September Meeting Part II - Towels

Here's more from our meeting last month.  Jackie decided to weave some towels since she hasn't woven any in a while.  She used 10/2 cotton sett at 24 epi to create a ton of towels using a classic two block twill from Carol Strickler's 8-shaft book.

She was able to get a broad variation in these towels by using different weft colors and varying the vertical size of the blocks. 
 

 

Jackie also shared a scarf she wove with cotton, silk and rayon yarns with random colors across the warp.  It was woven in plain weave. 

Wendy-Marie shared her 4-shaft herringbone towels.  These were woven mostly with 8/2 cotton and cottolin. 

These are in beautiful colors and each towel looks really different.  Here's some detailed pictures:

All of these towels would be a great addition to anyone's home.  Nice work!

September Meeting - Part I

We had an interesting meeting in September.  Unfortunately our usual photographer/reporter wasn't there, so it falls to me (Ingrid).  Because life always gets in the way, this is a bit late and will be drawn out over several blog posts. 

Diana shared nine different squares of fabric she wove in preparation for doing a collaborative project with a quilting friend for the Holiday Cheer lap robe project for December.  She was inspired by an article in the January/February 2004 issue of Handwoven magazine.  These squares are all woven in Spot Bronson.  She used 10/2 cotton sett at 24 epi for the warp.  She used 3/2, 5/2 cotton and sewing thread for the weft.  The fabric was woven upside down to ease the treadling.  Below are all of the nine different patterns.  Although the treadling is different for each, Diana only used two tie ups for all nine designs.

Sue H has been working to make curtains for her home.  In an effort to use up existing materials and not have to buy new yarn, she found some fabric she wove several years ago.  She did weave 8 yards of the cotton trim fabric - used to create the loops for the rod - with what she called a pico edge. 

 

More from our talented members soon...

Dee Jones and Her Bounty of Fair Entries

There is nothing quite as nice as a collaboration between two textile artisans.  The lovely prize winning scarf with yarn spun by Sue Flynn and woven by Dee Jones is draped around a special jacket woven and sewn by Dee Jones.

Dee wove this shawl with April and Forsythia in mind for the Nevada County Inspired category.  She knitted a special loopy trim to finish off her asymmetrical garment.

Dee spun textured purple yarn for these two inspired scarves.  The left photo is a knitted lace and the second photo shows the yarn used as weft in a twill design.

Dee always makes the best bags and this year she really got inspired with her long handled tote shown on the left and upper right (with a blue ribbon).  The story is that she wove what is now the handle of the bag as a scarf.  Finding the fabric too stiff to use as she originally intended, she turned it into the long, over the shoulder strap for her tote and finished up with a row of beads!  The bottom purse has lovely details of beads and a special button closure.

Then, there are all the rest of Dee's entries - most of which received blue ribbons.  Clockwise from the upper left is a supplementary warp design that Dee loves to make in all varieties.  Her twill towel is woven with 50% linen and won the blue in the bast fiber category.  The shawl is elegant and warm - another blue ribbon winner.  And finally on the right corner is some bright red yardage that Dee wove with a top in mind.  Now she is thinking maybe another shawl -- we shall see what kind of magic touches she will add!

Nevada County Inspired ... and more!

 For the past few years, Not 2 Square Weavers have been giving a cash prize for the best "Nevada County Inspired" textile.  This year's winner is Ingrid Knox with this gorgeous shawl woven from Nevada County alpaca yarns.  Some of the yarn came from a ranch Ingrid and her husband found while  out "garage sale-ing" and the light colored yarn came from Lola's Loom (BJ Forester's alpaca herd)  The design is threaded M&W's and the tie up is a twill. 

Now for the rest of Ingrid's entries.  (She was pretty busy this year)
Scarves - sock yarn for warp and weft, woven in plain weave



 

Handspun scarf - Mardi Nayton's handspun Merino yarn for warp and alpaca for the weft. 8-shaft point twill with a 2-2-1-1-1-1 tie-up

Left photo:  Baby blanket - mixed cotton warp woven with synthetic baby yarn in the same twill 2-2-1-1-1-1 as is done in the SF towel.
Right photo:  Summer Shawl - Mixed warp and a slubby cotton weft (Cotton Kisses from Plymouth). Structure is plain weave. 


 

Left photo: Rosepath towel - 10/2 natural cotton warp and a 10/2 variegated cotton weft. 8-shaft rosepath design

Right photo: San Francisco Towel - 10/2 perle cotton for warp and weft. 8-shaft point twill  tied-up as a 2-2-1-1-1-1

 

Stay tuned for our last fair post -- coming in a few days!







Transforming One Warp into Several Fair Entries

Sue R entered several items in the "Wool, Fibers and Textiles" Division of the County Fair - a bag, table runner and "recycled textile".  They were made from a long (8 yard) warp she wove using selvedges she got from other quilters. 

 

The Eight Yard Textile

 

The weft for the recycled textile was the instructions found at the edges of fabric for a cloth book.  Other quilters wanted the parts of the fabric with the pictures, leaving the printed words.  Sue used them to weave this cloth. 

 

Sue's Recycled Textile

 

 

The table runner used a bright red cloth with black and white accents as weft.

 

  

Sue's Table Runner

 

 

 

Sue sewed this bag using part of the long warp.  To her, it was reminiscent of the ocean.  This bag was lined and finished with a strap.  A nice second place finisher. 

 

Sue's Bag

 

More from the County Fair

Here's more of the County Fair entries.  This post features three of our members and their entries.

Mardi wove a marvelous men's scarf with some special Alpaca yarns she recently purchased. The warp is painted and the weft is a neutral. Because the scarf is slightly weft faced, the painted warp creates a very subtle design - best viewed from a little distance.

Mardi's Men's Scarf
 

Mardi's Huck Placemat

Mardi also wove a set of placemats using 3/2 cotton yarn.  They have huck lace in the center and plain weave around the edges.  This piece won Mardi a second place ribbon.

Sue H wove yardage and sewed a top that she entered this year. Top is made from a cotton warp with a textured yarn for weft.  It's basically a huilipile or traditional garment of South America.  It is just two strips of cloth with a center front and back seam and a slit for the neck.  Sue used graduated width stripes that got further and further apart. There are planned selvage stripes that become decorative when the seam allowance is turned to the outside.  A nice first place entry!

Sue's Top

 

Sharon's Scarf

 

 

Sharon entered a scarf and a towel this year.  The warp in the scarf is hand spun yarn.  She dyed several different colors of blue-faced leicester and then blended them together on her Patrick Greene drum carder with silk noil, white Cormo and alpaca, and Tussah silk.  She spun the fiber unevenly and then plied the single with "natural" 16/2 bamboo.  The weft is 8/2 green Tencel.

 

  

The red towel is Turned Taquete with 8/2 cotton, for warp and weft, sett at 20 epi.  There's a discussion about this draft right now on 4 shaft weaving page on Facebook.

 



Sharon's Towel

 

More County Fair Entries

It's September already but there is a lot more to share from the County Fair. Two more members entered woven items in this year's "Wool, Fibers & Textiles" Division. 

This year, Wendy-Marie entered a table runner and a jacket.

Wendy-Marie's Thanksgiving Table Runner was created for a family with a very long table.  The warp is mainly 8/2 organic cottolin (3360 ypp) and the weft is 8/2 Tencel - color "Fire". The structure is twill.

Thanksgiving Table Runner

The twill design was based on Jean Sparkes’ table runner in Handwoven, Nov/Dec 2013.  Wendy's variations included substituting 8/2 and 10/2 cotton (not cotton linen) for the warp stripes and instead of hemming, she hemstitched the ends and left a short fringe of about 1 inch. 

The cotton-linen warp provides strength, the two block twill gives the design stability and repetition, while the variegated tencel weft provides drape, shimmer, and variation.

Wendy-Marie's Peacock Jacket was woven using a rayon chenille warp in "Ocean Combo" and turquoise and a 10/2 perle cotton weft.  The weft inserts were also rayon chenille.  The fabric was woven in plain weave.

Peacock Jacket

 

This piece is based on Judith Shangold’s "Splash! Jacket" described in Handwoven, Sept/Oct 2010. 

 

Her variations are as follows: The jacket length is determined by the width of the warp. Conversely, the jacket width is determined by the length of the warp. To resize this pattern for a friend, she increased the length, using (2.5” plain weave-4” insert weave) instead of the pattern’s (2”-/-3”) version.

One pick of the chenille insert weft was compensated for by eye, approximately 2 cotton picks for 1 chenille pick.  The chenille cloth was too thick for the rolled seams suggested by the pattern. Instead, she used regular seams stabilized with twill tape. There was some fraying at the neckline which was corrected with a double floating selvedge, and post weaving buttonhole stitch.

 

Marcy entered two items as well - a towel and baby blanket.  The blanket is woven in plain weave with a slubby yarn from Henry's Attic.  It is a blue version of a pink one she wove for a new addition to her family at the beginning of this year.  This lovely blue version garnered a second place in the Baby category.

  

 

Marcy's Towel - detail

Marcy also entered one towel of a set she wove as an exploration of plaids.  She entered the towel that was woven as a plaid but others in the set were woven with occasional weft stripes or as just warp stripes. The yarn was 8/2 cotton woven in a twill design.

Marcy's Towels - The Set

 

Not 2 Square Weavers at the County Fair

If it's August in Nevada County, it must be time for the County Fair. Several of our members entered woven items in this year's "Wool, Fibers & Textiles". Over the next several posts we'll share the entries.

 

Betsy wove a rug using from remnants of gloves in bright colors from the Solmate Sock Company. It is 80% cotton and 20% nylon. 

 

 

She also wove a table runner in blue and black tencel.  It’s an undulating twill with an unusual treadling pattern.  The pillow cover is woven using an 8-shaft shadow weave pattern with variegated rayon weft and tencel warp twill. 



Table runner




Pillow

 

Diana entered a placemat and coordinating napkins. Both the placemat and napkins were weft faced using cotton yarns.

placemat

napkins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She entered two scarves that were woven from hand dyed yarn.  The first used a painted warp and included a ribbon in the warp for a little extra pizzazz.  



scarf 1

 

scarf 2

The second scarf used a dyed cotton warp that didn't come out quite as Diane expected but the resulting scarf was very nice.  The fancy fringe complements the plain-weave structure.

 

 

Diana also received a First Prize for a hand towel woven in an extended manifold twill from a William Bateman manuscript.
                                             

 

Towel

The Intriguing World of False Damask

In the weaving world, false damask is just a four thread broken twill.  At a recent Not 2 Square meeting, Jackie brought in two lap robes for Holiday Cheer gifts, both woven in false damask or more correctly labeled "turned broken twill blocks".  What our group found most amazing was the optical illusion created by placing darker lines at the block changes.  We started digging deeper into this illusion technique and found a couple of sources that take a slightly different approach to the structure.

Margie and Sue holding up the lap robes woven by Jackie

This is the draft that Jackie followed for her two lap robes with the exception that Jackie used large blocks and wider black outlining.

This is a draft found in a Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns draft #246 on pg. 60





You can see that they are very similar, but the second draft uses only six threads in the outline stripes (black) and the outline isn't threaded on  all four shafts of the block.

There are two other examples of the color and weave version of this block weave.  Check out Jackie's towel and Dee's towel from previous posts. 

There is a lot of variation that could be used with this block structure.  Think about changing the squares to rectangles; make the rectangles unequal in size and play with the color in the outline stripes.