Weaving in Beauty

Have you ever had a design just come into your mind nearly fully formed? That’s what happened to me with this weaving. I completed it recently as a gift for my friend Grace Diane Calderone, who is holding it in the picture at left. With my rug repairs, teaching and the web sites that I maintain, I don’t do a lot of my own weaving compositions, but I’m very drawn to the Burnham style of weaving. It’s a style that comes from the Bisti Badlands near Kirtland, NM and involves the use of pictorial elements.  It gives the weaver a lot of creative leeway because it doesn’t have a set color scheme or geometry.

Grace Diane and I called the design Our Lady of Blessed Weaving.  It incorporates both Navajo and Christian elements and places the figure among the Navajo four sacred mountains and four Spiderwoman crosses.  The yarn is  Burnham’s Trading Post #2 that I dyed with indigo, cochineal, osage orange and wild carrot.  It took about six months to weave and I had to diagram the figure because I couldn’t wrap my head around weaving her sideways.

Here’s a picture of the weaving close up.  I hope that Grace Diane enjoys owning it as much as I enjoyed weaving it.  I’m going to try four figures in my next piece!