Diana's Inlay Shawl Project

Diana has been working for the past 3 months on a project inspired by Nancy Peterson in Handwoven, Sept./Oct., 2021. It is a plain weave shawl in stripes of random widths and colors, 24” in the reed. What makes it more than just a plain weave shawl is, again, the randomly placed inlay patterns upon the stripes. The pattern for the inlays Diana chose is from Davison, p. 131, Johann Schleelein’s #123, which creates interlocked circles. The pattern structure is 26 ends, so all stripes in the shawl are multiples of 26. Some stripes are 26 ends wide, some 52, some 78, and one is 104. It takes 20 pics (alternated by tabby) to complete the pattern, so her pattern inlays vary from 2 to 4 times in length.

The warp is 8/2 tencel in three different pastel colors and 8/2 rayon in two other colors set at 24 epi. The background weft is 16/2 bamboo in coquille, and the pattern weft is Malabrigo Mora silk in two different colors, lettuce and teal feather.

Inlay pattern shawl with shuttle showing the small shuttle to pick up and weave in pattern upon a stripe

Inlay pattern shawl off the loom. The ends are hemstitched and the fringe will be twisted (soon).

  

There is quite a bit of handwork to do which is finger weaving in the loose ends of the pattern weft on the back.

This is the reverse side of the shawl with pattern yarn ends not finger woven in yet.

 

Blooming Towels from Wendy-Marie's Loom

"These charming Texas Bluebonnet towels, designed by Cheryl Leib, appear in the Mar/April 2019 edition of Handwoven. They are very sturdy and make excellent gifts. The yarn is 8/2 unmercerized cotton, sett is 24 epi. Leib recommends that the plain weave hem be done with sewing thread or 20/2 cotton. This is important to keep the PW hem even with the twill cloth. (Ask me how I know.)

The first time I made these cloths, I used the blue yarn available in my stash. This round, I ordered the recommended blue, Brassard Medium Blue #5029. It is a beautiful, vibrant color. For my next batch I will  order more instead of making substitutions. "  Wendy-Marie 

 

 

 

 

From Not 2 Square Looms

  Weaver's are always on the lookout for new ideas, new structures, new ways to use color and texture in their projects.  Here are a few relatively recent projects by our members.

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 From Wendy-Marie's Loom

These scarves are part of on-going play with the patterns offered in Denise Kovnat's "Echo and Jin" workshop. The teal scarf is an 8-shaft pattern called "Chakras." The warp is tencel and 10/2 perle cotton, the weft is 20/2 perle cotton, sapphire. The sett is 40 epi. Denise strongly recommended that we avoid white, as it tends to cancel out the other colors. I think the silver tencel in this scarf had the same tendency, so the scarf is interesting but not iridescent as I had hoped.

 

The second pair of scarves are made using a 4-shaft Kovnat pattern called "Blooming Leaf." Again, the sett was 40 epi. The left hand one had a purple 10/2 cotton for weft, the right was made with fuchsia 20/2 perle cotton. Of the two, the fuchsia weft produced a lot more iridescence. 

 

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Ingrid's Projects

Several Not 2 Square members are working on our local fiber guild's challenge.  We were given three colors and were challenged to create a fiber project using those colors. I got forest green, navy and turquoise and wove towels using those colors with some others.  They were made using 10/2 cotton for the warp and weft.  The structure was a regular/irregular point twill on 8 shafts. I  was also participating in another guild's challenge: weave something with colors inspired by a national park poster and this project satisfied both challenges.

 

 I also finished the linen towels I wove as part of another guild’s challenge.  16/2 linen for warp and weft for most of the towels, although 2 were even with 10/2 cotton.  The design is an 8-shaft huck.

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Betsy's Current Project

Betsy is weaving a lap blanket for someone who needs a bit of warmth while she is in church.   She is using the intended recipient's favorite colors - teal and magenta in warm wools. The structure is an M & W twill. After this blanket is completed, she intends to use an orange weft on the next one. 

 

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Eileen's Adventure in Wet Finishing

 I don't remember where I found this draft, possibly online.

 

The yarn is from Webs - Colrain Lace - 2/10 Merino?Tencel.  The floats were too long, particularly on the back side.

 

On the Loom 

 

I normally wash my woven products in the washing machine on the gentle cycle and cold water.  Well, in this case, the yarn felted a great deal and was perfect as the floats felted together and are not now problematic.

Subsequently, I always wash all products with this yarn by hand.

 

Off the loom and after wet finishing

The March Meeting and Its Weaving Surprises

 

Karen W. wove this stunning black and white rug using shaft switching techniques.  She devised the pattern by graphing it on paper first.  Then she employed the shaft switching system she devised for her 4 shaft Gilmore loom.  (see photo at left)

The warp is 8/5 linen sett at 4 epi.  The weft is Collingwood rug yarn using three strands together.  The finished rug is 25" x 40".

 

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Wendy-Marie wove this gorgeous "Spring Flowers Shawl".  The draft and directions were from Handwoven's Design Collection #19.  The advancing twill design is by Hele Bobisud.  Since the original pattern called for a weaving width of 26", Wendy-Marie removed two blocks of burgundy (84 ends) from the warp so that it would fit on her Baby Wolf loom.  The final shawl size is 85"x 20".  Another change that she made was to substitute 8/2 tencel for the Zephyr wool-silk given in the instructions.  The shawl feels soft and drapes nicely, so the substitution worked.

The photo below shows the draft used for the shawl.

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Both this scarf and the one below were woven by Ingrid K. out of JOY 10/2 tencel in both the warp and weft.  The sett is 36epi.  The draft used on the scarf at the left is an extended point twill.  The photo below was threaded on left M's.  Both were woven on an 8 shaft loom and treadled with an advancing point.

The lap robe was also woven by Ingrid in wool/acrylic (50/50) knitting yarn sett at 12 epi.  The structure is an extended point twill with a point treadling on 8 shafts.

January's Virtual Show and Tell

 Not 2 Square Weavers are still in a social distancing mode, but continue weaving and sharing what they do every month in a Zoom gathering.  

This month's meeting had a lot of special pieces being shown and it seemed like a good time to make a blog post and let all our readers enjoy the fruits of our looms.

These towels were woven by Diana A.  Here is what she said about them.  "The Stripes and Huck Lace towels show the difference in color in warp stripes (bluish) vs. the weft stripes (greenish) which were both the same pale green yarn (see photo at left). No explanation, although Beryl thought maybe being 24 epi in the warp and about 20 ppi in the weft could create the difference. Who knows? All yarns 10/2 cotton, except the pale green was 8/2, I believe."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These scarves were also woven by Diana as Christmas gifts for her two granddaughters.  The one at the left incorporates huck lace hearts.

 

The Huck Lace Heart Scarf is  8/2 tencel and  8/2 rayon.
 

 

 

 

The Cat Scarf is Summer and Winter and plain weave, 8/2 tencel and 8/2 rayon.  This scarf is for the granddaughter that loves animals. 

 

 

 

 

Betsy A. has a brand new Baby Wolf, 8 shaft loom.  These two scarves were woven on the same warp.

8 shaft plaited twill scarf 5/2 bamboo warp and doubled 8/2 tencel weft. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8 shaft plaited twill scarf, 5/2 bamboo warp, 5/2 cotton weft.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Marcy E. wove 5 dish towels using 8/2 and 10/2 cotton yarn from her stash.  The pattern was from Handwoven's design collection 3, Kitchen Towels, woven with a twill variation.  The weft yarns were also from her stash.

 

 

 

 

 Ingrid K showed us a couple of new scarves. 

 Malabrigo Baby Silkpaca (alpaca/silk) in two different colors for warp and weft; sett 30 epi, 8 shaft point twill threading with an advancing point treadling.  The tie up is 1-1-1-1-2-2- twill

 Madelinetosh Pure Silk Lace yarn for warp and weft; sett: 30 epi, 8-shaft advancing twill threading, with an advancing point treadling. The tie-up is a 1-1-1-1-2-2 twill

 

COVID-19 spots (photo below)  are for a sample exchange.  10/2 white cotton for the warp  with 10/2 red weft, sett at 30 epi.  The structure is an 8-end satin on 24 shafts.  The design was created using ProWeave and Fiberworks PCW software.  Ingrid is still working with this warp to explore other weave structures and possibly weave towels.