Hello again, it is now the month of February and it's officially Spring. Lot's of ideas happening here, first there was designing my own fabric and used it to make Lampshades that turned out really well. More of this to come for S/S 2015. Weave Ideas and so on. It's the perfect time of year for exploring and experimenting so I have a few surprises in the making! Take note.
Anyway each Spring, I also do a large spring clean of the studio and re-arrange the furniture (AGAIN!) I have probably moved full circle at this stage around the room! My studio is fairly big, the larger of the two areas, the outer space I was using to display finished pieces but there just seemed to be a lot of space, empty space in the middle of the floor away from the walls while the longer side of the room, was pretty cramped with all of my materials, tables, books, boxes, shelves and so on. So earlier this week, I literally moved all of my weaving equipment and the loom, so when one enters the studio I'm behind the door. All of my yarns are colour co-ordinated (of course!!) each with their own shelf and I've created a sewing area alongside this. What greets people still is the larger of the walls with the metal slide across hanger/rail thing with all my framed textiles on it and to the right I've created a corner with cushions, lampshades and cosies and I plan to add to this. While leading back up to where the once meant to be kitchen area is, is where my work table still sits and other furnishings that store materials that I need. So I have two separate work areas now and dotted everywhere is finished work. I really like it now and I have a nice view of Tara hill through the tress while weaving at the window plus more light! I still have my signage up although I'm not open this time of the year however, these are going... in fact I'm getting a new one made in a while and only one, because at the moment I have two, one either side of entrance and to be fair I don't need two. However ... they are also causing some confusion with my parents B&B sign, because my sign is the first thing guests see as it's closer and so they drive past thinking they are in the wrong place! (I work from home) So I'm going smaller and perhaps placing it under the B&B sign, I'm not sure yet but if you happen to drive past and see them gone in the next week and think 'oh god she's closed up' .... no I haven't I'm just having it re-done! I'm still here!!!
Back to business, I'm setting up the loom again. I have a small narrow warp this time in a Linen yarn to tie on. I love linen, it's a lovely yarn to weave with and comes in various weights. I prefer finer yarns to that of thick, chunky yarn. If I was to use a thicker yarn I'd prefer to use this in the weft rather then the warp. Warping a loom is a bit tricky and known has the hard bit as you have to make sure each warp thread is threaded perfectly, if not prepare for all hell to break loose when, if like me you happen to skip a heddle or snap an end. These things happen, but the joy of it is once your set up and weaving away can be very relaxing. The joy of actually weaving and whereby creating fabric is so rewarding, regardless of weaving being a slow process! So yes I'm weaving again, I was quite busy with elves and baubles the past month or so that it's nice to get back to normal.
Referring back to my post heading I do have a string of Ideas on the go, this Sunday I'm having a go at space dyeing yarn. In fact I'm going to dye the linen warp although it's already coloured. I'm going to piece dye areas of it, leave it to dry and then undo it and tie/thread up onto the loom. The weft threads will be as normal. I have dip dyed hanks before for use as weft yarn and these resulted in exciting effects. I enjoy dyeing yarn/fabric, I've dyed all sorts of yarn/fabric even right down to feathers. I even loved mixing up colours for screen printing, I just love the joy of creating colour. The only colours I hate are Black and Gold. I prefer warmer tones like copper when it comes to metallic. I like a charcoal grey though, but black is a no go. I hate monochrome, neon and pastels to a certain degree. I love bright colours, jewel tones, sea/shades of blue tones and calm/neutral as in cream. )
As mentioned in Januarys posting I'll be introducing a new product later in the year and I'm developing on existing ones so I've plenty to be doing. If there is one thing I find really useful and a great place to source Images it's that of Pinterest. I'm on Pinterest simply just under my own name Grainne Kenny. I love visuals and it's a great site to use. You can create various boards based on whatever it is your wanting to look up and add to these. I joined sometime last year or so. Great ideas for Interior Designers or anyone really! There are a few boards that I have created that I'm using to go with my Inspiration at the moment. I love it!
Well best get back to it once I go for my daily walk with the dog. I'm still experiencing problems with uploading images to blogger. It's dreadfully annoying as I don't know why this is. So much that I started thinking about moving my blog to Wordpress so that I can then link this to the new website ... when I start that. Will see whether I decide to close this or not.
Anyway do check Facebook at Grainne Kenny Design or Twitter at grainnek11 for all updates and Images of my work until my next post in March.
