We All Have to Start Somewhere: Part I

Everyone who has a hobby, craft or pursues some kind of artistic activity starts somewhere.  There may be 2 year old weaving prodigies, but most people begin with few skills.  Recently the Not 2 Squares shared their weaving beginnings.  Here's a glimpse at a few of the first efforts of our members:

One of Dee's first projects was a red bag.   Here is an example of some later work - a beautiful vest.  There's lovely sewing and detail.  Also a recently woven scarf.

Diana's first sampler, with a detailed look.

One of her first projects was a checkered towel.








One of Gus' first projects was fairly ambitious overshot fabric to be used to cover dining room chairs.  The upholstery lasted many years before being replaced with newly woven fabric. 

 

 

 There will be more examples in future posts.

 

 

 

 

Lap Robes for Holiday Cheer

This is the second year that the Not 2 Square weavers have woven lap robes for something called Holiday Cheer.  Holiday Cheer is spear headed by Judi Barbour who has been collecting holiday gifts for members of our community who are still in their homes, but have illnesses or conditions that make it hard for them to get out and about.  Visiting nurses may be the only people they see on a regular basis. 

In researching what makes a good lap robe, we searched the Internet and found that almost anything goes, but that long fringe is usually not a good idea because of the possibility of getting caught in wheel chair wheels.  Here are pictures, dimensions and details about the fruits of our labors this year.

Diana Abrell wove the strips of striped fabric in cotton and then collaborated with a quilter friend who added commercial fabric blocks and a flannel backing.  Dimensions are 41" x 41"

Ingrid Knox wove two lap robes using acrylic yarns from her stash.  These are plain weave with lots of color and weave interest.  The dimensions are 39" x 40" and 38" x 43.5"

Igor Raven woven this lap robe using a double weave technique to get a wide piece on his Baby Wolf loom.  The warp is rayon/cotton and the weft is cotton from Henry's Attic.  Since hem stitching a double width piece on the loom isn't possible, he wove an inkle band binding.  The dimensions are 34" x 41"

Jackie Hervey had lots of odds and ends of rayon and cotton yarns.  She plied them together into a new thicker yarn and woven two robes using a 2/2 twill.  The colors are very complex in these pieces.  The dimensions are 30.5" x 38" and 30.5" x 37".

Gus Young wove two robes from cotton and rayon yarns and even some ribbon from her stash.  These were woven in an 8 shaft diamond pattern on her Gilmore loom.  The dimensions are 30"x37" and 30" x 34".

Dee Jones wove the blue blocks in this quilt type lap robe and then placed them in a batik fabric background, using her skill as a quilter.  The backing is flannel for warmth.  The dimensions are 42" x 42"

I (Beryl Moody) wove this turned taquete double width on my Baby Wolf loom.  Again, since hem stitching on the loom isn't practical for double width weaving, I wove an inkle band binding.  The yarns are rayon and cotton and even a bit of linen from my stash.  The dimensions are 27" x 40"

I should have put the combined lap robes on a scale, but my estimate is that we used up about 10 pounds of stash this year.  There were 10 lap robes and we hope there will be 10 happy recipients.

Nevada County Inspiration Challenge

The Fair has come and is almost gone.  Eleven items were entered in the Nevada County Inspiration Division - most from members of the Not 2 Square group.  It was interesting to see how the entrants got their inspiration. 

Most people found a picture that captured some aspect of the County - usually a specific scene.  Others were inspired to use local plants to add color to their finished pieces. It was very impressive.  I hope that there will be more entries next year.

Here are the entries from our group.



Beryl's Shawl

The photos don't do justice to these pieces, but you can get an idea of how great they look.

Marcy's Towel

Gus' Towel

Dee's Scarves



Igor's Towel

Sharon's Towel

Ingrid's Towel





Catching up

I've got some special pictures in my meeting folders that need sharing. So this post is a little gallery of recent projects from the Not 2 Square weavers

Here is Betsy's shadow weave shawl; she made two and traded a loom for one of them!  The directions are in Handwoven, Issue 158.  I believe that Betsy used bamboo for her shawls and added a border that wasn't in the original directions.  The one she brought to the meeting was gorgeous.

And - another striking scarf from Betsy's loom.  This has a couple of shots of novelty knitting yarn every so often.  What a good idea!

Here is a pairing of tick-tack-tow placemats and napkins from Diana's loom.  The placemats are double weave pick up from Jean Scorgie's  Weaver's Craft #21.  Diana and I were totally baffled by the instructions for the pick up, but finally e-mailed Jean to get an explanation.  Once explained , Diana finished weaving the four mats and then designed a huck lace pick up design for the napkins. 

Ingrid is working her way through the twelve months of a colorful calender, using the colors for each month for a series of towels.  These are April towels and sitting next to them is a pine needle basket that Gus is working on.  She is just zooming along with baskets these days and they are looking really nice.

To end up our gallery showing we have an homage - or could it be un hommage?  Dee bought one of Ingrid's towels (the middle piece) and was so taken with the color combination that she wove a scarf (on the far right) and a shawl (on the left) using the same color combination.  Dee refers to her inspiration as an homage to Ingrid's original piece.  Dee was correct in thinking that color combination was worth repeating, don't you think?

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.

A Tour of Gus' Studio

One of the great things about our meetings is that we get together in each other's homes.  So, in addition to sharing what we are working on; brainstorming weaving problems; and stretching our brains around group challenges, we can see the spaces we use for our weaving.  Each person's area is unique. Many of our group have the luxury of a dedicated room or area for weaving.

Gus has a combination guest bedroom and weaving studio. Sometime the weaving takes over and when guests arrive she has to do some shifting to find the bed.

Gus is working on lap blankets for the Holiday Cheer project for this coming December.  These will be two blankets. The first is already finished.  The warp is cotton and the weft is a verigated chenille. It is fairly fine (see detail in picture below).




(If I was a good note taker like Beryl, I would have remembered more about this piece.) 

It does look pretty nice.  Gus used some slub cotton for the yellow stripes.  That yarn turned out to be not strong enough for warp yarn.  She paired it with a perl cotton thread and it worked great.  

Some of Gus' Stash

Gus is VERY organized.  Nice storage, well labeled.  Hmmm, maybe she can help me with my organization.  She's pretty creative.  She has an unused chest freezer in the garage that she used to store roving.

She obviously can find what she's looking for quickly. 

Gus in her studio

It is always nice to have company while weaving.  I'm not sure how much time Carl spends helping Gus, but I'm sure he's good company.  This rug is an example of the many woven items in Gus' Studio.

Special Rug and a New Shawl

Way back in December, Gus showed us this rug that she wove for her daughter. Gus keeps rovings for spinning in a spare freezer and started digging around to come up with weft for an all brown rug (her daughter's requested color).   It was woven on her Gilmore loom with a 4 epi linen warp;  the roving completely covers the warp.  It  weighs a lot, so she got rid of plenty of roving.  To finish the rug, she put it in a bathtub, got it wet and stomped on it.  Her daughter was thrilled with the present and Gus may actually have room in that freezer for more roving.

At our last meeting, Gus brought in her latest shawl in which she used up odds and ends of lots of different luxury fibers.  She used an 8 shaft draft that Ingrid shared with the group.  It is a 1/1/1/1/2/2 twill  (see our drafts section).  The colors are gorgeous and the hand is wonderful. 

Gifts for Holiday Cheer

The Not 2 Square Weavers like to do some sort of community spirited project each year.  This year some of us decided to weave lap robes for Holiday Cheer.  This is a local outreach for home bound seniors (and others recouperating from illnesses).  Visiting nurses supply Judi Barbour with the number of people under their care and she puts together gift stockings from donations for those with the most need. 

Since some of the recipients are confined to wheel chairs, several of us decided on rather narrow pieces that would cover the lap, but not be too wide and cumbersome.  It turns out that for wheel chair use, the pieces need to be without fringe so there will be nothing to get caught in wheels, etc.

Gus is pictured above with one of her lap robes woven in cotton and acrylic - the draft follows.

I wove my lap robes using a networked threading and treadling in turned taquete and a couple of weights of cotton.  See the related blog post here that gives more details on the process.  Working with the warp faced weave and divided threading allowed me to separate and weave the hem in two layers, which I turned to the inside to finish.

Marcy had woven a chenille lap robe before we decided to participate in this project, and she generously donated it.

Diana bought acrylic baby yarn to weave her pieces, but had a disaster when the yarn slipped and slid during the finishing process so she had a hand sewn robe in reserve which went along with our donations. 

Ingrid didn't weave her piece, but rather sewed it and finished it like a quilt.  See her blog for the colorful and warm covering she donated.

It was very gratifying to learn when we delivered our items to Judi, that there were so many donations this year that everyone on the nurse's list will be getting something warm and wonderful for Christmas.

More Winners

Sue Habegger got a red ribbon on this beautiful top with the Theo Moorman motif.  Sue often utilizes selvedges as trim on her garments and is very successful at on loom planning.

Sue's yardage got a blue ribbon (well no surprise there because it is wonderful stuff).  I like the little jacket drawing she included with her piece.  On the side bar, you will see Sue Habegger's name.  Click on that to see previous posts about this yardage and the processes involved.

Several winners this year were white on white pieces.  Carol Phillips did an interesting scarf with a technique learned from Mary Berent.  She used a variety of weights of white cotton yarn, one after another in both warp and weft.  See how the piece undulates because of the varying yarn sizes.

  In another white on white piece, Gus Young wove a scarf from her handspun silk and Merino yarns.

 In the same vein (handspun yarn creations) Sharon Campbell got a blue ribbon for her handspun knit sweater.

And we have miles more to go with show and tell this month.  Stay tuned for more winners and a special Theo Moorman piece.

 

Where have we been?

Summer sometimes gets in the way of blogging.  This blogger is just resurfacing with lots of photos and interesting things to show from our group.  One reason for holding back on blog posts was that the annual Nevada County Fair was pending last month.  Many of our members were going to enter handwovens and it seemed better to just hold off posting until after the awards had been given and there was no reason for secrecy about who wove what!

Before I get to the grand prize winner this year, I'll post around the edges a bit. There were several prizes for scarves from our group.  Carol Phillips has been using up sock yarns for scarves.  This beauty was woven from wool/alpaca sock yarns and got a ribbon.

Diana Abrell had showed  a scarf at an earlier meeting.  Its a braided twill that has two faces, a light and dark and you can read more about it in a previous post.  The judge awarded her the blue ribbon for the handwoven scarf category.

Gus brought a fabulous soft shawl to the July meeting.  It was woven with Angora rabbit, wool and cotton yarns.  She admitted the Angora rabbit yarn had been in her stash for many years until she had matured as a weaver and could do it justice.  Sorry there is no way to reach out and touch this in the blog world.

Lots more to show in the next blog post - so come back again soon!