Thank you for these beautiful slippers you knitted. This post is a tribute to all these quiet and silent and so skilled women.

Merci à toutes les discrètes tricoteuses du monde

I wish I will one day be as skilled as the woman who wove this bag. She mastered all sorts of technics, and had such a sense of color! My bet is it comes from Persia.

Un jour je saurai tisser aussi bien que la femme qui a conçu ce sac!

I was lucky enough one day to find this little piece of japanese ikat. The whole cloth is 10 cm x10 cm, every pattern is so precise, I would like to know the detailed process for making it.

Un ikat de soie japonais, d’une grande précision.

Here are Alice and Anita so far.

When I bought this tapestry, years ago, I’ve been told that it was an Alep kelim. For a long time I was sure that I will one day visit Alep after retirement, and see others kelims like this one. I know now I will never go to Alep, which no longer exists.

The beauty of the tapestry remains, thanks to an unknown human (woman?) who expressed his/her soul in it.

J’ai longtemps rêvé de visiter Alep, à cause de ce kilim qui y aurait été fabriqué. Cela n’arrivera pas, Alep n’existe plus. Reste le travail de la tisserande.

I am preparing for a new project, way to ambitious for my skills. I know I will struggle and partly fail, because I don’t have a clue on how I will weave some parts of the piece. Even the beginning is a mess, with erratic heddles and curvy foundation. I don’t care, my only challenge is to finish it, hopefully before June.

Un projet que j’espère terminer en juin, avec déjà plein de défauts. On s’en fout, c’est le voyage qui compte.

The starting point is a photo of two little girls in the Thirties, Alice and Anita, well dressed for the occasion, with white bows in their heads. Two people are holding a fabric behind them. Taking picture was a big deal in 1937. Anita is my mother.

La photo, prise vers 1937, est celle d’Alice et Anita, deux jumelles, à l’époque où prendre une photo était un moment important. Anita est ma mère.

I was lucky enough to buy those beautiful tools from Millissa Dewey and Jim Hokett, from the US and Dave Brown from Australia. But I noticed those skilled makers were all three in their seventies.

Who are the new craftsmen and women? Where are they? If you you one, let me know.

Qui connait la relève de ces fabuleux artisans, tous autour de 70 ans?

I began a sampler of my project, because I thought the mouth would be a trick. It was. But the shape of the chin……Sigh…..Tomorrow I will do it again, because, when you compare the sketch and the tapestry, oh boy!

Quand on est confronté à son manque de compétence, faire et défaire…

My warped loom (that was not so easy!). In the middle, the main project will soon appear. On the blue warp, exercices : I am taking an online class with Rebecca Mezzof, it will be my homework place. On the right, this narrow warp will be for samples : my project is too difficult for me, and I will have to test my solutions first.

After all the preparatory work, thinking of it all, designing the project, choosin the colors, winding the bobbins, warping the loom, it’s a treat to start at last. I will try to do a little bit each day, and to post weekly about this work.

Le début de mon projet pour les prochains mois à venir, avec à gauche les exercices du cours que je suis ( Rebeccamezzof.com) et à droite les essais/erreurs pour la tapisserie du milieu.

“Life is short, we’re getting older” (Fred Astaire), and before it’s too late, I want to reconnect with what I always liked, and wanted to study and share: making textiles, textures and jewels. So here I am, and this blog will be a piece of the sharing part. I will try to post weekly, on what I do, but also on textiles I love, blogs I discover, books I read.

I bet I will struggle with technology, (it’s my first blog) and with English, which is not my mother tongue. I made the choice of English because the online weaving community is mostly English speaking .

We’ll see together how long this blog will last. Your comments will be appreciated.

Et pour vous, mes amis français, un résumé de tout ça : la vie est courte, et il y a des tas de choses que j’ai envie de faire et de partager, alors je me lance dans ce blog, on verra bien.