Reflecting on 2016 and Hinting on my Stitching Future for 2017!

2016 was a year full of new challenges and experiences, with many highlights! I wore many different work hats last year: designer, project manager, textile collaborator, instructor, liason, and coordinator. All of these jobs have enhanced my creativity and how I work. 

Let me tell you about some of this year's highlights:

I was so excited for my work to be featured on the cover of Interweave Crochet, last fall. My work has appeared in 15 issues of Interweave Crochet over the years, and this was my first cover with them! Magazine work is really such fun. The thrill of seeing your work among the vibrant, glossy pages never gets old!

I got to teach my first workshop for eWoodStory at the Sadu House. We crocheted motifs, then painted them and stitched them into "Olive" shape pendants. I love how each one was so very different and beautiful!

Next month I will be teaching a session Freeform Crochet Workshop for the Kuwait Textile Arts Association at the Sadu House as well.

In addition to working in crochet this year, I also learned more about modern weaving, learned how to weave on a rigid heddle loom, and between me and my daughter, we now have 7 looms in the house!

I also started experimenting with weaving that incorporates my crochet work. This is a piece I have in progress with some of my hand painted crochet:

I can't wait to learn more about weaving and how I can put my own spin on it! I dream of making garments incorporating pieces of my weaving.

While working on the Weaving Stories project, I had the opportunity to be on the radio and television twice! Most recently with my daughter, Sara. We got to talk about our weaving, and I hope we got some of the viewers interested in the fiber arts as well!

I also got to meet so many amazing people through Weaving Stories. Some of the best moments were people discovering the joy of weaving and working with their hands on our specially designed interactive loom that was made by my husband who co-designed it with Professor of Textiles, Lesli Robertson. People who have never tried to weave before, sat down with the intention of weaving for a minute or two, and ended up weaving for an hour! We had tags made so people could attach their name or their thoughts about weaving to the sections that they created. We had to warp the loom three times during the exhibition. The more that was woven on the loom, the more people wanted to weave on it. The colorful yarns and fibers were attracting people like a magnet!

We created 7 new pendant shapes to add to our eWoodStory Modern Stitchable Pendant line, making it a total of 13 shapes in addition to our Mini Masterpiece Frames, for people to stitch their own creations into:

We also added several pendants to our Featured Artists Series, where we ask artists that we love on Instagram, to create special Mini Masterpiece Pendants. It is a way for us to showcase our pendants, and to connect artists to people interested in their work. We have met so many amazing people through this series!

Mini Masterpieces that have been created by the Artists

I have a great feeling about 2017 and have started lining up some fun projects involving the community, as well as some special commissions. I also hope to work on some new techniques that I haven't tried yet like tapestry crochet and macrame. I just want another few hours added to every day to have more time to create! I hope that this next year is happy, healthy, and wonderful for all of you!

Community Crochet- an Undersea Panel for Weaving Stories!

The next chapter in my series about the crochet in the Weaving Stories installation is about the freeform style crochet panel for the Sea themed part of the wall.

When the submissions came in for this part of the wall, most of the artists had chosen to concentrate on pieces relating to water. As the time came near for putting the wall together, I decided I needed a piece inspired by things found under the sea. I really wanted it to be crocheted because I wanted it to be 3 dimensional and there are so many effects you can achieve with the right stitches and yarn! 

I thought that it would be fun to do this panel as a group project, so I invited local crocheters to join me in a crochet morning at the Sadu House. I told them them just to come with their hooks and I gave them the color palette for this section in case they had any yarns in the colors we were going to use. I  also collected yarns from my stash to bring. My yarn exchanges with the International Freeform Crochet group were really beneficial to this project, as I have collected many bits of interesting yarn in beautiful colors over the years! 

Everyone arrived in the morning ready to get to work, and I gave them some patterns and ideas for possible shapes. Some people used patterns and some freeformed their creations. I wasn't too specific as I wanted their creativity to come out and I didn't have a picture in my head of exactly what I wanted it to look like.

I just knew that it would be like putting together a puzzle with no exact solution. I also knew that I  probably wouldn't use all of the pieces, and that I would need a lot to choose from to find the best arrangement. It was exciting not knowing exactly what the finished panel would look like! Some people were skeptical that the pieces would look good sewn together and overlapping, but I persevered. 

We crocheted for 3 hours and were able to produce a nice collection. I didn't feel that it was enough to make a meter long panel, so we got more crocheters together the same week in the evening and some people agreed to work at home and bring the pieces in by the end of the week. 

Written patterns were used by some, and diagrams by others, depending on the way they like to work most. 

The time passed very quickly with periods of silence as they became part of their stitches.

Nawal Al Baker, Afifa Behbehani, and Tammy Asad hard at work!

 As the pieces were completed, we collected them on a table for inspiration. 

Once all of the pieces had been collected, I got my cutting board out and began to lay out the pieces. I had all of the pieces in front of me and just kept arranging and rearranging them until I was happy with the arrangement. I kept them on the board and put some pins in to hold the main pieces together. I stitched everything together with invisible thread first. It was challenging to stitch while everything was on the board, as I had to be careful not to upset the pieces! I took a photo of the arrangement first, just in case the pieces moved for any reason. After the initial stitching with invisible thread, the panel was easier to work with. I was able to stitch on my lap since everything was secured in its place. To make the panel really strong, I stitched the pieces together with coordinating yarns wherever there was any weakness. 

When I had all of the pieces together I took the panel to try in the frame with the panels that we had already received. As with all of the panels, it took us a while to decide the best location for it! We finally decided to put it below the sea shell panel, and after I got home and looked at my photos from the day's work, I realized that it would look even better if I made it wider. Fortunately I had more pieces at home to add, thanks to the hard work of the group! I spent another evening adding pieces to the panel to almost double its width!

Photos by Nawal Al Baker

The panel was carefully woven in, so as not to cover too much of the crochet work.

Voila! The completed Sea Section!

Photo by Tammy Asad

Letting Your Yarn Write the Pattern Part 2: Embroidery Embellishment!

We had some wonderful crochet panels in the Weaving Stories Installation, due to the fact that crochet is very popular in Kuwait. I thought it might be fun to show you some of them up close!

I am starting off with one of the panels I made for the wall. In a previous post, I introduced this panel by talking about how I let the yarn write the pattern by changing the stitch type every time the variegated yarn changed color.

I was inspired by the Desert theme and I wanted to show that there actually is some green in the desert! I was so happy to find a variegated yarn that had the exact shades I was looking for. Since the wall tells stories of Kuwait, I decided to include the National Flower of Kuwait, Al Arfaj. It is like the dandelion of the desert and it is a cheerful reminder that there is color in the desert!

I crocheted the panel background before I knew where to place the flowers or how I would stitch them. I just let the yarn do the talking first!

I wanted them to look as much like they do in nature as I could so I went searching for photos of Al Arfaj, and I found the perfect image:

I printed it in the size I needed it to be for the panel and traced the main lines on to some thin paper and pinned it into place on the panel.

Then, I used some regular sewing thread to stitch all of the stems through the paper.

After it was all stitched, I tore off the paper so I could follow the thread stitching lines to stitch with the yarn.

The stitching lines appear very faint in the photo, but they were visible enough to stitch easily.

I chose the shades of green from the variegated yarn so they would show up well on the background, cutting the yarn and changing colors wherever necessary.

Once the stems were embroidered, I pulled out all of the sewing thread.

I used the photo as inspiration for where and how to stitch the flowers. I tried a few techniques for stitching the flowers, and decided on one that would give the most realistic look. It involved stitching a rather thick base of petals, then cutting some of the stitches and separating the strands of yarn to give a fuzzy appearance in the center of the flowers.

This method was a great way to stitch the flowers as realistically as possible!

Weaving Stories Art Installation: "Honoring Textile Traditions, Creating New Interpretations"

I have talked a little bit about the Weaving Stories exhibition, but I haven't shown you the focal point of the exhibition! We put together a 12 meter long panoramic woven wall installation that took us 425 collective hours to arrange and stitch, not to mention the 5 months of work to make all of the panels!]

Photo by Lesli Robertson

We began planning the exhibition last December, and we sent out a call for submissions last May, asking for panels in these six themes: Modern Interpretations of Sadu Weaving, Desert, Sea, Islamic Motifs, Traditional Kuwait, and Modern Kuwait. I made storyboards for each theme to inspire artists and makers. These storyboards were great conversation starters and led to many great creations! You will see many of these images translated in the wall.

The wall is made up of a total of 72 panels made by over 30 different artists and makers, and 10 of the panels were made by Fibers program students from the University of North Texas as part of a cultural exchange. They are students of our consultant to Weaving Stories, artist and professor Lesli Robertson. The wall took the team a little over a month to put together and was exhibited for one week at Al Shaheed Park.

We invited people to submit all types of techniques and we have a beautiful variety represented: crocheting, knitting, quilting, applique, macrame, fabric painting, and 3D printing.13 of the panels are crocheted! You can see each individual panel and its story on the blog for the Weaving Stories Project.

We spent a lot of time arranging and rearranging the panels to make the most harmonious array and deciding what should be woven in between the panels. I even printed out miniature paper mock ups of the panels to help decide the best arrangement! Once we had everything decided, we set to work stitching the panels to the frames and weaving in twill tape and roving. Each end of these had to be hand stitched to the back of the frame. We had a team of volunteer stitchers helping us with this job to get it done in time for the exhibition! 

SADU
Photo by Tammy Asad

We start off the tour of the wall with the Sadu section. We reserved the left for more traditional Sadu pieces, some with a modern twist, woven by Master Sadu Weaver Laila Yasser. For fun we also put the traditional old Kuwaiti Flag by Aiesha Khalid in this section to kick off this story of Kuwait! In the other half of the Sadu section, we included modern interpretations of Sadu weaving and designs. You will notice at the top right of each double frame, there is a macrame panel at the top right. We have a very talented macrame artist here in Kuwait, Marly Kamal Youssef, who created macrame interpretations of each theme! In the Modern Sadu section we also have 4 hand woven panels, 2 of which were created by University of North Texas students, and 1 that was created by a student of a Sadu Master Weaver. The panel of traditional tassels was a group collaboration!.We got together one Saturday morning at the Sadu House, and we were taught by a Master Weaver how to make the traditional tassels, then we set to work making as many as we could in the 3 hour session.

Now I will take you on a mini tour of the wall. Can you spot which pieces are crocheted?

DESERT

Photo by Tammy Asad

Next we move onto the desert, with 3 crocheted, 2 quilted, 1 knitted, 1 needlepoint & cross stitch, 1 applique, 1 hand painted with natural dyes, 1 tapestry weaving, and 1 macrame panel. I created the green panel with the national flower of Kuwait, Arfaj, embroidered on it. I am planning a future blog post with more details about this panel. 

SEA
Photo by Tammy Asad

This frame tells the story of the Kuwaiti Sea, with textural pieces representing water, sea life, a traditional boat (a dhow), and a macrame fish net. There are 3 crocheted, 2 knitted, 5 quilted, 1 woven, and 1 macrame panel. The freeform crochet sea life panel was also a group project! We gathered in 2 sessions to crochet shells and things under the sea, and then I assembled them all into one panel. The texture is wonderful, and I love that so many people worked on it together!

ISLAMIC MOTIFS
Photo by Tammy Asad

The Islamic panel was interesting to put together as we had many different interpretations of the them. We started out asking for motifs, but some artists wanted the theme to extend into architecture, and phases of the moon. In this section we have 3 quilted, 2 applique, 4 crocheted, 1 Sashiko embroidery, 2 woven, and 1 macrame panel.

TRADITIONAL KUWAITPhoto by Tammy Asad

I think this panel a lot of fun! It illustrates traditional dress, architecture, music, dishes, camel trappings, baskets and henna. There are 3 quilted, 3 crochet, 2 knitted, 2 applique, 1 henna painting with embroidery, one leather work with buttons, and 1 macrame panel.

MODERN KUWAIT

Photo by Tammy Asad

The Modern Kuwait wall makes bold statements about the landmarks and architecture in Kuwait, with many tributes to our beloved Kuwait Towers as well as the Constitution Monument at Al Shaheed Park, and a piece depicting the precious oil underground! In this frame there are 2 crocheted, 4 quilted, 1 woven, 1 applique, 1 3D printed, and 1 macrame panel.

I love how the entire woven story looks from afar as well! I am so proud to have been in charge of this project, and can't wait until it finds its permanent home so that it can be enjoyed by visitors for years to come!

Read the Full Article here

Layering Crochet, a Project in Progress!

I am in the midst of creating a special panel for the Weaving Stories project I am managing. The piece is inspired by Islamic motifs, and will be woven into a 12 meter long panoramic wall.

I wanted to achieve a window effect, so I crocheted the motifs, and was planning to stitch them onto the panel that I knitted in variegated yarn. I was hoping the colors would show through the openings in the motif, but the yarn colors were too subtle to show through. I decided to crochet a disc to go underneath, in the same colors that appear in the variegated yarn, for a bolder effect. I then attached it to the motif by crocheting them together. The motifs are now drying on the blocking board, and when they are dry, I will stitch these completed and joined motifs onto the knitted background. I am excited to see the full layered effect, and how it will look woven into our installation!

World Wide Knit in Public Day!

Today is World Wide Knit in Public Day, and I celebrated it with local stitchers at the Sadu House in Kuwait. Mini, the organizer of the gathering, is an amazing cross stitcher, who does beautiful fine work (see her gorgeous butterflies above). She decided to open the event to all types of stitching in addition to knitting to celebrate all handwork! She even made the adorable badges you see in the photo at the top right for us to wear, and another participant made goodie bags for all of us including chocolate and a crocheted flower. My daughter immediately took possession of the flower to make a coat for her baby tortoise!

So much lovely work was being done! Four ladies were making blankets: one lady was crocheting a granny square baby blanket for charity, an another was crocheting a princess blanket made up of crocheted squares that follow a charted design, and other two ladies were making the same flower blanket in different colors. The flower blankets were part of a challenge set by a local crocheter, who challenged them to make 1 square each day for the whole year to end up with a beautiful finished blanket by New Year's 2017! Another lady was creating a doily made from some lovely string she found from a rope seller in one of Kuwait's open markets. You never know where you may find something great to crochet with! One lady was knitting a garter stitch scarf out of the most beautiful chunky pink wool, which may now be my new favorite color after seeing it! Last but not least, two of us were working on pieces for the Islamic section of the Weaving Stories project that I am managing. She is doing crocheted tile inspired motifs, and I am working on a piece that includes knitting and crochet. Stay tuned to see my progress on that piece... One of the ladies was even wearing a crochet filled Mini Masterpiece Pendant, can you spot it in the photos above?

All in all a great morning full of inspiration! I wish every morning could start out with stitching with friends!

Working With Fiber: Modern Weaving!

Lately I am getting lots of opportunities to work with fiber in new ways! Over the years I have collected all kinds of beautiful yarns, roving, and fibers.

I am the project manager for the Weaving Stories project for the Sadu House in Kuwait in honor of Kuwait being chosen the Islamic Cultural Capital of 2016. We are involving the community in creating a panoramic woven wall, inspired by the traditional Bedouin tent divider. This wall will celebrate the traditions and culture of Kuwait. It will be made up of pieces created by artists and makers in Kuwait and abroad in the medium of their choice. 

We are holding workshops to get people inspired to work with their hands and give them the skills they need to start creating, as well as to encourage them to make pieces for the Weaving Stories installation. 

Consulting with us, is Lesli Robertson, an artist and professor of textiles from Texas. She has been visiting us the past two weeks and she taught a wonderful workshop on the art of modern weaving, called Woven Paintings. Participants were given looms to use and take home with them, so they can continue to weave! Most of the participants were new to weaving, and everyone created their own mini work of art! Here is a nice article that was written by the Kuwait Times about the workshop.

I wove my first piece, and really enjoyed it so much! I was able to combine my love for fibers, and my embroidery, and freeform crochet experience into this piece. As soon as I finished it, I was ready to start another! It is in progress and will definitely include crochet. The posibilities are endless, and I think that weaving could be a really fun thing to do while traveling! You can use a mix of fibers, colors, and textures, and it is very relaxing. It is really like painting with yarn!

Stay tuned for my crochet infused weavings!

First Workshop for eWoodStory's Mini Masterpiece Frames

This week the crochet group, "Khayt" held a workshop featuring our exotic wood Mini Masterpiece Necklace Frames at the Sadu House in Kuwait. The instructor, Suad Murad showed the class how to make a granny square to fit the frame of their choice, and how to stitch the square into the frame.  Everyone brought their favorite color thread to use, and they created some beautiful pieces. Now that they know how to stitch pieces into the frame, they can create more frames using any craft they like! It is so exciting to see a group of people working with our frames! We sell the frames in the Sadu House gift shop as well as online in our Etsy shop.