Textiles at the Fair

Eileen submitted a number of pieces this summer, including several scarves.  The award winner was a variation of overshot.  She used indigo dyed hand spun yarn for the blue and white scarf .  A third scarf was woven with tencel.

  

Eileen's Indigo Dyed Scarf

Eileen's Scarf

Eileen's Tencel Scarf

She entered a shawl.

Eileen's Shawl

She also submitted household items - a huck towel and overshot table runner.  

Eileen's Towel

Eileen's Table Runner

A bag and yardage round out Eileen's entries.

Eileen's Bag

Eileen's Yardage

Betsy entered two rag rugs. 

Betsy's Rag Rug

Betsy's Rag Rug

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She also entered a hand towel woven with twill blocks.

Betsy's Towel

Betsy also entered a doubleweave table cover and a bag.

Betsy's Handwoven Bag

Betsy's Table Cover

There's lots of talent in the group.

From Not 2 Square Looms

  Weaver's are always on the lookout for new ideas, new structures, new ways to use color and texture in their projects.  Here are a few relatively recent projects by our members.

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 From Wendy-Marie's Loom

These scarves are part of on-going play with the patterns offered in Denise Kovnat's "Echo and Jin" workshop. The teal scarf is an 8-shaft pattern called "Chakras." The warp is tencel and 10/2 perle cotton, the weft is 20/2 perle cotton, sapphire. The sett is 40 epi. Denise strongly recommended that we avoid white, as it tends to cancel out the other colors. I think the silver tencel in this scarf had the same tendency, so the scarf is interesting but not iridescent as I had hoped.

 

The second pair of scarves are made using a 4-shaft Kovnat pattern called "Blooming Leaf." Again, the sett was 40 epi. The left hand one had a purple 10/2 cotton for weft, the right was made with fuchsia 20/2 perle cotton. Of the two, the fuchsia weft produced a lot more iridescence. 

 

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Ingrid's Projects

Several Not 2 Square members are working on our local fiber guild's challenge.  We were given three colors and were challenged to create a fiber project using those colors. I got forest green, navy and turquoise and wove towels using those colors with some others.  They were made using 10/2 cotton for the warp and weft.  The structure was a regular/irregular point twill on 8 shafts. I  was also participating in another guild's challenge: weave something with colors inspired by a national park poster and this project satisfied both challenges.

 

 I also finished the linen towels I wove as part of another guild’s challenge.  16/2 linen for warp and weft for most of the towels, although 2 were even with 10/2 cotton.  The design is an 8-shaft huck.

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Betsy's Current Project

Betsy is weaving a lap blanket for someone who needs a bit of warmth while she is in church.   She is using the intended recipient's favorite colors - teal and magenta in warm wools. The structure is an M & W twill. After this blanket is completed, she intends to use an orange weft on the next one. 

 

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Eileen's Adventure in Wet Finishing

 I don't remember where I found this draft, possibly online.

 

The yarn is from Webs - Colrain Lace - 2/10 Merino?Tencel.  The floats were too long, particularly on the back side.

 

On the Loom 

 

I normally wash my woven products in the washing machine on the gentle cycle and cold water.  Well, in this case, the yarn felted a great deal and was perfect as the floats felted together and are not now problematic.

Subsequently, I always wash all products with this yarn by hand.

 

Off the loom and after wet finishing

January's Virtual Show and Tell

 Not 2 Square Weavers are still in a social distancing mode, but continue weaving and sharing what they do every month in a Zoom gathering.  

This month's meeting had a lot of special pieces being shown and it seemed like a good time to make a blog post and let all our readers enjoy the fruits of our looms.

These towels were woven by Diana A.  Here is what she said about them.  "The Stripes and Huck Lace towels show the difference in color in warp stripes (bluish) vs. the weft stripes (greenish) which were both the same pale green yarn (see photo at left). No explanation, although Beryl thought maybe being 24 epi in the warp and about 20 ppi in the weft could create the difference. Who knows? All yarns 10/2 cotton, except the pale green was 8/2, I believe."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These scarves were also woven by Diana as Christmas gifts for her two granddaughters.  The one at the left incorporates huck lace hearts.

 

The Huck Lace Heart Scarf is  8/2 tencel and  8/2 rayon.
 

 

 

 

The Cat Scarf is Summer and Winter and plain weave, 8/2 tencel and 8/2 rayon.  This scarf is for the granddaughter that loves animals. 

 

 

 

 

Betsy A. has a brand new Baby Wolf, 8 shaft loom.  These two scarves were woven on the same warp.

8 shaft plaited twill scarf 5/2 bamboo warp and doubled 8/2 tencel weft. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8 shaft plaited twill scarf, 5/2 bamboo warp, 5/2 cotton weft.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Marcy E. wove 5 dish towels using 8/2 and 10/2 cotton yarn from her stash.  The pattern was from Handwoven's design collection 3, Kitchen Towels, woven with a twill variation.  The weft yarns were also from her stash.

 

 

 

 

 Ingrid K showed us a couple of new scarves. 

 Malabrigo Baby Silkpaca (alpaca/silk) in two different colors for warp and weft; sett 30 epi, 8 shaft point twill threading with an advancing point treadling.  The tie up is 1-1-1-1-2-2- twill

 Madelinetosh Pure Silk Lace yarn for warp and weft; sett: 30 epi, 8-shaft advancing twill threading, with an advancing point treadling. The tie-up is a 1-1-1-1-2-2 twill

 

COVID-19 spots (photo below)  are for a sample exchange.  10/2 white cotton for the warp  with 10/2 red weft, sett at 30 epi.  The structure is an 8-end satin on 24 shafts.  The design was created using ProWeave and Fiberworks PCW software.  Ingrid is still working with this warp to explore other weave structures and possibly weave towels. 

 

 

Highlights from the County Fair

The Local County Fair has come and gone.  The weaving and spinning entries were amazing as usual.  Many of the Not 2 Square members entered beautiful pieces again this year.  Here are the highlights.

Betsy captured the People's Choice award with a beautiful shawl made from hand-dyed tencel.

Betsy's Shawl

Diana garnered an Honorable Mention with her bright and fun turned taquete towels made with 10/2 and 8/2 cotton.  

Diana's Towel

Ingrid submitted a shawl woven from Madeline Tosh merino yarns.  This was woven in an 8-shaft extended twill pattern.

Ingrid's Shawl

Jeanne won a second place ribbon with this elegant hand towel.  She wove it with 40/2 Normandy linen with Lanis Valley Linen as the pattern.

Jeanne's Towel

Karen won a first place ribbon with a fabulous wool rug.  

Karen's Rug

Marcy's classic dresser scarf, woven in cotton with M's and W's pattern won a second place ribbon.

Marcy's Table Runner

Mardi's show stopping shawl was woven in plain weave with rayon chenille.  It feels as fabulous as it looks.

Mardi's Shawl

Sue R. woven a colorful table runner from the warp left over from last year's demonstration project.  She used bleach to remove color from black yarn for the weft.  This inventive piece was a first place finisher.

Sue R's Table Runner

Sue V.'s yardage entry brought her a second place ribbon.  This cotton piece woven in a twill design used a variety of yarns from Sue's stash.

Sue V's Yardage

We are starting to look ahead to what we will be weaving for next year's fair entries.

More from the County Fair

Jeanne, Eileen and Betsy are our next three entrants to be showcased here.  Jeanne entered two scarves.  One was made starting with a painted warp.  The second used Theo Moorman techniques she learned in a workshop this spring.  

Jeanne's Painted Warp Scarf

Jeanne's Theo Moorman Scarf

 


Eileen had an indigo-ikat dyed warp that she used for her Nevada County Inspiration entry.  She also entered another shawl, a scarf and yardage this year.

Eileen's Nevada County Inspiration Shawl

Eileen's Scarf

Eileen's Shawl

Eileen's yardage

Betsy entered two rugs a towel and an interesting wall hanging using wheat as weft material.  The wall hanging was also inspired by the Theo Moorman technique.

Betsy's Rug

Betsy's Rug

Betsy's Towel

Betsy's Wheat Wall Hanging

There are few more people we will show off in the next post.