Tactile Feast

This is my favorite section. Delicious thick and thin color grown organic cotton.






I worked purely as I went, not planning anything after I put the warp onto the loom. I enjoyed it much. Changing color/fiber as I felt like it. Great!

I Heart Weaving!

When I get home from work at around 11 tonight, I'll post some pictures of my finished weaving! Hooray!

Warp Mill . Beam . Heddle . Pedal

I learned how to set up a loom today! And started weaving. I love it. The whole process is perfect to me. It's very methodical and particular. Kind of like knitting. A lot of repetition. Lots of it. Our first piece is a sampler, so I'm trying all different weaves and a few different kinds of yarns.

Also, she wants us to experiment with non-traditional materials. As one might guess, I plan on weaving in some natural materials. I collected some black walnut leaf twigs today! They're beautiful. I put them in a little short vase and they look great against my blue wall. I think I'll just collect more for my weaving and keep these ones! I also want to try grass, branches with leaves on them still, newspaper and some other stuff.

My loom. It faces out the window.

The heddles have been threaded. One strand at a time. For all 120 strands of yarn.

My weaving! It's only somewhere around 2 inches, but it was fun. We spend all class setting up. It's a 6 hour class. I finished setting up and weaving this after class ended at 4.

My weaving close up. The paper towels are used to get rid of the separation between groups of yarn that were tied on together. See how it spreads out after a while?

Lovely. This yarn is rayon. The fabric will be so nice.

Birthday . School . Inspiration

I got a haircut. My friend Laura cut it! She is a senior at the Aveda Institute in Ann Arbor. It was fun, I got a good cut, got to hang out with my friend and it was only $16!

My sister Erika's birthday was this past weekend. We spend the weekend at my family's cottage, which was so nice. As a placeholder gift (the one I'm making isn't done yet), we got her some crazy candy. Pet rat, pet tarantula, etc... Yeah, they're full of bad stuff. It was fun though!

....................................

Well, it's back to school time. I had my first day of class today! My major studio class will be an independent study, but the class is grounded around the idea of the story and storytelling. Which is great because after that I have an english class about the Fairy Tale! I already have an inkling of my final project for that class. We have to write our own fairy tale and "illustrate" it with any medium. I'll put out my ideas as they become more concrete. Basically, I'm thinking fabric book with embroidery and beading as illustration (stories are about embellishment) and a fairy tale that includes animal characters and is about environmental or animal issues somehow. Poaching? Human-caused exctinction? Global warming? Hmmm... We'll see.

I'm excited.

Tomorrow, I have weaving. Oh, am I happy about that!

Also, Eric and I are going to the Plymouth Fall carnival tomorrow! Yay!

The Scary State Fair

I went to the Michigan State Fair last Friday. I only went for the animals (Eric hates carnival rides) and wasn't too disappointed. The fair itself is in a really bad part of Detroit and is so very depressing to go to and leave from. Unfortunately, my camera died before we got to the Miracle of Life barn. There were baby sheep, piglets (two hours old!) and baby quails, chickens and ducks. How cute! I also couldn't get any pictures of the bunnies or chickens or doves. They were pretty outrageous!

This guy was doing a show and these two kids were so cute! Earlier in the show, he stuck the piglet up the boy's shirt! Ha!

I liked this pig. She was pretty cool. Look at her eyes. You know, pigs are pretty intelligent.

The horses were all getting groomed and dressed up for their competitions. Did you know they spray-paint their hooves black? Ew.

The winning Clydesdale horse pair. That is the derby queen. She was given to the winner and got to ride out of the coliseum with him and wave her hand. Pageant style. I laughed.

So many cows!!! I don't really like this kind...

Wall o' wool!

Animals and Rides and Carny Food, oh My!!

So, we're going to the State Fair today! Woo! I've never been to a state or county fair in my grown-up life, so I'm really excited. I'll have lots of pictures and exciting tales :)

Also, I had a bad morning. I went into work to get my coffee, E's Vivanno and a sandwich. I had a bad experience with one of my customers and it's really bothering me. I'll tell you more later, because we have to go. I'm sad.

But, I'm going to the Fair! So, I can't let that get me down. Sheepies and cows and chickens and horses and everyone else, here I come!!

Keep Goin

I never really realized what a powerful speaker Hilary Clinton is. I thought her speech tonight was really well written and, for me, was pretty inspirational. Especially her Harriet Tubman quote:

If you hear the dogs, keep going.

If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.

If they're shouting after you, keep going.

Don't ever stop. Keep going.

If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.

Brittany