Animoto - make your own video!

Animoto! An amazing site. Make your own video. Here is one that shows a cross-section of my weaving. Enjoy - then go make your own!


pamela


at first i just made the free 30 second video, which can take up to about 15 images. This video (above) has over 70 images, and cost me $3. I have remixed it about 9 times already, unlimited remixes. What a value! I highly recommend this service, am very pleased with it! Every time I remix, i learn...soon i hope this will be ready to send to galleries. here is my latest remix...what do you think?

Excited!

Well, i just opened my mail to find a very nice surprise...I have won an award.

Just last week, I posted about the Fiber Celebrated Exhibit in Durango, CO. I was so disappointed i was not able to attend. I had hoped to fly out to Colorado Springs and drive down to the opening with my mom, who lives out there. But it was not to be. I so wish i could have been there! My woven figure, "Naturally Endowed," which was shown on their postcard (at right,) was awarded the Functional 3-d Fiber Award! I am so pleased and proud.

Special Thanks to Elaine Bakkenson, who coordinated the exhibit, and made sure all the promotional materials and awards were distributed even though i was not there to recieve them in person!

The Fiber Celebrated Exhibit on line information also features my other piece that is in the exhibit, "Uprooted."

Basket Vacation Last Entry

On the last day of my vacation this year, some of the local weavers from the basket guild (Basketweavers Guild of Bedford County) came over, and we worked with some waxed linen to make little necklaces. It was a fun project, and I hope next year maybe they will come over sooner so we can weave more together! Here are some of the little waxed linen projects I started, so I could show them some waxed linen tips.

Well, that’s about it for the vacation photos...’til next year!

Close to the end of our stay, I noticed a hummingbird casing out my baskets. She really stayed around a long time, and then sat up in the tree that shades my weaving area and tittered at me. I guess I was dense. She was accustomed to some of the old visitors putting out a feeder. But we didn’t have one.

Not to disappoint her, I made one, and here it is! I used an empty bubble container, drilled a hole in the cap, and covered it with red duct tape. Then I looped a waxed linen net around the bottle and filled it with sugar water.

It did not take her long at all to find it, and she sipped til we left…We did have to keep tipping the bottle up so she could reach the juice. What fun!

Next year, I will be sure to put it out right away, now that I know she comes around looking. I wish I could have caught a pic of her sipping, but she was a little shy. But I did catch a much slower fella eating….

This little guy was enjoying a big mushroom in the front yard of the farmhouse…geesh, I never knew that was what a slugfest looked like! He really did a number on this mushroom. I love mushrooms, too. Don’t blame him a bit!

Basket Vacation, part 5: Looping

Other weaving projects from my trip to PA:

Each year I find a smooth creek stone to weave round. My kids usually like to walk to the edge of the property, then down to the creek. We walk IN the creek all the way back to the farmhouse. It is a lovely way to cool down, and the dogs love it, too.

This year I used hemp and made a little drawstring pouch to wear, with my creek stone inside. I also wove a little pouch to keep my digital camera in while I was wading down the creek!

Just so everything wouldn’t be perfect, our water pump went out the first day there. It was 45 years old, so I suppose we could hardly complain. We were 4 days without running water. Thank goodness for the creek! At least we could haul water for flushing toilets.

In the very prolonged and filthy process of locating the water pump (buried in the muddy front yard,) my husband found an exquisite little glass bottle, which he presented to me. I'm sure it is very old. What a lovely little treasure! I immediately looped it so I could wear as a flower vase.

Basket Vacation, part 4: Grapevine

Every once in awhile, my husband comes up with something he thinks I should be able to weave.

This was a bunch of grapevine that was on some trees he cut down. Wow, should I use it or not? What a tote it was to get this back out of the field, across the swinging bridge, all the way up the hill to the weaving tree! I guess I had better use it.

I like grapevine in NC, but in PA, it is different. It dies back in the winter, is best cut in the fall. Again, I am only there in the summer. The young growth is snappy, green, and unusable. The old growth is brittle and not very flexible. The useable pieces are large. The best thing about them is the exfoliating bark, which is a rich milk chocolate color. I collect a bunch of bark every year, and have coiled with it, working on plaiting with it.

But what to do with the vine itself? I have used it for rib basket framework and ribs…but found I had to spin cordage to weave the rest of the basket, as there is nothing flexible enough to use for weavers. I have also used it in large wicker baskets, but they require more material than I was able to collect this year.


So, I made a big random weave garden pod. These are fun to make part of the landscape. I ended up leaving this one for my cousin, and I think she will like it in her natural yard. It is big enough that her children or dog may even like to hide in it! They look especially great when planted next to climbing plants.

This pod also contains some smilax (greenbriar,) Virginia Creeper, honeysuckle, and pieces of Autumn olive I had left over from the other baskets…it is something of a “use up the ends” sort of basket. I worked on it over the course of the week, you probably caught a glimpse of it in day 2’s post.

Basket Vacation, Part 2: Autumn Olive

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Here is the Autumn Olive, Eleaganus augustifolia, basket i said i would talk about in my last post. I know it is crude, but i am pretty proud of it.


This fast-growing shrub quickly invades open areas and is considered a nuisance by property owners.I began playing with weaving autumn olive in 2002. My first attempts were dismal. My previous collecting/ weaving experience was limited to vines, and I found the Autumn Olive inflexible by comparison. I also could not deal with the extreme taper of the branches.In the interim years, I am beginning to understand what parts of the plant to harvest and how to use it.

I am thinking it probably should be managed and handled like willow. Since I have never had a willow basket class, I am pretty much flying by the seat of my pants, here. Usually I bring a book on vacation for ideas on how to handle this very tough plant, but this year I forgot to bring one! Oh well, time to test my memory and creativity!

I have been cutting the one-year old growth and trying to go back to the same places each year, to make withes to weave with. Problem is, I am there in the summer. They are supposed to be cut in the fall. But I have no real option. I also am cutting some new growth to have something to weave in the tight spots. Here you see me carrying it on my head, down to the creek to soak in order to make the border. I usually weight it down with rocks and leave it most of the day, or overnight.

This came out pretty well for a “garden basket,” which is all I have ever figured out to do with them….. This is a process- focused thing for me, the act of making the basket, figuring out what works and what doesn’t, the soothing repetitiveness of the weaving, interspersed with the challenges, is very recreational.

Here are some photos of some of my previous years’ attempts at using autumn olive.

When I come home, I put them out in the garden, and they keep for a few years, anyway…

Back from a Basket Vacation Retreat!

Well, just home from my annual trip to PA – my wild basket retreat each year. It is a family-owned farm, and my goal is to make baskets with what I find there. Yes, I bring a little other “stuff” just to make sure I have weaving material, but most of the time I weave whatever I can find in the woods.

Here I am the first day, collecting. This is just honeysuckle. By now, I have scoped out most of the open areas, but there is still woodland and a lot of tangled briars that I need to bushwhack through to say I really know what is there. That multiflora rose, mixed with black raspberries and smilax is a tough combination! Hence my surplus US Marine camophlage pants…they can take it pretty well. This is a pretty dramatic contrast to the dresses and skirts i wear at home every day. I wear pants so infrequently, the dogs get excited when they see me wearing them - they know it means i am going collecting!

And here are some honeysuckle baskets that I made throughout the week. Since I am working the honeysuckle green, it has a lot of shedding bark, and is somewhat brittle. But it makes a lovely little rustic basket. Traditionally, honeysuckle is dried, then boiled and “skinned” to make it very white and flexible. No time for that, though.



I generally average about a basket a day. This year, I gave one small one away, not shown here. Otherwise, this is my yield for the week. Some are started with cordage made from honeysuckle bark and grasses. (Actually, the big one is back is Autumn Olive, but I will tell you about that in another post!)

In this last pic you can see the pond below the farmhouse and the swing...what a lovely, peaceful place! Come back to read more about my vacation later!

What Will My Blinds Be Next?

I really hate to throw things away. But finding ways to recycle or upcycle everything is hard! What to do with old mini-blinds? My friend told me use them for garden markers. I have news for her, i don't have much of a garden.

The first thing I tried was not been greeted with great success. Yes, the dogs are happy i have shaded their kennel, but my husband is not tickled with the way the blinds look strapped to the side of the fence, or even woven randomly through it.

My latest venture into "upcycling" mini-blinds is a little more successful. I am making baskets with them! Housing the aloe vera, you see my first attempt. Now give me a break, i know it is not the greatest...but then, i am not accustomed to weaving with flat materials (I prefer round, wicker style or coiling.) This one is bias-plaited, and i found i pretty much had to double weave it to give it any strength at all...I tried to do a twill with this one, too, but that was not terribly successful. On to something simpler.

Next attempt: success! This is a straight plaited basket, i doubled the materials, and the rim is self-bound..that is, it is lashed with the pullcord from the blind. It is also beaded with the little dangly ends. I am fairly happy with it.

Inside,rest balls of "yarn" made from old discarded clothing. Actually, these are three of my husband's shirts that wore out. Three of his FAVORITE shirts. Maybe tomorrow i will show you something i made from the yarn from these shirts, eh?

Guess what? the ends of blinds i wove are still long enough to use for garden markers...and i am using them for tags for the planted teacher gifts!

What are YOU upcycling?

Into the Woods II

So here it is, the first of 12 (!) teacher gifts i must make this year...it needs to grow. I put moss on top of the soil, and put in a sunny place, and try to feed every day, so the flowers will come on. I will try to remember to post a photo in a week or so, hopefully, the petunias and Sweet William, begonias and marigolds and such will survive and become colorful. This is the part i am not good at - making the stuff grow. Oh well.

How to make these pods, as well as information about gathering and processing greenbriar was published in Backwoods Magazine, November/December 2008, in an article I wrote titled "Random Weave Greenbrier." Back Issues are available on the Backwoods Magazine website.