January's Virtual Show and Tell

 Not 2 Square Weavers are still in a social distancing mode, but continue weaving and sharing what they do every month in a Zoom gathering.  

This month's meeting had a lot of special pieces being shown and it seemed like a good time to make a blog post and let all our readers enjoy the fruits of our looms.

These towels were woven by Diana A.  Here is what she said about them.  "The Stripes and Huck Lace towels show the difference in color in warp stripes (bluish) vs. the weft stripes (greenish) which were both the same pale green yarn (see photo at left). No explanation, although Beryl thought maybe being 24 epi in the warp and about 20 ppi in the weft could create the difference. Who knows? All yarns 10/2 cotton, except the pale green was 8/2, I believe."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These scarves were also woven by Diana as Christmas gifts for her two granddaughters.  The one at the left incorporates huck lace hearts.

 

The Huck Lace Heart Scarf is  8/2 tencel and  8/2 rayon.
 

 

 

 

The Cat Scarf is Summer and Winter and plain weave, 8/2 tencel and 8/2 rayon.  This scarf is for the granddaughter that loves animals. 

 

 

 

 

Betsy A. has a brand new Baby Wolf, 8 shaft loom.  These two scarves were woven on the same warp.

8 shaft plaited twill scarf 5/2 bamboo warp and doubled 8/2 tencel weft. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8 shaft plaited twill scarf, 5/2 bamboo warp, 5/2 cotton weft.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Marcy E. wove 5 dish towels using 8/2 and 10/2 cotton yarn from her stash.  The pattern was from Handwoven's design collection 3, Kitchen Towels, woven with a twill variation.  The weft yarns were also from her stash.

 

 

 

 

 Ingrid K showed us a couple of new scarves. 

 Malabrigo Baby Silkpaca (alpaca/silk) in two different colors for warp and weft; sett 30 epi, 8 shaft point twill threading with an advancing point treadling.  The tie up is 1-1-1-1-2-2- twill

 Madelinetosh Pure Silk Lace yarn for warp and weft; sett: 30 epi, 8-shaft advancing twill threading, with an advancing point treadling. The tie-up is a 1-1-1-1-2-2 twill

 

COVID-19 spots (photo below)  are for a sample exchange.  10/2 white cotton for the warp  with 10/2 red weft, sett at 30 epi.  The structure is an 8-end satin on 24 shafts.  The design was created using ProWeave and Fiberworks PCW software.  Ingrid is still working with this warp to explore other weave structures and possibly weave towels. 

 

 

Highlights from the County Fair

The Local County Fair has come and gone.  The weaving and spinning entries were amazing as usual.  Many of the Not 2 Square members entered beautiful pieces again this year.  Here are the highlights.

Betsy captured the People's Choice award with a beautiful shawl made from hand-dyed tencel.

Betsy's Shawl

Diana garnered an Honorable Mention with her bright and fun turned taquete towels made with 10/2 and 8/2 cotton.  

Diana's Towel

Ingrid submitted a shawl woven from Madeline Tosh merino yarns.  This was woven in an 8-shaft extended twill pattern.

Ingrid's Shawl

Jeanne won a second place ribbon with this elegant hand towel.  She wove it with 40/2 Normandy linen with Lanis Valley Linen as the pattern.

Jeanne's Towel

Karen won a first place ribbon with a fabulous wool rug.  

Karen's Rug

Marcy's classic dresser scarf, woven in cotton with M's and W's pattern won a second place ribbon.

Marcy's Table Runner

Mardi's show stopping shawl was woven in plain weave with rayon chenille.  It feels as fabulous as it looks.

Mardi's Shawl

Sue R. woven a colorful table runner from the warp left over from last year's demonstration project.  She used bleach to remove color from black yarn for the weft.  This inventive piece was a first place finisher.

Sue R's Table Runner

Sue V.'s yardage entry brought her a second place ribbon.  This cotton piece woven in a twill design used a variety of yarns from Sue's stash.

Sue V's Yardage

We are starting to look ahead to what we will be weaving for next year's fair entries.

County Fair Part 2

The next two members' entries we would like to highlight are from Mardi and Marcy.

Mardi entered a baby blanket, napkins, table runner, a shawl, two towels and a caplet knit using hand-spun yarn.

Mardi Baby blanket

Mardi Caplet knitted with hand-spun

Mardi Napkins

Mardi Table runner

Mardi Shawl

Mardi Towel

Mardi Towel

Marcy also entered two items: a scarf and a towel.

Marcy Scarf

Marcy's towel

There will be more members entries later. 

More From the Fair

Marcy entered three items this year.  She wove a blanket in a huck design with a plain weave boarder.  The Dresser Scarf was one of two she wove this year. 

Marcy's Blanket

Marcy's Dresser Scarf

Marcy also entered  a towel.  It is a towel project called Twill Stripes Towel was in the Weaver's Craft Issue #17.   All three projects were woven with cotton yarn.

Diana took home the Best of Division in the Nevada County Inspired category with this dogwood inspired in lace table runner. The original draft came from Weavezine http://www.weavezine.com/content/dogwood-lace.html   

Diana's Dogwood Table Runner

She also entered two towels.  

Diana's Summer & Winter Towel

Diana's Polychrome Towel

Last year, Diana attended Madelyn van der Hoogt's weaving school on Whidbey Island. Diana brought back this Summer and Winter draft from the school. She says the pattern weft was suppose to be 5/2 cotton, but she only had 10/2 and so she used two threads of that in her shuttle. She had a bit of trouble squaring the pattern as she wove but our group reminded her that we are the "Not 2 Square" weavers and not to be too concerned. 

Diana's second towel was woven in polychrome crackle. She used nine different colors in warp and three rotating colors in weft. This is one of several towels she wove with the same warp.  

Diana's last entry is a cotton pot holder.

There are several more Not 2 Square members who enter things in the Fair.  More later.  

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.

Towel Bonanza



Around Christmas, Not 2 Square Weavers seem to be finishing up on towel warps.  Why - because they make such good gifts.  One size fits all and the amazing variety of choices is just so much fun to weave. 

At our December meeting, we held true to our usual offerings.  The green and purple towel below was woven by Eileen.  It is a two block broken twill design.  The warp and weft are 10/2 mercerized cotton and the towel is very light weight - although the sett was 32 epi.  Eileen thought it too "whimpy" but most of us thought it was great for drying glassware or other delicate items.  Gorgeous colors.  We will have to break out the McMorran Yarn Balance to test the yd/lb of her yarns from Lunatic Fringe and compare them to other 10/2 mercerized cottons we have.

Marcy had finished another warp on this two block twill threading.  She has found the joys of tying on to an old warp and weaving another colorway.  This time the towel warp was a burnt orange and gray.  Look at what happened when she used a white weft and then a navy weft.  The glory of neutrals and the geometric design just sings in both of these towels.  This pattern has been featured here before and is from Strickler's book on 8 shaft weaving.  The draft is #228 if you happen to own the book.  

 Marcy had also been busy on the loom weaving overshot runners. There was some warp left over and she did this striped beauty, and changed around the overshot motifs.  Great idea and a good use for the end of that warp.

 

 Mardi told a story as she showed us her towels woven on her old Leclerc loom.  She said she had always had problems with getting even tension across the whole warp.  When she went to the Vavstuga school a few months ago, she asked the instructors there to give her advice. Their answer was to use a temple.  Mardi warped up the loom, and woven this stunning stripe and plaid set.  The temple helped tremendously and her selvedges are perfect.  What a great feeling to have conquered this common weaving problem.

Marjorie brought in some woven items from several years ago, including this gorgeous hemstitched towel.  Love the color and the detail on this one.  The towel also has some huck patterning.

 

 Sue V. went to the Weaver's School on Whidbey Island this past spring.  Sue hasn't been weaving recently, and wanted to get her weaving mojo back so she took the beginning class.  The first photo is of the sample she wove in class with the huck lace design and a frame of stripes and plaid.

So Sue took inspiration from her woven sample and designed a towel warp specifically for a husband who doesn't always make sure his hands are perfectly clean when he uses the towel.  The towels are a beautiful red clay color - just like the soil here in Nevada County.  Sue used the same framing stripes, a huck design and made the towels just a bit longer than usual so that they hang around the handle of her refrigerator.  Stunning towels - and one would never know if a bit of red clay smudge got on them or not!

There's more to show from this meeting, so stay tuned for part two of our December meeting show and tell