Nevada County Inspired Entries

There were nine entries this year in the Nevada County Inspired category in the Wool, Fiber & Textiles Division at the Fair.  Most were woven but there was a knitted shawl from hand spun and another 3-D piece with felting. The prize for the first place finisher in this category is sponsored by the Not 2 Squares and Banner Mountain Textiles.

Eileen's Lake Inspired scarf

Igor's Coffee Shop Inspired Scarf

Ingrid's Yuba River Inspired Scarf

Lindsey's Native Plant Inspired Shawl

Mardi's County Fair Marigold Inspired Runner

Fire Inspired 3-D Piece

Rain Inspired Towel

Sue's Wildflower Inspired Felted Purse

Wendy-Marie's Snake Inspired Scarf

More County Fair Entries

There are more beautiful entries to see.

SueH wove the fabric for this coat and knitted the bias trim.  Jill, the daughter of our late member, Dee Jones, did the tailoring.   The fabric for the coat won a first prize for yardage at the Nevada County Fair in 2011.

Beryl has been busy using her 40-shaft loom.  (I am so jealous!)  She wove a towel and table runner on this loom.  She used the techniques in the Echo and Iris book by Marian Stubenitsky.

She also entered a shibori shawl. The weave structure is plain weave, 6/2 bamboo. After the pulling threads were gathered, the piece was painted three different times to get varying layers of color.

Beryl's Shabori Shawl

Another of Beryl's shibori pieces was a scarf.  This scarf incorporated a polyester weft.  She steam finished it so that the pleats would be permanent.  

Beryl's Shibori Scarf

Beryl's last piece is a scarf woven using her handspun cotton yarn.  Beryl incorporated some Brooks Bouquet embellishments at the ends.  

Beryl's Handspun Cotton Scarf

Igor entered the Nevada County Inspired category with a coffee shop inspired scarf.  We have many coffee shops in the area and this bead leno piece, woven on 4 shafts is a nice representation.  The straws for the bead leno technique were acquired from local cafes and coffee was inspiration for the mocha colored yarn.

Igor's Nevada County Inspired Scarf

Igor also entered a 3-shaft scarf.  With only 3 shafts, the colors of the yarns bring the interest to the piece.

Last but certainly not least is Igor's first place shawl and Best of Weaving Division shawl.  This lovely Japanese inspired piece is truly a winner.  For more details, check out Banner Mountain Textile's blog: http://bannermountaintextiles.blogspot.com/2016/02/igors-japanese-inspired-shawl.html

Igor's Shawl

There are more entries to show off, so stay tuned.  

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





Another Two Sets of Entries

Igor and Mardi are the next Not2S members to be showcased for their Nevada County Fair entries. 

Igor entered two scarves in the Nevada County Inspiration Division.  The blue scarf, inspired by a local lizard was described on a previous blog post:  http://not2squareweavers.blogspot.com/2015/06/blue-scarf.html 

The second was woven with our friend Dee as inspiration.  This reporter doesn't have all of the details, but I think it is woven in a false damask pattern that we saw last year as lap robes and towels:  http://not2squareweavers.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-intriguing-world-of-false-damask.html

Igor's Lizard Inspired Scarf 

Scarf with Inspiration Picture



 

Igor's Dee Inspired Scarf

Mardi entered several woven items, one with handspun and three skeins of handspun yarn. 

The table runner was started as part of a class with Rosalie Neilson at CNCH this year.  Mardi's first scarf was woven with a Log Cabin color and weave effect using a wool/metallic yarn. 

Mardi's Rep Weave Runner



Mardi's Log Cabin Scarf

Mardi won best of Division for a scarf made from handspun yarn.  This scarf was woven with yarn that was spun from an art bat prepared by local artist Sierra Mohr.  It was woven in plain weave with a beaded fringe.

Mardi's Scarf made with handspun yarn

Mardi's scarf - detail

 

 

 

 

 

Mardi has been experimenting with towels - different structures and colors.  This vibrant towel beings all of these elements together.  I think it is an M & O pattern.

Mardi's Towel

Mardi's Towel - detail



 

 

 

 

Mardi also entered three skeins of handspun yarn. 

Mardi's Yarn - Gray Singles - Medium Wool

Mardi's Yarn - Wool & Silk

Mardi's Yarn - Polwarth Top

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is great to see all of the different things that our members have created - all very different.

Blue Scarf

Igor is the next weaver to finish his scarf for the challenge.  Being the last to pick a bag of yarns, Igor found he was left with his own. 

 

The yarns used in the warp were one thread of variegated rayon, another thread of thick and thin rayon and one thread of turquoise bamboo.  They were sleyed at 20 epi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Igor wound two threads (used as one) for the pattern weft.  These were slightly different grists and shades of blue.  The tie down thread was another rayon in lighter blue.

Below is the draft of this project.  Igor got the structure idea from Beryl who found a basketweave draft that had a plain weave tie down in finer threads (both warp and weft).  He then added two stripes of 2/2 twill  to the draft and threaded them on shafts 5-8.  There are six picks in a complete repeat.  Tie down, pattern pattern, tie down, pattern pattern - using four treadles.  It was hard to keep hands and feet coordinated - four treadles against three shots.

 

 

Here is his scarf on the loom.

 

 

 

The scarf turned out beautifully, with a nice hand.

 

 

 

 

The edge finish was brought up at a previous meeting by Mardi who used it on a rep weave sample.  It is called Cavandoli knotting.  The beaded fringe was more extensive than Igor normally does.  He used one small copper bead at the base of each twisted pair and one blue bead midway between the scarf and the end knot.

 

 

Finished Scarf Detail

Another beautiful scarf that is probably destined for a foster child this coming holiday season.  There is also another scarf on Igor's loom with this warp.  It will be interesting to compare it to this one.

For Dee, with all our love.

 When our group learned that our cherished friend and fellow weaver Dee was seriously ill, we pondered just how we could let her know, within a short time frame, how much we loved and cared about her.  At our Tuesday meeting, we came up with a plan to make a lap robe with squares of handwoven cloth from as many of our members as possible.  The handwoven pieces were all delivered to Marjorie (our quilter) by Friday noon.  On Sunday, this lap robe was complete and today (Monday) was delivered to Dee.  Marjorie tells us that Dee was delighted and was in fine spirits with many an anecdote to tell her visitors.   Later in the day, she plans to knit socks on No. 2 needles!

Weavers names top row starting at the left side.  Marcy, Sue H., Beryl, Betsy.  Middle row Wendy-Marie, Igor, Mardi, Jackie Bottom row Ingrid, Diana, Marjorie, Eileen.

Many of the pieces came from tea towel warps.  Here are a few comments about the squares  and quilting process from the various weavers.

 

Ingrid The sample is the end of the warp of the set of towels that were woven as the last of the original calendar inspired towels. The picture was of yellow lady slippers against a bright green leafy background.     It was woven with 10/2 perle cotton sett at 24 epi.  The threading was an 8 point twill and woven with a 3-2-1-1-1 8-shaft twill pattern.

 

Wendy-Marie  a twill made of cotton (5/2, I think), when I was studying at Ruthie’s in Portland, OR. At the time, I was just experimenting with stripes. For Dee, I picked the zippiest part of the cloth, the part that was most lively and interesting — like Dee.

Beryl  This was the end piece from a towel warp where I do my experimenting.  I have always liked the colors in this piece  but there was not enough to make anything  until now, when it  has found its perfect home.

Igor  I wove this some time ago when I was experimenting with ikat dyeing in the warp and weft.  The cloth is rayon/silk and the ikat dye was local Black Walnut.

Marjorie    inside each square is same design - hearts and squiggly circles (better seen from back). the inside sashing is a combination of leaves, squiggly circles, and hearts; the outer border is leaves. there is a label on the back that simply says: Dee, April 2015, Not 2 Square Weavers.  

now, if you find that you want to do another in the future . . . i cut the squares 10" x 10". the sashing and the outer border were both 3". the finished lap throw is 36.5" x 48.5". washed and dried it is not as pliable as i expected so i am really glad i used flannel on the back to give it the softness we wanted. at the same time, i like "weight" when i grab a quilt or a blanket (often use several to get desired effect) so i think we are good all the way around.



Detail of the quilting on the back of the lap robe

Detail of the quilting on the borders

Lap Robes for Holiday Cheer

 

It's Holiday Cheer time again in Nevada County.  Each year the visiting nurses in this county collect Christmas gifts for their homebound patients.  For the past few years, the Not 2 Square weavers have been putting together lap robes to help warm the heart and the body!   This year there were a total of 10 lap robes, several knit hats and a knit scarf in our donation bag.  What follows are photos of some of the lap robes donated this year.

 

Dee Jones wove the striped material in both of these quilted covers.  She artfully combined a variety of commercial fabrics with her own hand woven to make generous sized lap robes.  There will be a couple of very happy folks when the nurses deliver these.

Diana Abrell wove the overshot top of this lovely blanket.  It is lined with a striped material and bound with satin binding.  Diana then secured the quilt with ties.

Igor Raven wove this lap robe double width on his Baby Wolf loom.  The binding was woven by Beryl Moody to match the throw.

Ingrid Knox donated three lap robes this year.  Pictured  are two of them.  Ingrid used a variety of yarns in beautifully designed stripe combinations.  All of her lap robes are easy care and will keep their recipients warm and cozy this holiday season.

Jackie Hervey wove this two block 3/1 twill throw from a variety of rayon yarns in her stash.  It is a nice weight and lays very comfortably over lap and knees.  Don't you love the color contrast between the two sides?

Members of the Not 2 Square group often donate items to older teenagers in foster care as well as this Holiday Cheer project.  We find it is a great way to work down the stash, try out new ideas and techniques and give back to the community.