Thursday, May 26, 2011

Threads In Action



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One Saturday as I was driving down Folsom Blvd I saw some youths holding up some hand made signs in front of a church. At first i thought they were hawking for a car wash but as I got closer I could read the words "Book Sale" so I pulled into the parking lot.

There was about ten tables with books roughly sorted by fiction, non-fiction, cooking, biographies, and crafts. In the crafts section I found a hard cover copy of "Learning to Weave, Revised Edition" 1995, Deborah Chandler in good condition for $2. I have seen a library copy but now I have my own copy.

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I also found a folder with some kind of macrame instructions and some yarn and thread samples taped to the pages so I bought that for 75 cents.

These sat on a shelf for a couple of weeks before I tucked them into my commuter bag. On the bus I dug into the folder. The title page said "Threads In Action" Volume 2 Number 1, Fall 1970. Editor, Virginia Harvey. As I flipped through the pages I could see it is a quarterly newsletter. This journal was carefully typed, pictures arranged and photocopied onto thick paper.

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Here is some of the "Hobnail" pattern done in macrame, that is done with knots instead of weaving. This craft is often used to dress up the edges of woven pieces so I hope to use some of these patterns in future projects.
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Here are some of the samples taped to the page that drew my attention if the first place.
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Then I saw this little article describing SPRANG! Yeah, SPRANG!
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Then there is this 9 page article by Peter Collingwood, the man who wrote the big book about Sprang!
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There is this article about combining tapestry and macrame techniques on the same piece.

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A feature about artist who uses sprang in her work.
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And some more articles about macrame.
This will definitely become part of the fiber adventure.

Have a good day!

8 comments:

ieva said...

Looks like a very interesting book.

WonderWhyGal said...

Looks like you hit the jackpot at the sale! Great finds.

MarthaVA said...

Score! Great books. I used to do macrame and would like to explore it again. I'll have to keep my eyes open for stuff like that! :-)
Weavin Happy
Martha

Unknown said...

I have been told that Virginia I. Harvey was an accomplished fiber artist, writer, and academic.

I received this message on WeaveTech yahoogroup
Hi Franco,

Virginia Harvey was a member of the Whidbey Island Weavers Guild
http://www.whidbeyweaversguild.org
you can read about her on our website.
http://www.whidbeyweaversguild.org/historyharvey.pdf

Janis

graciela foradori // E-mail gracielaforadori@hotmail.com said...

Franco, you're the king of the sale (or of the buys). I am not sure how is the correct form. . Here you are books on line about macramé, braiding, basket, etc.

http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/books.html
Graciela

Peg said...

Did you do the happy dance when you realized how good your haul was?

Unknown said...

Yes, I've been lucky. Right now it looks like buying the rest of these journals will cost about $50 so I am scrounging around to see if I can buy it for less somewhere.

Jennifer said...

There are copies of Volume 1 listed here: http://used.addall.com/SuperRare/submitRare.cgi?author=harvey&title=threads+in+action&keyword=&isbn=&order=PRICE&ordering=ASC&binding=Any+Binding&min=&max=&exclude=&match=Y&dispCurr=USD&timeout=20&store=ABAA&store=Alibris&store=Abebooks&store=AbebooksAU&store=AbebooksDE&store=AbebooksFR&store=AbebooksUK&store=Amazon&store=AmazonCA&store=AmazonUK&store=AmazonDE&store=AmazonFR&store=Antiqbook&store=Biblio&store=BiblioUK&store=Bibliophile&store=Bibliopoly&store=Booksandcollectibles&store=ILAB&store=Half&store=LivreRareBook&store=Powells&store=Wbm&store=ZVAB

Or if that link doesn't work, check out the used book section of addall.com