new challenge(s)
The East Kingdom has a tradition of members of the Order of the Laurel offering challenges to the populace. I was trying to meet one in 2004, but then the Army decided to deploy me to Kuwait, so… that was that. In the years since then, I haven’t really found anything that I felt I could do.
This year, I found a couple that seemed pretty tasty:
The Planning Stages – Albreda Aylese
Share your plans for a previous or future project. What decisions did/do you need to make before you can get started; sketches, exemplars, historic research, samples, measured drawings, suppliers, budgets? What materials do you actually work from when working on the project itself? Whether it is a binder full of notes, a decision tree you finally write down the night before, a working sketch, or your own idiosyncratic way of writing down your pattern, come take us through the process you followed for a previously completed project, or tell us about one still in the planning stages. (someone is getting a copy of my GoodNotes notebook)
Woven Images – Albreda Aylese
Weave at least 12 square inches of a discernible pattern or image using either brocade or tapestry techniques. Your piece can be woven on any type of loom you like. Bonus points for sharing your working pattern draft, and bonus points for either replicating a period pattern, or for creating your own pattern evocative of period aesthetics; please include an image and citation of your exemplars for either choice. Please feel free to contact me for support along the way. (I am fortunate, thanks to Past Me’s habit of hoarding Books I Might Need Later, to have two books specifically on brocade patterns from Europe.)
So those are the challenges I have taken up. This blog is also part of the process, so stay tuned for more posts. (Not too many, though, the weaving itself is kind of repetitive. ;-) )
For now, bedtime. Night, y’all.