What's on Our Looms

Several of our members have been working on their looms,  Jackie wove a very geometric chenille scarf.  The fringe turned out to be very interesting.

Jackie's Scarf

Jackie's Scarf - detail

Jackie also wove a rag rug.

Jackie's rug

Betsy wove a scarf using 8/2 tencel.  The design is an 8-shaft, M's & W' design, sett at 24 epi.

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Betsy's Scarf

Betsy's Scarf - detail

Diana wove a set of five towels. The design was polychrome (reds) crackle. The design was from Handwoven, Sept./Oct. 2016, pg. 46.  There were nine different colors in warp and three rotating colors in weft.  Each towel has different colors in weft, although they all came out looking sort of alike.  Diana used both 8/2 and 10/2 cottons, sett at 24 epi.  She felt it was a good project for using up a lot of reddish yarns.  

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Diana's Towels

Marjorie shared two pieces of yardage that were woven several years ago and meant to be pillowcases.  She found that they were too narrow for that purpose once completed. Both pieces used 100 percent cotton, in a lace pattern - huck- Marjorie thinks.

Marjorie's Yardage

Ingrid shared a scarf she wove using Malabrigo yarn.  Arroyo for the warp and Rios for the weft.  The design is an 8-shaft advancing twill woven with a 3-1-2-2 twill tie up.  This is one of two she hopes to weave from the same warp.

All in all, lots of interesting things being woven this month.

Three End Block Rug and a Rag Rug on the Loom

Wendy-Marie took a class from Jason Collingwood at CNCH in 2015.  He introduced her to the three end block weave.  Block one is threaded 1-3-2 and block two is 1-4-2.  Recently, Wendy-Marie took what she learned in the class and created a wonderful rug on her Gilmore Gem loom.  The warp was linen and sett at 4 epi.  The warp and sley technique are a bit unusual.  It is sleyed 1-2-1-2 in the reed, with two ends acting as one when two ends are in one dent.  This adds extra stability to the rug.  The weft is wool, doubled.

As you can see in the photos, the colors reverse on the two sides of the rug.

 

 

The next photo is a rag rug being woven by Jackie H.  She has an amazing flair for elegant rag rugs.  In this rug she is using old blue sheets and white stripes from a bath towel as the weft yarns.  Jackie uses 12/2 seine twine in her warp. Her loom is amazing too - a wonderful countermarch Toika that she has been weaving on for many years. 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

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