A Design Process Story

Mardi showed some beautiful scarves at the last meeting.  She shares her process in the narrative below.

 

 

The Process:

First I wanted to make a scarf using some knitting yarn left from an abandoned knitting project and used Cascade Sock yarn as the weft. The draft was something that I put together by taking some of the twill threading I liked from another project.  Unfortunately, the weft yarn ran out before planned and the scarf is a little shorter than planned, but still acceptable.  I decided to experiment with the remaining warp.

#1 - I used some homespun singles from some gray CVM that I had spun.  It compressed the twill but it was a little scratchy. (Igor liked that one.)

 

#2 - I used some alpaca knitting yarn that I had around, similar color but it had a larger grist.  It was very satisfactory in terms of softness.

 

#3 - I wanted to see what would happen if I used a color in the weft.  I didn't have anything that matched the magenta in the warp, but I had some wine colored yarn sitting on a bobbin and decided to use it.  The result was softer than the other 2 samples and I liked the color the best.  I might add that I never liked the warp yarn very much, so almost anything improved it.

 

 

The Last of the Weaver's Poker Challenge



We are looking back for a couple of years now, when Not 2 Square Weavers decided to do the Weaver's Poker Challenge.  Sue R. drew the following cards for her challenge.  Double Weave, Variegated Space Dyed yarn, Fibonacci Sequence, Random Stripes & Blue. 

 Sue decided to dig into learning all she could about Double Weave before she attempted to work on her challenge. At one of our meetings, someone was giving away their extra copies of Handwoven magazines and Sue picked up the issue from Summer 1983 with a couple of articles about weaving double weave on a rising shed loom. 

Sue studied this issue for a while before she embarked on her double weave sampler which contains all the elements in the cards she chose. The photo below looks like the Fibonacci series to me. and naturally the color blue.

 

Then variegated weft for this sample, which I think is probably double width weaving with the opening in the center of the warp.

 

 

Then random stripes - this time a pouch stuffed with poly fill and then woven closed.

 

And more double weave fun that wasn't in the "cards".  A lace weave on one layer of the double weave.

 

 

A pouch which is open on one end with a bit of fanciful fringe - and hemstitched (how did she do that?)

 

 

 Some color and weave effects.

 

 

And finally, a bit of pick up.

 

 







This project was very much in the spirit of the challenge.  Learn something new and have fun with all the experimenting.

The Calcutta towel makes another appearance

Five years ago, Sue started on a journey to recreate a favorite pile towel from her childhood in Calcutta.  The whole family had the towels in different colors; they were bright and had pile weaves on both sides.  Sue really wanted to figure out how to weave them herself.  The first post about these towels appears here. 

Recently Sue dug out her draft and started weaving more of these towels.  No pile, you understand, but with the basic structure that you can see in the ends of the original towel.  The towels have a label that says they were woven in Calcutta - the pile suggests a factory weave.  We joked that maybe Sue should return to see if she could find the factory to see how they manage the pile.  Would the factory still be there we wondered.

Sue thinks that the original towel has alternating colors in the warp - which would be fun to try. 



I know you are dying to see the draft that Sue figured out.  Hours went into this relatively simple draft, but I'm not sure I've seen it elsewhere.

 

 

 

 

Here are the towels recently woven by Sue in colorful cottons to help her remember childhood memories in Calcutta.

 



What are We Weaving in September?

Fall is a time to get back to the loom.  Although September isn't really very cool here in the foothills, some of our weavers have been busy.

Mardi wove these colorful towels as part of an exploration in Rosepath.  She used a Lunatic Fringe kit with 10/2 cotton to create these bright colors.

Mardi also created these rainbow colored towels using cotton she bought from another fiber person selling part of their stash.  Here's her description of the project:

"I have a large amount of non-descript pale blue cotton yarn, which I suspect is about a 5/2.  It was the perfect yarn to experiment with warp painting .  I wound the warp into 2 parts, striping it with navy 8/2 cotton which I was planning to use as weft.  I laid both warp bundles out identically, or so I believed, and proceeded to dye them in a rainbow pattern.  When I beamed them on, I found that they weren’t exactly identical.  The finished result can be summed up as being “two in one towels”.  When folded in half lengthwise, you get two different colors, depending on which side is facing out.

Technicalities: The sett is 20 EPI and the PPI is about 26.  There are a total of 478 threads (I think, as I don’t seem to be a very good note taker). The width in the reed was 23.9 (including floating selvages) and the length on the loom was 34”, including allowance for hems. The finished dimensions are 28 3/4 “ by 19”.  The draft I used was Point Threading over 8 which can be found in Dixon on pages 80-81.

The biggest fatal flaw that I encountered was finding that the 100% cotton sewing thread that I used in the hems did not shrink at the same rate as the 8/2 cotton, which gave me some flare to work with when hemming."

Mardi's Dyed Towels with original yarn

Another view of Mardi's Dyed Towels 

Mardi attended a Jane Stafford class on color and design.  She shared her lovely color samples with us.

Samples from Jane Stafford Class

More Samples from Jane Stafford Class

Eileen shared a poncho she made from fabric woven with sock yarn and black 8/2 tencel as the weft.  She was using up left over sock yarns in a random striping pattern.  The design is an undulating twill #219 in Carol Strickler's book, "A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns".  

Eileen's Ponch

Eileen's Tencel Scarf 

She also shared a scarf that was woven with 8/2 tencel in the warp and weft.  The weave structure was also from Strickler's book - #171.

Jeanne's Double Weave Color Study

Jeanne used cottolin in a double weave color sampler.  She is planning to weave placemats and used this color and weave piece to help pick out her favorite designs.

Ingrid shared a scarf woven with sock yarn in a point twill pattern.  

We are looking forward to more products of our looms next month. 

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County Fair Entries, Continued

Two more Not 2 Square members had entries in this year's County Fair: Jeanne and Betsy.

Jeanne wove and then sewed this blouse.  

Jeanne's Blouse

For her Nevada County Inspired entry, Jeanne drew inspiration from the local hippies and tie-dyed fabrics that past and current hippies enjoy.  This shawl was woven with hand dyes warps that Eileen created.  For her scarf, Jeanne used Vice Yarn for her warp.  This is a space dyed yarn that comes with long color sections.  
 

Jeanne's Nevada County Inspired Entry

Jeanne's Scarf

Jeanne's final entry was a cowl that she knit from her handspun yarn.

Jeanne's Cowl

Betsy entered a scarf and a bag sewn from fabric that was woven at the end of the warp of some of Betsy's rugs.

 
Betsy entered two wall hangings.  The one woven with wheat was a collaboration with Beryl.  Beryl supplied handspun yarn.  The lavender wall hanging included spring of lavender.

Wheat Wall Hanging

Lavender Wall Hanging

There are a few more people we need to highlight.  That post will be written soon.

More From the Fair

Marcy entered three items this year.  She wove a blanket in a huck design with a plain weave boarder.  The Dresser Scarf was one of two she wove this year. 

Marcy's Blanket

Marcy's Dresser Scarf

Marcy also entered  a towel.  It is a towel project called Twill Stripes Towel was in the Weaver's Craft Issue #17.   All three projects were woven with cotton yarn.

Diana took home the Best of Division in the Nevada County Inspired category with this dogwood inspired in lace table runner. The original draft came from Weavezine http://www.weavezine.com/content/dogwood-lace.html   

Diana's Dogwood Table Runner

She also entered two towels.  

Diana's Summer & Winter Towel

Diana's Polychrome Towel

Last year, Diana attended Madelyn van der Hoogt's weaving school on Whidbey Island. Diana brought back this Summer and Winter draft from the school. She says the pattern weft was suppose to be 5/2 cotton, but she only had 10/2 and so she used two threads of that in her shuttle. She had a bit of trouble squaring the pattern as she wove but our group reminded her that we are the "Not 2 Square" weavers and not to be too concerned. 

Diana's second towel was woven in polychrome crackle. She used nine different colors in warp and three rotating colors in weft. This is one of several towels she wove with the same warp.  

Diana's last entry is a cotton pot holder.

There are several more Not 2 Square members who enter things in the Fair.  More later.