I’m finally ready to start work on what I keep referring to as my “3 pods” weaving. It’s actually the first of a series of wildflower weavings I’ve been planning for quite a few years now. Waiting for the perfect time to start. 3 pods will be one of my tributes to the echinacea plant which is native here in the Flint Hills.

It’s not the showy big flowers variety; these blooms are very demure - and quite varied, actually. I’ve photographed this plant in various stages for years. I’ve written about it several times, too. And I have a number of designs I hope to weave over the next couple of months- years, probably- all in dedication to this miraculous little plant.

This is one of my favorite of all those growing out here.- growing in the middle of a road behind our house.

I can’t quite explain what it is that’s drawn me so deeply into the life stages of these plants on the prairie, but I have an idea. I’ve read that plants have a way of finding you and I believe this to be true. That you may be needing something they have to offer. One of echinacea’s most known benefits is immune support. 🤔

I find this fascinating. They’re strong. Tough. And their roots grow very deep. I have a hard time wrapping my head around how the roots are cultivated and sold as medicinal cures- or, in this case, preventative aids; they go so far into the earth here. At least I’ve read that they do- I’ve never tried to dig one up.

Back to the design. I don’t want to use a closely followed cartoon for this piece. I may never weave from a cartoon again if I’m being true to myself. But I do have a guide of sorts. I have my photoshop image taken from photos of the plant in senescence. I feel like I “stumbled” onto this design while learning some ways to manipulate and design with photoshop techniques- mostly blending and layering. It’s the strong vertical pods that hold my interest. I’m still not sure on the background colors (which is probably why I’ve put off starting so long) but I know I’ll keep the pods.

This piece will be close to 40” tall and over 60” wide when I finish- if all goes as planned. One thing I quickly discovered when working large scale from a drawing or design where composition is planned and key, is that I need a way to blow up the image to get the placement correct. I understand a lot of artists take their design to a copy center and have it enlarged for them, but I’m hesitant to work that way. What if I want to change or tweak the placement a bit… So what I did in the end was to grab a large piece of kraft paper- because that’s what was handy - and projected the photoshop image onto it, drawing just the outline of the pods. Then I drew in some of the background movement to keep in mind.

I didn’t have a paper that was in the right proportion, so I drew the pods closer together than they’ll be woven with the plan to draw the pod outline onto the warp. I don’t really like to do this- because, inevitably, I change my mind- or place it wrong to begin with. Which, yep, happened here already. What can I say- sometimes my impulsive, unthinking, brain just takes over.

A bit of math was also required. To get the right proportions, I figured out (based on the known height - or warp width in this case - of 39 inches) what all the other distances concerning the pod placements will need to be.

And so I begin…

Just in time to break-in that new bench my husband just made for me. The seat glides!

My Ode to Echinacea Begins