Quick Experimentals

I’m taking each of the images now and looking at what I could do. I’ve received them digitally but when I get them in the post I’ll look at doing a bit of drawing.

I thought this purple image was of some sort of whacky grapes but Geodyne mentions Arran Victory potatoes! This year these type of potatoes have turned up in our supermarket but they aren’t given a name.  Australians would probably call them Purple Potatoes and dispense with any allegorical or ethereal poetry or meaning about them. Either way the shapes are interesting and I had a play in photoshop to simplify the image. Somehow, under my click anywhere Photoshop skills it turned blue, so I went with it. Totally unintentional.

I got a palette together and quickly set up the Saori loom with a narrow warp. Part of my palette is a left over ikat dyed warp which I hope will replicate some of the spacing in the image via the weft.  You’ll notice the image also includes white – a colour which I hold an incredible bias against and I just can’t weave with! But I’ll try with this one. 

15 minutes and I was weaving. I learnt in Japan that I can just thread the heddles and reed at the same time. I would never, in a million years, thought of doing it that way. I guess it would have its limits with more shafts but it might work with a 4 shaft loom. I usually thread the heddles without a hook, but threading all together at the same time saves time too.