shifu, lokta
hannah, my daughter, is excited, i'm weaving again. on a proper loom, even though it's small. it's good, feels so familiar. the shifu i'm weaving here is lokta from nepal, made "japanese style" according to the supplier, asian world imports in nearby potsdam. i fold, cut, dry spin fairly thick, and then weave it on a commercial cotton warp. lokta's natural creamy white is lovely, my photographs are way too yellow. once we get some daylight back i will be able to take better indoor afternoon pics.
sometimes i wonder if the photography will ever get better...sigh. you can see a bit of the natural slub in the spinning which occurs as a result of the straight edges being spun into itself. i like all this slubbiness, but it makes a rather rough web. i'm hoping to print on this--
hooray! and YES, the photography does get better. tho what are you complaining about? it's just fine right now! the yellow you can fix easily in photoshop. if you had seen the kind of photos i was taking when i first started...
ReplyDeletethe printing on the weaving sounds intriguing.
ReplyDeleteMum, the last photo is beautiful!
ReplyDeleteoh yeah! i love to see this.... i was wondering if the warp was paper or not.....
ReplyDeleteand that lat photo is great!
I am so glad to see Wake Robin lives. I still have fond memories of your little shop in Star Lake. And it gladdens me to see you weaving again...in my mind, that has long been part of your identity as an artist.
ReplyDeleteTwitch
on the loom the warp is cotton (actually crochet cotton from the department store) and lokta. the letterpress page is all lokta, printed at caliban press, and it's a 4-selvedge "stump" woven piece.
ReplyDeleteoh, and twitch, thanks for the memory of star lake. good times and a wee wake robin.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful weaving Velma, will you be using letterpress to do the printing?
ReplyDeleteyes, gail, i have two letterpress friends. the sample above was printed at caliban press. it has dimension. mark allowed me to use some very cool wood type, and the lokta bit into the type surface! so we need to use "bad" type.
ReplyDelete