It's All About Stripes

Jackie has been promising to weave rugs for several years and she has a grand Toika countermarche loom which is well suited for the job. She has made a great beginning with this rag rug for her kitchen. Jackie used an old sheet from a thrift store and cut her strips about 1 3/4" wide because the sheet was well worn. Then, from her stash of cotton yardage, she cut strips about 1 1/2" wide for the stripes.

The perfect use for recycled fabric, don't you think?

Ingrid has been playing with stripes. She found a great little tool online called a random stripe generator and played around with it until she found a pleasing stripe design. Then, using three shades of natural color cotton from Sally Fox she wove towels using the draft which follows. The stripe design is outstanding and well worth the extra trouble in warping.

To read a bit more about Ingrid's process click here for her personal weaving blog.

Dee brought in two very different towels that were woven on the same warp. She used a two block twill which is one of her favorites. The towel on the left was woven with a dark green weft and she treadled 1-4 and 5-8 repeatedly so the blocks are pronounced. Also, by using the dark green weft the green stripes really pop. The towel on the left used a white weft and was treadled from 1-8.  For a touch of contrast, Dee picked some heavier purple cotton for accent stripes.

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.

A Start on Next Year's Scarves

Igor finished his scarf after the deadline, so it will be put away until Christmas 2010. His yarns came from the bag that Dee brought to the exchange and he used some of almost everything in the bag. There were two red rayon threads -- one was about 16/2 and the other probably 8/2. There was a bright red mercerized cotton of about 10/2 weight and a fine black rayon thread. All of these were used in the warp. Igor added a black mohair and metallic novelty yarn as one of the warp threads and used 10/2 black bamboo for the weft.

The finished scarf is very long and 4.5" wide. The warp was 4 yards in length and 5" wide in the reed, sett at 30 epi. He wove it very slowly to make sure he wasn't beating too hard so the resulting scarf has lots of drape. He used a crepe tie up from his weaving files but doesn't remember the source and it is likely that he has tweaked it a bit.

Merry Christmas

Marcy's Christmas cards this year. Aren't they festive!


Diana wove Christmas stockings for each of her two grandchildren. Keepsakes they will always treasure.


Have a great holiday -- hope Santa brings you lots of weaving goodies.

Scarves for giving #8

Ingrid ran out of time to weave her scarf with yarns donated by Igor, so she knitted this bulky scarf for a lucky teenager.

We have a couple more scarves that are still on the loom (they will be destined to give away next Christmas) Once they are done, I'll post pictures and drafts for them as well.

Scarves for Giving #7

I (Beryl) got my yarns from Jackie. In my bag was a cone of yellow rayon boucle. I used this for the warp, sett at 20 epi. The weft is Sari silk for the plain weave picks and the same yarn as warp for the basket weave picks. A finer yarn would have been better for the basket weave picks.

Sometimes I did more than two picks of the Sari silk to make the striping more interesting.

I found the draft for this scarf in Weaver's magazine #12. It was used for a baby blanket on the back cover of that issue. In the draft above, the red picks are shown double to emphasize that they are heavier yarn -- you don't actually do two picks in each shed.

For my next scarf, I picked two more yarns from my bag. There was a chestnut brown rayon boucle and a finer beige rayon. I combined these with three other pink tone rayon and novelty yarns for the warp. I warped all five threads at once, separating them with a rigid heddle paddle. Then, I used an 8 dent reed and put four fine threads in one dent and the heavy novelty yarn in its own dent. The weft was a rayon single that I had overdyed a dusty pink.

This is a very long scarf -- finished length is 106" plus another four inch fringe on each end.

I found the draft on Alice Schlein's blog some time ago and have been looking for a reason to try it out. Alice suggested a random threading, but I used the same thread sequence throughout the warp, which gives a subtle diagonal stripe to the finished fabric.

Scarves for Giving #6

Dee's yarns came from the bag that Gus brought to the exchange. The bag contained a really special wool in a saturated red, which Gus had used in a lap robe project (shown in a previous post). When our group looked at the yarn we decided that there may have been some silk added to the wool, because it was really lusterous and very soft.

Dee's choice of draft was a two block twill design. She made two long scarves and one short one (a preteen size) on the same warp and used the red wool as her weft yarn. Her sett was 20 epi.

Dee used two different treadling sequences for her scarves. The draft that follows shows the regular tromp as writ treadling and an alternative treadling of 1-8/ The twill blocks done red on red are more visible with the light playing on the surface of the cloth than the photographs indicate.

These are stunning scarves in just the right color for Christmas and winter cheeriness.

Scarves for Giving Post #5

Carol got her brown bag yarns from me (Beryl). For this first scarf, she used a painted wool/rayon and rayon/cotton pink ribbon for the warp and some of her own pink rayon as the weft. The structure is plain weave. This is a light, delicate scarf in a fabulous shade of pink.

Carol used the same painted wool/rayon yarn in this scarf, but this time she made use of it in both warp and weft. The striping was a naturally occuring feature. The structure is plain weave.

For her final scarf, Carol chose two different yarns from the bag. One is a cabled variegated silk in shades of wine, green and blue. She combined it with a loopy mohair in almost the same colors. She was inspired to do the window pane design by "Night Windows" scarf in Handwoven's Design Collection 19 Loopy mohair creates the window frames in both warp and weft.

This is an opulent scarf, with lots of length and multiple ways to wrap and wear it.

And more scarves #4

Jackie's brown bag contained yarns donated by Carolyn. There were several balls of cotton/wool in lovely colors of blues and turquoise and some mohair with long repeats of color. Jackie used the cotton/wool sett at 8epi for her warp yarns and the mohair as weft. The color repeats in the mohair yarn worked perfectly - what an elegant look!

This is the draft for the mohair scarf.

Since there was cotton/wool yarn left over, Jackie went to her stash and pulled out alpaca for the second scarf. This scarf was sett at 12 epi and the cotton/wool is used for color stripe accents along with the brown alpaca. The weft is all alpaca and will surely make this a favorite scarf for some lucky person.

Here is the four shaft draft for the alpaca scarf. Notice what reversing the points in the threading does for interest in the finished scarf.

Christmas scarf #3

Marcy got her yarns from Igor's brown bag which contained pink ribbons, pink wool/rayon singles, and several shades of spring green cotton and wool yarns. She mixed them in the warp and used a variegated rayon chenille for the weft yarn -- which contained many of the warp colors.

Her weaving draft was taken from an old publication of helps and hints compiled by the Handweaver's Guild of America and is called a double rosepath. She sett the warp at 15 epi and dented it 2-1 with the heavier yarns in their own dent and doubling the finer ones.

The design is very subtle because of the variety of colors used in warp and weft. The fringe was left untwisted to show off the colors used in the warp.

The chenille makes this a very touchable scarf, which will be sure to please the wearer.

This is the draft used and the extension of twill lines, gives larger diamonds than a regular rosepath draft.

Scarves for Christmas giving #2

Diana wove this big, warm scarf using the yarns that Marcy brought to the brown bag exchange. The warp is an 8/2 or maybe 10/2 cotton in navy and was sett at 12 epi. Diana added some red cotton stripes to the warp and then used a 1/3 twill draft. The weft is a loopy acrylic blend in navy.

The scarf is fairly wide -- maybe about 12", so it lends itself well to being worn as a shawl.

Diana added extra red threads to the fringe to give the dark navy fabric a bit of spark.

Here is another dramatic way to wear this very versatile winter scarf.