Nevada County Fair

Not all of the Not 2 Square weavers put their handwovens in the fair - but many do. Thought everyone would love to see a glimpse of what was there and some of the nice awards people won.

Nevada County Inspiration Challenge

The Fair has come and is almost gone.  Eleven items were entered in the Nevada County Inspiration Division - most from members of the Not 2 Square group.  It was interesting to see how the entrants got their inspiration. 

Most people found a picture that captured some aspect of the County - usually a specific scene.  Others were inspired to use local plants to add color to their finished pieces. It was very impressive.  I hope that there will be more entries next year.

Here are the entries from our group.



Beryl's Shawl

The photos don't do justice to these pieces, but you can get an idea of how great they look.

Marcy's Towel

Gus' Towel

Dee's Scarves



Igor's Towel

Sharon's Towel

Ingrid's Towel





His and Her Weaving

Beryl and Igor hosted the August meeting of the Not 2 Squares a their home.  We met in the well-lit center of their house surrounded by their weaving equipment and projects.  They each have their own loom/work area on the main level.  There is a lot of light in this area - and a great view.

Igor's Loom

Beryl's loom warped with a shawl

Work/planning table

    

The couple are both accomplished inkle loom weavers. 

 On another level, Beryl has her AVL loom.  This is a dobby/computer controlled loom with 24 shafts.  This is where Beryl create many of her lovely and unique shawls and yardage. 

 This is also the stash room.  It looks like it would be a good place to shop for yarn...  Hmmmm

A Day at the Craft Fair

This past weekend, Beryl and Ingrid shared a both at the Nevada City Craft Fair. It was held in an old Foundry - hence the stone walls. There was a fair amount of natural light and the booth had it's own mirror.


The booth with the built-in mirror

There were about 40 different vendors, many with retro clothing.  There were crystals, jewelry, pottery and other interesting things too.


Beryl spinning on a drop spindle

The vendor next door sold children's clothing.  Ingrid's baby blankets made a nice back-drop.

A look at Beryl's shawls and scarves.  

A Bunch of Warped Weavers

Beryl, Diana and Dee examining the montly show and tell

A gaggle of geese - an exaltation of larks - a covey of quail.  I wonder what a flock of weavers might be called?  A warp of weavers? 

Our group loves to weave and we love looking at what others in our group are weaving.   This is why the non-study group idea seems to work for us.  There are no assignments to weave a certain structure, although we usually pick a topic or challenge for the year.   Our challenges come within ourselves as we talk about weaving and discuss what works and doesn't work for us.  We bring our failures and our successes and talk about both.

At our last meeting we discussed the problems of weaving with chenille.  Is there a way to get it on the bobbin or pirn without twisting?  Selvedge problems.  Do you sley your selvedge threads more closely or loosely than your warp?  Does the end-feed shuttle help get good selvedges?  Are these yarns cottolin?  Look at what happened when I used the bright yellow on this warp!  And the question
always on our lips - what sett did you use?

All the time during the examining of show and tell textiles, each weaver is thinking about how they might interpret this draft or where they might take the color scheme.  Maybe I can use up that shrieking yellow in my stash if I tone it down with subdued warp colors.  I'm going to try  chenille again and this time I'm going to sett it a whole lot closer.  Using calendar pictures as a color scheme is a great idea - I think I'll try it for a future warp.  This simple structure makes a fantastic looking shawl - maybe I've give the simple approach a try.

The Not 2 Square weavers invite all of our readers to start or join a weaving group.  See where it takes you personally in your weaving.  And most of all, see  if it doesn't expand your weaving in new and exciting ways.

Betsy's Weaving Area

The June meeting was hosted at Betsy's home in the woods. A very nice and cosy place. So too is her weaving space. There is lots of light.

 Betsy makes colorful shawls and other items.  I ran into her at the Farmer's Market on Saturday and got a preview of a newly woven shawl.  Very nice.  I hope she'll be at the July meeting to show it off.

Nevada County Inspiration

Fair time has arrived, or nearly so, in Nevada County.  This year the Not 2 Square Weavers decided that our weaving challenge for the year would be to weave something inspired by Nevada County (where most of us live).  We thought it such a good idea that we contacted the fair to see if we could sponsor a contest for fiber artisans.  They agreed and we collected money for a cash award ($50 from Not 2 Square Weavers & Banner Mountain Textiles) for the piece  the fair judge deems the best.

Here are the rules from the booklet. Division 1108  Use some aspect of Nevada County as an inspiration for a finished piece. This should be either woven from handspun or commercial yarn or hand knit using handspun yarn.  You could use a photo, calendar page, color of leaves or flowers in your back yard or neighborhood, some historical reference, etc.  Please accompany your entry with a photo or written description of the inspiration for your piece.

The contest is open to everyone, even if you aren't a resident of Nevada County, CA.   I have taken lots of photos in Nevada County over the past few years.  Here is my flickr site and anyone wanting to use one of my photos for inspiration may do so as long as they give me credit for the photo.

We are hoping that lots weavers and spinning knitters will participate and there will certainly be a blog post with photos of the entries after they have been judged and the fair opens on August 8th.

Marcy's Weaving Space

Last month we met at Marcy's. Great sharing and delicious cookies. 

    

 

Marcy is lucky enough to have a room dedicated to her weaving.  She's got a nice floor loom and accessories.   Although I think she needs more yarn in her stash.

   Marcy shared two pieces she wove as dresser scarves for her husband.  The patterns she used for the herringbone runner (second one shown below) are on pages 34 & 35 of Anne Dixon's book, The Handweaver's Pattern Directory . Horizontal herringbone, Broken 2/2 twill and Hopsack.

   

Bead Leno

Ingrid recently wove this cotton shawl using a technique called "Bead Leno".  See her blog post for additional details on the actual process.  The shawl was woven for a group that donates prayer shawls to those who need comfort in their lives.  Ingrid felt that the cotton fiber and the open weave from the leno twists would make it suitable for summer time wearing.  And, what a beautiful color.  I know the recipient will love this.

Catching up

I've got some special pictures in my meeting folders that need sharing. So this post is a little gallery of recent projects from the Not 2 Square weavers

Here is Betsy's shadow weave shawl; she made two and traded a loom for one of them!  The directions are in Handwoven, Issue 158.  I believe that Betsy used bamboo for her shawls and added a border that wasn't in the original directions.  The one she brought to the meeting was gorgeous.

And - another striking scarf from Betsy's loom.  This has a couple of shots of novelty knitting yarn every so often.  What a good idea!

Here is a pairing of tick-tack-tow placemats and napkins from Diana's loom.  The placemats are double weave pick up from Jean Scorgie's  Weaver's Craft #21.  Diana and I were totally baffled by the instructions for the pick up, but finally e-mailed Jean to get an explanation.  Once explained , Diana finished weaving the four mats and then designed a huck lace pick up design for the napkins. 

Ingrid is working her way through the twelve months of a colorful calender, using the colors for each month for a series of towels.  These are April towels and sitting next to them is a pine needle basket that Gus is working on.  She is just zooming along with baskets these days and they are looking really nice.

To end up our gallery showing we have an homage - or could it be un hommage?  Dee bought one of Ingrid's towels (the middle piece) and was so taken with the color combination that she wove a scarf (on the far right) and a shawl (on the left) using the same color combination.  Dee refers to her inspiration as an homage to Ingrid's original piece.  Dee was correct in thinking that color combination was worth repeating, don't you think?

Cornucopia of Weaving Ideas



Diana presented this lovely diamond patterned scarf at the May meeting.  I'm going out on a limb here, but I think she said that it was a silk warp.  At any rate, she used 8/2 variegated yarn, and 3/2 purples, greens and blues in the warp and used a lavender weft.  It isn't obvious in the photo, but this pattern gave an embossed appearance to the textile which is very eye catching.  Should you want to weave your own, Diana found the draft in A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, page 115, pattern 420.  It's called an 8 block, point repeat twill.



Gus was inspired by the lace workshop she recently took from Suzie Liles.  She put on a 6 yard warp and used a pleasing neutral 3/2 perle cotton for these place mats.  These mats were designed by Suzie  Lyles.  Gus sett her project at 12 epi.

Here is an idea from Dee.  In her stash she had some sari silk waste yarn.  It is sometimes hard to use in a weaving project because it can make the fabric very heavy and almost impossible to use in the warp because of the fuzzy nature of the yarn.  Dee's solution is inspired and can also be used when you have a fancy yarn and only want it to show on one surface of the cloth.   Here is the recipe. Take a four shaft loom and thread in  a straight draw ( 1-2-3-4).  Weave two shots of tabby with yarn similar in weight to the warp yarns.  Then raise shaft 2 and throw a shot of sari silk, two more shots of tabby with your finer yarn and finish up the sequence by raising shaft 4 and another shot of sari silk.  All of your fancy yarn (in this case sari silk)  lies on the surface of the cloth.  Dee sett her piece at 12 epi and plans to use the fabric for a handbag.

I'll save more ideas for another post.  We have two weavers doing bead leno and another contemplating a double width lap robe to talk about.  Plus there are lots more pictures in my Not 2 Square photo folder that need to be shared with the weaving world.

Ingrid's Studio

The group met at my house last month and I've been remiss in posting pictures of my studio.  This is probably do the fact that it was a bit of a mess.  It's not a whole lot better, but much more presentable.  I have enough room for a couple of looms, plus a stationary bike and weigh machine.  Overall a great place to create.

My favorite loom - Cranbrook countermarch

I am lucky enough to have a dedicated studio in my home. 

AVL Studio loom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are lots of windows and overhead lighting. 



10/2 cotton ready for current towel projects.  It's like a set of paints.



I share the space with my husband, Warren who is a watercolor painter.  I solved the perennial problem of where to put the warping board.  When I can, I use his easel. 

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Can you believe that this is a rag rug?  Jackie Hervey is a German Shepherd owner and lover of the breed.  Her current shepherd is called Cooper and he did the modeling for the cartoon.  Jackie posed him lying down as he might do on a rug.  She then photographed the posed dog, put a grid over the photo and made a cartoon, elongating the dog silhouette so that when the rug was finished she hoped it would be an accurate replica of how Cooper looked in the photo.  In the next photo, Jackie is holding the cartoon and the stripe plan for the rug.



Jackie used old sheets and some of her fabric stash for the main body of the rug.  She also bought some cotton seine twine in black for the warp.  The black  made it possible for the German Shepherd silhouette to remain a solid black and also toned down the other fabric wefts.  The technique used is a brocade weft and was  a very time consuming process.  All the time Jackie was weaving the rug she wondered if the proportions would be accurate once off the loom.  And, once off the loom the dog was still elongated and the ball not quite round.  After several days - everything slipped into place and  turned out as intended.   Yes, Cooper will be allowed to sleep on this special rug made just for the kitchen.

The reverse of the rug showing a shadow dog

rug detail

Since we are talking German Shepherds and weaving, Jackie completed a table runner as an auction piece to benefit German Shepherd Rescue of Northern California. She used a Theo Moorman technique and came up with a piece that reflected their logo photo.

Linen and Lace Details

It is somewhat hard to photograph lace weaves, especially in situ and in florescent light. But here are a few examples of what we're weaving.

8-shaft huck diamonds

Bead Leno

Handm Manipulated Laces

Alphabet Bronson Lace

4 Shaft Bronson Lace

Basket weave with tabby border