Funny sheep

I recently joined the local group of the American Sewing Guild. I had thought about it several times over the years when they came to my studio twice for a presentation about weaving. I held back on joining because I had no idea how I'd fit one more monthly meeting into my schedule. I still don't know how I'll fit it in but have decided I'll just do and attend when I can. I'm hoping it will get me sewing more as I really enjoy it, and eventually sewing with my handwovens which I've only done a small amount of over the years.....and of course learning new things with all the programs and classes available in the region.  There is something called community sew within the organization - I'm not sure exactly how it all works but one project my local group is working on is quilts for babies/toddlers/kids for county visiting nurses to bring as gifts to at risk homes. Yesterday I found this great sheep fabric in my stash so stitched up a quilt to donate - it was fun but this super simple quilt took longer than I thought it would.....will have to think on how to speed up this sewing. I have another fun sheep/farm fabric waiting to be sewn into another quilt.  I've found that I do need to learn about my walking foot, which I've never used. Then I'll move on to sewing up some organizers for gifts that we learned how to make this past Tuesday - when I get one finished I'll post a picture. Anyhow, good organization, lots of learning opportunities and community sewing on top of it.........and a nice group of folks.

Seafoam Chenille Scarves

We spent a long weekend on the coast - mixture of pouring rain and beautiful sun and blue skies. Typical Oregon weather - it was wonderful. I hadn't planned on putting a warp on the loom over there but ended up putting this chenille scarf warp on - two colors of seafoam/teal. I got a bit of weaving done in-between other things we were doing. Last month I took over a load of chenille and decided the focus for the beach cottage loom for a while would be chenille scarves.

Busy week coming up which means no time to weave here at home - might be pretty grumpy in a few days..........

Crimp Cloth

This past weekend my weaving guild brought in Dianne Totten for a workshop in Crimp cloth. It was great. Dianne's a great teacher and wonderful person - I totally enjoyed learning from her. I'm so excited with the possibilities. I've only touched the surface as I had a 8H point twill and extended twill on my loom - so many samples woven but more could be....but then there are so many other weave structures that can be used. My loom was warped for weft crimp but then there's another whole side to this - warp crimp. How I wish I could set aside everything else I have to do and play with putting on many samples warps. If you ever have the opportunity to take this workshop from Dianne don't hesitate, but if that option isn't available to you she has two different videos out there, one on weaving crimp cloth, the other on sewing with that crimp cloth. They can be found on the Interweave Press website. I own the weaving one and am thinking I need to buy the sewing one.

I wove a total of 11 samples but honestly don't feel like taking photos of all to post here. So, here's one of the samples before and after crimping. My warp is 8/2 tencel, my weft is polyester sewing thread woven in a clasped weft technique. Most of my samples were woven using Orlon for the weft but I did a few with sewing thread and they turned out incredible, so lightweight.....not that the others were heavy but these were so yummy feeling.  The weft needed to be something that would hold the crimp when steamed, for warp crimp the warp needs to be a fiber that will hold the crimp. (details in Dianne's video). The white threads are my pull threads - I pulled it tight (sorry forgot to take a picture of that) like in shibori and tied it securely in preparation for steaming. It's hard to see above but there's a pattern to those pull threads to create columns.......I wove many samples with different patterns to the pull threads, the diamonds were pretty neat looking.

And here it is after steaming and after washing. See that incredible crimp?  It's permanent as long as I don't take an iron to it to flatten it out. You can see on the left that's where I had it threaded to an extended point twill, on the right it was just a point twill.

I found a picture of one of the samples pulled ready for the steamer, it's not the same sample as above but it shows what it looks like when the pull threads are pulled tightly. In this sample my ground cloth is a twill ratio tie-up - you can just see a bit of it above the crimping. My crimp threads are in a diamond design.....which you can't see. My weft was black orlon for this sample.

I'm so excited to try some scarves with ruffled trims. I wove a few samples with extra length for ruffles where I can experiment with hemming techniques. So, there will be some crimp scarves showing up on the blog but first I have a list of other weaving with deadlines........would love to just set those aside and jump into crimp cloth but I can't. I'd love to make a couple vests too. So many fun projects..........so little time!

Giveaway Winner!!

The winner of the sheep ornament kit is Thistle Rose Weaving.  Martha I hope you have fun making these.
This giveaway wasn't as popular as the last one, maybe no one is thinking ornaments with the holidays not far behind us. 

Auditioning wefts....

I got the AVL warped with one of my painted/dyed tencel warps. There's enough for 2 scarves here. I'm auditioning wefts at the moment....sometimes I find it easier to decide by looking at a photo. So, I think I'm going to use the first color, a maroon which is closest to the knots where I tied on and then maybe a purple, maybe - second from the top of the page.......but I like the contrast of the black weft too. I'll probably change my mind on all of it by the time I walk back downstairs........

Two new shawls & stash sale yarn update

I finally got the shawls recently woven finished up - they needed to be washed and have the fringes twisted. These are woven in an undulating twill pattern in rayon, rayon slub, bamboo, rayon cotton novelty and rayon seed novelty yarn. These make me think beach wedding or beach/cruise vacation.

There are shades of taupe, peach, off white and pale mint green in the warp.  In this one I used a white novelty rayon for the weft. This shawl is so light and lovely, almost fly away......

.....this one I used a heavier weft in a peach rayon seed yarn - it's a heavier shawl but still perfect for cool summer nights.  Both are available in my etsy shop in the Shawls - Handwoven section of the shop.

There's an update to the Stuff for Sale section of this blog - more destashing of yarns. Details can be found in the Stash Sale Section of my other Etsy Shop.

Giveaway

I've got another giveaway. This one is for a kit called Holiday Flock.  It's a knit sheep ornament kit. It doesn't say anywhere how many ornaments it makes but there are 4 bells so I'm making a guess that it makes 4 sheep ornaments.........don't hold me to that though since I don't know for sure.

So, if you're interested and live in the US or Canada please leave a comment to this post. I'll pick a name next Wednesday the 15th using the random generator site.  If there's a way to contact the winner next week I'll do that in addition to posting the name here on the blog, if there isn't a way to contact the winner please be sure to check back to see if you've won.

Crimp weave workshop

I'm very excited to have a guild sponsored workshop coming up with Diane Totten on crimp weave. This is not a collapse weave created by using different fibers or overspun fibers. This workshop is based on woven shibori and using polyester/orlon/orlec for the warp or weft, pull up the shibori threads, then steam which sets in the 'crinkles'. Monday I got my table loom warped for it. I decided to put a few stripes in it, some solid areas and some thin stripes of variegated - I want to be able to see different variations  of colorplay all in one warp. My warp is 8/2 tencel, my weft will be orlon, the shibori pull threads a bonded nylon. I'll post pictures of my samples in a couple weeks.

In April there's another guild sponsored workshop - this one on supplementary warp with Deb Essen.

Shawl warp

I finally got back to the shawl warp today. Finished the first shawl and am part way through the second. For the second one I used a different rayon novelty seed yarn. I 'think' I'll like these once off the loom and washed......they're very beachy which I do like.