Tiger warp?

It took some doing, but I beamed on the Fire warp a few days ago. I’m starting to think I should have named it the Tiger warp. I bet you can guess why!

Of course those rich orange and black stripes are making me think of fabulous tigers. I recently cleaned my office (which was literally buried two feet deep in Stuff!) and found a copy of Sally Eyring’s 3-D Handloom Weaving: Sculptural Tools and Techniques, which I had been meaning to read for quite some time now. I was thinking that something three-dimensional would be fun to do with that gorgeous orange and black (I was thinking phoenix wings at the time), so I picked up the book and started paging through it. Alas, most of the techniques that Sally outlines use warps that are used up at vastly different rates and are thus not beamed together, so I set the book aside after a brief glance.

But the idea of three dimensions has captured my attention. So far I’ve paged through the origami-with-fabric book Shadowfolds, and am about to dive into Lotte Dalgaard’s Magical Materials to Weave and Ann Richards’ Weaving Textiles that Shape Themselves. I have visions of a wild tiger mask, woven with silk-wrapped copper or brass wire as weft (I have a bunch of it that I bought at Habu Textiles many years ago), which would allow me to shape it into a face. It could be embellished, or not. I fancy the idea of raw, frayed edges around the outside, perhaps with extra shaggy threads attached, even, like a tiger pelt.

Or perhaps a glorious Carnival mask, orange and black and with areas of iridescent blue, using a painted weft with the black warp. Throw in some wildly colorful feathers and it could be a lot of fun, too. Heck, it could be the basis for an entire series of pieces!

I will have to think about this.

Of course, I will have time to think about it. Lots of time. After all, I have 2,640 threads to tie on. After about 45 minutes of work this morning, this is where I stand:

Americans of a certain age*** may recognize the tune I’ve been humming to myself:

“2,640 threads to tie on,
2,640 threads to go,
Take one down, tie it around,
2,639 threads to tie on!”

There are, of course, a thousand variants to the verses, which is good, because I suspect I will have sung every one of them at least twenty times by the time I am actually done!

***do schoolkids even know the song “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” anymore, in this anti-drug age? And who on earth ever came up with the idea of having a bus full of 8-year-olds belting out what is clearly a drinking song at the top of their lungs on their way to every school field trip??

While on the subject of 3rd grade bus trips, here’s another earworm (this to the tune of that endless, how-on-earth-did-summer-camp-counselors-survive this?-song, “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round”):

“The shafts on the loom go up and down,
Up and down,
Up and down.
The shafts on the loom go up and down,
All over town.

The shuttle in the hand goes through the shed,
Through the shed,
Through the shed,
The shuttle in the hand goes through the shed,
Til weavers go to bed.”

And with that, I’ll get off to my own bed and spare you any more terrible weaving songs!