Kennet Valley Guild Exhibition

At last I have got home and sorted out the photos. For any reader who is a KV Guild member, look at the Guild website because all the photos should be there shortly. Meanwhile I will post one or two here to show the variety of work.

 Knitted, crocheted, felted, woven, you name the technique, we can do flowers in anything!

And lots of other things too in the way of bags, scarves, jackets and hats.

La Fille du Regiment

We attended a performance of La Fille du Regiment at the Opera house here in Vienna. The production is that of Covent Garden which I had seen with Natalie Dessay who is better than today's performer. But Flores is still the hero. I saw something I have never seen before in an opera house tonight. After Flores' great aria, there was a great roar from the audience and the applause went on for more than five minutes. And it only stopped because it was clear that he was going to sing it again. And there was an even louder roar after the encore. 

Other things we did today were the photographic museum, the Vienna Ring  tram, and a lot of shopping. We also had lunch in a very posh vegetarian restaurant. The full works as though they had a Michelin star. So a successful trip. Tomorrow we return to the UK. We have 2 hours free in the morning and will probably go to the architecture museum.

I did look at some Indian textiles. Shawls in various techniques but I did not buy anything.

Schonnbrunn

Yesterday we went to Schonnbrunn Palace. Lots of people there and a warm sunny day. It does not seem like late October here. We walked and walked and then went back to the hotel to rest before setting out for a vegetarian restaurant. Today we attend the opera in the evening and go shopping during the day. We might get to the photographic museum as well.

Still no solution to the slow connection and so no photos.

Der Rosenkavalier in Vienna

I would write up my day at the Guild exhibition but moving photos around on the iPad is proving difficult because the Marriott's system is so slow. So you will have to wait until I get home.

On Saturday, Madi, my granddaughter, and I set off for Vienna. Today we have done four exhibitions and an opera!!! Three of the exhibitions were in the Albertina and were Matisse and the Fauves, Russian modern art and modern Art in general. The Matisse got a bit samey after three or four rooms. There were three artists who turned into something else shortly afterwards for which they were justly famous. In the case of Braque and van Dongen, their later, more famous, work was so different that the Fauve stuff was not easily identified. But Raoul Dufy's paintings of later were developments of his Fauve work. He was unable to hide his essential cheerfulness about life!!! The Russian work belonged to Gazprom. The nicest thing was a set of photos of knitted berets being worn. These were photographed from the back and were printed at three times life size. Mounted side by side, they looked like barrel cacti. The last exhibition in the Albertina contained a number of Richters.

Then we visited the Mozart house. They have a problem because they do not own much that is relevant to Mozart, a couple of autograph letters and a letter appointing him as court musician. So they fill the space with Goethe and his colour theory which is interesting but not relevant.

The Opera House is very large and has three rings of boxes with two galleries of the gods above that. Lots of marble statuary and gold paint. And a very good performance with Renee Fleming as the Countess. Sold out. Nothing else to say except that there is still music inside my head.

Tomorrow we do Schonbrunn Palace. The biggest problem is finding places to eat for Mafi who is vegetarian. So tomorrow we are going to try a recommended vegetarian restaurant.

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Double Weave Samples

The Voyager has been warped up and I have woven a small set of samples on it.

Five in fact. Two of separate cloths, two tubes and one with a join down one selvedge. On the loom there is a stitched double cloth and the start of a warp and weft interchange sample. So I am all ready to weave samples at the Guild Exhibition tomorrow. I will take lots of photos and post a few when I get back.

Now I must go and lay out clothes to pack for tomorrow ready for going to Vienna on Saturday. I remembered to go out this afternoon and buy a black sweater and an airline bag which is a replacement for a scruffy canvas shoulder object with American Airlines written on it. A freeby from 30 years ago when an airline was an airline, by gad. The shoulder strap disintegrated on me 18 months ago and I have not been happy without it. It is for the iPad, magazines and books to read and shoving last minute presents in it bought in airports. It is much posher than the airline bag but I wonder if it will last 30 years.

Talking of lots of years, last night I had dinner in a Cheltenham hotel to celebrate a friend's election to the Royal Academy of Engineers. People I had not seen for years were there, including one I met first 40 years ago. I can remember his marriage and meeting his young son who is now studying string theory for his PhD. He himself is an eminent professor in London now. The group was a collection of academics and business people with one thing in common. We all worked on the same kind of scientific spacecraft! Because of looking after Michael, I have dropped out of the engineering/physics world and do not keep up. On the drive home at midnight I decided I ought to. I might subscribe to Scientific American as a start. I don't read the journal sent to me by the Electrical Engineering lot (rather boring but then I was always halfway between physics and engineering) but I do read with great care the Journal of Royal Academy of Engineering. Oddly enough I recently had a missive from the Institute of Physics wanting me to take part in some shenanigans which I declined.

I am halfway through reading Penelope Lively's new book 'Ammonites and Leaping Fish' which is about growing old, well sort of. The combination of these two events is unsettling. Do I have to stay at home and do textiles? Suddenly I have itchy feet. Perhaps I should relocate to Arizona and run a diner in the desert.

A long time ago, British Aerospace sent me to SouthWest America, in particular to Arizona. I was enchanted, the desert was in flower. I scandalised the Company management when I got home and they asked how I got on. I think they were thinking of  'have you brought a contract home'. I said 'God has promised me that, if I am very good, when I die, I can go live in Arizona'. An enormous number of people still quote that back at me. Actually I did bring a contract home.

Bookbinding

I spent a blissful two hours in the bookbinding class, ironing the wrinkles out of some pages! With a very special electric iron for paper! I have managed to repair all the pages that were torn. In fact I brought everything home and continued working on the three books until all the damaged pages were mended. Next I shall put the endpapers on two books. Not on the Webster because that has lovely red marbled paper from the Victorian era. It is a bit scuffed but I think it is better to use that than replace it.

I have completed all the framing and hung the pictures. Finding a space was difficult but they are all up. I have resolved to stop buying works of art, pictures and ceramics. 

I realised a few days ago that I have a course to give in ten days, most of which time I shall spend in Vienna. And I had said I would bring a multicoloured warp along for the students to practise warp and weft interchange. Well nothing had been done, not even a decision as to yarn type. It is now warped up in 2/6 cotton and ready to go. I am killing two birds here as I will take it to the Guild exhibition on Friday to demo on. I have also written a PowerPoint presentation on Double Weave. Why is it that an old presentation is so useless when you look to reuse it? The samples have been collected together, mine and other people's as well as suitable books. I think I have covered most requirements.

Pioneer Loom

This is a view from above of the Pioneer loom. The front and back beams pull out and there are hooks every inch across the edge of the aprons. This makes it possible to warp up, thread and sley in one action since each thread can be dropped into its heddle and its dent. The photo shows the reed with its cap on for weaving but the reed itself has no top.

This is a different view of the heddles showing that they are fixed only at the bottom and have no tops. You will note that the warp is spread which is because the heddles 'walk' away from the centre. The handbook mentions this and says the heddles should be pushed back into place which is not easy until you get the knack. It needs doing after every inch of weaving, say 20 throws. All in all, an unusual loom with a lot of time needed to get used to it. There seems no point in using it UNLESS you are are going to rethread and/or resley while weaving because weaving is very slow.  Although I intend to use it for resleying, I would be wary of rethreading. The Complex Weavers 2014 entry is clearly not going to be woven on this loom! But I ahev come up with a plan for using the Megado.

Yesterday I went to the print class and cut two lino blocks out of the eleven needed for Sir Ptarick Spens. Next time I will practise printing on the press. The tutor is very keen that Hot Pressed paper is used but I may not be able to print the poem on such paper so we are agreed that the first thing to do is just to print on all the suitable kinds of paper I can find in the house. The fall back position is that I print the lino cuts on the correct paper, scan them into the computer and print that but the effect will not be so good. One thing I have realised is that mentally I had decided that Sir Patrick Spens would be a hardback but bound in Japanese style. That makes a big difference to the print layout are I need folded paper. I am wondering about a one section book.

Malvern had three glaziers until recently where I could get picture frames glassed but one went bust, one abandonned doing picture framing and the third uses too thick glass. So I took four frames to Leamington Spa over the weekend and had them properly done. I finished off two pictures last night and am about to finish off the other two. At last the nice piece of gold work bought in Kuala Lumpur is framed!! Now all I need to do is find somewhere to hang the pictures. The other pictures are an interesting selection, an ink drawing by Michael which is tiny but lovely, a print from the Brussels Print Museum  and a photo from the Blue Mountains in Australia. Trouble is that I cannot say the framing project is completed because I have one more frame which was not quite ready for glassing last week. That one frame is for a rather nice batik of fishes, again from Kuala Lumpur which I miss visiting.

Today is bookbinding day. I am repairing three books for Derek, my son-in-law. One has the spine present but hanging by a thread and unusable, the other two had no spines at all. So I charged Derek with getting pictures of the spines in good condition for me. He sent them within 24 hours. He got them by looking on ebay to see if any were for sale and using the photos there! I would never have thought of that.