Where Did April Go?

 

Terry's bunny family

It's May!.  Where did April go?  Easter is just a memory and all of the chocolate has disappeared!

The bunny family have abandoned their egg distribution business.  They gone back to looking cute while eating the plants in the garden. 

The smallest is waiting for her new spring wardrobe which Terry promises to finish soon.  

The rest of us have been busy learning and being creative as illustrated by the show and tell at our April meeting.

Below are a few of the designs that resulted from the Make Mine a Combo course.  We looked at design principles and colour theory then designed and wove a piece to illustrate what we had learned.  Most of the designs were based on different stripe arrangements. 

balanced monochromatic colour scheme

The photo to the right illustrates a monochromatic colour scheme with equal proportions of the 4 greens.  There is a subtle twill pattern that gives the look of texture in spite of the smooth yarns.  The pattern shows up on the dark stripe making it more prominent than the paler stripes.

complementary colour scheme

The stripes in the orange and blue piece look symmetrical at first glance but they are not.  The designer had fun using a point twill threading and treadling to make large and small diamonds that add a new dimension to the piece.  The diamonds appear then disappear depending on the weft colours.

asymmetric design

The final piece in the series is clearly asymmetric.  The warp stripes are based on a mathematical formula.  The series of dark stripes on the right is echoed on the left.

The warp is a split complementary colour scheme while the weft is a single colour.  The weave structure is summer and winter.  The colours are the opposite on the back of the cloth.

We have also been busy with wet felting using a resist to create a hollow form.  That form can be transformed in many ways.  Darrell Giraldeau taught us how to turn it into a very cozy tea cozie.  She also showed the more advanced how to use the same basic technique to make a felted purse complete with a felted wool strap.

felter's felting

This one-day workshop took place in the guild studio.  It involved a lot of towels, plastic wrap and soapy water

purse in progress

 

felted tea cozy

In May we are making baskets and working on studio projects.  The studio projects include rosepath runners and overshot coasters.  The blanket pictured below just came off our large Fanny loom which is waiting for a new project and the knitting group is working on a mini-afghan.  

stripped blanket with over-dyed wool