Thursday, June 10, 2010

Ahts and Merino/Tencel

Yay! I just received word today that I was accepted into the Boston Ahts Festival again this year! It's held September 10 -12, in Christopher Columbus Park on the waterfront in Boston. Even with terrible weather last year (Saturday was completely rained out) it was by far the most successful show I did. I was *really* hoping I'd get in again this year - but with completely different jurors and stiff competition for just 60-ish coveted spots, I wasn't sure.

(My booth, last year, nice corner location, I lucked out - though I was behind a pillar! LOL!)

It's a great time, with music and dance and demonstrations as well. Literally thousands upon thousands of people showed up last year (the free music is a huge draw! Local/emerging musicians from Berklee, the Boston Ballet, the Boston Gay Men's Choir, the list goes on and on).

Packed!!

A bit of Boston's waterfront, the evening of the last day of the show last year. I'm so excited to do this show again this year!

Maybe this will light a fire under my weaving rear-end. :) Speaking of weaving, how about a project round-up? I'm about to put a custom shawl on my 4-shaft loom, I've got Bonnie-Inouye-inspired echo weave going on the Weavebird, am about to warp up the Colonial with something or other (haven't decided yet), and I'm trying out a new-to-me yarn on my 8-shaft table loom.



Nothing too crazy - it's a 5-shaft waffle weave using three colors - I'm a sucker for texture and haven't tried waffle-weave with wool before (I did, of course, weave the obligatory cotton waffle-weave dishtowels years ago). The yarn is 10/2 Merino/Tencel from Webs and it's lusciously soft! If it comes out nicely, I'll be doing more - but with a floating selvedge and a couple shots of plain weave to begin next time. This one may be a little wonky in the end, but it's just for me, so that's ok. Love this yarn so far! (Yes, that's kid artwork on the table there...)

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Osloom!

Oh, how fun, I just got my laser-cut backstrap loom from the Osloom project in the mail today.

There are all the pieces. Yay!

If you'd like to learn more about the OSloom project (Open Source Jacquard loom), you can read more at the osloom.org website.