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.  

Dee Jones and Her Bounty of Fair Entries

There is nothing quite as nice as a collaboration between two textile artisans.  The lovely prize winning scarf with yarn spun by Sue Flynn and woven by Dee Jones is draped around a special jacket woven and sewn by Dee Jones.

Dee wove this shawl with April and Forsythia in mind for the Nevada County Inspired category.  She knitted a special loopy trim to finish off her asymmetrical garment.

Dee spun textured purple yarn for these two inspired scarves.  The left photo is a knitted lace and the second photo shows the yarn used as weft in a twill design.

Dee always makes the best bags and this year she really got inspired with her long handled tote shown on the left and upper right (with a blue ribbon).  The story is that she wove what is now the handle of the bag as a scarf.  Finding the fabric too stiff to use as she originally intended, she turned it into the long, over the shoulder strap for her tote and finished up with a row of beads!  The bottom purse has lovely details of beads and a special button closure.

Then, there are all the rest of Dee's entries - most of which received blue ribbons.  Clockwise from the upper left is a supplementary warp design that Dee loves to make in all varieties.  Her twill towel is woven with 50% linen and won the blue in the bast fiber category.  The shawl is elegant and warm - another blue ribbon winner.  And finally on the right corner is some bright red yardage that Dee wove with a top in mind.  Now she is thinking maybe another shawl -- we shall see what kind of magic touches she will add!

More County Fair Entries

It's September already but there is a lot more to share from the County Fair. Two more members entered woven items in this year's "Wool, Fibers & Textiles" Division. 

This year, Wendy-Marie entered a table runner and a jacket.

Wendy-Marie's Thanksgiving Table Runner was created for a family with a very long table.  The warp is mainly 8/2 organic cottolin (3360 ypp) and the weft is 8/2 Tencel - color "Fire". The structure is twill.

Thanksgiving Table Runner

The twill design was based on Jean Sparkes’ table runner in Handwoven, Nov/Dec 2013.  Wendy's variations included substituting 8/2 and 10/2 cotton (not cotton linen) for the warp stripes and instead of hemming, she hemstitched the ends and left a short fringe of about 1 inch. 

The cotton-linen warp provides strength, the two block twill gives the design stability and repetition, while the variegated tencel weft provides drape, shimmer, and variation.

Wendy-Marie's Peacock Jacket was woven using a rayon chenille warp in "Ocean Combo" and turquoise and a 10/2 perle cotton weft.  The weft inserts were also rayon chenille.  The fabric was woven in plain weave.

Peacock Jacket

 

This piece is based on Judith Shangold’s "Splash! Jacket" described in Handwoven, Sept/Oct 2010. 

 

Her variations are as follows: The jacket length is determined by the width of the warp. Conversely, the jacket width is determined by the length of the warp. To resize this pattern for a friend, she increased the length, using (2.5” plain weave-4” insert weave) instead of the pattern’s (2”-/-3”) version.

One pick of the chenille insert weft was compensated for by eye, approximately 2 cotton picks for 1 chenille pick.  The chenille cloth was too thick for the rolled seams suggested by the pattern. Instead, she used regular seams stabilized with twill tape. There was some fraying at the neckline which was corrected with a double floating selvedge, and post weaving buttonhole stitch.

 

Marcy entered two items as well - a towel and baby blanket.  The blanket is woven in plain weave with a slubby yarn from Henry's Attic.  It is a blue version of a pink one she wove for a new addition to her family at the beginning of this year.  This lovely blue version garnered a second place in the Baby category.

  

 

Marcy's Towel - detail

Marcy also entered one towel of a set she wove as an exploration of plaids.  She entered the towel that was woven as a plaid but others in the set were woven with occasional weft stripes or as just warp stripes. The yarn was 8/2 cotton woven in a twill design.

Marcy's Towels - The Set

 

Entries from the Fair

Several of our members entered woven items and handspun in the County Fair this year.  I realized I forgot to photograph the hand spun but here are the woven entries.  

Several items woven by Betsy, including two table runners, a rug, shawl and scarf.

 Dee submitted various items including yardage, a scarf, a jacket sewn by her daughter using Dee's woven yardage and a shawl.  One of her scarves won the "People's Choice" Award.

Diana's entries included a scarf and two towels.

Ingrid submitted a scarf and two towels.

Marcy entered a huck placemat and dresser scarf.

 

 Sue H exhibited her tablecloth and fiesta placemats.

Sue R entered an inkle band, small towel, small basket and a vest. 

Fabric wefts for Luxurious Clothing

At the March meeting, there were several projects that had been woven using fabric strips for the weft.  The photo above shows details in a jacket woven and sewn by Sue Habegger.  She used a rayon challis fabric and cut the strips on the bias to keep them from fraying during the weaving and finishing process.  The resulting jacket is almost like chenille cloth and very elegant.  The photo below is her sketch for the jacket and a samples of original yardage, handwoven twill for the front opening and the cloth for the body of the jacket.   I believe she used a pick  or two of fine yarn between the shots of fabric weft to make the cloth more supple.

 

 

 

Dee Jones brought out a couple of garments she had woven and sewn using fabric wefts.  The first is a vest woven with silk strips.  Dee folded the fabric strips in half as she wove, but  didn't tuck in the ends of the fabric wefts and let them peek out of the finished cloth.   This is a project from several years ago and Dee didn't remember the details about how it was woven, but it looked as though there might be finer thread picks between the fabric shots in this cloth as well. 

 

 

The final jacket (below) was also woven by Dee.  She says it has been worn a lot since she made it, yet is looks like new.  This definitely has fine thread picks between the fabric shots.  Look at the lovely purple lining and elegant buttons!

August Meeting Part 3

Resuming where we left off in the August show and tell, is Dee's bag on the left woven with sari silk yarn. She knitted a closure and lined the bag with bright red material from an antique kimono. On the right is a bag entered by Sue H. which matches the vest later on in the post. Sue's bag is made of felted handwoven wools.


A blue ribbon winner if there ever was one, Dee's unlined wool jacket is trimmed with a crochet edging.


Dee found the perfect use for some novelty chenille like yarn. She used it in every other weft pick for this stunning shawl woven with wool and silk. Also note that she left the red warp threads loose and twisted the navy ends for something out of the ordinary. Rachel, from Shawls Unlimited, named this one Azadi

Here is another blue ribbon winner by Dee that was only on the Shawls Unlimited site for a few days before it disappeared! No wonder -- lovely wool spiced up with novelty ribbon yarns and a generous size made it easy to sell.

Here we have Sue H's vest that goes with the purse pictured earlier in the post. Sue fulled the fabric for this vest a bit more than she had intended and couldn't think of what to make from the yardage. But, she came up with this terrific looking vest. The binding is knitted with the same yarns used in the handwoven fabric, but naturally not fulled. Look for details in the construction of this vest in future post.

These eye catching towels were woven by Sue H. all on the same warp. This vibrant collection would make any kitchen come alive.

Back (left) and front (right) of Sue H's prize winning top. Each of the details in this top are repeated in another location, tying the whole together into a fabulous piece. The sleeve decoration which can just be seen in the right photo, has the same weft striping as the center panel. On the back, you see triangular detailing, which is repeated in the gusset under the arms.

Needless to say, the judge at the fair was very impressed with this garment.

Sue is a master of detailed finishing. This towel features a loop at each side of the center of the towel, which was woven as a weft thread. This handy loop makes it possible to hang the towel from a hook.

I still have a few more photos that really need to be shown. Look for part 4 in a few days.