Diana's Inlay Shawl Project

Diana has been working for the past 3 months on a project inspired by Nancy Peterson in Handwoven, Sept./Oct., 2021. It is a plain weave shawl in stripes of random widths and colors, 24” in the reed. What makes it more than just a plain weave shawl is, again, the randomly placed inlay patterns upon the stripes. The pattern for the inlays Diana chose is from Davison, p. 131, Johann Schleelein’s #123, which creates interlocked circles. The pattern structure is 26 ends, so all stripes in the shawl are multiples of 26. Some stripes are 26 ends wide, some 52, some 78, and one is 104. It takes 20 pics (alternated by tabby) to complete the pattern, so her pattern inlays vary from 2 to 4 times in length.

The warp is 8/2 tencel in three different pastel colors and 8/2 rayon in two other colors set at 24 epi. The background weft is 16/2 bamboo in coquille, and the pattern weft is Malabrigo Mora silk in two different colors, lettuce and teal feather.

Inlay pattern shawl with shuttle showing the small shuttle to pick up and weave in pattern upon a stripe

Inlay pattern shawl off the loom. The ends are hemstitched and the fringe will be twisted (soon).

  

There is quite a bit of handwork to do which is finger weaving in the loose ends of the pattern weft on the back.

This is the reverse side of the shawl with pattern yarn ends not finger woven in yet.

 

County Fair Entries, Continued

Two more Not 2 Square members had entries in this year's County Fair: Jeanne and Betsy.

Jeanne wove and then sewed this blouse.  

Jeanne's Blouse

For her Nevada County Inspired entry, Jeanne drew inspiration from the local hippies and tie-dyed fabrics that past and current hippies enjoy.  This shawl was woven with hand dyes warps that Eileen created.  For her scarf, Jeanne used Vice Yarn for her warp.  This is a space dyed yarn that comes with long color sections.  
 

Jeanne's Nevada County Inspired Entry

Jeanne's Scarf

Jeanne's final entry was a cowl that she knit from her handspun yarn.

Jeanne's Cowl

Betsy entered a scarf and a bag sewn from fabric that was woven at the end of the warp of some of Betsy's rugs.

 
Betsy entered two wall hangings.  The one woven with wheat was a collaboration with Beryl.  Beryl supplied handspun yarn.  The lavender wall hanging included spring of lavender.

Wheat Wall Hanging

Lavender Wall Hanging

There are a few more people we need to highlight.  That post will be written soon.

...And Last But Not Least....

We finally get to the last two members to submit entries at the Nevada County Fair this year.  We have so many talented Not2S members.  Eileen is a newer member but has been a talented fiber artist for many years.  

The first shawl was entered into the Nevada County Inspiration.  The painted warp and plain weave structure really bring out the lovely colors of our county. 

The next two shawls also really show some beautiful color.  The multicolored shawl was woven with one skein of Vice yarn, a 80/20 merino/nylon blend.  The second is a beautiful plaid, slightly fulled.

Eileen's Shawl

Eileen's Plaid Shawl

Eileen also entered a plaid towel, a bag and a table covering.

 

Eileen's Towel

Eileen's Woven Bag

Eileen's Table Covering

 

Eileen entered a skein of hand spun wool.

This colorful sweater was knit with handspun yarn.

   



Eileen's Sweater

Eileen's Sweater - Back

Our last weaver is Ingrid.  She and Marcy have a friendly rivalry each year to see who can do better in the baby blanket category. Here's Ingrid's entry for this year as well as a lap robe.  Both were woven with a mixed cotton warp using plain weave.

Ingrid's Baby Blanket

Ingrid's Lap Robe

Ingrid submitted several scarves.  This one was for the Nevada County Inspiration category.  Her inspiration was our friend and mentor Dee.  Most of the yarn and ribbon Ingrid used were Dee's and she wove the scarf using one of Dee's designs - plain weave edges with a ribbon supplementary warp and twill center. 



Dee Inspired Scarf

Dee Inspired scarf - Detail

The other two towels - one using a turned twill on 8 shafts (in pink) and the other plain weave using sock yarn. 

 

Ingrid's Pink Scarf



Ingrid's Red Scarf

Ingrid also entered two towels.  These are 100% cotton woven in a twill pattern.


Ingrid's Towel



Ingrid's Other Towel

Finally, Ingrid submitted a shawl woven from local alpaca yarn, woven in a point twill design. 

So that's it for another Fair year, but there will be more updates on the Not 2 Squares before then.

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!