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Mbira travels

Mbira Grease with Patience

MbiraGrease

The Hardworking Woman Company
Mudzimai Wa Nhasi Grease co=The Hardworking Woman Grease Company

Making salve with Patience and Marilyn. Making salve with Patience and Marilyn.

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Mbira travels

Nyamamusango raindrop

Raindrop mbira with Steve Berman. Steve works over the kutsinhira before the playing begins. What a treat it was to play those years in Ashland.

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8 shaft Weaving travels

Ashford 8 shaft is born

Many hours later, the pieces fit together and now the loom is ready for a warp. What to warp first, that is the question.
The shafts needed adjusting for proper height. AND I need more heddles for double weave. Ordering online has been interesting as some things are in short supply and some places are more efficient. So far Pacific Wools in Oregon has been the quickest response to ordering. They used to be in Newberg but now are online from Prineville, Oregon.
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Weaving travels

So many cotton colors

Gearing up for a double weave on the 8 shaft loom. Waiting for additional heddles. The little piece of woven green and gold was a my first in 2001, a sampler at the Multnomah Art Center in Multnomah Village.
Mercerized cotton on top and unmercerized on bottom. The wools and silk/alpaca cones look on.
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8 shaft Weaving travels

8 shaft looms begins its journey

The pieces came in a nicely packages box all the way from New Zealand. Impressive packaging.

The journey continues with putting together the castle with wood screws. I learned about rubbing the screw on a candle to get wax to help with the entry of the screw into the wood. That worked beautifully.

Then came the levers which are in the down position until much later.
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8 shaft Weaving travels

8 shaft table loom

My Ashford 8 shaft table loom came on Saturday in a box with a zillion pieces and screws. How I came to order such a loom is another story best told separately as double weave seems to have visited in the form of a class offered by Jennifer Moore through Lunatic Fringe Yarns. I have already complete a wall hanging using the Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom so the journey continues.

I sorted out the screws and knobs to make sure everything was there. I even watched a video of a weaver putting hers together with her husband.
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Mbira travels

Mbira with Kevin

Nhemamusasa with Kevin on a Cosmas pitched nyamaropa. Kevin picked up the mbira so fast and played a steady kushaura to play kutsinhira against.
Chipembere played on the mavembe mbira with Kevin. I’ll add more about the songs as I dig back through my notes.
Family talent show 2009 in Ashland. Claire, Kevin, and I played Nhai baba for the family show…
Nhai Baba, a song I learned in Zimbabwe from the Shonhai brothers and played here with my brother, Kevin while I was staying in Ashland for 4 years in part to help with the parents and in part to be near my daughter first granddaughter as my daughter finished college.
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Mbira travels

Taireva

Another from years ago of a practice session while playing mbira with Stephen Berman this time on dambatsoko tuning. This is a Cosmas Magaya teaching of Taireva though he taught us on Cosmas pitched nyamaropa. Forgive us Fradreck for playing on your village tuning. I hope to learn a Taireva from you next time you come to the states. Still it speaks to me.

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8 shaft Mbira travels Weaving travels

8 shaft weaving

Weaving for mbira bags on my 8 shaft table loom.

I should have kept the loom. Would love to have it now for double weave!

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Saori Weaving Weaving travels

Saori Weaving

My next weaving adventure comes from Japanese weaving called Saori Weaving. It is free style weaving with a basic structure meaning warp threads and weft threads.

There are studios in the US and looms that are simplified to allow for easier changing of the shed and winding bobbins. Here starts the journey.

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Rigid Heddle Weaving Weaving travels

Double Weave

Inspired by my new quena flute from Deniz Dogrusöz, a flute maker from Turkey, I started weaving what would be a case for the beautiful quena. Then Inspired by the weavers of the Andes, I warped my little rigid heddle loom, the only one I have left from my weaving days and started in on what is to be a double weave flute wall hanging.
Notice the pick up sticks that allow for the black warp back weave.
The weaving starts with weaving all of the warp threads.
This is the double weave part that will hold the flute
Weaving two layers at a time. This shows the separate layers.
My first Brooks Bouquet which pulls the two layers together though it doesn’t have to now that I think about it. The black line weaves through both layers and that holds the layers together.
Almost complete. The double weave does work to hold the flutes. I need to wash and block the weaving and sew the flap at the top to hold a hanging rod.

The weaving is based on a pattern by Ashford Company. https://www.ashford.co.nz/tutorials/weaving-tutorials