The Wicked Witch of the West is a fictional character created by L. Frank Baum in his famous children's book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." She is depicted as the main antagonist in the story, opposing the protagonist Dorothy and her friends on their journey to meet the Wizard. The Wicked Witch of the West is described as a green-skinned witch with a hook-nosed face and a long black cloak. She is known to be cruel, power-hungry, and wicked in nature. She resides in the Western part of the Land of Oz, ruling over the Winkie Country.
Tag: Magic Puzzle Company
It has been a colorful couple of weeks. I warped up another Structo, this time with a summer/winter motif, that can explore the many ways to manipulate the tie-down threads to create different looks. I just did the first one, in brick formation, and this just made me smile, in the bleak mid winter days of February. I love the black background.
Over the weekend, I taught a two day remote class, actually it was one day, spread over two afternoons, with a group in California. I just marvel that I can wake up in NJ, do my usual morning routine, work a bit in the studio, flip on the computer and guide a dozen women 3000 miles away through a project. They were an enthusiastic group, and had some wonderful scraps, leftovers and workshop samples to play with. And one woman described how much the project made her smile when she remembered each bit of fabric, handwoven or otherwise, and the story behind it. I think I should call these memory mats. Anyway, here is a sampling. Photos are still rolling in!
If your guild is interested in this workshop, here is a link to the prospectus.
The Magic Puzzle Company, which inspired a fabric I wove this time last year, in spite of a broken shoulder, issued three more puzzles in the series. We dove into the first one, and I grabbed the poster and ran off to the studio with it. The colors were glorious, and perfect for the grey days of winter, and I knew I was jumping into the deep end on the next project.
I pulled as much yarn as I could fit on the counter, almost all of it is hand-dyed, except for a couple of commercial coned yarn fill ins and some extreme novelties, which I toss in here and there.
I used the draft from the puzzle fabric I did last year, converting it from 12 shafts to 8, because the floor loom I want to put it on is the only one that’s free. My daughter commandeered the 12 shaft loom! Because I’m using so many different weights of yarn and so many different structures, all requiring different setts, I carefully printed out the threading sequence, added yarn samples, and outlined a custom sett, which was important to know how many inches this baby would take up, since the loom was only 25″ wide. The number of ends is misleading, and the sett is an average of about 27epi, but it depends…
And then I started winding. I did five different 8 yard chains, each with about 5″ worth of warp.
And here they are all together waiting to be sleyed through the reed.
I had just the best time this week, carefully working from the skeins directly to the warping board, taping the ends to the mill frame instead of knotting, less waste and quicker, as I changed warp ends, sometimes every thread. Though I had a plan, often I deviated a bit with the color or blend of colors, throwing in a novelty here and there. It is the most creative I get in the weaving process and it is so much fun to see it all come together. I can’t wait to get this sleyed, threaded and beamed, and try the first couple of inches. I can’t imagine I’ll hate it, there is just too much fun color, but you never know…
So stay tuned to see how this goes…
She resides in the Western part of the Land of Oz, ruling over the Winkie Country. Her ultimate goal is to obtain the ruby slippers that Dorothy accidentally acquired upon arriving in Oz, as they possess great power and are believed to be the key to her ultimate control over the land. Throughout the story, the Wicked Witch of the West tries numerous times to capture Dorothy and steal her ruby slippers.
Slow and Steady…
I’d like to think I’m a patient person. I suppose it depends on what or whom I’m required to be patient with…
I’ve undertaken a couple of major projects in the studios, which completely thrill me, yet create stress, and challenges, and a couple of probably unrealistic deadlines. That’s my life and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I work best under unrealistic deadlines. Except when my body doesn’t want to cooperate…
Though my fractured shoulder is improving, little bits at a time, I’m impatient. I’ll admit it. I carry on with great fanfare, but secretly cry a little bit each time I am held back from what I want/need/have to do.
The Rainbow Double Weave Jennifer Moore Workshop sampler turned into a completely reversible jacket is nearing completion. This wasn’t so physically challenging, I just had to sit for hours hand sewing. And I mean hours. About 90% of it is sewn by hand. Including the entire interior. All that remains is the collar, and I hope to get that finished up this week. At least get it mounted on the jacket and ready for handwork.
I am just so in love with this jacket; it is how I imagined it in my head. I combined my 800 vest, with added seam allowances on the front, with the armhole and drop shoulder sleeve from the 1700 tunic, patterns from the Daryl Lancaster pattern collection. There are two layers of wool suiting to create the garment, basted together, with windows cut out, where the double weave cloth fits between the layers, and both layers are then sewn to the double weave cloth in reverse appliqué. Once the individual sections are completed, the outer garment layer is sewn together by machine, and the entire inner layer is sewn by hand at all the seams and hems. There are days I think I’m absolutely brilliant, and there are days where… I’ll leave it up to your imagination 🙂
The fabric inspired by the Magic Puzzle Company Busy Bistro Puzzle I fixed with my daughter, has proven one of my most difficult physical challenges. I use a heavy end feed shuttle, which is tough enough on my poor fractured shoulder, but the loom I’m weaving on, new to me, is a monster. 12 shafts and 54″ wide. The beater alone could kill you! Yet it is gorgeous and comfortable in the hand. Assuming the hand isn’t attached to a fractured shoulder. The most difficult part though, is lifting the shafts. Most picks required lifting 6 of the 12 shafts, and each shaft had 225 inserted eye heddles, which I didn’t remove because there was room on the sides to store them, and I spent so much time putting them on to begin with! Trying as hard as I could, I just couldn’t consistently lift 6 shafts and get a consistently clean shed every time. I’m past my mid-60’s and my joints just can’t lift what I could in my 20’s.
I’d lay awake at night, with my fractured shoulder aching, especially when bad weather approaches, and think, how am I going to weave this… If you ever watched the Queen’s Gambit, a Netflix series, you might remember how the main character, I’ve forgotten her name, could see chess moves happening across the ceiling. That’s the way I sometimes think, I can see the mechanics behind a draft, and how things need to move up or down to create what I want. And what I wanted was a clean shed opening. When that happens in any other situation, I revert to using two feet to help lift, break apart the tie-up, and figure out a logical treadling sequence that will get me what I want with a lot less physical effort. I watched the ceiling in the dark and saw how I could do it. I flew out of bed in the morning and went to the software and reconfigured the tie up and crossed my fingers. (An apology to my non-weaving readers, this all makes no sense, just know it worked.)
The original tie-up and treadling Revised tie-up and treadling using two feet.
It was miraculous, and magical and I just wove like the wind, or maybe a slight breeze because I’m still dealing with a fractured shoulder. I use to be able to weave like the wind. Maybe someday soon. But I’ve got a deadline now, and I’m frantically trying to pace myself to get what I need to get done before April 15th. That’s the deadline to submit the five garments I’m planning to exhibit at the Convergence Fashion Show this summer, sponsored by the Handweavers Guild of America, in Knoxville, TN, as an invited artist. I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to send, but I want more choices than I have, from what I’ve made in the last two years, and I’d love for this puzzle inspired fabric to be one of them.
So given my arm limitations, I’ve just resigned myself to only empty one pirn a day, with 2/12 wool, which is about what my shoulder can handle. Still, that’s about 15″ and that adds up. I looked at my warp beam, and was shocked to see the I’m on the last round of paper. This was a seven yard warp. I’m almost there…
What really surprised me, is I’ve had no tension issues at all so far, which I completely expected given the dozens of different yarns I’m combining together in a dozen different structures. It will be interesting to see what happens when the fabric is off the loom and washed…
On a completely different note, spring is here, though we are supposed to get one last frost tonight through Tuesday, but in celebration of my late husband’s 71st birthday last Tuesday, my daughter and I went to the garden center and bought a couple flats of cold weather greens, and some pansies. We got everything planted, started the spring clean up in the yard, which means bags of animal excrement, because, well, if you have dogs, you know what spring means…
The garden center was just a riot of color…
And last Tuesday I was interviewed for the Handweavers Guild of America series Textiles and Tea, which I adore; The Textiles and Tea interviews are the highlight of my week. They are live interviews, over zoom, but also simulcast over Facebook, and of course recorded. You don’t need a Facebook account to watch, it is a public site. The recording will eventually be posted on the Handweavers Guild of America YouTube channel, (it might take a couple of months) but for now, if you missed the interview, you can watch it here. Kathi’s questions were thoughtful, and fun to answer. Apparently there were 600 people watching in the webinar, and another couple hundred watching the live Facebook feed, which they said was a record. I don’t know, I just had fun answering the questions. Everything for me has a story, which is why I still have something to say after almost 14 years of blogging. I know few people blog anymore, and far fewer people read the blog than did a half dozen years ago, but that isn’t why I write it. I used to journal, but it is more fun to type what I’m thinking and be able to add cool pictures, and then be able to go back and search for what I want, because blogs have that built in feature. And it is there forever, or as long as I pay for the hosting fees…
So dear readers, spring is upon us, and that means outdoor stuff, and I have a lovely garden with ponds and fish and places to sit and weave, all coming to life, and I’ll have a garden full of salad fixin’s, and I think, each spring, that this season I’m going to spend my time outdoors and do fiber-y things, and by fall I realize that none of that happened. It is an amusing cycle, but still, I am determined each spring and we will see how the year progresses… Deadlines await…
She sends various creatures and enchanted beings to hinder the protagonist's progress, including winged monkeys, a swarm of bees, and a field of deadly poppy flowers. However, she is ultimately thwarted by Dorothy and her companions, with the help of Glinda the Good Witch of the South. The Wicked Witch of the West is famous for her iconic catchphrase, "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!" which she often utters while trying to intimidate Dorothy. This line has become one of the most memorable quotes from the book and adaptations, solidifying her status as one of the most recognizable villains in literature. Despite her wickedness, the Wicked Witch of the West's backstory and motivations are explored in later books and adaptations. Some versions of the tale depict her as a misunderstood character with a tragic upbringing, while others maintain her as a purely evil force. Regardless of her backstory, the Wicked Witch of the West remains an integral part of the Wizard of Oz mythos and continues to captivate audiences with her dark and menacing presence..
Reviews for "Wickedly Beautiful: The Wicked Witch of the West's Influence on Fashion and Beauty Trends"
1. Emily - 2 stars - I found "Wicked Witch of the West" to be quite disappointing. The storyline felt disjointed and difficult to follow. The characters lacked depth and development, making it hard to connect with any of them. The humor attempted throughout the play felt forced and fell flat. Overall, I was expecting much more from this production, but unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations.
2. Matthew - 1 star - I was highly dissatisfied with "Wicked Witch of the West." The acting was subpar, with many of the performers lacking in both charisma and talent. The set design was unimaginative and failed to capture the essence of the story. Furthermore, the music was forgettable and failed to leave any impact. I would not recommend this production to anyone looking for a truly captivating and entertaining theater experience.
3. Sarah - 2 stars - As a fan of the original "Wizard of Oz" story, I went into "Wicked Witch of the West" with high hopes, only to be let down. The plot felt convoluted and unnecessary, taking away from the magic of the original tale. The performances were mediocre at best, leaving me unimpressed and unengaged. I would suggest skipping this adaptation and instead opt for a more faithful retelling of the classic story.
4. Jason - 1 star - I was thoroughly disappointed by "Wicked Witch of the West." The pacing was incredibly slow, making it difficult to stay interested throughout the performance. The dialogue was uninspiring and failed to create any emotional connection with the audience. Additionally, the lackluster costumes and set design further contributed to the overall lack of excitement and energy in the play. I would not recommend wasting your time on this production.