Kleas

playing

worsted weight 

size J

chain 15

dc in every chain

weave in contrasting yarn

late nights

I have a feeling it will be a string of late nights for me as I prepare for Friday.

For my upcoming Holiday Fair at the preschool I'm working to create small handmade things...like these sweet wool felt embellished gift tags.

And remember weaving camp?  I came across some of my weavings (yeah, I really got into it too) and decided to turn them into blank notecards.

So much fun.

woven playhouse roof

At weaving camp last week I took down the old and tattered rooftop of our backyard playhouse and warped it.  We began each day by going on a nature walk and gathered leaves and branches to weave into the roof. The results were so beautiful!!  It was so much fun to watch our newly woven roof slowly grow over the week and the daily transformation as the leaves and grasses dried and new pieces were added.  

weaving camp-part 2

(This is a continuation of our week of weaving camp at the preschool last week.  See part 1 here.)

Day three I made tiny weaving looms from cardboard and the children got to choose yarn and begin weaving with a tapestry needle.  The older children worked independently while the two who are three-years-old, just needed a little guidance from me before they got the hang of it.  This was such a small and sweet project with only five strings in the warp that the children were able to maintain interest throughout.

I think these weavings would be sweet as pins or necklaces or glued to heavy paper to make a card.

Day four we made straw weaving bracelets.

This was a bit tricky for me to figure out - there are many tutorials on the internet, but the one I found most useful came from the book on the right in the photo below.  By taping the warp yarn to the side of the straw on the very top (as opposed to knotting the warped yarns at the top and then taping the knot to a box) made the straws much easier for small hands to navigate.  The older children worked with three straws, while the younger with two.  I love the result of both equally.

Here are the two books I found very useful in planning for this camp.

Next post will be our finished woven roof (see the beginnings here)...it turned out beautifully!!

Happy July 1st!!!  July?  Already?

i hate it when i do this...

It happens quite often.  I get super excited about something and I start experimenting and playing and before I know it I have a bunch of started projects with no end in sight.  So when hit with the weaving bug last week, I was left with these.

Helena Hernmarck

Last week my mom, sister and I finally made it to the American Swedish Institute to see the tapestries of Helena Hernmarck.  I  was completely fiber-struck!  It  would be impossible  to see this  exhibit without leaving feeling totally inspired.  In fact, I began a small weaving project the very next day.  If you live near Minneapolis, don't miss the opportunity to see her amazing work in person...it runs through October 14.

A sampling of some of my favorites...

tulips

it's all in the details...

...to try and appreciate the size of this piece, here is my sister standing next to it. 

From this collection of textiles...

...she created this beautiful tapestry.

I love the red thread in the above detail.  All these photos were taken by my phone and they are not great, but you can still appreciate all the detail in her work.

To see more of this talented artist, I encourage you to check out her website.

Now, back to my weaving experiments.

mosaic monday-weaving on my mind

1. Multi-colour woven scarf close Aug 11, 2. Untitled, 3. moss and linen weaving, 4. Weaving (textiles exploration course), 5. Clasped Weft Project, 6. IMG_0909, 7. myggtjall, 8. Detalle poncho de niña, 9. Hand Woven Bed Spreads, 10. Hazel Loom and Weave-it squares, 11. weaving, 12. branch weaving

So many inspiring weavings found on flickr for this weeks mosaic.  Lately, I've been itching to work on some small weaving projects.  Like...

• ...this, this and these from Found While Walking
• or little looms by Clarabella
• or these sweet patches by Karen Barbe

I'm also wondering how I could revisit this weaving project we did at my preschool the first year.  We now have three times the number of students as we did in the beginning so working with 19 children on a weaving project like that feels a bit daunting.

I guess I have a few things to dream on.  Happy Monday friends!

school's out

Our last day was already over a week ago.  I think I burned out towards the end.  Just always too much going on.  This crazy idea popped into my head and I decided it would be nice to send the kids home for the summer with little photo albums. 

 

Whew.  It was more work than I ever imagined, but it was so worth it to see the kids little faces light up as they paged through their books...remembering all the fun they had during the year. 

Instead of continuing through the summer, we decided to run some camps.  We'll see how that goes.

I haven't been around here lately.  I've been spending some much needed time in my sad neglected garden.  I'm hoping for plenty of tomatoes this summer!

Other than that, the boys and I have been playing some penguin bowling,

 

and I've been fooling around with my new loomette I picked up at the thrift store for sixty-nine cents.

 

Who knew there were so many things you could make with these little weavings?  And of course there's a flickr pool with many more ideas.

And finally, there is this projects staring at me from my work table

 

but for now it will have to wait...I'm heading out to Boston this morning for a short work trip.  I hope to be back here next week sometime.  Happy Summer!!

Last days of summer

It's hard to believe that autumn officially begins tomorrow.  It has been so uncharacteristically warm here so we've been getting the most out of enjoying every day as it comes.  Like walking to the beach near our home.

 

Where Julen got to have his first ride on a swing.

 

And at the preschool we've been going on lots of nature walks.  We gathered sticks and feathers and acorns and birch bark and water horsetail and used all of it to do our first handwork project.  We made beautiful weavings (inspiration found here and here).

 

The kids were quite skilled at moving their little fingers in and out of the warp with yarn in their hand.

 

And yes, I helped them a lot with this project, but for the most part they were very involved.  It was a perfect activity to tie in with our autumnal story of a woman weaving her blanket to get ready for the chilly winter months ahead.

 

(My apologies to all of you who use some kind of blog reader...my multiple re-posts are due to the fact that when I add a link in my text, typepad freezes and I have to re-boot my computer and -yes- start the entire post from scratch.  Anyone encounter this problem before?  It's making me just a little bit crazy and not too interested in posting these days.)