Indholdsfortegnelse for November - December 2016 i Handwoven

Early in my weaving career, I was given some old issues of Handwoven. In the 1979 Fall/Winter issue, I found a sweet little silk purse (“about the size of a sow’s ear”) by Linda Ligon and decided to weave it with some of my handspun silk yarn. In its early days, Handwoven was written for a small, very expert audience, so it didn’t list yards per pound for the yarns or explain trivial details. For example, while the instructions called for plain-weave tabby, plain weave wasn’t actually possible with that threading. So armed with the confidence of ignorance, I warped up enough length for a guitar strap (what was I thinking?!) and proceeded to weave a very squished version of that lovely blooming-leaf pattern. My silk purse really was a…

INDIGO KIT Create your own beautiful shibori designs with this indigo shibori kit from ClothRoads. The kit contains all the nontoxic dye ingredients you need, including organic indigo, as well as resist ties and objects for making shibori patterning in your cloth. Each package contains enough dye for a dozen cotton socks or six T-shirts. www.clothroads.com; (970) 685-4964 FOXY TAPE MEASURE These sweet little fox tape measures from Lantern Moon are clever as a fox. They are handmade and fair trade. Pull the fox's tail to access a 5-foot tape with measurements in both English and metric units. At just 2½" in diameter, this sweet little fox will easily find a home on your studio shelf. www.lanternmoon.com; (800) 530-4170 PURL AND LOOP SWATCH MAKERS Test your sett, color combinations, and…

Thick and thin is plain weave in disguise. The magic happens simply by alternating thick and thin threads in the warp and in the weft. Two blocks are created by reversing the order of the threads. Where there are consecutive thick or thin threads, the blocks change. The surprising intricacy of the pattern is enhanced with strategically placed color. After weaving thick and thin towels on a long black and white warp to explore patterns, I wove this project to discover what effect a colorful warp would have on this fascinating structure. The weft sequence for the first towel is based on the warp-stripe sequence. The remaining three towels explore various treadling options. I included some narrow stripes in colors I had in my stash. You may have yarn in…

In the spring of 2015, Rosalie Neilson taught her workshop “It’s in the Warp: Color and Design in Rep” for my weaving guild, the Handweavers Guild of the New River Valley. One afternoon, she had us do a Fibonacci exercise in color blending. She put a colorful pile of yarn on a table and we picked and swapped yarns with each other, ending up with two groups of yarns that we might not have thought to put together otherwise. Our homework that night was to do color wrappings using the Fibonacci sequence. The next morning, when we shared our wraps, we were amazed at some of the beautiful combinations. Rosalie showed us how we could use one set of wraps for the pattern and the other for background in a…

I created this 8-shaft overshot-on-opposites table runner using two draft s in The Speck Book as profile drafts. I used Speck Draft Number 6 for the corners and Speck Draft Number 20+ for the center section. I modified Speck’s drafts to reduce float length and for overall aesthetic appeal. I feel that the resulting complex design along with the rich color palette evokes Christmases of an earlier time, when yule trees had candles, and fresh garlands festooned the home. The richness of these colors and the complexity of the weave structure complement each other and recall that time of celebration. RESOURCES Speck, Johann Ludwig. The Speck Book: An 18th Century Weaving Manuscript, Volume One & Volume Two. Freedland, Washington: Ginko Press, 1994. “Speck Draft Number 6,” Volume One, p. 3.…

Fine in Many Forms DIANE ROCH - MAGRINI I started weaving forty years ago in Québec, Canada. I was very lucky to study with a wonderful weaver, Soeur Cécile Auger of the Congregation (of nuns) of Notre Dame., with whom I also taught and founded an association of weavers, “Les Tisserands d’Ici,” before I moved to Italy in 2009. In my new country, I continued teaching weaving to people interested in the trade. I am now sixty-five years old and no longer teaching, but I still weave. The older I get, the more I choose to weave with thin fibers, such as fine cotton, linen, and silk because the results are more interesting for me. I also love to combine weave structures because that also produces interesting results. After my…

My daughter got married in June, and I had promised her guest towels as a wedding gift. I pulled out my extensive towel collection to show the newly engaged couple. One of their favorites was a sweet little miniature overshot towel I had made several years before. I went with my daughter’s favorite colors: gray and purple, guaranteed to please. I like to use a fine warp for my miniature overshot towels so that the pattern floats are small. I chose an overshot pattern called Waldenweave from Weaving Designs by Bertha Gray Hayes: Miniature Overshot Patterns. Normally I use different but closely related colors for the warp tabby weft, to give the plain-weave areas more depth. For this towel, I decided to use two-end stripes of contrasting colors in the…

When grief tries to knock us down, we need support to help us stay standing. When I was grieving the loss of both my parents in 2013, one of my strongest supports was a powerful chestnut quarter horse gelding with the improbable name of Pooh Bear. After riding one spring day soon after my parents’ deaths, I had to cool Pooh down by walking alongside him until he stopped sweating. Around and around the arena we went. I started thinking about my parents, and the tears started flowing. I stopped to wipe my eyes on my sleeve, and as I did, Pooh placed his big nose against my chest and left it there. Then he let out a sigh. I realized that this was the equine version of sympathy from…

DRAFT-HOLDING DEVICE I have a suggestion for making reading patterns during weaving a little bit easier. Because I enjoy complex weaving patterns and don’t want to attach them directly to my loom, I affixed a wallmounted retractable makeup mirror to the wall next to my loom. I attached a small magnetic board to the mirror with double-faced adhesive. I use small magnets to attach my pattern to the board and, when weaving, I can pull the pattern directly over my loom to reference it up close. The added benefit is that the mirror swivels up and down, so I can tilt the pattern in whatever direction I need. When I am done, I push the mirror out of the way, and this keeps my small studio from feeling cluttered. I…

Shortly before I retired after a twenty year career as a judge, I learned to weave. A neighbor with a floor loom who knew of my interest encouraged me to take a class and gifted me with her Schacht shuttle when she moved away from San Antonio. It was an effective nudge. As my retirement date neared, I enrolled in a beginning weaving class in the Fiber Arts Department at Southwest School of Art. There my experience with Schacht looms was launched as new students at SSA begin their instruction on Schacht Wolf Pups, all generously donated by members of the San Antonio weaving community. Instruction from great teachers and the opportunity to work on solid equipment produced an eager learner. I was smitten. I must have shared my excitement…

WEAVING SHAKER RUGS Mary Elva Congleton Erf ATGLEN, PENNSYLVANIA: SCHIFFER. 2015, HARDCOVER, 144 PAGES, $34.99, 978-0-7643-4907-2. Mary Elva Congleton Erf has long been recognized as one of the United States’ leading authorities on the subject of Shaker textiles. She has taught many workshops on Shaker linens and household textiles and, along with her students, has provided many of the Shaker historical sites with reproduction textiles. Now Erf has provided the weaving community with this wonderful book on the subject of Shaker woven rugs. Her personal connection and love for the Shakers led her to teach workshops on Shaker rugs, and the book is designed to be a workshop in your hands for those who haven’t had the opportunity to participate in one of her classes. Shaker Rugs opens with a…

My weaving study group recently had an assignment to explore diversified plain weave. I had minimal experience with this weave structure, and so I put on a sample warp. I tried different tie-ups without satisfactory results until I tried a twill tie-up. Rosepath threading seemed to work best, and with some tweaking and simplifying I got the bold, clean diamond pattern I had envisioned. I liked the sturdiness of my sample and decided to use it for a bag. I like to add just a thread or two of an accent color for extra pizzazz in my weaving, so my black and white warp also has three red threads. As the weaving progressed, the bold diamonds and ovals started to suggest a design for the bag. I added three red…

Deflected doubleweave can be woven in many ways, and using different fibers such as thick versus thin and/or shiny versus dull often brings out the best of this intriguing textural weave structure. Aft er weaving several scarves in deflected doubleweave and experimenting with different threading and treadling sequences, I found the most exciting design potential in the tie-up: because the orderly threading of deflected doubleweave may also be woven as two distinct layers of cloth, I could create layers and pockets in addition to areas where the cloth is connected. This scarf has two separate layers at each end, joined by a connected portion in the center. I used four colors of wool-silk to create a color gradient in one layer and a single color of 60/2 silk for the…

Making fabric is magical, but even more so with chunky, textured yarn. Creating cloth with textured yarn feels like unwrapping a present each time a new warp goes on the loom. You never know what exciting cloth you’re going to get. In this case, Bamboo Pop warp in a Midnight Blue colorway serves as a neutral and sturdy backdrop for the spectacular Pixie Dust in Amazon Moss. This thick-and-thin yarn is handspun by Indian women in Punjab, where life has an abundance of color, texture, and bling. The yarn is core spun with just a bit of glitz, and it is the star in this sassy satchel. I wove my satchel using the full width of a 10-inch Schacht Cricket rigid-heddle loom with an 8-dent reed. I warped with the…

Fundraising for a Spinner’s Cottage A t first glance, the Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum (AGSEM) might not seem like a destination spot for textile enthusiasts. While the museum is home to many historical tractors, automobiles, and steam engines, it also boasts a weaving barn with fifty looms, an annual fiber arts fiesta, and weaving classes and workshops. In 2013, Suzie Henzie, a collector of looms, spinning wheels, and other historical and international fiber-related tools, donated her entire collection to the AGSEM. The AGSEM is also the home of the Palomar Handweavers’ Guild (PHG), whose members help out the museum by teaching classes, demonstrating their skills for visitors, and hosting the Vista Fiber Arts Fiesta. Together with the PHG, the museum was able to raise enough funds to build…

“Diversified plain weave” is a term coined by Klara Cherepov in her 1972 monograph by the same name. If she were here, we’d ask her two questions: Where did she get this weave (or the idea for it,) and what made her call it diversified plain weave? We will probably never know, but we are very grateful to her for introducing us to the effects that result from alternating thick and thin threads in both warp and weft. I t could be that Klara Cherepov was a “what if” kind of weaver. She might have wondered what would happen if she threaded 3-thread huck with thick threads on the pattern shaft s and thin threads on shafts 1 and 2. The results of such “what if ” questions abound in…

The inspiration for this scarf arose when I was tech editing Susan Poague’s Circles Scarf project for Handwoven in 2013, while a project I’d done for the November/December 2012 issue was still fresh in my mind. For that project, the Squares within Squares beaded top, I designed a treadling sequence that allowed the shifting of space within concentric square motifs while altering the size of the squares (only two variations were used in the top). Intrigued by the circular motifs in Susan’s scarf, I wondered if I could vary the space within circles in a similar fashion. Using a computer draft ing program, I figured out how to manipulate the circular space and was delighted to find that more than seven variations were possible. Like the Squares within Squares top,…

I wove this gradient purple-to-red crackle runner to celebrate my mom in her 94th year. “When I grow old, I will wear purple,” she’s been heard to exclaim. We are planning a celebration for her birthday, and this runner will be showcased alongside the cake and ice cream. Gradient and ombré fiber creations are very popular now, so this seemed to be a fitting technique to create something new in honor of 94 years on the planet! Woven with 5/2 warp and pattern weft, the runner has a very supple hand and vibrant pearl cotton sheen. I used either 20/2 cotton or mercerized cotton sewing thread in coordinating colors for the tabby picks in each color change. The crackle pattern was inspired by our weaving guild’s recent crackle workshop with…

Mixing various weights of yarn always makes an interesting cloth, but this has been difficult to do when using a rigid-heddle loom. Until recently, rigid heddles have been made with a uniform sett across the width of the rigid heddle making it necessary to use yarns of similar weights in one’s warp. The variable-dent reed opens up many possibilities for mixing yarn weights and textures. The new Ashford Vari Dent Reed that I used has both 2-inch and 4-inch sections that can be mixed together for an even greater variation in spacing and yarn weight, so I could create a true salmagundi (potpourri) fabric by throwing in a little of everything! I love being able to weave while sitting on the couch with the loom on my lap, and a…

READING DRAFTS Some drafts for weaving are very, very long if they are written out thread by thread. To save space, wherever any section of the threading or treadling is repeated, a bracket is placed above it with the number of times to do that section. For example, in the threading draft shown here, there are two levels of brackets, one marked 2x and one marked 10x. To thread: Start at the right side and thread (after the floating selvedge) 1-2-3-4. Since the 2x is directly above these threads, you will thread that two times. Then continue, 1-2-3-4-1-4-3-2-1-4. You are now at the end of the 10x bracket, so you’ll do everything under that bracket (including the 2x section) ten times. When the threading continues to another row, you also…