Weaving guild challenge.....

I have finished my guild challenge.  Each member blindly chose an envelope that contained a beautiful postcard of a national park. I chose Isle Royale which I had never heard of - it's an island in Lake Superior (Michigan) that's very close to Canada.  It's only open a few months out of the year. 

Rather than create something inspired by the colors in the postcard I decided to use the actual art from it. I scanned the postcard, enlarged it and then printed it out on two pages of fabric backed with paper that's meant to go through an inkjet printer. I warped up the loom in a Theo Moorman draft using 10/2 dark gray perle cotton and dark gray sewing thread. the sewing thread is the tie down thread. I cut the printed fabric into 1/4" strips a handful at a time to keep them in order and started weaving. 

I wasn't sure how to finish the piece for hanging and went through several different ideas. I had woven enough plain weave for a backing. I didn't want to quilt it but it needed some umpf so I used an iron on pellon product to make the front and back a bit stiffer. I didn't have enough of the plain woven fabric to make a binding and I had decided I did want a binding - I found a print fabric in my stash that went with it perfectly so that became the binding.  i didn't take a photo of the back but I created a label that I printed on fabric to put on the back. Also on the back I put triangles of fabric in the corners to insert a slat of wood for hanging - if you know quilting you may have done this for small wallhangings. 

I can see in the photo I need to push/adjust a few of those fabric strips to have straighter edges again, it's easy to do. They moved a bit during the sewing process. 

A side note - If you're interested in seeing the postcards for all the national parks they're available to purchase, they also have posters and some other items. They really are beautiful to even just look at on the website. My guild bought a box of them for our challenge. 

Another sidenote - when a fellow guild member, another Cindy, saw the park postcard I had picked she immediately told me about author Nevada Barr who has written murder mysteries that take place in national parks and that there was one on Isle Royale. I looked it up and found that was book #3 so I first read books #1 & #2.  I then read book #3 on 'my' park which gave me insights into what the island is like. I've now just started book #4. I need to check out how many there are. So far my library has had these and they're also available through Library2Go/Libby. 

I don't always participate in the yearly guild challenge, all depends on if it interests me, this year was a definite yes. It will be fun to see what others were inspired to create from their postcards. 

 

On the loom............

On the loom today is an 8 harness twill from the Strickler book. The warp is 10/2 perle cotton from the Lunatic Fringe color spectrum set minus one purple that I had used up so instead of 20 colors there are 19.........plus black 10/2.  I'm using the same 10/2 for the weft. 

 

More on the secret project

 Another warp on the loom for my secret holiday project. I found this draft on handweaving.net - it's called Leaves or Feather Point Twill, Ann Frischkorn #79845. It's a 16H point twill.  This is a 10/2 perle cotton warp and weft.  I can see this being a beautiful scarf in tencel or silk - may have to add that to my to-do list for the future..........or a painted warp.  I think I even have a painted warp in the stash that's in autumn colors - hmm, something to think about........

On the wheel.......

I decided to start spinning something new when over on the coast and hopefully not leave it sitting on the bobbins for years. Someone gave me this fiber and it's lovely to spin. it's 40% angora, 30% wool, 15% silk and 15% alpaca. The color is actually a bit prettier than this photo of the bumps.  I can't remember if I have 8oz - it's at the beach cottage so I can't check. 

This is what it's looking like on my Lendrum wheel although this picture doesn't represent the actual color - it's beautiful. I think it will make a lovely scarf or cowl. 

I'm in the process of warping up my table loom for a workshop in around a month......more to come on that.