Weaving – Page 2 – Measured Threads

January 13, 2017

Roc the House

Wow, long time no post. I enjoyed the Weavers Guild sale and fall retreat in November, traveled to Savannah to visit my cousin in early December and then I have been teaching, creating, selling, helping my mom who broke her hip and have just plain been busy, especially over Christmas, with two of my kids being able to come home for the holidays (two still live at home too). Now everyone is back to school and work and my mom is on the mend so its back to work for me.

The Weavers Guild held their annual Roc Day event last weekend. Its a great benefit of membership. The mini-classes are all free to members and you can take 2 in the day. I learned how to weave on the bias on a pin loom and created a proddy flower using rug hooking techniques. Both were fund and taught by creative fiber artists who are fellow guild members.

September 14, 2016

Weaving Shibori

In the Rigid Heddle Loom Study Group I lead at the Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati, we are working on a woven Shibori project. Last week we brought in our projects that we wove with supplemental weft. We got together to pull the supplemental weft threads to gather the woven cloth to create the areas of resist before dyeing. In the photo above I am pulling the blue supplemental threads along one side of the cloth. I pulled them in small groups that match the block patterns I was weaving into the cloth. Pull them about halfway across the cloth (be careful not to pull out the threads from the other side) and tie the small group of threads into and overhand knot. Finish one side before starting the other.

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Next as you see in the above photos, I have started on the other side of the cloth. To make it easier to tie the threads into the block groups again, I snip the loops of thread as I come to them.

Pull the group until the cloth gathers against the overhand knot tied on the other side. Pull tightly and tie into a surgeons knot on this side (not and overhand like the other side). If you break a thread by pulling too tightly that will just be a variation in the pattern in your finished cloth. Thensecure the surgeons knot with a second knot on top of it instead of finishing with a bow

Above is the fully gathered cloth after I snipped off excess dangling threads.

Next up will be dyeing the gathered cloth in an indigo dye pot.

March 25, 2016March 25, 2016

WiPs and FOs

I finished a WiP (work in progress) yesterday, Hyrna með krónuprjóni is finally finished after 7 years (approximately 6.75 of those years it was in a bag). Now it is a FO (finished object). I will submit it to my Weaver’s Guild UFOFF (unfinished objects finally finished) Challenge Exhibit in a week and it will be on display in the guild gallery for a while beginning in May.
Here is a pic of it before being blocked.

After soaking in a little warm water and Eucalan wool wash, she needs to be shaped and pinned out to dry. I folded it in half for blocking to save space (along with my back–bending over and pinning it out takes a while) andto keep the symmetry.

Wet blocking is a transformative process that softens the yarn, lets the stitches settle into place, stretches out and shapes and opens the lace. When it is fully dry and you unpin it, the shawl keeps it shape.

Have I said how much I love Old Shale lace?

Socks in progress. The pink pair is waiting patiently to be removed from the machine and have the toes grafted closed.

They will be part of the basket my study group is putting together for a raffle at the Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati for the Fiber Arts Fair we are having on April 30. If you are interested in buying fiber art or making fiber art (members will be selling used equipment a tools and extra stash yarn) come to the Fair at the Guild House! I will have cowls, sock and some towels to sell.

I also finished up a pair of clogs for my 13 year old son. They were a collaborative effort. I bought the yarn, my daughter did most of the knitting. I finished the knitting, sewed them up and felted them. Here they are pictured with my size 8.5 foot.

He has outgrown two pairs (grown 8 inches in the last year), here is the first pair I knit Pair 1 and a post when I was working on his second pair. (for some reason I didn’t take a pic after they were finished) so the new ones are bigger than his size 10 feet to have a little growing room.

February 5, 2016

Mixed Warp Workshop Day 1

I’m taking a workshop on creating a mixed warp at the Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati. Today in the first 4 hours of the workshop, we learned a little about color theory and value. Colors may be different but have the same value on the grayscale. In our first group exercise we sorted yarns by value. Here is how they sorted out.

Here is the sorted yarn viewed as a grayscale image.

Sometimes they can really fool you. Yellows and yarns that have some variegation or sparkle can be very difficult to sort. One of the theories of choosing the yarns is they can be any different colors but will look good together as long as they are about the same value.

Then you have to consider your fiber types, and textures of yarn and decide what will fibers will do taking into consideration how they will stretch in the warp and shrink in the finishing. We learned about the properties of different fibers such as wool, acrylic, silk, cotton and flax and how to decide how well they will mix together.

Then you choose something that will add a little “pop” of color or sparkle in the warp or to be used as a supplementary warp.

In my first go through in selecting 5 to 7 yarns from what I had to choose from, this is what I came up with and here is how they came out on the grayscale.

And here is what they look like in color.

Its hard to see in a picture, but one of my yarns (the grayish one) had a little bit of silver sparkle to it.

After choosing some possibilities, we learned how to figure out the sett (how close together they should be) of yarns of different thicknesses, taking into consideration the percentage of each we will be using, the structure we will weave and the weft we are going to use. That part can be very tricky.

Tomorrow in an all day session we will lean different approaches to winding the warp and dressing the loom with a mixed warp. It should be a great day!

August 7, 2015October 26, 2015

Loom Heaven

I recently returned from a vacation to the Red River Gorge area of Kentucky. We decided to make a little detour to the town of Berea on our way home. Berea has a lively artisan community, due in great part to the presence of Berea College where admitted students (primarily low income student from Appalachia) can attend tuition free by working 10-15 hours a week in the Student Crafts program. They are producing traditional Appalachian style crafts in ceramics, woodworking, jewelry making, broom making, basket making and of course, weaving, which is the heart of their Student Crafts program.

I visited the weaving studio and talked for over an hour with Amy Judd, the Weaving Supervisor. She graciously showed me around and we talked about looms and weaving for over an hour. Amy shared with me some of the unique problems of running a large production studio that the usual home weaver doesn’t have. (Trying to get enough yarn of the same dye lot to warp 100 yards for a blanket warp!) I got some tips on warping my sectional beams on my looms from one cone of yarn rather than multiple packages by using a tension box with a chained warp that is two or three times the length of my needed warp. She fired up the AVL loom to show me the student designed draft they were working on for bread cloths with 10/2 cotton which will be a new item in their line of products. They weave two items side by side with cutting lines and sewing lines so they can have fringe on all 4 sides.

She also sat down at the loom with the fly shuttle, automatic advance and a sandpaper beam and roller system to show me how it worked.

This set up allows them to put on very long warps for production weaving. They do not wind the finished cloth onto a beam, but let it hang down until it is finished. Space is left for fringe and the weaver begins the next blanket. The blankets can be cut off as they are woven without having to retie the warp to a cloth beam, it is just held under tension between the beam and roller in front and never has to be retied. This is a great time-saver.

You can see the woven cloth hanging loosely in this picture on the left. It takes a path between the sandpaper beam and a lower roller and keeps the tension on the warp that way.

The studio has certain looms set up for certain projects and always tie the new warp onto the old one so that they don’t have to re-thread the heddles each time and introduce threading errors in the new warp. In this photo on the right, one of the student workers is tying on a new placemat warp.

If you are interested in buying their products, you don’t have to go to Berea (although I highly recommend a visit there). You can purchase their handcrafted items online.