Scarf for Christmas giving #1

In the spirit of giving this year, our group is weaving scarves for teenagers in foster care. In that same spirit, each weaver will share the details with our readers. This scarf was woven by Gus using yarns supplied by Carol. The pink/purple is 6/2 cotton, the green is an 8/2 green rayon slub and the black was a 3/2 cotton from Gus stash. Gus used the Fibonacci sequence for her stripes and reversed the sequence in the middle of the scarf.

The scarf measured 6" in the reed and the sett was 12 epi. The length of the scarf is 60" and it has a 10" twisted fringe on each end. Below is the draft that was used.

This is an elegant and very fluid scarf and I'm sure its new owner will love wearing it.

November meeting part 2

Jackie brought yardage to the meeting that she hoped to turn into towels for Christmas gifts. The original color of the yardage appears in photo number 1. She was disappointed that the colors weren't as vibrant as she hoped, so we did a photoshop overdye of her cloth to see what might happen in a dye bath. Photo number 2 is a yellow overdye, photo 3 is magenta and photo 4 is green. I think that number 2 and 3 are probably fairly accurate renderings of what an overdye of the cloth would look like. I'm not so sure about the green filter because the red still shows as red, but it is interesting to play with a photoshop technique before you actually commit the fabric to the dye pot.



Jackie also brought this luscious chenille shawl destined to be sold at Shawls Unlimited (they called it Night Shadow). It is a big shawl, with perfectly twisted fringe that would make the ultimate in a luxury gift. The warp and weft are rayon chenille.

Sue H. wove this yardage and is still thinking about what it will become. The main part of the yardage is the blue in the top of the photo, but I wanted to show some of the colorwork at the end of the piece. Will certainly become something wonderful.

Sue has also been weaving towels for sale. Here are several from the stack she brought to show. Sue weaves a couple of towels, cuts them off the loom and then ties on a new warp with a new color sequence for a fresh look.

What we are up to this fall

At a meeting this past August, we decided to weave scarves for teen age foster kids in our county that would be given to them as gifts during the holidays. To make it a bit more of a challenge, we set up an exchange of yarns hidden in brown paper bags. Each weaver was to use at least one of the yarns in the bag to weave one or two scarves. Using up to 50% of one's own yarn was permissable.

At the November gathering, several people were done with one or more of their scarves and some people had woven scarves for the gift giving that weren't part of the brown bag exchange. So interpersed with the show and tell from the November meeting, some of these lovely scarves will be on display here along with pertinent information on the draft, yarns used and problems encountered.

The scarf shown in this post was woven by Diana. She painted a neutral colored cotton chenille skein at a local dye workshop. The scarf was woven using the painted yarn as warp and the unpainted neutral as weft. And what a stunning, soft scarf it is. Diana washed and dried her scarf and was dismayed that the twisted fringe wormed. She did some research and found a suggestion on the web about braiding the fringes rather than twisting them -- which is the finish she settled on. We all agreed that the teenager that gets this scarf will love wearing it.

Stay tuned for more show and tell from the November meeting. I plan to keep the blog posts shorter and hopefully more interesting to our weaving readers.