Native Big Blue

The rain last night bent over the clumps of native prairie grass, Big Bluestem. Some of us like to use the colored, segmented dried stems as wefts. It's flowering now, and the stems will continue to color into September, when we harvest it. We cut it with scissors, wrap it in bed sheets, and put it out in the sun to dry for a week. I like to use it in a plainweave linen warp on the big barn loom with traditional Scandinavian ticking stripes. With Finnish and Japanese paper yarns it has a crosscultural feeling that I like: Japanese and Finnish.

button, button

I've been looking through my button box this morning. My collection of small buttons used to fit in a tea cup. Here are glass buttons, vintage plastic, Mississippi mother-of-pearl, and 2-hole
bone underwear buttons (my personal favorites). Looking through my mother's button box was a favorite activity of mine when I was a child. These buttons survived the shop fire, and are still my treasure.

organdy detail

Summer scarves with new labels printed on organdy.

toys

I keep a store here, and besides weaving, I sell a small selection of toys, books, and household things. I'm always on the look for that elusive something to add to my shelves.

New oilcloth is a nostalgic summer item that reminds me of Wisconsin summer kitchens, small buildings separate from the farm house, where the canning was done, when the garden was ready. Big screen windows, oil cloth covered shelves, kraut cutters, canning kettles, and farm tables furnished these kitchens. Cotton rag rugs on the linoleum floors.

Today my order from Japan came up the driveway in the mail lady's truck. I've looked for plastic bird whistles, but this one is the best, and also the cutest. Filled with different levels of water, its pitch changes. Blow softly for sweet warbles, puff hard for strident chirping. What a wonderful toy! New animal paper balls also came in the box. A cross between a ball and a balloon, & made of crinkly paper that unfolds, and with a few puffs, inflates to this classic Japanese toy. Monkey, the most popular paper ball, Elephant, and Now--Blue jelly fish! Oh, happy day! When tossing and batting are done, gently refold them and put back in your pocket-- unless you have been playing with Sharp Claws the Cat. They also fit easily into an envelope to mail to amuse someone. Summer!

Lingonberry

The unbleached 16/2 linen inlay took almost 6 hours to do. It was hard to see, so I had to remove more than one error. My edges took a beating from reaching around the weave to hold the paper pattern up, but it was worth the trouble. The rest of the runner/window weave will take less time to finish than the inlay did. The traditional combination of half-bleached and unbleached linen in a weave is very attractive. Do it again? Yes, yes, yes!

Feeling Good

All My Eggs is just off the loom, and floating free in the breeze! Now I'm going to have a beer!

Plastic!

When the Finland girl mentioned her grandmother's golden plastic coffee bags woven into rag rugs, I remembered my mother telling me, after she had made her first trip to Finland, "Susan, they are saving up golden plastic coffee bags to weave into their sauna rugs. I will never weave plastic in my rugs."

I thought, I might weave plastic in my rugs, and I did. I liked it. Today, I started looking for more white things to tie into my rya weave. Thinking of plastic, I found a woven plastic tarp on my packing shelf that I unwove. Now I have narrow striped pieces, very strong and easy to thread on my needle. When I threaded the first one into the weave I felt a small thrill. There are the plastic ribbons, just after the silk ribbons, the paper and the mohair. It's the mix that excites me. The idea for this was put into my head this morning from someone I don't know, far away in the north.

All My Eggs in One Basket Again

I'm constructing a new piece of spaced linen warp and rya knots. The warp is bleached 16/1 Swedish linen, and unbleached 20/2 (if I remember right, since the label has dropped off).
I'm making the knots of paper yarns from Habu, and Finnish paper yarn I brought home from Finland. I fine cut some organdy rag, and just added some knots out of white mohair. This is fun, but slow, slow.

Finish and Begin Again

The first window weave is off the loom, hemmed and ready to deliver. Now I'm moving to my next project, a spaced linen warp with rya knots made of Finnish paper yarn, Japanese paper yarn, linen, and silk ribbon. It's another in my series of All My Eggs in One Basket. I'm excited, but it is time consuming to weave it, and there is a mid June deadline. I'm happy that the loom is already warped with enough linen to do this project. The linen on the
9 silver paper pirns is to weave the tab loops to hang the finished weave.

Grass Weave

Here are all the ingredients for my next grass, linen and japanese paper yarn weave. My unbleached 20/1 linen warp is finally wound on and correctly threaded, though a demon must have been in the loom this time. The 5 yard warp was days in the making. Errors kept showing, and I had to rethread it again, and again. I finally quit fighting the frustration and submitted to the process, until there were no doubled threads or two threads to a dent. Though it was just plain weave it certainly got the upper hand this time.

The yarn is paper yarn with a silk strand, from Habu, and the grass is the native midwest prairie grass called Big Bluestem. It is a sturdy stemmed, jointed grass that has a blue cast coloration when it matures in August, and is about 4 - 6 feet tall. These prairie grasses covered the Great Plains when western settlement happened in the 19th century. Gradually they were plowed down as crops were planted, but now there are many who wish to restore these native grasses and flowers to our lands. We cut bluestem grass stems with a scissors in late August,
when the grass is ripe, and let them dry in the sun before bundling and storing them to weave. I think they resemble bamboo, and remind me of Japanese design when I weave with them in Swedish linen warp.