5.06.2009

Our May Meeting

It's too bad that so few members came to hear our speaker, and look at the wonderful selection of towels we wove. I know I mentioned our speaker, Gasali, was a member of the Yoruba in Nigeria, and he does the wonderful dye resist with indigo that is specific to that area. He uses the traditional methods, as well as stitch resisting and wax. But the cassaba paste is the one he used growing up, and Gail suggested we might have a program and workshop next year using this cold resist, which is much easier to remove than wax, and easier to apply also.
The towels were a hit...at least with those of us who wove them, and got to go home with someone elses's towel(or in some cases, towels). There was a suggestion that we do a similar exchange next year...maybe with scarves.
This idea was tossed about more at lunch amidst the discussion of how we might go about getting a tour of Santa Fe galleries included in the Convergence 2010 gallery list, and a discussion of what kind of favor the guild might make, were we to make one, for the Convergence goody bag. We thought about cards with cloth inserts, or small bags on braid similar to those done for the Alanta Convergence (they do have staying power, I still have mine). And the discussion was winding down when Carolyn? the proprietor?manager? or whatever of the Mission Cafe walked in wearing this wonderful scarf of rags. She told us about it, we passed it around and examined it...it was a rag rug narrow scarf, with a weft of 4 ca. 1 inch wide rags in white flowery pattern alternated with 4 thick black cotton wefts, then 4 wefts of a fuschia and cobalt blue cotton about the same width, then 4 more black cotton yarn weft picks then the sequence began again. The rags were left to just have raw edges sticking out from the 2" of weaving, but the black cotton yarn was a continuous weft, at least in the groups of 4. It seemed quite light and flexible, and she had it wrapped around her neck twice...a look that she said was quite popular with her girls. I could imagine doing one with dupioni scraps and metallic threads for the warp, and Phillenore one with raw silk. And while we were in that vein Pam mentioned a woman at the Farmer's Market selling scarves that were just disparate strands of yarn tied together, and someone else mentioned Ironstone having done this at their warehouse, and someone else mentioned some place in Santa Fe where a similar scarf using chenille was being sold for $75. Can anyone tell me where this is, so I can go oggle?
Anyway my towel has a new home with Helen, and I have one of Ann's wonderful crackle towels...although I would have been happy with any of the towels. They really were a treat!
So have a productive, and healthful summer, and come back in September and show us all the things you did. And remember the tapestry class being offered by Sharon on the Hockette Loom.-Su