And here’s the after:

It was just too rippled; it didn’t look good. I’ll have to sit down and start over. I’d like to get this footer established and the beading going, as it’s a nice project to have ready and waiting for when I want to do just a little something. I’d also like to FINISH, of course. I don’t want to look back and see when I started these two pieces (a bracelet and a wall piece), let alone when I started the piece on the rest of the warp.

©2008 Dulcey Heller. All Rights Reserved.

©2008 Dulcey Heller. All Rights Reserved.

Here’s the header, doubled thread using the heddles.

Here’s the footer, single thread, no heddles.

And starting the footers for the next pieces. Looks like I’m weaving mosquito netting or something — there’s nothing to push the warp against to make it tight. I believe that when I have more of it, I’ll be able to tighten it up. If nothing else, I’ll be able to push it against the beads later, even if it is (doubled) thread by thread.

©2008 Dulcey Heller. All Rights Reserved.

So, I’ve started on the footer for this loomed piece. Here’s the problem: I can’t use the heddles, so I’m weaving over-under-over-under with a needle. I’m using the thread I used for the warp, and I’ve only got a millimeter or two more than half an inch between the beginning of the weaving, and the bottom bar of the loom. I can’t rotate it up to give myself more room, because the warping bar is right there at the bottom too, on the back side of the loom. This is good in that it gives me more warp for weaving the next pieces, but bad in giving me a little extra room to work.

So I’m weaving over-under, etc, back and forth. I’m doing it flat (rather than standing on its feet), balanced on the table and my legs with two lights shining directly on it so I can SEE the over-under. To make it easier to go from left to right, I’m flipping the loom upside down every other row so I can always use my right hand.

Tonight, in multiple hours (3?), this is how far I’ve gotten. Twenty-four rows and 1/4″. To get the 1/2″ I’m aiming for, to be able to fold it underneath twice, I will have to weave essentially the same number of rows that the entire beaded piece is — and that’s only one side. I have the header yet to do too.

And since I can be a fool for details, I think I’m going to weave the header the same way as the footer, even though the heddles are on that end. Because this weft-faced fabric on the footer wouldn’t match the header, because the warp would show if I used the heddles. Even though it’s folded underneath. Looking at what I just wrote, that looks a tad nuts. I think I’ll at least try a few rows of using the heddles for the header. Sigh.

©2008 Dulcey Heller. All Rights Reserved.

I like how the greens group together, I want to leave them as they are. The contrast of the light value of the yellow and the dark value of the darkest green I want to leave as well. So, I think I’m going to transpose the blue and red, giving this a blue background with some small patches of red. I have another dark transparent French green, but it’s a bluer green — which may actually be better, with the increased amount of blue in the painting.

I think I’m going to remove the painting from behind the current painting, continue it to increase the height by about 3/4″, and then cut it to the width I want. I’ll just have to remember to transpose the red and the blue.

For the rest of the width of the warp, I’m going to make the bracelet I want as well.

I fell in love with the cover of Aleutian Sparrow, a book by Newbery-winning author, Karen Hesse. The book is historical fiction, based on the invasion of the Aleutian Islands by the Japanese navy in 1942. The cover is a wonderful woodcut by Evon Zerbetz, an Alaskan artist.

I will use beads inspired by the colors in the woodcut.

In my feed reader not too long ago, I admired a bracelet by Kashaya. I like how it’s somewhat abstract, interesting both when you see the entire length, or just the curve on the top of your wrist. She generously provides the peyote pattern here.

In Photoshop Elements, I replaced colors to get something close to the colors I want, to make it easier to follow her pattern.

The center of the flower will be the transparent aqua. The opaque aqua will be the ring just inside the center of the flower and the outer petals. The inner petals will be the medium green, and the background the lightest green.

I will resize the image so that it is the length that fits my wrist — which is almost exactly the height of the second version of Hoffman’s painting, and the width is narrow enough to fit next to the painting. Then I’ll tape the bracelet and the painting images to a piece of paper, again situated so that I can loom right over the paper, doing paint-by-numbers with two separate pieces simultaneously.

That’s my idea today, anyway.

©2008 Dulcey Heller. All Rights Reserved.

I would love to sit back and just admire the completed looming. Finishing it is part of the package, though.

I’m going to stall on finishing it — I have half the warp unused, the warp which is now on the back of the loom. I can loosen the tension, spin this around to the back, and have empty warp on the front to fill. It took a lot of time to warp this, and it only makes sense to make the best use of that time and effort. Right?

I have a couple of choices. I think I know where I want to hang this finished piece in my house, in a small hallway. A second loomed piece, related but not the same (maybe different size and shape, some changed color), would look good on the opposite side of the door where this would be hung. My other thought is that it would be fun to make a bracelet.

I’ll think on it.

©2008 Dulcey Heller. All Rights Reserved.

©2008 Dulcey Heller. All Rights Reserved.

©2008 Dulcey Heller. All Rights Reserved.

©2008 Dulcey Heller. All Rights Reserved.

©2008 Dulcey Heller. All Rights Reserved.