The Looms we Love - Part 2

 Here is Eileen's 8 shaft Macomber.  She bought the loom from someone who was downsizing and wanted a smaller loom.  Eileen loves how solid the loom is - good tension, easy to treadle and wide enough for big projects.  She keeps this loom pretty busy these days.





But like most weavers, Eileen has other looms as well.  Below is her Ashford table loom.  Perfect for weaving outdoors in the summer time.

Not shown, is Eileen's newest member of her loom family; an 8 shaft Schact Wolf Pup.  She can't wait to get started with a warp on it.

Ingrid's main loom is a big, 8 shaft Cranbrook countermarche loom and she weaves almost everything on it..  Because Ingrid is tall, she finds this particular loom very comfortable.

But one loom is never enough!  This is Ingrid's 24 shaft AVL Studio loom with a compudobby. 

 

..... and her cherry, Schact Baby Wolf.  Ingrid often weaves scarves on this loom and it goes with her to workshops.

 

 

More looms to come in our next post.  Our weavers love their tools!



Our looms and our weaving tools - Part 1

Every weaver needs a loom of some sort.  Many of the Not 2 Square Weavers started out on rigid heddle looms and have progressed on to four and eight shaft looms.  In fact, almost everyone in our group now has an eight shaft loom and loves the freedom to weave many of the more complicated structures that eight makes possible.

We thought that it might be fun for our readers to see our looms, and what we weave on them. 

We start the series with a relatively new weaver, Diane C.  Although Diane also likes back strap weaving and has taken classes with Laverne Waddington, she also sports a Schacht,  8 shaft Mighty Wolf.  As she began weaving on the loom, she documented her projects by taking a photo of her project while still on the loom.  As you can see, lots of variety here.  Is it possible that starting out with an 8 shaft loom lets you progress as a weaver more quickly?

 

 

Marcy E. started out with a four shaft loom.  I believe it was a Gilmore and she happily wove on it for several years. (see the photo below).

  

When Marcy learned about an 8 shaft Gilmore that was a real deal, she snapped it up right away and sold her old loom.  Marcy has mastered the art of tying new warps on to old ones and loves to do a series of projects with color changes in the warp.  See the evolution of colors displayed on her new 8 shaft loom below.

This new loom has a wonderful light and a raddle on the castle.  Marcy hangs bits a pieces of weft yarns from the loops since she always warps front to back and doesn't use the raddle.

Spring is almost here!

The February meeting was at Marcy's home and her show and tell was on the loom. She is weaving towels in a point twill design and using a different color weft for each towel. Marcy likes the towel with the light blue weft the best so far, but it is already on the cloth beam, so we will have to wait until a later date to photograph it.

Sue R. recently attended a knotted pile workshop and her sampler will turn into a small purse. Here it is with the knotted pile flower and a weft faced weave for the back of the purse. She is card weaving a matching strap. Can't wait to see the finished piece.

Diana brought her woven wool pieces that are destined to become a ruana. The pieces had to be exactly the same length and are hem stitched on each end with fringe. She measured each step along the way and also counted the number of motifs to get her handwoven pieces exactly right. The pattern is a two block waffle weave design from A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns. For those of you who have the book, the draft is #519.

In this picture you can see the brighter border on the bottom of the piece. There is also a brighter stripe on the sleeve edges. Diana dyed the yarns for the ruana and is going to weave an inkle band for the front and neck edges. Stay tuned for more pictures of the finished garment.

There is lots more to show from the meeting. I'll put up a post every couple of days, so check back frequently.

January Meeting on a Stormy Tuesday

It was pouring rain for our meeting at Sue's home but enough of us braved the weather and were so happy we had. Sue had hot apple cider and cookies ready and we got a tour through her living room studio to check out what was on her looms. Dish towels are being woven on the loom in the picture above. Sue gave us a tutorial on how she ties on new warps and saves time by not having to sley the reed and thread the heddles.

This loom is one that Sue built when she attended classes in Espanola, New Mexico. She learned a tapestry technique there and has woven many wonderful wall hangings and rugs on this loom. You can see one of these pieces on the wall to the right of the loom.

Sue wove the cloth for this top some time ago, but recently sewed it into a top for summer wear. On the back are two of the same rectangular motifs.

Marcy got inspired to weave another scarf after finishing up her contribution to our gift scarves we wove around the holidays. This one has some rayon chenille in the warp and a glitzy yarn she picked up at a guild raffle. Very festive.

Jackie brought this alpaca shadow weave shawl and we all agreed it is a spectacular piece. The pattern is from Marian Powell's 1000+Patterns in 4,6 & 8 Harness Shadow Weaves. This particular pattern, for those readers that have the book, is 4-17-2 on page 134. Jackie added her own touch to the pattern by threading some of the darker yarn into stripes between the motifs. These stripes are in plain weave.

Here is a closer view of the cloth.

Sue R. has her scarf done from the brown bag exchange and will be twisting the fringe. Watch for it this next month because I will borrow it to take photos and post a copy of the draft.

May Gathering

We met for the first time at Kerry's studio at her Alpaca Ranch Kerry also sells yarns and equipment, so there was a lot to see before we settled into the meeting.


Kerry brought out a weft ikat sample that she did in a workshop with Mary Zikafoose. The pattern is planned and the yarn resisted and dyed so that color changes will fall into a pattern as it is woven. It is hard to get the pattern to fall exactly where you planned and Kerry says that you need to constantly adjust your weft yarns as you weave.


Kerry is working on this Navajo style tapestry in her studio. The work is beautiful -- but oh, so slow to weave. Below is a shot of the small loom she is using. We asked Kerry if she sat on the floor as she wove -- but no, she places the loom on a table and sits in a chair. Well, I guess we didn't really expect her to be that authentic in her weaving style!




Diana told us about her Theo Moorman inlay place mats at our last meeting. Now, she has woven four of them and says the process has become much more intuitive for her. With images all marked for each item in the place setting, Diana hopes they will help her young granddaughter learn how to set the table. With the assistance of a cartoon, Diana managed to get the plate and glass markings woven into almost perfect circles. Great job! If you are lucky enough to have the a collection of old Handwoven magazines, the directions are in the Sept/Oct 1992 issue on page 35.

Carol came back full of news about the CNCH conference that was held in Sonoma this year. She took a class called "Oh, Dry Up" with weaver, Joanne Tallarovic. The class covered Swedish towel structures and techniques. The samples below are woven in a rep weave technique. The warp and weft are 8/2 cotton and the tie down weft is sewing thread. I believe this is a two block design. A thorough explanation of the process is in Joanne's book Rep Weave and Beyond

Carol came back from her class with a big binder full of samples and drafts for future reference. The green and white sample below is false damask. When this is woven in multiple colors, there is a wonderful ribbon effect of colors going over and under one another. On my list to try!



Jackie has a stash of 16/2 cotton and thought she would kill two birds with one stone. Get rid of
some of her fine thread stash and weave yardage for a lightweight top. She found an interesting draft in Carol Strickler's book of 8 shaft patterns and once weaving was underway, she discovered that it was going to be a textured piece of cloth. There are two similar value colors of thread so enlarge the picture so you can see it a bit better.

I have playing around with designing tie ups that will give a mock lace effect on a non-lace threading. In trying to explain myself at the meeting, I found I wasn't able to convey what I do to get a lacey effect by altering a twill tie up. I promised to put a draft together that would illustrate what I meant. Below you see a twill tie up that has little white and black crosses in it. These can be added or subtracted however you like in any twill tie up. In the drawdown, you see these little crosses appear in the cloth. The threading in this draft could be mirrored and repeated for an interesting design and treadling could be straight, point or tromp as writ.




Here is an example of a mock lace tie up for 20 shafts. The larger version makes it easier to see where I have added black and white crosses in the tie up. It is similar (but not identical) to the tie up I used for the shawl below.

Next month we are finally going to have our napkin exchange. Some of us are done weaving our napkins -- and some have found spring pulling us into our gardens doing other fun stuff. See everyone in June!

Weave Meeting January 20th

The weather was beautiful for our January get together and we had a great meeting of show and tell and a little glass drying experiment with handwoven towels to end up the day.

Dee brought in a new shawl that she wove with some of her handspun mohair and a decorative ribbon. The ribbon laid perfectly flat without twists in the shawl. Dee said she put it in a dent with a finer thread of rayon and didn't fuss with it during the weaving.

Dee also had a nice piece of yardage she hopes to make into a jacket.

Diana brought a couple of napkins she had recently completed. She used a draft from an e-book she downloaded. Top Ten Towels on Eight Shafts One of her napkins had hemstitched edges with a small fringe; the other had a machine stitched hem. I think I liked the hemstitched edge the best.

Here is a detail of the cotton and rayon chenille scarf in shadow weave Gus brought to the meeting. Shadow weave seems to be a good structure for chenille because the floats are small, diminishing the tendency of the chenille to worm.

Ingrid took us downstairs to her weaving studio so she could show off her new AVL Computer Dobby loom. She has her first warp wound on the beam and is threading heddles. The weaving width on this sweet loom is 36" -- just perfect for scarves, towels, shawls etc. Her main Cranbrook loom is off to the right in the photo.

Brand new weaver, Paulette, has woven a series of goose eye twill dish towels. The warp is white and she used a different color weft for each towel.

Paulette also brought in this scarf, which she considered a failure as a scarf because it was too heavy and dense. She used a novelty suede type yarn for the warp and a nylon fuzzy yarn for the weft. I thought that it might make a cute purse and someone else suggested using it as a table runner. Anyway, it was a very interesting piece of cloth and we were glad she brought it for us to think about what went wrong and how it could be utilized in a way other than she originally intended.

This is Paulette's very first weaving project made under the tutelage of Gus. It is warp and weft rayon chenille with a touch of gold metallic in the warp. With such a success as a first project, we think that Paulette has quite a future as a weaver.

Ingrid showed one of her Christmas towels. They are of fine white cotton in plain weave, with a rosepath row of Christmas trees on one end. We feel that these are not belated 2008 Christmas towels, but a good head start on Christmas 2009!

Sue H. shared her ideas about doing a strip woven garment. She wants to weave up some denim colored cotton yarns she has in her stash and sew a casual jacket. She showed a very interesting picture of a jacket found in a catalog that she is using for inspiration.

Sue R. has her loom warped and is weaving her first towel. We convinced her to use some of her warp to weave napkins for our May exchange.

Igor and I jointly wove off a warp of mixed cottons using the bumberet and ducape drafts shown in the previous post. I used the warping paddle I bought from Kerry and warped 10 mixed cotton threads at one time. The towels contained 8/2, 10/2, 16/2 and 20/2 blue and green cottons I had in my stash. When one yarn looked like it was going to run out, I threaded a new one into the paddle. I'm finding the technique works well on my warping wheel, but is more difficult when using a warping board. The angle at which you are approaching your warping device seems to be the determining factor in how easily you can transfer the cross from the paddle to the warping board.

The meeting ended with a rather unscientific attempt at seeing what fiber and structure types make the best dish towels. We tried a mercerized cotton, unmercerized cotton, cottolin- unmercerized cotton and all linen. Most of our towels left lint on the glasses we were drying which was something I didn't expect from the linen towel. My favorite towel was woven with an unmercerized cotton warp and a cottolin weft. It really dries dishes and hands quickly. I also liked a finely woven towel in unmercerized cotton which fits into glassware easily. We tried out a very closely woven twill towel of unmercerized cotton. It was much too dense a fabric to soak up water easily, telling us that the weave structure and sett are very important . If you have done your own experiments to determine the best fiber and structure for towels, please feel free to share your ideas in the comment section.

Next month's meeting discussion will be about selling your handwovens. We will be interested in venues, pricing and marketing tips.