I feel like I should be posting

And really I probably should. I have been doing things. All sorts of things. I just haven't felt much like writing about them. A lot of them should have been photographed, but that really didn't happen either.
In sort of the right order.......
I have been to Liam's year end review. He was in Cadets this year and he really enjoyed it.

We planted the garden. Mostly the same stuff as always with the addition of brussel sprouts. Or brussel stench as Mira calls them. There is a lot of weeding to be done, but that is also nothing new.

I attended the Craft College graduation cerimonies. Where Rachel, Celine, Katie, and Jessica all marched up in their caps and gowns and were presented with  their Diplomas. Congradulations all! I am so proud of you!

I did a stint as an artist in residence. It was in a different location than last year and I didn't like it nearly as much. Thankfully the renovations that caused the move are going to be complete and we will be back in the regular spot next year.

I heard Nicole's choir sing at the retirement party for her school principal. They all performed really well and we were able to duck out before the speeches began. Sorry for the blurry photo but with other peoples kids I think blurry is better.

I taught a silk scarf dyeing workshop for my weaving group. We all had a great time but I didn't take any pictures. (slaps own hand)

UPDATE: I had forgotten that I had dyed a scarf myself at the workshop! I found it in it's hiding place and rinsed it out and here it is! Still wet. It was a quick pattern (simple knots) with different greens on each segment. I am rather pleased at how it turned out.

Before I finished work for the summer, I took advantage of the nice warping mill at the school and made up about 6 warps. With some of the dye left over from the workshop, I dyed some of them and some will wait until later. The dyes that we used are fibre reactive dyes that only last a very short time once they are mixed up.

And I also dyed some some soya silk sliver. It looks and feels like silk so we will see how it spins up.

 One of the reasons that I have been neglegent about posting is that I have been suffering from sinus problems for more than a year. I have some good days and some bad days. On the bad days, I feel like my brain is full of fluff and I have sinus pressure. On the good days, I feel almost normal. I have tried two different courses of antibiotics, and various types of nose sprays as well as allergy medications and x-rays to see if there were any strange growths in there. Nope. I am now waiting to see an EMT.  Here's hoping that I get the call soon.


I am weaving a series of 4 silk noil scarves right now. I am finding it hard to find the time to do much weaving because there is always so many other things that are clammoring to be done first. I am not selling anything anywhere this summer so my first big show is Labour Day weekend, and then nothing until November and December, so I guess that the weaving isn't really yelling all that loudly at this point.

Just Fred photo shoot.

For some pictures of me working on my weaving during my residency click here. Then click on the forward button to the upper right above the picture.

UPDATE:

It does indeed seem as if the picture number changes every time new ones are loaded. Not a very good system indeed. When I clicked on my link above, it showed what looked like a dog wash for the SPCA. Fiber of sorts, I will admit, but not what I am into.
I will try a new link to the album and we will see if it stays current.

Me dyeing wool....... here .......maybe.

Me weaving........ here......... maybe.


If those two links show highland dancers now, you can click here and scroll down to "Art in the Barracks- Jacqueline Bourque"

And there I will be....... hopefully.

A.I.R. 2008

The Friday Edition. On Saturday.

I was rather tired yesterday after finishing my residency. And I had a few more things to do, hence the late update.

Amber had to leave on Thursday afternoon to go to a music festival in Nova Scotia so I was at the residency by myself yesterday. Despite the pouring rain, there were a fair number of people that wandered through. Again it was a mix of the truly curious who asked a lot of questions and were fascinated by the demonstrations and those that peeked in the door and scurried away.

Because I was by myself, I rearranged the space to suit myself better. I put the two tables end to end so that I could paint warps all day. I also did a bit of spinning and weaving as demonstrations.
This was the last warp that I made up. It is silk noil. Three scarves worth. I steamed it when I got home last night because I didn't have quite enough time to finish it before I left.


Here is one of my silk warps being painted. I lay down a trail of stretch wrap and put the pre-soaked warp on it. This is enough for two scarves and two purses. Then I apply the dye, let it sit for a bit, soak up the excess water, wrap the stretch wrap around it and roll it up like a jelly roll. I then put it in my pot and steam it for an hour. It has to cool to room temperature before I rinse it out and hang it to dry. Speaking of drying, nothing dried yesterday. Everything that I had out needs to be hung in the sun today so it doesn't start to mildew. Even all of my finished pieces. The humidity was so high yesterday that everything feels damp even though it wasn't in the rain. Ick.
Here are my dyes ready to go on the last warp. I had my dyes all premixed and I just added some citric acid solution to the dyes and applied it straight to the yarn. I didn't get any pictures of me applying dyes because I had my gloves on and they were spotted with dyes. No so good for the camera.

Here are my dyed warps. I like the green, purple, orange, and half of the last warp, but the other half of the last warp just looks muddy to me. The blue on that warp turned out really pretty, so I just may end up dunking the ugly half in turquoise and hoping for the best. Maybe I'll end up with blue mud.

My last warp still needs to be rinsed out. It didn't finish steaming until after 7:30 or so and has needed the night to cool down. I'll let you know how it tuns out.
All packed up and ready to go. Thankfully there was a tent setup for the edventures participants and I was able to wait for the cab out of the rain. I was equally thankful that there was a beer waiting for me at home.

Good bye residency, I hope to do it again next year.

A.I.R. 2008

Thursday Edition.
Yet again, I talked to people, wove some, spun some, dyed some, started a new warp.
Here, as promised, is a better shot of the building and the shops below.


Here are my three finished scarves. I think that I am going to do a little experimentation and dye these. The ends will be darker and the centers will be lighter. At least, that is the plan.
Here is the handspun that I have for sale.
I dyed a silk noil boucle warp.

I warped and threaded the very controversial "key lime pie"
Spun some of the orange roving.

Finished plying the purple superwash merino.
Here is my "wall of roving." This is what I have dyed so far this week.
And here is a small peek at beneath my work table. It is a bit of a mess, but I know where everything is. REALLY!
Tomorrow I will be spending most of the day dyeing warps.
Tomorrow is your last day to visit me in a studio setting.

Come on down!

A.I.R. 2008

Wednesday Edition

A rather short day for me because I had an appointment at 1:30 so only had a couple of hours in which to work.

But I managed to finish weaving the last of my three scarves, dyed a warp, spun some, and have the new warp wound on the loom and half threaded through the heddles.

I was also visited by George who works for a site called Just Fred. It is a web site that features things that are happening in and around Fredericton. And apparently I am one of the things that have been happening in Fredericton this week.
He told me that he would post pictures on the site probably on Thursday so I will let you know and provide you with a link.

Tomorrow we are back to our regularly scheduled hours and will probably have more to report.

Until then, live long and prosper.

A.I.R. 2008

Tuesday edition.

Today I talked to more people, spun some, wove a bit. I also put a warp to soak, dyed another half pound of fleece, made up two warps (one silk and one handspun), and rinsed and hung to dry my fleece that I dyed yesterday.


Here is the warp that I am working on now. I am about half way through my third and final scarf. It is a mixed warp scarf and I am going to try dying it after it is woven. I may get to that this week. I am also going to try and finish weaving it tomorrow and get one of my handspun scarves on. The warp is that I made today is from this skein

It is going to be soooooo pretty!

A.I.R. 2008

The Monday Edition.

I think that it is time to answer a few questions. Questions that perhaps I should have addressed when I brought up the subject of Artist In Residence in the first place.
For the past 6 or so years, a local group called the Fredericton Arts Alliance have been sponsoring an Artist in Residency series. It is funded by grants from municipal and provincial governments and so every year they are unsure of how much of a program can be provided. There have been a couple of years that the residency program has been able to run from mid June until the end of September, but this year they only received enough funding for the months of July and August. Every year at the beginning of April a call for applications goes out to past participants of the A.I.R program and to the general public. We were asked to submit a proposal for what we would like to do during the time that we would be on site, as well as images of our work, a bio, etc. I submitted spinning, dyeing, and weaving of scarves.
Each week has two different artists on site and we are required to put in at least 24 hours each. That is no problem for me because every hour that I am there is an hour that I get to do work. It is also the artist responsibility to talk to the public about what they are doing. Not a hardship for me because I love to educate people about the basics of weaving. It gives them a little idea of why I charge what I do for my weavings. At the end of the week we receive an honorarium (money) and that is always helpful for us artistic types.

Fredericton was first established as a military garrison in the "new world" in 1784. For those of you who would like a more in depth history you can look here.

The case mates, as they are called, are a series of arches that are on the ground floor of what used to be the solders barracks a couple of hundred years ago. They were used to store the munitions. Nice eh? The soldiers used to sleep above the explosives while the officers had their own quarters a couple of hundred yards away. In the rooms now are a series of small artist shops. I took this picture right around 5 when some people had already closed their doors for the day. We are opened from 10 until 5 Monday through Saturday and 12 till 5 on Sunday.
This building is located right across from the Craft College, so I get to go home at the end of the day.

So today I finished making a second warp and set up to start a third. Both warps below will be dyed. The one on the right is silk and the one on the left is merino.

I also rinsed out the roving that I dyed yesterday.
And hung out the roving that I dyed on Saturday. It was almost dry and I needed that bottom of the sign to hang out the green roving (it needed to drip) , so I had to find a new home for the orange. I noticed a couple of big hooks on the door and hung it up.
I also wove a bit, spun a bit, talked to a bunch of people again. I also dyed a bit of roving that I had, along with some feathers for Erin and another small piece of silk for Amber.
Here is some of my stuff under my work bench. It is looking a little disorganized, but now that I am settled in, I know where to find everything.

A.I.R. 2008

Here is my "studio" for the rest of the week. I am in with Amber and it has been great!
Amber is working on several different things. She has been working on stiffened fabric which she then puts through her old typewriter and after embellishing the fabric with type creates books and art works. She also silkscreens photos onto clothes and tie-dyes baby clothes.


Yesterday I talked to a bunch of people, made a warp, started a second warp, priced all of my hand-spun yarns, wove a bit, spun a bit, dyed some fleece and a piece of silk that Amber wants to make into a hat.

Today I am expecting it to be a little less busy as far as visitors go because it is raining. Finally raining. It has been about 3 weeks since we have had any significant amount of rain fall and things were getting dry. The garden will be happy.