photography

Weaving Wednesday

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M&W Twill Towels (1)Wow, I have a confession to make.  I wound this warp for the newest loom in what is rapidly becoming my fleet.  I picked the loom up over the Thanksgiving holiday.  It’s an upgrade, it has 6 treadles instead of 4 so I will be able to weave a little faster and not have to figure out all of my drafts for a direct tie up.  There will be less thinking on my part.  I have an overshot scarf on my other loom.  I now have looms in two rooms of the house and one in pieces in the shed.  It’s a little out of hand.  The confession part . . . I really like it that way.  I’m going to miss the older Harrisville when it goes.  You see, I made sure the older one had a home before I bought the new one knowing full well that Bill would have a bit of a fit thinking every room in the house would have weaving equipment in it.

The warp I wound on Saturday and Sunday is for a set of M&W twill towels done in 10/2 mercerized cotton.  These are going to be stunning. The best part is that in addition to the M&S pattern they can be woven in an advancing twill on the same threading and tie up – BONUS!  I warped it for 5 towels with the idea that I could get them done in time for Christmas.  Ha! That means that’s probably all I will be doing on the weekends between now and then.

Hmmmm, I may have to enlist the help of others for the decorating.

M&W Twill Towels (2)

 

On Blogging

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White CleomeIt was just a little over a year ago that I spent a day with Jenna Woginrich, Jon Katz and Jim Kunstler at Jenna’s house on a snowy day listening and talking about the way of words.  Their creative process, their commitment to producing material that is fired out into the ether for anyone to read.  The baring of souls in some respect.  I made a commitment that day that I would write something on this blog every weekday for a year.  For the most part I did it.

This has been an interesting endeavor.  I have a few followers (more than I ever expected), many of who comment here.  I have cyber friends that are like-minded.  One of the most interesting things for me is the number of people who tell me in person that they enjoy reading my blog.  That makes me laugh a little bit but it also adds another little dimension to what this started out to be.

This has been a difficult year on a personal level.  I have tried to keep everything here positive even when things weren’t that way in real life.  If I keep the story going it will become a reality – and in some ways it has.  It forces me to look at the little things that make up each day and pay particular notice to the gifts that are right in front of me.  I like to point them out here so the blog has made me much more aware of the good things happening around me even if they are very small.  I’m always looking.

It has helped me consider photography in a way that I had not for many years.  Images were the way I made a living for a long time and it seemed exhausting to me to take the camera out to capture a sunrise or the birds in the garden.  I made the commitment to post a photo a day with the blog and it helped me to see again.  Not only do I listen for the little gifts I look for them as well.

So my year commitment is over but it will continue without the urgency of a New Year’s resolution.  I have found that looking for the gifts and sharing them here has become a minor addiction and one should never overlook the good things no matter how small.

 

Little Things

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Little Things

 

Every year for the 18 or so years of my daughter’s lives I photographed them around this time of year for the annual Christmas card.  It was a personal challenge to send out the best photograph I could of them to all of our family and friends.

AJ & Cait with pumpkins

In the beginning I owned a photography studio in Enfield and was photographing many, many children – most of them were under 10 years old.  There was a decided difference in photographing my own and someone else’s.  The easy part is that these girls were conditioned to be photographed.  I knew the words and ways to make them smile a natural smile and I had nothing but time to spend doing it.  The difficulty came in the fact that they knew what buttons to push.

29878_1280170049944_5279775_nI would meticulously plan the dresses and where the photograph would be taken.  I would dress them and drag them to the desired location and wait for the light to be just so or set up the studio before they arrived.  Each session over the years had its problems (as every session always does). It also brought me great memories of the “behind the scenes” kinds of things that went on.  They would manipulate me and I would manipulate them as parents and children will always do.

Cait & Amanda in treeWhat seemed to every recipient of the yearly photograph to be of well behaved, well dressed little girls really was the product of hours of coercion, bribery, threats.  It was also, in the early years, the power of bathroom words.  Telling them to say something that they knew was considered a bad word took their minds off of the fighting between the two of them.

It’s this time of year that I look back fondly on those sessions – some great, some not so much.  They are the fabric of our collective past and what makes up a little part of who we are now and our relationship to each other.  I’m sure their perspective is totally different – everyone’s truth and story is but we are all on the journey together.

As the holiday season is upon us take the time to look at the little things that make up your traditions.  Take out those old dusty family photos (God knows mine are) and reminisce about what was important to you then with the loved ones you have now.  It can give you a fresh perspective on the journey you’re taking and bring home it’s the little things that really make up who you are.

 

 

End of Round Robin

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131126 TreesI finished my last towel in our twill round robin class.  It seems appropriate that it’s the holiday design.  This was a plain weave with twill trees.  It’s quite cute.  I thought I would be really bored with the plain weave but found the challenge to be keeping an even beat.  I’m curious to see how it looks once it’s washed.

That’s the project for the long weekend – hem and wash most of the towels that I’ve woven over the past few months.  I picked up another 6 of them at class last night, there are still a few more to come off of the looms.

This was a wonderful opportunity for all of the weavers in Pam’s class.  It’s one thing to look at a draft and envision what your weaving might look like but to be able to weave something different every week has been wonderful.  I photographed each project as I did it and now have a reference for 11 drafts and a vision for future projects.

Initially in class we talked about having 11 towels to give away for Christmas but as I looked (and felt) them last night I was thinking I wasn’t ready to let them go.

 

Cold End and Start

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131121(1)This time of year it’s always a more difficult decision to go to Rowe for an overnight and come home.  It’s not that I don’t relish the quiet and solitude, I just have to relish it in a dark, freezing cold house.  That’s always part of the thinking process – do I really want to freeze for an hour when I get there?

Yesterday I decided to go.  I wanted to see how long it would take to heat the kitchen when starting with a cold wood stove and then see how long I could keep the temperature up in the house using the stove through the night.  You know they tell you all kinds of things in advertising, I just wanted to see if it was true.

Chester and I arrived at about 4:30, the sun was down and it was getting dark fast.  Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike this time of year – for that reason – the days are too short.  I grabbed an armload of wood on my way through the shed and proceeded to build a little fire in the stove.  It wasn’t as easy a task as I had anticipated but finally kicked in.  Within an hour it was cranking and three hours from arrival the kitchen was over 70 degrees.  I had bought a kinetic fan that is placed on top of the stove and that was blowing the heat towards the other rooms (and it’s fun to watch – who needs electricity?).

When I had walked into the kitchen with my load of wood it was below 50 in the kitchen and the furnace was running.  It was just below freezing outdoors. Without the stove I would have been listening to the furnace kick on and off all night and the temperature in the room would never have been above 62 or so, no matter how high you turn up the thermostat.  I had all of the other thermostats turned to 64.  The furnace didn’t come on until around 4:00 this morning.  I got up to make my coffee around 6:30 and the little fan was still moving, a testament to the heat still in the stove.  I threw a piece of wood on the remaining coals and poof!, roaring fire.  It’s a good feeling when you know that a major investment of time and sweat is going to pay off.

I spent the evening twisting fringe on a throw that will be a Christmas present and thinking about how many other things I can make and have ready for the holidays.  Chester spent his evening on the floor in front of the stove.

With the payoff in the stove experiment fresh in my mind I took Chester out for the morning walk about and was soo glad I had come up.  It may have been cold (19 degrees)  but it certainly was beautiful.

131121 (2)

#nofilter

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131114 SunsetThis was the sunset over Enfield last evening.  I was stunned with its beauty and for the first time, after photographing it, I realized why so many people use the hashtag “nofilter”.  I manipulate images all the time before posting them – to me that’s part of the fun of Instagram.  Take a mediocre image and play with it a little then post.  Instagram says it all for me – Instant.  I have to say that most of the time I try to post something that is worthy of a look and take time in composition, exposure, etc. even if it is on my phone.

When I stopped to photograph this last night it was with that usual little panic about finding the right spot (as I’m driving), then that level of frustration about using a phone to try to do justice to the scene.  I took 6 shots, I deleted 4.  As I photographed I would look at the finished result and think to myself, “Is this the best representation of what I am seeing?”  Honestly a panoramic would have done a better job to relay what I was feeling about this sunset sky, the enormity of it but in the end this was what I got.  I posted it with just a comment about its stunning beauty and felt many of the people who saw the image probably would have seen this sky in one iteration or another.

Some times nature is so beautiful it defies words or photography.  When I see stunning photographs by excellent photographers I doubt their authenticity sometimes.  In this day of Photoshop it is easy to doubt.  At the same time I think we need to trust that the people who are posting wonderful photographs are giving us what they want us to see.  Everyone’s idea of beauty is their own and by sharing what they think is a beautiful image should be taken just for what it is – a glimpse into their soul.

Weaving Wednesday – Round Robin 8

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131112 Extended TwillLast night’s weaving adventure was extended twill.  The warp was 8/2 unmercerized cotton in a mint green.  I chose to weave it with a dark green tencel and was really pleased with the result.  I had been looking at these towels and different weavers choices in color and I have to say before I started weaving this I was not a fan.  It is a really quick weave though and once I was into it I have to say that it’s one of my favorites so far.  I probably say that every week about whatever I wove in class so take that for what it is.  This one was a little different in the fact that the entire time I was weaving it I was thinking about different ways to change this up.  I’m thinking of doing this with a striped warp and a dark weft, maybe towels but maybe a wool scarf.  The possibilities are endless and having something that looks complicated be so easy helps to get those creative juices going.

We are coming to the end of our round robin and I am pretty sad about it.  This has been a wonderful experience giving me (and I would say many others) the opportunity to weave out of our comfort zone.  The results are beautiful. Only 2 more towels to do and then onto finishing.  I had thought that these would make great Christmas presents but I’m not sure I will be ready to part with them by then.  Maybe a they will go off for birthdays later.

One of the best aspects for me was photographing them as I went along.  I now have the drafts along with the photograph of the finished product and in the long run that is all I really need.

 

The Party’s Over, but the Sheep Don’t Seem to Notice

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131027 SheepMy neighbor has four sheep.  They are curious creatures, staring at me the entire time I am outdoors within earshot (they always move into viewing range when they hear any of us outside).

The glorious colors of this autumn are a distant memory. There are a few trees with some leaves hanging on, the blackberry bushes still are beautiful.

The leaves this fall were spectacular, better than I’ve seen in years.  The traffic on Route 2 was worse than I can recall in recent memory.  I take a certain satisfaction is knowing that I can avoid driving that route by taking back roads with the bonus being better views of the foliage.  I have always looked at the “leaf peepers” with a small measure of disdain.  How dare they cause these crazy traffic problems on an otherwise lightly travelled road?  What are they thinking driving 20 mph and stopping suddenly to take a photograph of particularly colorful maple.  These are my trees.  I have watched their entire cycle and October is the reward.

I then realize how blessed I am to be living in such beauty.  How wonderful it is to have family and friends locally that take advantage of all of it with their cameras and how amazing it is that we can all share our imagery so readily via the internet.  With all of the complaints an old film photographer can have this is one time when I think digital is amazing.