August Meeting Part 3

Resuming where we left off in the August show and tell, is Dee's bag on the left woven with sari silk yarn. She knitted a closure and lined the bag with bright red material from an antique kimono. On the right is a bag entered by Sue H. which matches the vest later on in the post. Sue's bag is made of felted handwoven wools.


A blue ribbon winner if there ever was one, Dee's unlined wool jacket is trimmed with a crochet edging.


Dee found the perfect use for some novelty chenille like yarn. She used it in every other weft pick for this stunning shawl woven with wool and silk. Also note that she left the red warp threads loose and twisted the navy ends for something out of the ordinary. Rachel, from Shawls Unlimited, named this one Azadi

Here is another blue ribbon winner by Dee that was only on the Shawls Unlimited site for a few days before it disappeared! No wonder -- lovely wool spiced up with novelty ribbon yarns and a generous size made it easy to sell.

Here we have Sue H's vest that goes with the purse pictured earlier in the post. Sue fulled the fabric for this vest a bit more than she had intended and couldn't think of what to make from the yardage. But, she came up with this terrific looking vest. The binding is knitted with the same yarns used in the handwoven fabric, but naturally not fulled. Look for details in the construction of this vest in future post.

These eye catching towels were woven by Sue H. all on the same warp. This vibrant collection would make any kitchen come alive.

Back (left) and front (right) of Sue H's prize winning top. Each of the details in this top are repeated in another location, tying the whole together into a fabulous piece. The sleeve decoration which can just be seen in the right photo, has the same weft striping as the center panel. On the back, you see triangular detailing, which is repeated in the gusset under the arms.

Needless to say, the judge at the fair was very impressed with this garment.

Sue is a master of detailed finishing. This towel features a loop at each side of the center of the towel, which was woven as a weft thread. This handy loop makes it possible to hang the towel from a hook.

I still have a few more photos that really need to be shown. Look for part 4 in a few days.

August Meeting Part 2

Carol's towels are both woven with a variegated slub yarn. Notice the amazing plaid created when the yarn crosses itself. The towel on the left has a lot of texture and is a waffle weave structure and the towel on the right is plain weave. However, because of the thick and thin nature of the yarn it also has a lot of texture.

Carol's beautiful huck scarf won a first prize. This was woven with Carol's two ply handspun yarn in angora and Merino. She used two different sources for the yarn, so there is a slight color variation and she alternated colors in both warp and weft to give a uniform appearance to the scarf.

It was hard to capture the colorful beauty of Carol's multi-color shawl. But I was so surprised when I held it up to the light in the picture below and found this glorious pattern that isn't so easily seen without the light going through it. The structure is again, huck lace, but it so different from the scarf in appearance. The warp is a rayon blend and the weft also rayon.

Carol used space dyed yarns for this wool plaid blanket. The weave structure is plain weave and the variation in the color of the yarn again gives great depth to the finished blanket.

Gus wove this rug after a workshop with Jason Collingwood a year ago. It now resides in her kitchen -- and what a beauty it is. The warp is linen and the weft is wool. Look for details of this rug in a future blog about finishing touches.

Gus wove this colorful red, black and white lap robe for an antique car that she and her husband restored. Gus used an 8 shaft advancing twill from a draft by Bonnie Inouye. I'm going to try to get pictures of the lap robe and the car together for a future blog post.

Dog Days of August

Well, have you ever seen a cuter dog than Carl? Carl was the greatest greeter ever at Gus' home for our August meeting. He made each person feel totally welcome and everyone got an invitation to throw the ball for him.



Our group had such a lot of show and tell after the Nevada County Fair, that I'm dividing our meeting post into at least three separate posts so that readers will be sure to get all the glorious details from a fantastic meeting.



Diana brought this towel that she entered at the fair. She wanted to combine two different weave structures -- in this case huck and plain weave into one piece. Her colors are fabulous and we all agree this would be a perfect drying towel because of the open structure of the huck. Her one problem was that the plain weave didn't draw in as much as the huck leaving the selvedge with a slight bulge in the plain weave areas. We finally decided that there wasn't much she could have done about it except perhaps to use a finer thread in the plain weave sections. If anyone has ideas for Diana, please post them here.





Ingrid brought a sample for the napkins she is weaving on her new 24 shaft loom. The sample is 16 shafts on a point threading. She used a sett of 32 epi, but says she is beating at 40 ppi. We all thought that the sample looked great and didn't think that the sett needed adjusting. The napkins will be so fine and delicate. I think the cloth would make a fabulous christening gown and someone suggested wedding gown fabric.



Jackie brought two new shawls that she will be selling at Shawls Unlimited. The shawl in the photo above has a ring spun rayon warp. Jackie combined several different colors and weights of rayon and if you were to be so fortunate to see the shawl in person, you would see how much the slight color variation in the warp threads adds to the interest of the shawl. The weft is white alpaca and since the shawl was slightly weft faced, Jackie used 10 ounces of alpaca. This is a large shawl, worthy of cold weather wearing, if we should ever again be so lucky.






Jackie's other shawl is 100% alpaca. It is a two block twill design and the alpaca yarn uses is mixed gray and white. In a stroke of genius, Jackie outlined the changes in the twill blocks with a dark gray stripe. The overall effect (which is completely lost in this photo) is of a Navajo rug design.

This is blog post one of our meeting. I will put up another post in a few days because I still have lots of photos to edit. Hope I don't forget details about weave structures, etc.