Sue Habbeger

This week, Not 2 Square lost one of our former members, Sue Habbeger.  Sue graduated from Chico State, having studied weaving while she was there.  Later she moved to Española, New Mexico and studied the Chimayo style of weaving.  She built her own loom and did a lot of tapestry type weaving.  She was a talented potter and weaver and won many awards for her beautiful work.  She was actively engaged in progressive causes and was particularly passionate about protecting the environment.

She will be missed by her family, friends and the weaving community in Nevada County. 

A retrospective of her work can be viewed at this link:  https://youtu.be/u-v0vYAaZCE .

Ruana

Jacket

More County Fair Entries

There are more beautiful entries to see.

SueH wove the fabric for this coat and knitted the bias trim.  Jill, the daughter of our late member, Dee Jones, did the tailoring.   The fabric for the coat won a first prize for yardage at the Nevada County Fair in 2011.

Beryl has been busy using her 40-shaft loom.  (I am so jealous!)  She wove a towel and table runner on this loom.  She used the techniques in the Echo and Iris book by Marian Stubenitsky.

She also entered a shibori shawl. The weave structure is plain weave, 6/2 bamboo. After the pulling threads were gathered, the piece was painted three different times to get varying layers of color.

Beryl's Shabori Shawl

Another of Beryl's shibori pieces was a scarf.  This scarf incorporated a polyester weft.  She steam finished it so that the pleats would be permanent.  

Beryl's Shibori Scarf

Beryl's last piece is a scarf woven using her handspun cotton yarn.  Beryl incorporated some Brooks Bouquet embellishments at the ends.  

Beryl's Handspun Cotton Scarf

Igor entered the Nevada County Inspired category with a coffee shop inspired scarf.  We have many coffee shops in the area and this bead leno piece, woven on 4 shafts is a nice representation.  The straws for the bead leno technique were acquired from local cafes and coffee was inspiration for the mocha colored yarn.

Igor's Nevada County Inspired Scarf

Igor also entered a 3-shaft scarf.  With only 3 shafts, the colors of the yarns bring the interest to the piece.

Last but certainly not least is Igor's first place shawl and Best of Weaving Division shawl.  This lovely Japanese inspired piece is truly a winner.  For more details, check out Banner Mountain Textile's blog: http://bannermountaintextiles.blogspot.com/2016/02/igors-japanese-inspired-shawl.html

Igor's Shawl

There are more entries to show off, so stay tuned.  

The Fiber Art of Sue Habegger

Sue Habegger has been weaving and creating wonderful textiles for much of her adult life.  Now she has decided to tie up all the loose ends and send her weaving tools and yarns to the next generation of weavers. But before the big sale, Sue plans to give a presentation at a Foothill Fibers Guild meeting on April 26.  Here is Sue's description of that program.
                                                                      
I will do a slide presentation of the placemats and clothing I did from 1980 thru 1990’s including how I did modified ikat on 30 yard warps at 32 epi for placemats with mop yarn, and then did fabric on the same warp for warp faced yardage with finer yarn for kimono jackets and caftans, and double layer yardage for light 16 epi. napkins and summer weight casual tops.    I will also bring a selection of Southwest tapestries (off my walls and not for sale) that are weft faced wool worsted.

video best viewed at U-Tube

Sue is very active in environmental causes and we know that she won't be idle now that she no longer will be weaving; we will definitely miss seeing her beautiful textiles at the fair and at our meetings.  You have been a inspirational weaver to us all, Sue.  I know your weaving legacy will live on and on.

Our Two Sues

Both our Sue's were winners at this year's County Fair.

Sue R entered 12 feet of yardage woven with a linen warp and a weft made from alternating a two ply cotton and linen yarn with a raw silk yarn.  The warp was sleyed and dented so that there were two threads alternating with one thread.  This combination of warp and weft variations give this plain weave piece some real interest.  The story behind this yardage is that Sue bought a Peacock Loom (a two-shaft countermarche) many years ago with this warp on the loom.  She has been working on it for several {well 10} years and when she ran out of the lavender cotton/linen weft, she cut it off.

This beautiful fabric not only won Sue R a first place in  the Yardage Class but won her Best of Division in the Weaving Division.  Congratulations Sue!!

Award Winner!

Details of the yardage

Sue R also was a collaborator and seamstress of one of three bags that were created with bands contributed by area weavers.  The idea of the project was the brainchild of Wendy-Marie, who sewed one of the bags as well as coordinated the effort.  Sue R's bag used contributions from Beryl and Dee of the Not 2 Squares and two other weavers.   A creative use of these bands.

Sue H entered curtains in this year's Fair.  These curtains were made with existing yardage she wove several years ago and a woven cotton trim fabric - used to create the loops for the rod - with a pico edge.  These turned out nicely - a great use of mostly existing material.  Congratulations Sue H on your first place ribbon!

Sue H's Curtains

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

September Meeting - Part I

We had an interesting meeting in September.  Unfortunately our usual photographer/reporter wasn't there, so it falls to me (Ingrid).  Because life always gets in the way, this is a bit late and will be drawn out over several blog posts. 

Diana shared nine different squares of fabric she wove in preparation for doing a collaborative project with a quilting friend for the Holiday Cheer lap robe project for December.  She was inspired by an article in the January/February 2004 issue of Handwoven magazine.  These squares are all woven in Spot Bronson.  She used 10/2 cotton sett at 24 epi for the warp.  She used 3/2, 5/2 cotton and sewing thread for the weft.  The fabric was woven upside down to ease the treadling.  Below are all of the nine different patterns.  Although the treadling is different for each, Diana only used two tie ups for all nine designs.

Sue H has been working to make curtains for her home.  In an effort to use up existing materials and not have to buy new yarn, she found some fabric she wove several years ago.  She did weave 8 yards of the cotton trim fabric - used to create the loops for the rod - with what she called a pico edge. 

 

More from our talented members soon...

More from the County Fair

Here's more of the County Fair entries.  This post features three of our members and their entries.

Mardi wove a marvelous men's scarf with some special Alpaca yarns she recently purchased. The warp is painted and the weft is a neutral. Because the scarf is slightly weft faced, the painted warp creates a very subtle design - best viewed from a little distance.

Mardi's Men's Scarf
 

Mardi's Huck Placemat

Mardi also wove a set of placemats using 3/2 cotton yarn.  They have huck lace in the center and plain weave around the edges.  This piece won Mardi a second place ribbon.

Sue H wove yardage and sewed a top that she entered this year. Top is made from a cotton warp with a textured yarn for weft.  It's basically a huilipile or traditional garment of South America.  It is just two strips of cloth with a center front and back seam and a slit for the neck.  Sue used graduated width stripes that got further and further apart. There are planned selvage stripes that become decorative when the seam allowance is turned to the outside.  A nice first place entry!

Sue's Top

 

Sharon's Scarf

 

 

Sharon entered a scarf and a towel this year.  The warp in the scarf is hand spun yarn.  She dyed several different colors of blue-faced leicester and then blended them together on her Patrick Greene drum carder with silk noil, white Cormo and alpaca, and Tussah silk.  She spun the fiber unevenly and then plied the single with "natural" 16/2 bamboo.  The weft is 8/2 green Tencel.

 

  

The red towel is Turned Taquete with 8/2 cotton, for warp and weft, sett at 20 epi.  There's a discussion about this draft right now on 4 shaft weaving page on Facebook.

 



Sharon's Towel

 

Another First Project

I realized that I forgot to include one of our member's first project in the previous posts.  Sue Habegger shared her first sampler.  It is a twill sampler.  She used different twill patterns (and colors) across the piece.  The sampler was woven using the different twill patterns and different colors.

 

Sue's Sampler

Sampler details

 

This kind of sampler is a great way to see how different twills look when they are threaded one way and woven with a different twill.  It can also be used to look at different color interlacements.

 

 

 

 

 

Plaza Jacket, Ikat Top and Rag Rugs at our September meeting.

At Not 2 Square meetings, Dee is often the one who has a new garment to display.  Here we have her version of the  "Plaza Jacket" and Sue Robertson is the perfect model to show off its lines. We decided that this particular jacket shape is called a huipil, but the Sewing Workshop pattern has more width to it than the traditional blouse tops by that name.

Sue Habegger has made a top from  ikat yardage she had woven some time ago.  She experimented with the ikat dyeing technique while in collage using Lydia Van Gelder's book as a reference.  Notice how expertly she has placed the ikat stripes on both the front and the yolk of the top.






Jackie Hervey's ingenuity amazes us all.  She used alternating reds and greens in her rug warp.  Then she alternated picks of fabric with a pick of fine cotton.  This made all the green warps prominent on one side of the rug and the red warps on the other side. The pictures show the green side on the left and the red side on the right, in case your monitor didn't detect the difference!

 

There is more to come from September's meeting.  Stay tuned for another post soon.

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.