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I have been swamped this past week. I installed a commission piece last Thursday and have been going nonstop all week. So lets play catch up! Here is the commission piece! I am really happy how it turned out and the woman it is for loves it which make me even happier!  Site Specific Commission piece. Hand dyed lyocell, hand woven computer designed patterns.  Detail of the right side panel.  The underbelly of apple picking! These are some super tasty ones that I favored. I have been to 4 different art related meetings and taken a day trip to Taylorsville, NC to celebrate 5 years with my boyfriend, which was this past Sunday. I decided I was going to take the whole day off from any art and just enjoy spending time together. We wanted to go on a little adventure so we went apple picking. It was so gorgeous in the mountains and now I have so many apples!! What would you make with a whole bushel of apples?  J and C Orchard in Talorsville, NC . Just look at that view! Lastly I finished my horsehair commission piece and started the scarf that is on the loom now. I am very excited to get this one going and I am really excited for mu plans for next week. I am going to be dyeing up a storm of warps and wefts for the next several projects plus one more commission piece. Off to weave on this lovely afternoon with the windows open!!  I am loving his pattern and the color interactions that are happening!!
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My warp is threaded finally last night! I promptly left town this morning and drove 2 hours to install a commission piece in my clients home. Its a nice drive especially because I have done it many times because I was going back to my hometown of Chapel Hill. I get to stay the night with my family and catch up. Not to mention ride at my old barn and cuddle with Strider, my family's husky! I will be sharing pictures of the commission piece as soon as I get home and have a chance to edit them! Then I will finally be able to start weaving! wooooooo  Snuck in a quick ride on Manny! Went in the fields and on a trail worth my mom!!  The cuddle bug of the family! Also known as the couch stealer... sorry for poor quality the boy would not sit still!  Each thread goes through its own individual heddle, all 312 of them!! It has been a busy couple of days, traveling takes it out of you for sure! I was able to finish threading the warp through the heddles. Tomorrow I will wind the warp on and hopefully begin weaving! While not in the studio for as many hours as I would want in the last few days I have been getting a lot of computer work done. I edited photos and organized and updated my artist statement and resume! I also sewed the velcro to a commission piece I will be going to install on Thursday. This is a really exciting piece and I cants wait to see it in the space. Photos of that coming later this week. So slowly but surely I am making progress on all fronts and feeling good about the rest of the week!  This takes a lot longer then I think it will, just like all art right!  I can't wait to deliver this on Thursday! I am in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which is where my family is from. I have come here many times over the years for family visits, weddings, birthdays, and sadly funerals. During all these trips it has been difficult to really get a feel for this city, but over the last 2 day I got to explore parts of it that I had never been to before. There is an entire downtown area id didn't know about and a river walk! Now I want to explore more and learn abut what makes the city tick. I even got to see Lake Michigan.. ok not so much see it but look out into its vast darkness during the evening. It is so interesting to think that is is what some people in the Midwest think of as beaches... I am so used to the ocean being the beach so wrapping my head around the lake as the main body of water is very interesting. Today I am going to go see the lake during the day! I can't wait to see it during the day and compare the two experiences. I will update this post later with some pictures from my trip there this afternoon.  Walking around Brady street with my family.  Checked out this great little record store. Found some great treasures here.  Check out the gargoyle!! While up here my mom and I made the short trip up to Chicago to see family friends, a visit that was long over due. It was a great time seeing them and catching up on what everyone is doing. it is so nice to have family friends that no matter how long it has been you can just pick up right where you left off as if no time has passed. I got to reconnect with their daughter who is the same age as me and it is clear that if we had not moved away we would have been instant best friends! Our similarities are many and pretty darn funny. We both hate tomatoes and onions for one thing! We even made the short drive over to the old apartments where my parents lived when I was born and just 3 blocks down to their house! It was so great to see where my life began and wonder at how things would have been if we had stayed. The game of what ifs is not one i play very often but it was kinda fun to think about in this case. I am so glad I came on this trip and I cant wait to go explore the art fair that is going on downtown just down the street from the 90th birthday celebration brunch this afternoon! It is truly uplifting to get to spend quality time with ones family and get to know a place you have visited your whole life in a completely new light!  My place of origin! My parents apartment in Skokie!! I knew there was a reasons I am so drawn to the color blue!  Lake Michigan during the day!  The Milwaukee art museum has amazing architecture!  I event got to walk around a great art festival in the Third Ward. It was great fun to see all the art from this area. I am so in love with this new warp and its luscious colors. This helped motivate me to quick get my warp threaded through the reed of my loom. I love this phase in the weaving process. It is very repetitive, but it is a really amazing site to see the warp spread out to its full width for the first time. This give me a better handle on how the warp is going to look visually and what kind of pattern will work best to interact across the length and width of the piece.  Look at how different it looks spread out vs tied up! Watching the warp expand as it winds back is amazing!  Up close and personal!  I was really happy to get this done early today because I then promptly ran out of the house to the airport. I am heading out of town to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for a family event. It will be nice to escape from the hot weather and good to get some family time. While I am out of town I will be catching up on editing photos and continuing to update my site, so be on the look out for some exciting changes!! Thankfully I live in the south, where it is hot hot hot! The weather is still pretending it is the middle of summer, which worked to my advantage today, at least for my yarn! I washed my yarn out this morning and when I got back home TADA it was dry. Here are the results:  Sunny balcony= quick drying yarn!!!  These colors are not in my comfort range but I think they are growing on me.  Just a classic yarn porn shot!  The colors look so good all together! I am thrilled with how the this warp turned out. I am leaving town tomorrow, but I think I can get this threaded onto my loom. At least it will get threaded through the reed and I can figure out my design for the pattern!
Hope you enjoy the colors as much as I do! Its weaving Wednesday in my studio, but sadly I didn't get to do any actually weaving. I did get a lot done though! I was able to photograph a piece that was inspired by the amazing sunsets I have seen since moving to Charlotte. I was really excited to hop onto Photoshop and edit it. Unfortunately Photoshop decided to throw a full on temper tantrum. UUGGHHH! It took me around two and a half hours to get it to work, but I persevered. It is at these times that I really show my stubbornness and make the technology work for me. Photoshop -0 Me - 1 Take that technology!  My make shift photo booth area... Need improvements After struggling with the computer for so long I was more then happy to get into the studio. I am working on a commission piece for the owner of the barn where I keep my horse, Dolly. Her birthday was in August and a group of people got together and asked me to create a weaving to commemorate her horse who passed recently. I am incorporating her horses tail hairs into the weaving. I am very excited to be creating this because the bond between a person and their horse is a thing of beauty, and I hope this piece honors the love that was shared between the two. Below are some in process images of how I start a warp and then paint it. Its a fun process, I just wish I had a table instead of having to sit on the concrete balcony. One day I will have a gloriously large table to work on !  There is a red thread on the board called a guide string. I follow that with my yarn to make sure all 312 warp threads are the same length.  My warp stretched out and ready for painting!  The commission portion of the warp completed! The rest of the warp is going to be a scarf.  Painting a warp in action...  Warp painting completed! Now it rests for 24 hours. That's it for today. I not have to wait 24 hours for the warp to 'cute' before I wan unwrap it and rinse the exess dye out. Off to find my inspiration images for the next few scarves!  I have accepted the challenge of participating in the 30 painting in 30 days challenge hosted by Leslie Saeta. Now, I am not a painter, but several of my art friends are, and they have done this challenge before. They raved about it and the positive effect it had on their work. So I am giving it a try.
Above is a collection of warps I wound in preparation for this event. I have some goals because I know that, due to my work and travel schedule for September, I will not be able to create 30 weavings. With this in mind, I am setting some ambitious goals. 1. I will work on my art or on my business everyday. I need to do some major work on my website, edit photos and apply to art shows and fairs. Computer work tends to get neglected, so this will help me build it into my schedule. 2. I will weave 8-14 wearable art pieces. This is a lot in a month, but I think I can do it! 3. Wind 6-10 warps for current and future pieces, and dye them this month! 4. Realistically end up with a total of 20-30 weavings and dyed warps by the end of the month. Well, I feel good about taking this on... and a bit nervous. In the good way! Here we go!! I am very excited about the shoes I worked on today! I was able to find metal bead-cones that can hold a section of a horse's mane hair! Now I can add horse hair accents to the shoes. Exciting! Horse's manes grow just like human hair, and need to be shortened several times a year, and I've been trying to figure out if there was something I could do with all of Dolly's extra hair. This seems like a perfect opportunity! This is going to be very exciting. I took some time today to revisit the blue milkyway galactic shoe and I added some of Dolly's mane hair to it. After I was done I was pretty pleased with it, and I think this provided the shoe with a better sense of balance. 
The mane has a gentle twist to it that softens the angles of the thread work.
Love the color combination of blues and chestnut!
For the next shoe. I decided to try my hand at creating a color gradation. I found it strangely cathartic to wrap the shoe in this way. I realized back when I first starting weaving that I find great peace in the repeating motions, and I really liked how the thread flows continuously around the shoe. I added the mane this time from my mom's horse, Charlie. I think this shoe is starting to go in a really good direction. I wanted to try to find my beads so I could add them to this shoe, maybe along with some thread work in the center to really pop the black mane forward. So, I am commencing a bead hunt adventure in my studio tonight for some with turquoise and blue/green coloring. I will finish this shoe tomorrow. I am hoping to have two brand new shoes tomorrow, and maybe even a horse blanket too.... 
Green to blue gradation with the pop of black horse mane.
Can't wait to hang this one up!
I started playing with softening the thread angles tonight. I am excited for where this is going but I feel the need to be careful that this does not turn into a dream catcher. I think that i am going to do several more exploring the different paths of the intertwined threads. It will focus on different spots of the hoof mimicking the locations where stone bruising has occurred on Dolly's hoof. I am contemplating doing more wrapping on this shoe but I am going to think on ... we shall see! 
Blue gradient thread making it look very peaceful!
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Sydney Sogol
I am a weaver who is inspired by the world around me, especially nature and animals. I love sharing my passion for fiber arts through pictures and the stories behind my work. ArchivesCategories |
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