County Fair 2024

The County Fair has come and gone with lots of activity from the local fiber artists including Not  Square members. We will give you a glimpse of what our members entered this year.

Mary wove these California Quail towels for the fair.

She says, "The desire to weave cute quail led me down the path of understanding and drafting single two-tie unit weave. It also led me to a 32-shaft compudobby loom! This quail towel was woven with a 10/2 unwaxed cotton warp, 8/2 unmercerized pattern weft and 20/2 cotton ground weft. The sett was 20 end per inch which provides a nice hand in the “summer and winter” structure."

Ingrid & Mary entered a collaborative project - a scarf woven by Ingrid with Mary's handspun merino yarn.  The sett was 15 epi.  For the warp, Ingrid used a 20/2 tussah silk yarn.

Mary & Ingrid's Collaborative Scarf

Ingrid entered several other woven items into the fair this year.  She entered two twill towels woven with 10/2 cotton set at 30 epi on 8 shafts.

Ingrid's Twill Towel

Ingrid's Twill Towel

There was a lap robe woven with cotton for the warp and an acrylic/wool blend for the weft in plain weave.  And a plain weave baby blanket with cotton for warp and acrylic for the weft as well.

Ingrid's Lap Robe

Ingrid's Baby Blanket

She entered three scarves other than the collaboration project.  One was woven in plain weave with merino/silk yarn in the warp and a silk weft.  

Ingrid's Silk/Wool Scarf

The second scarf was 8/2 Tencel for the warp and weft that she dyed.  It was sett at 30 epi and the structure was an extended twill.  The inspiration for the color scheme and scarf structure was the Yuba River.

The third scarf was woven using 10/2 Tencel sett at 36 epi.  The structure was an extended point twill woven on 8 shafts.  The weft was also 10/2 Tencel.

Ingrid's Tencel River Inspired Scarf

Ingrid's Tencel Scarf

We'll continue this on a later post.

The March Meeting and Its Weaving Surprises

 

Karen W. wove this stunning black and white rug using shaft switching techniques.  She devised the pattern by graphing it on paper first.  Then she employed the shaft switching system she devised for her 4 shaft Gilmore loom.  (see photo at left)

The warp is 8/5 linen sett at 4 epi.  The weft is Collingwood rug yarn using three strands together.  The finished rug is 25" x 40".

 

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Wendy-Marie wove this gorgeous "Spring Flowers Shawl".  The draft and directions were from Handwoven's Design Collection #19.  The advancing twill design is by Hele Bobisud.  Since the original pattern called for a weaving width of 26", Wendy-Marie removed two blocks of burgundy (84 ends) from the warp so that it would fit on her Baby Wolf loom.  The final shawl size is 85"x 20".  Another change that she made was to substitute 8/2 tencel for the Zephyr wool-silk given in the instructions.  The shawl feels soft and drapes nicely, so the substitution worked.

The photo below shows the draft used for the shawl.

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Both this scarf and the one below were woven by Ingrid K. out of JOY 10/2 tencel in both the warp and weft.  The sett is 36epi.  The draft used on the scarf at the left is an extended point twill.  The photo below was threaded on left M's.  Both were woven on an 8 shaft loom and treadled with an advancing point.

The lap robe was also woven by Ingrid in wool/acrylic (50/50) knitting yarn sett at 12 epi.  The structure is an extended point twill with a point treadling on 8 shafts.

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

Converting a Weaving Draft to Double Width

 

This post came from a discussion at today's meeting.  Further explanation was in order and sometimes drafts make things a bit clearer when you are battling out details.  The question arose about whether or not this lap robe of Igor's could have been woven on two shafts in one layer or four shafts double width.  Igor originally designed his draft on four shafts and then converted it to double width using the magic of a PCW weaving program. The reason he designed on 4 shafts was so that the warp would be spread over all eight shafts in the double width version.   He calls it modified basket weave and I believe another term is half basket.  The single layer drafts would have been 36" in the reed. The double width warp was 18" in the reed.

 

First of all, here is the draft on four shafts the way it was designed. Notice there are areas of plain weave along with two and three thread weft floats.

 

Next we have the completed double width draft - now eight shafts. Don't even bother to look at the floats in this draft.  Being double width, you are looking at two layers at once here.

 

And now to the question that came up in the meeting.  Could this same draft be woven double width on four shafts. The next draft is a two shaft version.

 

And through the computer magic of double width draft conversion, here is the double width draft for four shafts.  Double weave and double width drafts are always confusing because they don't reflect the true appearance of the woven cloth.

 

 

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.

August Meeting Part 2

Carol's towels are both woven with a variegated slub yarn. Notice the amazing plaid created when the yarn crosses itself. The towel on the left has a lot of texture and is a waffle weave structure and the towel on the right is plain weave. However, because of the thick and thin nature of the yarn it also has a lot of texture.

Carol's beautiful huck scarf won a first prize. This was woven with Carol's two ply handspun yarn in angora and Merino. She used two different sources for the yarn, so there is a slight color variation and she alternated colors in both warp and weft to give a uniform appearance to the scarf.

It was hard to capture the colorful beauty of Carol's multi-color shawl. But I was so surprised when I held it up to the light in the picture below and found this glorious pattern that isn't so easily seen without the light going through it. The structure is again, huck lace, but it so different from the scarf in appearance. The warp is a rayon blend and the weft also rayon.

Carol used space dyed yarns for this wool plaid blanket. The weave structure is plain weave and the variation in the color of the yarn again gives great depth to the finished blanket.

Gus wove this rug after a workshop with Jason Collingwood a year ago. It now resides in her kitchen -- and what a beauty it is. The warp is linen and the weft is wool. Look for details of this rug in a future blog about finishing touches.

Gus wove this colorful red, black and white lap robe for an antique car that she and her husband restored. Gus used an 8 shaft advancing twill from a draft by Bonnie Inouye. I'm going to try to get pictures of the lap robe and the car together for a future blog post.