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.  

It's either not enough shafts or not enough treadles!

At the February meeting, one of our new members (Wendy-Marie) brought a recent copy of  Handwoven  with a two block twill draft.  She wanted to weave yardage for a Happy Coat with the body of the coat in the two block twill and have the border be plain weave without adding a separate piece of material.  Wendy-Marie's loom has 8 shafts and we assume 10 treadles.  Ingrid and I eagerly pointed out that she could use three thread twill blocks and have the plain weave border.  We went home to our respective weave programs and tried to come up with a draft for Wendy.  We forgot one important piece of the puzzle.  Treadling for two three thread twill blocks will be three picks long for each block and plain weave is two picks long. 

 

Here is Ingrid's solution.  The treadling is easy, but the border isn't plain weave except when you change from one twill block to the next.  It will work with a floating selvedge, though and it is a border treatment.

 

 

Beryl's solution.  Treadle plain weave along with the twill blocks (depressing two treadles at once).  Three picks against two is probably not going to be all that easy to remember.  If Wendy had 12 treadles, it would be a straight treadling sequence.

 

I put this problem into Tim's Treadle Reducer, but the solution also used two treadles at once and the treadling sequence was a nightmare.

 





This is the clean version for 12 treadles. 

Dear readers - do you have a better idea?   Let us know and we will post your ideas and give you credit for them!

2013 - A Year of Weaving Explorations

     

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Lap Robes for Holiday Cheer

 

It's Holiday Cheer time again in Nevada County.  Each year the visiting nurses in this county collect Christmas gifts for their homebound patients.  For the past few years, the Not 2 Square weavers have been putting together lap robes to help warm the heart and the body!   This year there were a total of 10 lap robes, several knit hats and a knit scarf in our donation bag.  What follows are photos of some of the lap robes donated this year.

 

Dee Jones wove the striped material in both of these quilted covers.  She artfully combined a variety of commercial fabrics with her own hand woven to make generous sized lap robes.  There will be a couple of very happy folks when the nurses deliver these.

Diana Abrell wove the overshot top of this lovely blanket.  It is lined with a striped material and bound with satin binding.  Diana then secured the quilt with ties.

Igor Raven wove this lap robe double width on his Baby Wolf loom.  The binding was woven by Beryl Moody to match the throw.

Ingrid Knox donated three lap robes this year.  Pictured  are two of them.  Ingrid used a variety of yarns in beautifully designed stripe combinations.  All of her lap robes are easy care and will keep their recipients warm and cozy this holiday season.

Jackie Hervey wove this two block 3/1 twill throw from a variety of rayon yarns in her stash.  It is a nice weight and lays very comfortably over lap and knees.  Don't you love the color contrast between the two sides?

Members of the Not 2 Square group often donate items to older teenagers in foster care as well as this Holiday Cheer project.  We find it is a great way to work down the stash, try out new ideas and techniques and give back to the community.

Another First Project

I realized that I forgot to include one of our member's first project in the previous posts.  Sue Habegger shared her first sampler.  It is a twill sampler.  She used different twill patterns (and colors) across the piece.  The sampler was woven using the different twill patterns and different colors.

 

Sue's Sampler

Sampler details

 

This kind of sampler is a great way to see how different twills look when they are threaded one way and woven with a different twill.  It can also be used to look at different color interlacements.

 

 

 

 

 

A Very Special Baby Blanket

Jackie needed to weave a special blanket for a member of her family who was having her first baby.  Since the couple wanted the sex of their baby to be a surprise, the mother was requesting pastel colored items that would suit either sex. 

 

In my stash, I had a five pound cone of heavy, white cotton chenille, won as a door prize at CNCH 2007.   I offered it to Jackie to use as much as she needed for a couple of baby blankets.

 

Jackie dyed some of the chenille yellow and used a pale yellow cotton warp. 

Jackie found a blanket she wanted to use in Favorite Scandinavian Projects to Weave by Tina Ignell.  On page 94 is a Heart Blanket with Weft Loop Patterning.  Then she looked online and located a giraffe photo which she converted to a graph to make her loop pick up design, rather than the heart shown in the project. She alternated the white and yellow chenille when weaving the blanket - I believe that the border loops were yellow and the giraffe was white. Sadly for the weaving group, the baby shower had passed and all Jackie had to show was a photo of her blanket and a couple of small samples.

 

Because the book mentioned above is very expensive now, I tried to find another resource for the weft loop patterning technique.  I couldn't find anything, but if readers of this blog know of one I hope they will share it. Here is a tip; Jackie said that the weft loop patterning had to be done in short lengths at a time because wrapping over a long dowel made it next to impossible to pull out the dowel to leave the loops.  I believe she used a series of shorter dowels to make the process manageable.

 

 

Plaza Jacket, Ikat Top and Rag Rugs at our September meeting.

At Not 2 Square meetings, Dee is often the one who has a new garment to display.  Here we have her version of the  "Plaza Jacket" and Sue Robertson is the perfect model to show off its lines. We decided that this particular jacket shape is called a huipil, but the Sewing Workshop pattern has more width to it than the traditional blouse tops by that name.

Sue Habegger has made a top from  ikat yardage she had woven some time ago.  She experimented with the ikat dyeing technique while in collage using Lydia Van Gelder's book as a reference.  Notice how expertly she has placed the ikat stripes on both the front and the yolk of the top.






Jackie Hervey's ingenuity amazes us all.  She used alternating reds and greens in her rug warp.  Then she alternated picks of fabric with a pick of fine cotton.  This made all the green warps prominent on one side of the rug and the red warps on the other side. The pictures show the green side on the left and the red side on the right, in case your monitor didn't detect the difference!

 

There is more to come from September's meeting.  Stay tuned for another post soon.