Pricing Nightmare

This weekend I am part of the Michigan Weavers Guild Holiday Sale.  This is the first time I have attempted to sell any of my weaving.  Pricing is a nightmare.  Still working on how I will be pricing.   I am sure you know that not only can you not get rich weaving, you cannot even pay the bills.  My new goal is to make some money to buy more yarn.  I did a calculation, price of yarn x number of hours (at minimum wage) x amount of commission charged by the center where the sale is.  Not many will spend that for a scarf.  So it is a good thing that I love to weave and enjoy making the items.

Here are two of the scarfs that will be for sale.   I wove them a year or so ago.    I will be adding more pictures to my blog I finish taking pictures of the items.  

Indigo Toes

My yarn and a shibori sample

Finally getting around to loading the pictures from last Thursday.  The monthly Cross Borders Weavers Study Group was held at the studio of one of our members (I am jealous - she has an ENTIRE house a her studio).  She had an indigo dye bath going for us to dye our yarn.  I learned many things that day.

1. If you wear sandals - you go home with indigo spotted toes.
2. Silk doesn't dye as dark as cotton (or at least the silk I had)
3. If you wind a long warp the same way you do for painting a warp and dump it into an indigo dye vat - you get a tangled mess.
4. But all in all it was great fun - even if the yarn is not a dark as I wanted it to be.

Mary's shirt

Various shades of blue

Our visitor from Japan
with her Shibori dyed socks

A Week Early

I realize I haven't posted much of my weaving lately.  The Cross Borders Weaving Study Group I belong to is entering items that we wove using the structures from the last two years study topic.

I needed to get it done to give to someone to take by next Thursday - done an entire week ahead.

This is a dishtowel woven in unmercerized cotton using an uneven tied overshot.

More for the Stash

Just what we all need - more yarn for the stash.   Though I do not weave much with wool - I couldn't resist during my recent Scotland trip.  A picture of what I purchased along with the bag I bought (preparing for my future life as a bag lady!!!)

Encaustic Show

Friday night was the opening of the show at the BBAC for the students of Chris McCauley.  I am taking an Encaustic class from her.  It was not a juried show - but Chris invited some of here current and past students to participate.  She let me put two of my pieces in the show which you can see here.  I love playing with color.

No Submission

On February 7 I spoke about the first photo assignment titled NO which had a whole list of items you could not photograph.  We had to turn in 4 photos.  On Thursday we received the teachers grading and critique of each photo.  I received a 91 out of 100.  Those who know my perfectionist aspirations would know I was somewhat disappointed in the score but I can agree with some of his comments.  The following are the photos with his score and comments.

Photo 1 -  score 24/25

Good composition, and use of available light, unique subject.  Fits the assighment well.  All lines are interesting in a way, too.

Photo 2 - score 24/25

Very creepy in a good way (that is because the first comment someone made in the class critique was that this was very creepy!).  Strong camera angle.  Nice use of depth of field although t is just not quite on the face where it should be.  Composed well.

Photo 3 - score 22/25

Good camera angle.  Fills the frame well, although some at the top would be good to crop out.  Depth of field is effective.

Photo 4 - Score 21/25

Composition is good.  A bit too askew and could use a better crop to simplify the image.  Nice use of color - blue against the brick.

The scores on the next assignment should be interesting since I thought these were better than my second assignment.

Mill Race Walk

 Last week, after my visit to my dad to do his taxes I stopped at Mill Race Historic Village for a short walk.  Last time I was there was my niece Katie's wedding in the middle of summer.  Quite a different look this time.

Voted off the Island (Or in this case the Iceberg)

As some of you know, I am taking a photography class at the community college.  Our first assignment was called NO.  We were given a list of all the things we could not photograph.  It was all the things his students usually photograph.  A partial list of the huge list was:  no children, no flowers, no pets, no models, no family members, no doors, no buildings, no icicles, no garden ornaments, etc. etc. etc.

Last Thursday we had class critique.  We were allowed to show 6 pictures and the critique could help you decide which to 4 to turn in.   These are the two that were suggested I eliminate.

The first was deemed by the instructor as "too stock".  Could have been done at a more interesting angle.  The second was said to be nicely exposed and composed but needed a figure walking to be more interesting (of course the path was a sheet of ice and no one in there right mind would be walking - I almost fell twice getting to this point. 

I will put the four I submitted out once I get them back with the comments.

Tied Up In Knots

Spent a day at Greenfield Village tying knots!

We are tying the new warp on the Jacquard loom to the old warp since it is easier than threading the 440 heddles which just attached to wights and like to get tangles.  Didn't quite get done so will finish next week.

Last week four of us wound the 20 yard warp on.  It is amazing how long that takes - even with four of us working on it.  But the best part of last week was that I got to meet Abe and Lincoln.

Abe and Lincoln are two new horses work horses that arrived at the village that day.  They were on their fist "walkabout" since being unloaded from the trailer.  They are raised by the Amish and were purchased to replace a retiring teams to pull one of the wagons at the village.  We were asked to come out and pet them since they need to start getting used to having lots of people around them.  During my high school days I used to ride regularly.  They had a riding club at school and all my baby sitting money went to riding lessons.  I don't think I had been near a horse though since I had graduated from hight school.  Though the ones I rode were not near as big as these horses.

Saturday on the Island

Frank and I walked on Belle Isle on Saturday.  It was snowing and in the low 20s but no wind so it was great.  I had hoped to need my state part pass soon but I was disappointed at the Detroit City Council lack of leadership in accepting the state offer to lease the island and make it a state park.  The island is badly in need of repair.  It is only the funding from the Belle Island Conservancy (which I send money to) that anything much is getting done on the island.

Here are a few pictures I took.  Didn't take many since when you go on a walk with Frank he doesn't wait for you.

The Next Endevor

So I thought it was time I come back.  Since I am done with the web certificate program I have decided it is time to get more serious about photography.  I have moved "down" to the community college and signed up at Oakland Community College (that is a story in itself) - they lost my application, etc.

Have attended one class so far and he mentioned that we had some extra credit opportunities (that's me - already worried about my grade not that it really matters.)  One of the opportunities was to see a movie this weekend at the Detroit Institute of Arts.   The movie was a documentary titled "Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters".    It was a very interesting movie.  http://www.dia.org/auxiliaries/event.aspx?id=3612&iid=&aux_id=14&cid=100

Crewdson does large scale, elaborately staged photos.   Ran into my photography instructor after the movie and he asked what I thought.  Typical me, forgot to put my filter on and I blurted out that I didn't like his pictures.  While I could appreciate that they might be very good pictures,  I found I liked parts of them - but not the entire picture.