Marblrough Weavers in the National Exhibition

May I present to you work submitted by Marlborough Weavers:

"Kingfisher", scarf in two layers, Win Currie

"A Walk on the Withers", wall-hanging, Chris Beech

"Save the Forests", rug, by Chris Beech

"Old Gold", scarf, Judy Bool

"Twilight", scarf, centre, June McKenzie

"Wind in the Tussocks", scarf, second right, June McKenzie

"Festival", wall-hanging, Peg Moorhouse. 

"Taranaki", tapestry, Win Currie

"Winter Wonderland", scarf woven in double weave, Judy Bool

"Moon Shadow", scarf, Judy Bool.

"Triple Treat", boxes, Chris Beech. Exquisite. 

"Relishing Red", bag, Tricia Jane 

"Prayers", shawl, Meg Nakagawa

Our own Rose Pelvin was the organizer of this exhibition, and she was pleased with the result, and though she didn't explicitly say it, with the collective efforts of Marlborough Weavers, no doubt.


by Meg

Doh, by Meg Nakagawa

I am brave/reckless not to practice/sample a technique I read in a book yesterday morning, but this exhibition entry is due Monday and I must get a move on.

This is called Italian Hemstitching, and I think I have seen it in other weavers' works, but I tried it for the first time, "live", as it were.

Two Presents, by Meg Nakagawa

Because cashmere yarns are expensive, I cringed at the idea of putting a warp on my big loom, but I had special projects. With gnawing tennis elbows on both arms, I could weave only 15 minutes at a time, so the selvedges are something shocking. But it's nice to finish.

This is for my friend Tim, a 50th birthday present, which was due November, 2008.

This is for my mother, who requested something with hearts on about a year ago.

They're both around 8 inches wide and 2 meters long. 

Meg

"Friday Night Rain", by Meg Nakagawa

Sometimes this weaver stops gabbing and gets off the computer and weaves. 

The warp is 110/2 (2/17) merino; the weft is merino/mohair mix.  Both were commercially dyed in the same/similar color schemes of lavender/lilac/purple/dark forest green.    I used three short similar-but-different drafts, weaving sometimes from the top of the draft, sometimes from the bottom, to add variation in the structure.  (In retrospect, some parts look like weaving mistakes!) This combination of yarns usually creates a light, almost lacy cloth, but this piece turned out a little heftier in comparison.

I imagine running to a social function after work on Friday night, in a city somewhere like Tokyo; rain starts to descend, but the spirit is filled with anticipation/celebration.    

I love dressing looms and weaving, but not quite fringing, so this sat under the living room couch for over a month, which is not very long by my standards! 

by Meg Nakagawa

Weave It, Felt It - Part 3

Linda (and another Linda and another Linda) stood outside all day, beckoning the the visitors into the display.

This year the display overflowed into the church. Ou rwell-dressed models pointed the way.

 Meg's re-purposed red wrap and Adie's knitted and felted bag adorned the "red corner".

One of the small "designer" flax baskets from Denise

Rose's red and white runner was a reminder that Christmas is coming.

by Rose Pelvin

Desperate Measures, by Meg Nakagawa

I was asked by a gallery to weave a small scarf in two days. I currently have warps on all my looms, but I have a second warp beam on my "table" loom, which I don't use often because it's too far away from the front of the loom. And as luck would have it, I was thinking of rethreading the existing sample warp anyway. (Or rather, I think I use the second warp beam only, and it was the first warp beam I used in this instance; in the photo it is hidden behind the back of the loom.)

So the "current" warp was put aside for two days and an emergency warp wound.

The item was delivered to the gallery within 48 hours. A record time for me, but I'll never do it again as it was too hard on the old body.

by Meg Nakagawa

Lilliputian Shawl, by Meg Nakagawa

Cotton scarf, which I had hoped to be at least 150cm in weaving length, but turned out to be about 110cm after I underestimated (grossly) the loom waste on a borrowed loom. Ouch. Unfortunately this is a familiar problem of mine. Ergo, the Lilliputian Shawl (or cat/dog scarf). It was part of the Pics to Picks Design Challenge, in which Rose Pelvin and I took part. Details of the piece can be found here, or the lengthly process here.

Cherry Blossom Blanket, by Meg Nakagawa

My mother, who lives in Yokohama, Japan, hates the winter and the cold. She tolerates it, just, until the Christmas and New Year holiday, but after the grandchildren resume their normal lives, her days are spent, among other things, planning flower blossom trips around Tokyo and beyond. (Flower blossom viewing is a centuries-old national pastime there.) In January, there are the winter peonies at Kamakura Shrine; February/March, plums; March/April cherry blossoms; May, irises and wisterias; June, hydrangeas, and so on, and so on all year round.

Having booked my first planned trip in nine years, (three trips in between were emergencies,) I thought to weave her something reminding her of the coming spring during the worst of the of the winter, when I'd be home. Since I was born in early April, and because they are my favorite, I wanted to weave a blanket inspired by Japanese cherry blossoms.

Here, you see the tentative pink and the white petals, along with the gray, cold sky, and some darker petals - they are the multiple-petaled blossoms. Cherry flowers last anywhere between a few days to a week, their petals often blown away in the spring wind, (sometimes called "petal blizzard",) , or washed away in the cold rain. By the time the yellow-green baby leaves come out, the flowers are over for another year.

I got this blanket off the loom just in time to take home with me in January, and fringed and wet-finished it in my mother's bath tub.

(That's Dad wondering how many more pics I need before he could get the blanket back.)

by Meg Nakagawa

Bags To Be, by Meg Nakagawa

Every year Marlborough Weavers have a theme or a project that members work towards during the year, and show results to the group at the end of the year. This year one of the projects has been bags, hence Win's beautiful pieces.

I, having belonged to Marlborough Weavers for three years, start thinking about these projects with gusto every February but somehow have not managed to come up with tangible results for the first two years,. So I would love to be able to show at least one bag at the last meeting of this, my third, year.

I was surprised, and impressed, that Win planned a whole weaving project with bags in mind, because I have been thinking all year about bags made of end-of-warp swatches, a kind of recycle/salvage project. Unfortunately most of my fabric pieces are extremely soft, because that is what I aim for when I weave my scarves and shawls, but I do believe there is a bag, or two, in my swatch pile somewhere.

I've exactly 14 days to come up with one!

by Meg Nakagawa

The One that Didn't Work, by Meg Nakagawa

I'd like to share with you something that didn't work for me. After weaving two Frou Frou scarves, I wanted to insert the eyelash accents vertically. I hoped to pin down the eyelash yarns every inch or so in two pics, and after some experimentation, I decided to have three ends in four places.

The mechanism was simple and straight-forward. As you can see, I didn't thread them, but sleyed, and every inch or so, I held down the eyelash yarns and let the shuttle travel over them.

Aesthetically, however, it didn't work at all. I either needed more or less of the eyelashes in each tripe, or more or fewer groups, and perhaps I needed a bolder draft.

Such as the reverse side of the draft I used.

There is much scope for experimentation and sampling here for me, if and I am in a Frou Frou mood again. But for now, with the arrival of the hay fever season, the eye lash yarns have been put in a plastic bag and put away.

Old, by Meg Nakagawa

For someone who gets bored easily and doesn't want to weave the same thing twice, it's a rare thing I've loved my tiny cotton scarves so much I've so far woven three warps of them.

These scarves are woven with 2/20 mercerized cotton at around 36EPI, and I always use the same gold/yellow in the warp. The slight difference in the weft colors, mostly in light blues, greens, aquas and turquoises, make each piece similar but different. As well, I try to recreate a very old feel by making flamboyant, symmetrical drafts. So far these scarves were around 6 inches wide and between 150cm to 170cm long, but I'd like to experiment with a warp with approximately twice the weaving width soon.

Frou Frou, by Meg Nakagawa

I make no secret of being hue-challenged, and have been coaxed by two younger weavers in particular, one in Colorado, USA, and one in Gosford, NSW, Australia, to break my barriers and weave totally uncharacteristic scarves. Well, there you have it. Not only did I use/mix colors I would never have before, but also used synthetic (rayon) accent yarns in this piece.

And now that I've got this out of my system, I look forward to working within a very narrow sliver on the color wheel again.

The main body of this scarf is in 2/20 mercerized cotton.

This scarf was exhibited in a Small Scarf Exhibition on the Internet.

by Meg Nakagawa

And her Scarf Stopped the Traffic, by Meg Nakagawa

This scarf ended up being "funky" at 160EPI by accident. Because of several interruptions in my life this summer, a plan for an installation piece turned into a set of delicate stoles, which in turn turned into three very closely sett scarves because I had the wrong reed in the beater! I had to rethink and rework the draft several times because that sounded much easier than resleying 1530+ ends. But I also managed to include 25 colors in the warp, which was a challenge I had given myself.

I used 2/60 Nm mercerized cotton both ways for this piece. One scarf was in our recent Funky Fibre exhibition.

by Meg Nakagawa

Funky Fibre, Part 5

Joan McLauchlan, "After the Storm", handwoven double corduroy floor rug.

Win Currie, Funky Scarf, filled neck decoration, handwoven in silk, alpaca and merino.

Jenny Murray, "Fractured", woven tapestry in wool, silk, and cotton.

Tricia Jane, Scribble knitting scarf.

Meg Nakagawa, "And her Scarf Stopped the Traffic", cotton.

by Rose Pelvin

Tapa, by Meg Nakagawa

In 2007, I was challenged by a curator to weave a series of Pacific-inspired shawls. This was my second effort in reinterpreting the Pacific tapa cloth, and her and my favorite, but it didn't fit into the rest of the exhibition and was not shown. 18 months later, mid-March, it was purchased by a couple my parents met in 1961 as a 70th birthday present, and now resides in Melbourne.

Warp and weft are possum/merino/silk mix of different widths. Because of the fuzziness of the yarn, the series proved difficult to photograph, and when hung under spotlight, it appeared dull and "bleached out". I liked that one side has a more masculine face, while the other a comparatively finer and feminine one.

by Meg Nakagawa

Quirky Cashmere Scarf, by Meg Nakagawa

I am interested in creating and bringing to life weave structures and once I settle on a structure, I stick with it for years. I see colors as a weakness of mine. My mother, who started to weave when she was 60, is a far more adventurous, eclectic, and a faster weaver, trying her hands on anything from tapestry to heavy floor rugs to tiny scarves, in all kinds of natural fibers, in all colors on the color wheel.

I was home in Japan this January. In her studio, we showed-and-told of our latest pieces, and discussed our goals of the year. We realized, then, in all these years of being obsessed by weaving, sharing knowledge, and sending each other photos and books and yarns, we never collaborated.

So we put on a warp for two small scarves with "early spring" in mind. While gossiping about my siblings, we wound the warp together, changing colors randomly. In this, my, scarf, we added and subtracted extra colors of warp as accents as we progressed. It is in plain weave with a gray weft. My mother is currently weaving hers with a thicker, hand-dyed moss green weft in 2/2 twill. All yarns are 100% cashmere.

I had so much fun working with her that after I took the scarf off the loom I wanted to be more playful than I usually allow myself, so instead of hiding the ends of the supplementary warp smartly, I made them into design features.


by Meg Nakagawa