October's offerings - napkins, shawls and towels

Diana spent a large part of her summer in Maine this year. Her daughter and her family live there and her daughter's inlaws have a summer lake cabin. Diana noticed that everyone was reaching for paper napkins and paper towels while staying at the cabin and decided that what was needed were cloth napkins - each different so that people knew which one was theirs and could use it for several days. When Diana finally arrived home, she set up her loom to weave 12 napkins. Her four shaft draft came from the Handweaver's Pattern Directory by Anne Dixon and is Overshot:  Small Honeysuckle on pages 104-106.

Some of the napkins have an alternating tabby and some do not.  The dozen serviettes are destined to be Christmas gifts; what a great way to introduce using resuable over throw away.

Betsy brought a shawl she wove using bamboo in a shadow weave design from Marian Powell's 1000+ Patterns in 4, 6 and 8 Harness Shadow Weave.  Betsy's shawl is an 8 shaft design with a lovely feel and drape . Isn't shadow weave just the best!

Gus wove a shawl as well. The warp is ramie and silk (mostly silk) and the weft was cotton. It is now for sale at the Shawlsunlimited website where it is called Silver Lake Blues.  The 8 shaft draft for this shawl came from A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns edited by Carol Strickler, page 52 #206.

Ingrid was weaving towels in preparation for selling at the Winterfaire craft show.  Since the show is now at the end of October, she decided that maybe pumpkins were better than Christmas trees (although she made both).  Here are two styles of pumpkins and they were a big hit at the sale (but so were the Christmas trees).

There are six of us in the Not 2 Square Weavers group that will be selling at a double booth at the Lake Wildwood Craft Faire in November. Lake Wildwood is a gated community and the sale is primarily for residents.  We have high hopes that even bad weather won't keep folks away! Several of us that sold at Winterfaire experienced what it is like to try to sell handwovens when there is a record rain falling outside  and the parking lot is flooded.  Umbrellas might have been popular!

Our September Show and Tell

September finds many weavers thinking about how and where to sell some of their handwovens.  Our group is no exception and the longer a person has been weaving, the more eager they seem to be to find a market for their textiles.  This year the group has reserved two booths at the Lake Wildwood Craft Faire.  This is the first time for many of us to participate in this fair, so we aren't sure what to expect.

Dee brought scarves that she will be selling - 12 of them that she wove in just one month!  She used the same diamond pattern and wove two scarves per warp.  They were all so different in different colors, that you would never have realized they were the same weaving draft.

Ingrid is using up stash and weaving baby blankets for sale.  Stripes of all sorts - and again, each one is different.

But, not everyone was weaving items for sale.  Marcy brought a baby blanket in which she used a wool warp and a Henry's Attic Queen Annes' Lace cotton as weft.  Notice the nice treatment she gave the fringe with a double knot.

Sue R. brought a scarf with a story.  At a conference Sue attended, there was a weaving demonstration using a variety of knitting yarns in the weft.  By the end of the conference, there was still a lot of unwoven warp on the loom.  Sue unwound it and, heaven knows how she preserved the warp order,  brought it home and painstakingly wound it back on the back beam of her four shaft loom.  Then she wove the rest of the warp as a sampler piece - using bits and pieces from her mother's stash of knitting yarns. The result is a very beautiful scarf - maybe table runner piece.  This reminds me of the saori technique of free style weaving and Sue's piece is beautifully done.  It gave many of us the inspiration to rummage around in our stash to pull out bits and pieces of yarns too short for most purposes and weave them into something useful and beautiful.

That's just about all for this month.  There should be pictures to share from our sales events in the coming months.  Wish us well.