Nevada County Inspired ... and more!

 For the past few years, Not 2 Square Weavers have been giving a cash prize for the best "Nevada County Inspired" textile.  This year's winner is Ingrid Knox with this gorgeous shawl woven from Nevada County alpaca yarns.  Some of the yarn came from a ranch Ingrid and her husband found while  out "garage sale-ing" and the light colored yarn came from Lola's Loom (BJ Forester's alpaca herd)  The design is threaded M&W's and the tie up is a twill. 

Now for the rest of Ingrid's entries.  (She was pretty busy this year)
Scarves - sock yarn for warp and weft, woven in plain weave



 

Handspun scarf - Mardi Nayton's handspun Merino yarn for warp and alpaca for the weft. 8-shaft point twill with a 2-2-1-1-1-1 tie-up

Left photo:  Baby blanket - mixed cotton warp woven with synthetic baby yarn in the same twill 2-2-1-1-1-1 as is done in the SF towel.
Right photo:  Summer Shawl - Mixed warp and a slubby cotton weft (Cotton Kisses from Plymouth). Structure is plain weave. 


 

Left photo: Rosepath towel - 10/2 natural cotton warp and a 10/2 variegated cotton weft. 8-shaft rosepath design

Right photo: San Francisco Towel - 10/2 perle cotton for warp and weft. 8-shaft point twill  tied-up as a 2-2-1-1-1-1

 

Stay tuned for our last fair post -- coming in a few days!







Entries from the Fair

Several of our members entered woven items and handspun in the County Fair this year.  I realized I forgot to photograph the hand spun but here are the woven entries.  

Several items woven by Betsy, including two table runners, a rug, shawl and scarf.

 Dee submitted various items including yardage, a scarf, a jacket sewn by her daughter using Dee's woven yardage and a shawl.  One of her scarves won the "People's Choice" Award.

Diana's entries included a scarf and two towels.

Ingrid submitted a scarf and two towels.

Marcy entered a huck placemat and dresser scarf.

 

 Sue H exhibited her tablecloth and fiesta placemats.

Sue R entered an inkle band, small towel, small basket and a vest. 

Experimenting with New Techniques and Materials

The June meeting was a little sparse of attendees, but not of things to be shared. 

 

 

Sue Robertson showed us the results of her class work at CNCH 2013 at Squaw Valley.  She took Marilyn Romatka’s Viking Knitting class and created a beautiful necklace.  This technique is also called “Viking Chain Knitting” or “Viking Weaving” but isn’t really knitting.

    

She also took Wendy Patrucco’s Cyanotype Printing class and created two different printed pieces of fabric and a printed canvas bag.

  

The third class was Knotted Button Covers with Mushroom Dyed Silk taught by Gayle Still.  Her button was about half finished. 

 

 

Marcy showed us a table runner she wove as a challenge to use linen.  The warp was 8/2 white cotton and the weft the blue linen shown in the picture.  The design is an M’s & O’s pattern on 4 shafts.

 

 

 

She used a blue floating selvedge that created a very neat edge for the piece. 

 

Betsy is working on a five-piece collection of wall hangings/shawls that represent the four elements and the moon.  She has been working on the water element.  She showed us a shawl woven with tencel in an 8-shaft shadow weave pattern.  There are different color blue warp stripes with silver and blue as weft.

Here is some detail of the shawl.  It is very reminiscent of water. 

Betsy also showed us a sample where she played around with a black weft that was woven in treadle order.  It is really quite striking.

Betsy has started working on ideas for the earth piece.  She brought a sample of what the structure of the piece will look like.  This one was woven with 5/2 cotton.

Finally, Ingrid showed two lap robes woven with local llama yarn.  These were done in 3/1; 1/3 twill stripes. 

She also showed us her latest sock yarn scarf - merino wool and nylon yarn.

 

Color and Pizazz in Handwoven Shawls

Betsy brought shawls to our latest meeting.  What a flair for color she has.  Look at the iridescence with the bright yellow green and the coral warp underneath.  This shawl is a bit weft faced in a diamond twill pattern.  I believe this shawl is woven in 5/2 cottons and sett at 10epi.

 

This shawl was probably woven on the same warp as the one above and this time Betsy used a bamboo weft. The softness of the lavender along with the burnt orange and coral make for a very striking piece.

 

 

Betsy had enough warp for this little square table runner.  She wove the hems with some great rainbow colored sewing thread and her efforts were supported with an almost immediate sale to one of her customers.

 

Nevada County Inspiration Challenge

The Fair has come and is almost gone.  Eleven items were entered in the Nevada County Inspiration Division - most from members of the Not 2 Square group.  It was interesting to see how the entrants got their inspiration. 

Most people found a picture that captured some aspect of the County - usually a specific scene.  Others were inspired to use local plants to add color to their finished pieces. It was very impressive.  I hope that there will be more entries next year.

Here are the entries from our group.



Beryl's Shawl

The photos don't do justice to these pieces, but you can get an idea of how great they look.

Marcy's Towel

Gus' Towel

Dee's Scarves



Igor's Towel

Sharon's Towel

Ingrid's Towel