do this for 2 reasons, 1) in case I change my mind after I get a few inches in to the design of the weaving and I have plenty of room to re-start and 2) once the header is finished, I'll weave a mix of plain weave and the two fabrics in green or blue for the remainder of the warp.  The extra fabric I use to stitch leaves for the leaf panel on this piece.

I'm trying a new way of video recording for my YouTube channel, so here's this morning's video of me talking about finishing work, specifically the plans for this double weave pick up.  I hate the way I sound when I'm being recorded, but oh well, I just rattle on a bit here:

Art History Daydream 2002?

Art History Daydream by Jenny Schu

The title of this piece comes from the fact that the original image I worked off of was a doodle in the corner of my Chinese Art History lecture notes.  I was working a lot in Theo Moorman inlay weaving and this is one of my favorite pieces I've done in that technique.

Detail

The base layer is plain weave black rayon and the colored inlay is a mix of different chenille.  This piece measures 31.5 inches long by 33 inches wide.

My favorite response to this piece is from one of my Kinder-campers one of the years I was teaching art camp.  There was a teacher's show and I had submitted this piece.  In class he came up to me and told me that he could see dragons in my weaving.  

There and Back Again, 2006

There and Back Again.  This weaving is my very first tapestry (aside from a tiny purple flames piece I didn't know was tapestry I wove in high school).  I had watched other students weave tapestry in college and decided it looked like it took too long.  I laugh now at that because everything I did and that I currently create takes a really really long time anyway.   

When I moved from Colorado to Wisconsin there was a feeling of homecoming.  Colorado wasn't quite for me and moving back to the Midwest was a breath of fresh air. One of the things I missed most living in Colorado was the fall. There was a lack of crispness to the air and little or no leaf color change in Colorado.  It was a really strange feeling when we jumped right from summer to snow in Colorado, so I enjoyed every second Fall in Wisconsin.  I needed to make a piece about my little jaunt to go chase the mountains, but then ending back in the Midwest.  

I worked on this piece in my tiny studio apartment in Madison.  It took me almost the whole year I was there to weave this.  I used as many different types and textures of yarn I saw fit and played with striping along the way. There and Back Again is one of my larger pieces measuring 45.5 inches long by 28 inches wide.

It is currently on display at the Haslett Library resale book shop, The Bookend, through the end of September 2019.

Michigan League of Handweavers Conference 2019

Michigan League of Handweavers 2019 Conference is officially behind me.  I've had artwork sitting in a corner of my dining room for a bit too long (trying to keep the cats away) and to be honest I enjoy hanging this show, but the intake and pickup process has to be less on the point person making a ton of special arrangements.  I had to be pretty stern with some people towards the end and frankly, I'm exhausted from that.  The show itself turned out great, I think the quality of artwork increases every year.  I enjoyed taking notes for Cameron Taylor-Brown as she juried the show and I always appreciate conversation and critiques on my own work as part of the process. 

All of the awards will eventually be listed at MLHguild.org, I didn't feel that I had my strongest two pieces (but I got Leaf Me Alone 2 done finally!) so I'm pleased to have received an honorable mention.  MLH and being around all the weavers I now there always inspires me to get back to my loom as quikcly as possible.

I have to set up the exhibit in a classroom, and with all the pieces that needed hanging I was quite grateful for the framed works and sculptural pieces.

I spent a lot of time in Room 203, Graves Hall.

I failed to get photos, but I had also entered two bangles in the Fashion Accessories Exhibit.  Klingon Light and Ginkgo Leaf Bangle.  The fashion show was fun as always.  We have so many creative weavers and artists in this guild.  Everyone is so inspiring.

Fashion Show Finale

I did something new this year.  I have somehow been involved in MLH since 2009...I know it was 10 years ago because it was the 50 year anniversary and Karen East had recruited my help to work on and set up the Lansing Guild Exhibit.  I had heard there was a beach in Holland but never took the time or had the time to go.  So Friday was my shopping, catching up with friends and "relaxed" day.  I I went and found the beach.  I'm not a big beach person, but it was a nice sunny day to walk the pier.  I was also relieved that I had gotten my State Park tab again with my licence registration because there was no line for heading in to Holland State Park Beach.

We had two presentations Friday night.  Marta put together a short history of MLH's beginnings which was really wonderful. There is a ton of history with this Guild and she said that she barely touched on it with this showing.

Cameron Taylor-Brown also brought a fresh perspective to the presentations with her talk on "How String Changed the World."  It was definitely a different sort of keynote talk than we're used to seeing and I really enjoyed it.

It's always wonderful to get back to Hope College for a few days to reconnect with fellow weavers and our passion for fiber art. Thank you to everyone who works so hard putting this on.  It is a LOT of work.

"Woven Together" Artwork by Sherri Smith and past students at the Crooked Tree Art Center, Petoskey

Last month I delivered artwork to Crooked Tree Arts Center in Petoskey for Sherri Smith's joint retirement show.  The show consists of Sherri's more current work in it's own exhibit and a joining exhibit of 14 of her past student's work, myself being one of them.  

This has been a huge honor to be part of Sherri's retirement show.  Sherri was definitely the professor that had the greatest influence on me as a student at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design.  She is the person who encouraged and pushed me to take my weaving and beadwork beyond the basics of crafting and into the realm of artwork and professional exhibiting. 

The day of the reception started off with a brunch with Guna, the current Dean of the Art School and a handful of colleagues (which was really lovely, thank you for organizing this Nan!), the opening reception at Crooked Tree and ending with a dinner outside at Leggs Inn that Shelia organized.  My boyfriend, Bryan joined me for the ride (and the trip to the U.P. between drop off and the reception), and my parents lets us crash at their place the night before and joined us at the reception (thanks for the extra photos Mom!)

I apologize for not having titles for pieces, but the first group are some of my favorites from Sherri's pieces and the second is her past-student show.

"Woven Together: The Fiber Work of Sherri Smith"

"Woven Together: The Influence of Sherri Smith"

Jenny and Bryan

Jenny, Mom and Dad