Purple Towels?

We ate our way through Santa Fe last week...

• The tasting menu at Sazon was amazing but the synchronized service was a bit odd. I tried the tasting menu which offered a lot of tequila... not my favorite but it was interesting. 
• Dined at the Shed for the first time; really solid NM cuisine and very popular. Fortunately mid-November is not a popular time in town.  Note that the Shed does not serve Sopaipillas.
• DH's sis joined us for dinner at the Pink Adobe; we enjoyed that quite a bit... I had a huarache and now I want to cook some.
• Met my brother and his wife at Cafe Pasquals; it never disappoints.
• We had one disappointing meal, at Coyote Cafe's rooftop cantina; I had an enchilada... the chile was ok but the enchilada had too much cheese and sour cream on it which made it feel gloppy.
• Finally, dinner at Artichoke Cafe in ABQ... still solid after all these years. 

Museum wise:

• The Museum of American Indian Culture on Museum Hill had an amazing Navajo rug exhibit; there were a few works and commentary by Barbara Teller Ornalez and Linda Teller Pete. I've taken a few classes from them so it was nice to see their work given the praise it deserves. ... The wedge weave tapestries were amazing. Some of the pieces were attributed to "a once know artist" instead of "an unknown artist which I really appreciated.
• The nearby Botanical Garden had an outdoor exhibit of works by Native American sculptors. 
• SITE in the Railyard had some really interesting contemporary art exhibits; pictures of the Arctic taken through a (melting) lens of ice in a huge boxlike homemade camera; huge cyanotypes of trans and non-binary artists, created on the National Mall in DC (the film was as interesting at the art); and an exhibit which used found glass bound with wire to create surfaces and sculptures. This is the first time I've really enjoyed contemporary art exhibits.

Zig, getting attention from the backup 

We also visited our favorite galleries, and attended the opening of a fiber arts show, run by EVFAC, at the Masonic temple. Very little of it was by Native American artists but the work in general was very high quality and certainly worth a visit if you're in town when it happens, and like to look at fiber-y things.

I can't really help but post this selfie... I don't really mind being the backup human; Z snuggled up with me after DH had gotten out of bed. He was VERY happy to be shedding hair on a handmade quilt again.

Komebukuro, just needs rice

Komebukuro #1 is done. I'm pretty happy with it, but I used a chambray for the lining and it's a little heavy with the recommended interfacing. I'll use a lighter fabric next time, and maybe skip the interfacing. I added a zipper pocket on one side of the lining. I have blocks ready for a second one and I think I have most of the fabric I need for 1-2 more. I think it's super cute but there's a lot of time in it; it's also larger than I expected, about a 8" cube. Someone on Etsy was selling bags with machine embroidered Sashiko on them (for $65ish) and it turns out I have some images for that... I might try that if I want to do more. 

I also started weaving on the ikat towels I was threading last report.... It's looking fun! I may try a different weft for the next one, possibly a lighter weight yarn and plain weave instead of twill. Not thrilled with the purple... It was supposed to be blue but there was a dye mishap...

What the heck will I do with Purple Towels?

Inspiration Post #1

 Here are some of the things that have delighted me recently...

This table runner at a AirB&B in Santa Fe. Yarn was relative thin, maybe 16/2, warp dominant to warp faced, thicker (red) weft, with bands of supplemental warp. It has a hand similar to rep but the yarns were much finer than I'm used to. The color progression is so happy.

I was/am inspired by the Cross Country Weavers notebook; the instructions that came with the notebook mentioned it was okay to take a couple of photos but I feel it would be wrong to post those to a public blog. Sometime in the future I'll talk about what I did photo and what it's meant to me as inspiration.

Kelly Mondola Koza talked to our Guild this month on textiles from Sardinia; it was a fascinating discussion. I captured a couple of images. from samples she passed around.  I like way these bursts of color are inserted, and the color combos are fantastic.

This was also from Sardinia... I didn't identify the weave but thought it would be an interesting block structure.

I saw this at Farm and Table in Albuquerque, and then saw a shy bird that looked just like it. I'd like to try to lino block this. I feel bad about copying someone else's image... but I'm not doing it commercially, just doing it for practice. I'd put this on the list of copying someone else's work to learn the technique. I'm betting it's a screen print, not a block print... I like the way the lines from the plant seem to flow effortlessly into the lines of the bird feathers.