Seasons Greetings! We had a development meeting this past weekend in Chicago and will be posting pics and an update online soon. I know we have been quiet but things are moving forward. Hope to have the update on the osloom.org website by the beginning of January! Until then, have a happy and merry holiday season. All the best to you and yours!

New website design in alpha testing on http://osloom.org/ crossing fingers it works ok, no access to intewebz until Sunday.

OSLOOMers,

We are a day late with our October progress report. My apologies, but I was away at the International Textiles and Apparel Association Conference this weekend. We have a few updates since the last report. I attended the Open Hardware Summit at the end of September. It was incredibly inspiring! It was amazing to see so many folks involved in creating hardware with the mindset of open knowledge and access. The Open Hardware license that is being developed by the group that put together the conference is almost at version 1. I hope to use this license for the OSLOOM.

Additionally, a very exciting turn of events! Upon my arrival at Kent, I applied for a fellowship, the Farris Family Innovation Fellowship which if awarded was to be up to $8,000 (renewable up to a total of 3 years). The exciting turn of events is that the provost has nominated OSLOOM to receive the award. This means, not only will we have enough funding for an initial prototype, but possibly to help put together the initial kits, resources, and be able to attend events like Maker Faire where folks can see and weave on the prototype. Since it is up to a 3 year fellowship, the time and funding also allows for feedback from users and further development and refining of the initial loom model. I still have yet to receive word as to when and how the funding gets exchanged but it certainly is exciting that there is more funding to work with for testing and building.

I leave you with a few things to look forward to.
Cheers,
~margarita

Development Blog
We have setup a private development blog as an area where the team can discuss and focus solely on the development of the loom.

Website ETA: January 1, 2011
We are hoping to launch the new website with the start of the new year. We had narrowed the content management system to drupal (with a slight thought of mura and wordpress). After a few emails came in about the simplicity of wordpress, we decided to take another look at it. We have since begun development on wordpress for the site. We will have a forum and wiki portion on the site for the loom(s). Thank you all for your wonderful feedback.

It is our intention to make OSLOOM.org a repository for free loom plans in general – not just our loom(s). With the launch of the new site, we will be putting a call in for any open source loom plans folks may have. I think by putting plans online for various looms aids in not just informing the public at large that there are many different types of weaving possible, but also serves the weaving community to access such information easily. I’d like to know your thoughts on this.

Scarf rewards
I am hoping that the first set of scarves arrive in my hands by the end of this week.
In addition, a post will go online and emailed out about fabric care for the textiles and scarves. Again, my apologies for the delay on this!!!

Upcoming event: Artist Talk @ ASU on Nov 17
I will be giving an artist talk at Arizona State University on November 17th. I will post the specifics once I receive the information. If you are in the area please come by and introduce yourself.

Cheers all!

I will be attending the Open Source Hardware Summit this upcoming September 23rd in New York City. If you are planning to attend and want to meet up to say hi or chat please let me know.

http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/

It should be a very interesting conference, hope to see some of you there.

~margarita
lead instigator :: osloom

I wanted to send out a "Thank You!" this morning to all 188 kickstarter backers for the incredible rally you guys have done in the past few days. It truly was amazing!

Also

Last call to grab up an OSLOOM T-shirt!

~margarita
Lead Instigator

OSLOOM would like to give the Kickstarter.com staff a heartfelt "Thank You!" for making OSLOOM their Project of the Day today!

Also, a huge "Thank You!" to all 165 of our backers so far... for making this all possible!

~margarita benitez
OSLOOM :: Lead Instigator

Image below of one of the limited rewards details: a day without immigrants (2006), a weaving done at The Jacquard Center (@ Pure Country Mill). This weaving can be yours for $750.

a day without immigrants (2006)
artist proofs for larger weaving - see pic below
MEDIUM: 18" x 12"
DESCRIPTION: This piece is part of "The State of the Union" series of weavings created in 2006. They are woven still images taken from live video. 22 thread count jacquard weavings printed on a computerized loom. They deal with the daily bombardment of images from the media by freezing them to 1/30 of a sec.The pieces question the displacement from reality created by such technology and the penetration of those images into our subconscious. Here we see that sometimes truth is stranger then fiction.

~margarita
OLSOOM :: Lead Instigator

Image below of one of the limited rewards: chimp gone wild (2006), a weaving done at The Jacquard Center (@ Pure Country Mill). This weaving can be yours for $750.

chimp gone wild (2006)
artist proofs for larger weaving - see pic below
MEDIUM: 18" x 12"
DESCRIPTION: This piece is part of "The State of the Union" series of weavings created in 2006. They are woven still images taken from live video. 22 thread count jacquard weavings printed on a computerized loom. They deal with the daily bombardment of images from the media by freezing them to 1/30 of a sec.The pieces question the displacement from reality created by such technology and the penetration of those images into our subconscious. Here we see that sometimes truth is stranger then fiction.

~margarita
OLSOOM :: Lead Instigator

Image below of one of the limited rewards: warcheerleaders (2006), a weaving done at The Jacquard Center (@ Pure Country Mill). This weaving can be yours for $750.

warcheerleaders (2006)
artist proofs for larger weaving - see pic below
MEDIUM: 18" x 12"
DESCRIPTION: This piece is part of "The State of the Union" series of weavings created in 2006. They are woven still images taken from live video. 22 thread count jacquard weavings printed on a computerized loom. They deal with the daily bombardment of images from the media by freezing them to 1/30 of a sec.The pieces question the displacement from reality created by such technology and the penetration of those images into our subconscious. Here we see that sometimes truth is stranger then fiction.

~margarita
OLSOOM :: Lead Instigator

Image below of one of the limited rewards details: small women big cars (2006), a weaving done at The Jacquard Center (@ Pure Country Mill). This weaving can be yours for $750.

small women big cars (2006)
artist proofs for larger weaving - see pic below
MEDIUM: 18" x 12"
DESCRIPTION: This piece is part of "The State of the Union" series of weavings created in 2006. They are woven still images taken from live video. 22 thread count jacquard weavings printed on a computerized loom. They deal with the daily bombardment of images from the media by freezing them to 1/30 of a sec.The pieces question the displacement from reality created by such technology and the penetration of those images into our subconscious. Here we see that sometimes truth is stranger then fiction.

~margarita
OLSOOM :: Lead Instigator

Images below are of 3 of the weavings available for the following limited reward:
large jacquard weaving b/w - state of the union series (5 one of a kind unique designs)

Each weaving can be yours for $1,750.

Untitiled Iraq War Still Image (2006)
Closing Up Shop (2006)
Mission Accomplished (2006)

MEDIUM: 22 thread count weave 54" x 36"
DESCRIPTION: This piece is part of "The State of the Union" series of weavings created in 2006. They are woven still images taken from live video. 22 thread count jacquard weavings printed on a computerized loom. They deal with the daily bombardment of images from the media by freezing them to 1/30 of a sec.The pieces question the displacement from reality created by such technology and the penetration of those images into our subconscious. Here we see that sometimes truth is stranger then fiction.

~margarita
OLSOOM :: Lead Instigator

Image below of one of the limited rewards: small women big cars (2006), a weaving done at The Jacquard Center (@ Pure Country Mill). This weaving can be yours for $2,500.

small women big cars (2006)
(series of 2)
MEDIUM: 54" x 36"
DESCRIPTION: This piece is part of "The State of the Union" series of weavings created in 2006. They are woven still images taken from live video. 22 thread count jacquard weavings printed on a computerized loom. They deal with the daily bombardment of images from the media by freezing them to 1/30 of a sec.The pieces question the displacement from reality created by such technology and the penetration of those images into our subconscious. Here we see that sometimes truth is stranger then fiction.

~margarita
OLSOOM :: Lead Instigator

Below are some shots of the lasercut backstrap loom in action.

~margarita
OSLOOM :: lead instigator