September Meeting Part II - Towels

Here's more from our meeting last month.  Jackie decided to weave some towels since she hasn't woven any in a while.  She used 10/2 cotton sett at 24 epi to create a ton of towels using a classic two block twill from Carol Strickler's 8-shaft book.

She was able to get a broad variation in these towels by using different weft colors and varying the vertical size of the blocks. 
 

 

Jackie also shared a scarf she wove with cotton, silk and rayon yarns with random colors across the warp.  It was woven in plain weave. 

Wendy-Marie shared her 4-shaft herringbone towels.  These were woven mostly with 8/2 cotton and cottolin. 

These are in beautiful colors and each towel looks really different.  Here's some detailed pictures:

All of these towels would be a great addition to anyone's home.  Nice work!

The Intriguing World of False Damask

In the weaving world, false damask is just a four thread broken twill.  At a recent Not 2 Square meeting, Jackie brought in two lap robes for Holiday Cheer gifts, both woven in false damask or more correctly labeled "turned broken twill blocks".  What our group found most amazing was the optical illusion created by placing darker lines at the block changes.  We started digging deeper into this illusion technique and found a couple of sources that take a slightly different approach to the structure.

Margie and Sue holding up the lap robes woven by Jackie

This is the draft that Jackie followed for her two lap robes with the exception that Jackie used large blocks and wider black outlining.

This is a draft found in a Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns draft #246 on pg. 60





You can see that they are very similar, but the second draft uses only six threads in the outline stripes (black) and the outline isn't threaded on  all four shafts of the block.

There are two other examples of the color and weave version of this block weave.  Check out Jackie's towel and Dee's towel from previous posts. 

There is a lot of variation that could be used with this block structure.  Think about changing the squares to rectangles; make the rectangles unequal in size and play with the color in the outline stripes.  

Cornucopia of Weaving Ideas



Diana presented this lovely diamond patterned scarf at the May meeting.  I'm going out on a limb here, but I think she said that it was a silk warp.  At any rate, she used 8/2 variegated yarn, and 3/2 purples, greens and blues in the warp and used a lavender weft.  It isn't obvious in the photo, but this pattern gave an embossed appearance to the textile which is very eye catching.  Should you want to weave your own, Diana found the draft in A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, page 115, pattern 420.  It's called an 8 block, point repeat twill.



Gus was inspired by the lace workshop she recently took from Suzie Liles.  She put on a 6 yard warp and used a pleasing neutral 3/2 perle cotton for these place mats.  These mats were designed by Suzie  Lyles.  Gus sett her project at 12 epi.

Here is an idea from Dee.  In her stash she had some sari silk waste yarn.  It is sometimes hard to use in a weaving project because it can make the fabric very heavy and almost impossible to use in the warp because of the fuzzy nature of the yarn.  Dee's solution is inspired and can also be used when you have a fancy yarn and only want it to show on one surface of the cloth.   Here is the recipe. Take a four shaft loom and thread in  a straight draw ( 1-2-3-4).  Weave two shots of tabby with yarn similar in weight to the warp yarns.  Then raise shaft 2 and throw a shot of sari silk, two more shots of tabby with your finer yarn and finish up the sequence by raising shaft 4 and another shot of sari silk.  All of your fancy yarn (in this case sari silk)  lies on the surface of the cloth.  Dee sett her piece at 12 epi and plans to use the fabric for a handbag.

I'll save more ideas for another post.  We have two weavers doing bead leno and another contemplating a double width lap robe to talk about.  Plus there are lots more pictures in my Not 2 Square photo folder that need to be shared with the weaving world.

Dog Days of August

Well, have you ever seen a cuter dog than Carl? Carl was the greatest greeter ever at Gus' home for our August meeting. He made each person feel totally welcome and everyone got an invitation to throw the ball for him.



Our group had such a lot of show and tell after the Nevada County Fair, that I'm dividing our meeting post into at least three separate posts so that readers will be sure to get all the glorious details from a fantastic meeting.



Diana brought this towel that she entered at the fair. She wanted to combine two different weave structures -- in this case huck and plain weave into one piece. Her colors are fabulous and we all agree this would be a perfect drying towel because of the open structure of the huck. Her one problem was that the plain weave didn't draw in as much as the huck leaving the selvedge with a slight bulge in the plain weave areas. We finally decided that there wasn't much she could have done about it except perhaps to use a finer thread in the plain weave sections. If anyone has ideas for Diana, please post them here.





Ingrid brought a sample for the napkins she is weaving on her new 24 shaft loom. The sample is 16 shafts on a point threading. She used a sett of 32 epi, but says she is beating at 40 ppi. We all thought that the sample looked great and didn't think that the sett needed adjusting. The napkins will be so fine and delicate. I think the cloth would make a fabulous christening gown and someone suggested wedding gown fabric.



Jackie brought two new shawls that she will be selling at Shawls Unlimited. The shawl in the photo above has a ring spun rayon warp. Jackie combined several different colors and weights of rayon and if you were to be so fortunate to see the shawl in person, you would see how much the slight color variation in the warp threads adds to the interest of the shawl. The weft is white alpaca and since the shawl was slightly weft faced, Jackie used 10 ounces of alpaca. This is a large shawl, worthy of cold weather wearing, if we should ever again be so lucky.






Jackie's other shawl is 100% alpaca. It is a two block twill design and the alpaca yarn uses is mixed gray and white. In a stroke of genius, Jackie outlined the changes in the twill blocks with a dark gray stripe. The overall effect (which is completely lost in this photo) is of a Navajo rug design.

This is blog post one of our meeting. I will put up another post in a few days because I still have lots of photos to edit. Hope I don't forget details about weave structures, etc.