Sunday, October 13, 2013

A Very Special Baby Blanket

Jackie needed to weave a special blanket for a member of her family who was having her first baby.  Since the couple wanted the sex of their baby to be a surprise, the mother was requesting pastel colored items that would suit either sex. 
 
In my stash, I had a five pound cone of heavy, white cotton chenille, won as a door prize at CNCH 2007.   I offered it to Jackie to use as much as she needed for a couple of baby blankets.
 
Jackie dyed some of the chenille yellow and used a pale yellow cotton warp. 
Jackie found a blanket she wanted to use in Favorite Scandinavian Projects to Weave by Tina Ignell.  On page 94 is a Heart Blanket with Weft Loop Patterning.  Then she looked online and located a giraffe photo which she converted to a graph to make her loop pick up design, rather than the heart shown in the project. She alternated the white and yellow chenille when weaving the blanket - I believe that the border loops were yellow and the giraffe was white. Sadly for the weaving group, the baby shower had passed and all Jackie had to show was a photo of her blanket and a couple of small samples.
 
Because the book mentioned above is very expensive now, I tried to find another resource for the weft loop patterning technique.  I couldn't find anything, but if readers of this blog know of one I hope they will share it. Here is a tip; Jackie said that the weft loop patterning had to be done in short lengths at a time because wrapping over a long dowel made it next to impossible to pull out the dowel to leave the loops.  I believe she used a series of shorter dowels to make the process manageable.
 
 

Tuesday, October 01, 2013

Plaza Jacket, Ikat Top and Rag Rugs at our September meeting.


At Not 2 Square meetings, Dee is often the one who has a new garment to display.  Here we have her version of the  "Plaza Jacket" and Sue Robertson is the perfect model to show off its lines. We decided that this particular jacket shape is called a huipil, but the Sewing Workshop pattern has more width to it than the traditional blouse tops by that name.



Sue Habegger has made a top from  ikat yardage she had woven some time ago.  She experimented with the ikat dyeing technique while in collage using Lydia Van Gelder's book as a reference.  Notice how expertly she has placed the ikat stripes on both the front and the yolk of the top.




Jackie Hervey's ingenuity amazes us all.  She used alternating reds and greens in her rug warp.  Then she alternated picks of fabric with a pick of fine cotton.  This made all the green warps prominent on one side of the rug and the red warps on the other side. The pictures show the green side on the left and the red side on the right, in case your monitor didn't detect the difference!
 
There is more to come from September's meeting.  Stay tuned for another post soon.