Wednesday, September 20, 2017

What are We Weaving in September?

Fall is a time to get back to the loom.  Although September isn't really very cool here in the foothills, some of our weavers have been busy.

Mardi wove these colorful towels as part of an exploration in Rosepath.  She used a Lunatic Fringe kit with 10/2 cotton to create these bright colors.




Mardi also created these rainbow colored towels using cotton she bought from another fiber person selling part of their stash.  Here's her description of the project:

"I have a large amount of non-descript pale blue cotton yarn, which I suspect is about a 5/2.  It was the perfect yarn to experiment with warp painting .  I wound the warp into 2 parts, striping it with navy 8/2 cotton which I was planning to use as weft.  I laid both warp bundles out identically, or so I believed, and proceeded to dye them in a rainbow pattern.  When I beamed them on, I found that they weren’t exactly identical.  The finished result can be summed up as being “two in one towels”.  When folded in half lengthwise, you get two different colors, depending on which side is facing out.

Technicalities: The sett is 20 EPI and the PPI is about 26.  There are a total of 478 threads (I think, as I don’t seem to be a very good note taker). The width in the reed was 23.9 (including floating selvages) and the length on the loom was 34”, including allowance for hems. The finished dimensions are 28 3/4 “ by 19”.  The draft I used was Point Threading over 8 which can be found in Dixon on pages 80-81.

The biggest fatal flaw that I encountered was finding that the 100% cotton sewing thread that I used in the hems did not shrink at the same rate as the 8/2 cotton, which gave me some flare to work with when hemming."


Mardi's Dyed Towels with original yarn

Another view of Mardi's Dyed Towels 





































Mardi attended a Jane Stafford class on color and design.  She shared her lovely color samples with us.

Samples from Jane Stafford Class

More Samples from Jane Stafford Class


Eileen shared a poncho she made from fabric woven with sock yarn and black 8/2 tencel as the weft.  She was using up left over sock yarns in a random striping pattern.  The design is an undulating twill #219 in Carol Strickler's book, "A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns".  

Eileen's Ponch

Eileen's Tencel Scarf 





















She also shared a scarf that was woven with 8/2 tencel in the warp and weft.  The weave structure was also from Strickler's book - #171.


Jeanne's Double Weave Color Study

Jeanne used cottolin in a double weave color sampler.  She is planning to weave placemats and used this color and weave piece to help pick out her favorite designs.


Ingrid shared a scarf woven with sock yarn in a point twill pattern.  


We are looking forward to more products of our looms next month. 

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Saturday, September 16, 2017

County Fair Entries, Continued

Two more Not 2 Square members had entries in this year's County Fair: Jeanne and Betsy.

Jeanne wove and then sewed this blouse.  

Jeanne's Blouse

For her Nevada County Inspired entry, Jeanne drew inspiration from the local hippies and tie-dyed fabrics that past and current hippies enjoy.  This shawl was woven with hand dyes warps that Eileen created.  For her scarf, Jeanne used Vice Yarn for her warp.  This is a space dyed yarn that comes with long color sections.  
 
Jeanne's Nevada County Inspired Entry
Jeanne's Scarf


Jeanne's final entry was a cowl that she knit from her handspun yarn.

Jeanne's Cowl

Betsy entered a scarf and a bag sewn from fabric that was woven at the end of the warp of some of Betsy's rugs.


 
Betsy entered two wall hangings.  The one woven with wheat was a collaboration with Beryl.  Beryl supplied handspun yarn.  The lavender wall hanging included spring of lavender.

Wheat Wall Hanging
Lavender Wall Hanging

There are a few more people we need to highlight.  That post will be written soon.

Saturday, September 02, 2017

More From the Fair

Marcy entered three items this year.  She wove a blanket in a huck design with a plain weave boarder.  The Dresser Scarf was one of two she wove this year. 

Marcy's Blanket

Marcy's Dresser Scarf

















Marcy also entered  a towel.  It is a towel project called Twill Stripes Towel was in the Weaver's Craft Issue #17.   All three projects were woven with cotton yarn.





Diana took home the Best of Division in the Nevada County Inspired category with this dogwood inspired in lace table runner. The original draft came from Weavezine http://www.weavezine.com/content/dogwood-lace.html   


Diana's Dogwood Table Runner


She also entered two towels.  
Diana's Summer & Winter Towel
Diana's Polychrome Towel

Last year, Diana attended Madelyn van der Hoogt's weaving school on Whidbey Island. Diana brought back this Summer and Winter draft from the school. She says the pattern weft was suppose to be 5/2 cotton, but she only had 10/2 and so she used two threads of that in her shuttle. She had a bit of trouble squaring the pattern as she wove but our group reminded her that we are the "Not 2 Square" weavers and not to be too concerned. 


Diana's second towel was woven in polychrome crackle. She used nine different colors in warp and three rotating colors in weft. This is one of several towels she wove with the same warp.  


Diana's last entry is a cotton pot holder.



There are several more Not 2 Square members who enter things in the Fair.  More later.