Lisa Hardaway from Texas was here for another week of rug weaving. She brought some odds and ends of her handspun, hand-dyed stash with her in June and had built a carpet warp that she planned to weave when she returned to us in August.
As it is for most of us, getting into the swing of carpet weaving requires learning a few new skills, among them assessing the correct sett for the gauge yarn to be used, so that the density of the carpet is not too open, which was something we tweaked a bit with Lisa's beautiful handspun yarn. The next thing to get used to is the use of the sword to get a clear shed for every shot of weft...something that takes a bit of practice to develop an easy rhythm that packs in well.
But once she got all of this sorted out, she turned all her wonderful yarn into an earthy (and VERY LONG!) and colorful rug in no time at all. These photograph are Lisa doing her mending after it came off the loom. One of the best things about this piece is the feel of it...very rustic and beautiful in its handmade-ness. It seemed like something made in another time. Great work, Lisa!
Next, she turned her attention to a tapestry weaving sample, and as she worked on it while I had a day off, I wasn't around to take photographs, so I'll try and fit those in, perhaps in another post tucked in somewhere along the way. But I heard from Kate that it was a gorgeous piece of work.
Lisa and her husband, Paul, are freelance photographers living in southeastern Texas. They work together as architectural photographers, Paul teaches at Rice, and Lisa most recently has been working on a book about Georgia O'Keefe.
No comments:
Post a Comment