The March Meeting and Its Weaving Surprises

 

Karen W. wove this stunning black and white rug using shaft switching techniques.  She devised the pattern by graphing it on paper first.  Then she employed the shaft switching system she devised for her 4 shaft Gilmore loom.  (see photo at left)

The warp is 8/5 linen sett at 4 epi.  The weft is Collingwood rug yarn using three strands together.  The finished rug is 25" x 40".

 

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Wendy-Marie wove this gorgeous "Spring Flowers Shawl".  The draft and directions were from Handwoven's Design Collection #19.  The advancing twill design is by Hele Bobisud.  Since the original pattern called for a weaving width of 26", Wendy-Marie removed two blocks of burgundy (84 ends) from the warp so that it would fit on her Baby Wolf loom.  The final shawl size is 85"x 20".  Another change that she made was to substitute 8/2 tencel for the Zephyr wool-silk given in the instructions.  The shawl feels soft and drapes nicely, so the substitution worked.

The photo below shows the draft used for the shawl.

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Both this scarf and the one below were woven by Ingrid K. out of JOY 10/2 tencel in both the warp and weft.  The sett is 36epi.  The draft used on the scarf at the left is an extended point twill.  The photo below was threaded on left M's.  Both were woven on an 8 shaft loom and treadled with an advancing point.

The lap robe was also woven by Ingrid in wool/acrylic (50/50) knitting yarn sett at 12 epi.  The structure is an extended point twill with a point treadling on 8 shafts.

Igor's hand - it was all black and white!

 

Thanks to Erica de Ruiter for the inspiration in her book,  Weaving on 3 Shafts.  This allowed me to create something from a very favorable poker hand.

The cards I drew were as follows:  Cotton, 3 shaft structure, black and white, checkerboard, combine colors by winding on a bobbin for weft.  I was allowed to drop one card so instead of two colors on one bobbin,  I used alternating shuttles of black and white.

Both the black and the white were used in the warp and the weft.  The yarns were labeled as 10/2 but the black was slightly finer than the white.  The white was sett at 30 epi and the black was sett at 32 epi in the warp.  I decided to make 1/2 the warp black dominant and the other 1/2  white dominant.  Black dominant was threaded and woven black, white, black - white, black, black - black, black, white.  Reverse the color sequence for the white dominant section.

Even though, I have access to a twenty-four and a forty shaft loom, I quite enjoyed the three shaft project.  Also I found changing the color sequence in the weft challenging to remember where I was. (I ended up using a stitch counter).

 

Weaving Poker is one of two challenging projects Not 2 Square Weavers participated in this year.  The second project was a brown bag exchange where someone else provides the yarn and you have to come up with a project.  Both of these are challenging and help you expand your weaving horizons. 

 

Thank you to Beryl for pointing me in the direction of the Erica de Ruiter book.

 

Igor Raven