Four sisters continues

I've been working up a storm at home, beadweaving and regular weaving, all on cardboard homemade looms, to create two inclusions for the Four Sisters Artist in Residence tapestry, which I hope to weave in place tomorrow when I do my next afternoon in residence.

Here's a pic:  the weird bits of cardboard behind the weavings are small  looms! no need to have a fancy loom to make fancy art.  the pencilled in shapes are the design for the pieces lying on top of them in the pic. 

At this stage, the strings sticking out all over can be disregarded, since they will disappear once I weave them into the big tapestry. Very handy to make small areas which I can insert into the big work, much easier on the artist that way.  Same with the beadweaving, create the small area and weave it in.  It won't be apparent at the end that this was done in modular bits.

At least,that's the plan.  There's always a plan.  The reddish variegated piece and the peach section  is from my own fleece, thank you Paula, yet again! 

Sidebar information: Paula Levy's a knitting designer, you'll see her on Ravelry, who used to be a fellow artisan around here before she upped sticks and went to the left coast, but before that she gave me a fleece, unprocessed, from a relative's flock, which I processed, the fleece, not the flock, then dyed and spun.

Back to the present: the white section is a beautiful Spanish merino semispun (by me) roving.  The multicolor part is sock yarn, commercial,variegated, mainly to give a contrasting firm flat area for the other items.

Beadweaving, pearls, metal beads, Czech glass, woven on crochet thread with gold weft thread.  If you're interested in what technicalities I have, not a lot!  I don't worry about wpi and reeds and shed sticks, at least not in this work.

For further exciting updates, watch this space!  and thanks so much for your support of this somewhat scary adventure.  When this piece is finally finished, I'll give due credit to the other artists who donated nice stuff over the years which ended up here!

Did I mention that I'm so carried away with the earthloom, upright, no need to secure it to work on it, that I've asked my friend and local handyman and artist to build me a holder upper for the artist stretchers I use as looms at home?  

He's off working on the design now, in between renovating people's houses, after a couple of meetings in which I managed to forget vital bits of information, forgetting he's not a weaver.  Such as the need to warp around the outside of the stretchers, so the bottom one can't be locked into a frame at that time.  Etc.  

He had a great counter suggestion though:  why not put the loom into the holder-upper sideways, and warp side to side,then turn it upright and start to weave.  Brilliant workaround. 

I'll post pix when this is done and in operation.  He's using old shelving of mine to build with and will add hardware or something, for the holder upper to be able to be opened, the loom dropped into the channel, then be tightened to work.

If this works, we'll have to apply for a patent!  But I think we'll have to come up with a better name than Liz and Mike's Loom HolderUpper for the application.  The LAMLHU.  Sounds very foreign and esoteric.