awol

   

guess where i was last week? more here


neki desu

shuttle maniac

double shuttles for silk weaving. the new one is hasegawa san's. the old one probably too or by one of his ancestors as he is third generation shuttle maker. my friend amanda, whose kindness is overwhelming, offered to buy me one when she was in kyoto last month. she then found a place that sold second hand weaving tools and  got me the old one as a gift. seriously, i am having my will written so i can leave all my shuttles to someone. japanese shuttles are designed for hand weaving, not adapted from the industry, so they feel great in the hand and have the precise weight. one has to remember that in the beginning there was hand weaving and then much much later came the rest.（*▽*）

threading order                  threading mechanism

  

threading 101 using the  threading wire. it has a small eye 

through which the silk yarn is threaded. i just love the ingenuity of the system. the prove it works is that it has been used forever by the  handweavers in nishijin.

neki desu

bengara

the series i have been working on since i returned from japan. all that red and those stones found their way into weaving. the beginnings are here  ,where i explain the process, and here.
i beg your forgiveness for the quality of the photos. it proved to be a greater challenge than expected and this is the best i could do  （´＿｀）



neki desu