Betsy's Rag Rugs

Betsy is off to Music Camp in Mendocino this week.  She has been very busy weaving rag rugs to take with her, hoping for a few side sales from people attending the music camp.  Betsy uses a rosepath threading and treadling in her rugs and I believe they are all woven on four shafts.  These rugs just eat up the cloth strips that Betsy cuts.  A great recycling idea for old clothing or sheets, but I think that Betsy may have used yardage for these rugs.

 

The rosepath pattern shows up clearly on this brilliant rug. A nice choice to dress up the music camp cabin or a bright spot to welcome guests to your tent.

 

 

 

 

Handwoven Table Cloth and More

 Sue Habegger has been working on this table cloth for several months.  She did a lot of careful calculations before she started the project and decided to weave it in three panels.  The colored stripes were warped using a warping paddle and there are several different yarns in the white stripes, giving it a wonderful texture.

The photo above is shown with the end piece of the table cloth folded back on itself.  The stripe (running from the bottom to top of photo) was cut from some of the yardage and sewed to the end.  The idea is that the table cloth can be used at its full length, or for a shorter table, the ends can be folded back as shown in the photo.


The pottery plate shown with the table cloth was responsible for the color scheme.  Sue says that the plates aren't exactly the same, but all have similar colors in their glazes.

 Sue did an almost invisible join when she assembled the three panels.  You can see the white stitching in the bottom photo which blends in so perfectly with the rest of the piece that you don't realize that the table cloth is in panels.  Talk about a stash busting project.

Sue also brought placemats that she had woven for her daughter and son-in-law.  Her daughter has a set of Fiesta ware and picked the color scheme she wanted for the place mats.  Sue sett them at 32 epi and used mop yarn for the weft.  She had two different sets; some woven with white cotton mop yarn and some woven with a rayon gold mop yarn.   I believe Sue said she put a cross at each end of a long warp, and then cut the warp in half and set the stripes side by side. 

 
 When Sue was selling her work, she used a technique in which she wove placemats on a dense warp (in this case 32epi) and then wove napkins in two layers on the same warp.  Want to try it?  Here is link to a PDF file about weaving double weave on four shafts.  Go to page 4 in the file for the written instructions and diagrams showing what is happening.  The draft for the separate layers is below.    Note that you are depressing two treadles on every other pick and using two shuttles. Also  double weave drafts never look like the cloth that they are weaving. The placemats are just woven in plain weave.

Experimenting with New Techniques and Materials

The June meeting was a little sparse of attendees, but not of things to be shared. 

 

 

Sue Robertson showed us the results of her class work at CNCH 2013 at Squaw Valley.  She took Marilyn Romatka’s Viking Knitting class and created a beautiful necklace.  This technique is also called “Viking Chain Knitting” or “Viking Weaving” but isn’t really knitting.

    

She also took Wendy Patrucco’s Cyanotype Printing class and created two different printed pieces of fabric and a printed canvas bag.

  

The third class was Knotted Button Covers with Mushroom Dyed Silk taught by Gayle Still.  Her button was about half finished. 

 

 

Marcy showed us a table runner she wove as a challenge to use linen.  The warp was 8/2 white cotton and the weft the blue linen shown in the picture.  The design is an M’s & O’s pattern on 4 shafts.

 

 

 

She used a blue floating selvedge that created a very neat edge for the piece. 

 

Betsy is working on a five-piece collection of wall hangings/shawls that represent the four elements and the moon.  She has been working on the water element.  She showed us a shawl woven with tencel in an 8-shaft shadow weave pattern.  There are different color blue warp stripes with silver and blue as weft.

Here is some detail of the shawl.  It is very reminiscent of water. 

Betsy also showed us a sample where she played around with a black weft that was woven in treadle order.  It is really quite striking.

Betsy has started working on ideas for the earth piece.  She brought a sample of what the structure of the piece will look like.  This one was woven with 5/2 cotton.

Finally, Ingrid showed two lap robes woven with local llama yarn.  These were done in 3/1; 1/3 twill stripes. 

She also showed us her latest sock yarn scarf - merino wool and nylon yarn.

 

Eye Candy for Weavers

Marcy Elliott's Huck Lace Towel

May's meeting has come and gone and since I have been busy with CNCH, I didn't get to the blog post to share May's wonderful woven treasures. Better late than never!

The photo above is one of Marcy's explorations into the world of huck lace.  Color and texture, you just can't beat this combination.  The towels are so open in weave structure, that I'm sure they will make excellent drying towels.



Dee Jones' Painted Warp Vest

I spent some time in early May, photographing some of the many garments that Dee Jones wove and sewed over the past 10 to 15 years.  This is one of my favorites (although there are many favorites).  I thought that the color is perfect for summer wearing.  This one is a painted warp, set off with buttons that echo the color of the woven cloth.

 

 

This is Sue Robertson's quilt selvedge cloth.  Sue is a quilter and has lots of quilting friends.  They were more than happy to give her the selvedges they cut from fabric for her weaving project.    She made a vest back with this yardage and wore it in the Fashion Parade at CNCH just a week ago.  Hopefully, we will get a photo of the finished vest for everyone to see.

 

 

And this is Sharon Campbell's handspun art yarn.  She was looking for suggestions on how to use it as part of a weaving project.  Lovely colors!

 



We All Have to Start Somewhere - Part III

In our continuing series, here are the first projects from two other weavers. 

Marcy hasn't been weaving very long and her current pieces are excellent.  Here are a couple of pieces that she wove early on.

Marcy's first blanket

Marcy's first sampler

 

 

Ingrid has been weaving for over 20 years.  She got her start in a studio in Michigan with a very talented teacher and lots of supportive weavers.  The first thing she wove was a classic sampler, trying to figure out how to actually weave and then to be able to follow a draft.

Ingrid's 1st sampler

At an early dye class, she learned how to tie up warp for ikat dying.  The colors were pretty wild, but a couple of pieces came out of that class.

Early dye class

Early dye class

She also attempted making fabric from rags - California Rag technique, developed by Trudie Roberts.  From that she made a jacket.



California rag jacket

 

We All Have to Start Somewhere - Part II

Here is Part 2 of our series highlighting how our very talented weavers got started.  Beryl & Igor learned to weave at the City College of San Francisco several years ago. 

Here are two examples of Beryl's early towels. You can definitely see her interest in complicated weave structures started early in her weaving experience when looking at the towel on the right.

A towel is a nice easy first project.






Igor shared two pieces with the group. The first is a sampler. He tried lots of different techniques and structures with this piece.  This was fairly long - the pictures highlight different parts of the sampler.  Even though many new weavers want to have their first piece be a finished item, weaving a sampler allows the student to have the freedom to experiment with structures, color and texture.



 His second piece is a scarf.  

                                Stay tuned for another installment of our early pieces.


 

Two Blue Scarves

One of the challenges the Not 2 Square Weavers gave themselves for this year, was to experiment with chenille.  Almost (if not all) of us have this yarn in abundance and we know we need to get over our fears about worming and start weaving with it. 

Diana Abrell brought this scarf to our latest meeting.  She used a 10/2 cotton warp, with supplemental warp threads in wool and rayon (the pink threads) sett at 20epi.  The variegated chenille in blues, was in a skein which had to be wound into balls.  The structure is plain weave, with floats every few picks for the supplemental warp.  No worming!

Now for Dee Jones' story about her scarf.  Jackie brought lots of embroidery floss as a give away to our group.  Dee used some of her skeins of blue in the weft of this scarf.  Here is what Dee says about this scarf:  "The embroidery floss was used as every other weft. Alternate weft was ringspun rayon, same as the warp. 16 skeins were used for a scarf 6 1/2" x 64". (7" in the reed, by probably about 70" measured on the loom."

Here is the draft from Anne Dixon's Handweaver's Pattern Directory, it is on page 76, the first pattern

We All Have to Start Somewhere: Part I

Everyone who has a hobby, craft or pursues some kind of artistic activity starts somewhere.  There may be 2 year old weaving prodigies, but most people begin with few skills.  Recently the Not 2 Squares shared their weaving beginnings.  Here's a glimpse at a few of the first efforts of our members:

One of Dee's first projects was a red bag.   Here is an example of some later work - a beautiful vest.  There's lovely sewing and detail.  Also a recently woven scarf.

Diana's first sampler, with a detailed look.

One of her first projects was a checkered towel.








One of Gus' first projects was fairly ambitious overshot fabric to be used to cover dining room chairs.  The upholstery lasted many years before being replaced with newly woven fabric. 

 

 

 There will be more examples in future posts.

 

 

 

 

Fabric wefts for Luxurious Clothing

At the March meeting, there were several projects that had been woven using fabric strips for the weft.  The photo above shows details in a jacket woven and sewn by Sue Habegger.  She used a rayon challis fabric and cut the strips on the bias to keep them from fraying during the weaving and finishing process.  The resulting jacket is almost like chenille cloth and very elegant.  The photo below is her sketch for the jacket and a samples of original yardage, handwoven twill for the front opening and the cloth for the body of the jacket.   I believe she used a pick  or two of fine yarn between the shots of fabric weft to make the cloth more supple.

 

 

 

Dee Jones brought out a couple of garments she had woven and sewn using fabric wefts.  The first is a vest woven with silk strips.  Dee folded the fabric strips in half as she wove, but  didn't tuck in the ends of the fabric wefts and let them peek out of the finished cloth.   This is a project from several years ago and Dee didn't remember the details about how it was woven, but it looked as though there might be finer thread picks between the fabric shots in this cloth as well. 

 

 

The final jacket (below) was also woven by Dee.  She says it has been worn a lot since she made it, yet is looks like new.  This definitely has fine thread picks between the fabric shots.  Look at the lovely purple lining and elegant buttons!