March 18, 2012

A crisp, mostly sunny day after a week of heavy rain and hail that left the entire valley flooded and even water over the road in a couple of places.  It’s strange weather for March, more like February.  Still, the daffodils bravely send out a few blooms with many more on the way.

We went to a birthday party for John [Drut] Olson at the Bolmeier’s.  Excellent food, toasty woodstove, lots of folks to visit with.  All of Drut’s old college buddies were there.  Here’s hoping all that positive energy helps him with his fight for health.  Talking with Mike and Kim we learned they have built a functioning greenhouse that extends their growing season and houses some exotic flowers.  We hope to go see it to gather ideas for the one we want to build.

Today John completed the last few rows of his Eagle weaving.  It will come off the loom now.  Much was learned through this project, and the colors are wonderful.

This week I discovered Saori weaving.  It is a Japanese approach that has a strong spiritual component, and is designed to be free-form and experimental, using lots of color and texture.  This is right down my alley!  So without knowing a thing about the actual Saori method, I just looked at the pictures, got inspired, and spent the week preparing a warp so I could jump right in and try it.  I have a three yard warp, hopefully enough for me to use up a lot of colorful scraps and try a few techniques.  The first technique of interest was one where you weave with two yarns and hook them around each other somewhere in the middle.  So that’s what you’ll see in the picture of my early efforts.  –Marilyn

Saori-inspired weaving