Indholdsfortegnelse for November - December 2015 i Handwoven

When Christina Garton started as assistant editor of Handwoven four years ago, she was a history geek with some basic weaving skills, built by watching weaving demonstrations while working at a history museum. Today, she is a weaving geek who produces beautiful cloth, trolls weaving blogs for new ideas, and is known to describe a new shuttle-handling technique as “life-changing.” Along with her weaving skills, her editorial style has blossomed, and so I am proud to welcome her in her debut as guest editor of Handwoven. Here she is to tell you about the delights that await you in this issue. My first foray into two-shuttle weaving was a lovely set of black-and-white silk scarves in deflected doubleweave. At first I was a bit nervous about how the shuttle switching…

Passing down a legacy—and a loom When San Antonio Handweavers Guild (SAHG) Honorary Lifetime Member Jane Jayne passed away in January, her family continued her long tradition of giving and service by donating Jane’s Wolf Pup loom and a large assortment of weaving tools to the guild with the request to gift them to a new weaver. This generosity was a reflection of Jane’s life. Jane’s service included leading SAHG as president from 1974–1976 during an active and industrious period in the guild’s history. Outside of the guild, Jane, along with her husband, David, a burn survivor of a military aircraft crash, founded the Texas Burn Survivor Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping burn survivors and their families. Jane’s loom, representing the life of a creative and generous spirit,…

THE ANDEAN SCIENCE OF WEAVING: Structures and Techniques of Warp-faced Weaves Denise Y. Arnold and Elvira Espejo NEW YORK, NEW YORK: THAMES AND HUDSON. 2015, HARDCOVER, 352 PAGES, $95.00, 978-0-500-51792-5. The structures and techniques of Andean textiles are considered some of the most complex in the world, yet they have never until now been described in the words and worldview of the Andean weavers themselves. In The Andean Science of Weaving, anthropologist Denise Arnold and Elvira Espejo, weaver, storyteller, and director of Bolivia’s National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore, set out to tell the story and describe the techniques of Andean textiles as taught by Andean weavers themselves. The book is a tour de force of stunning images and detailed instructions for creating a range of warp-faced textiles, from simple…

Subtle COMBINATIONS Subdued colors, unforgettable cloth. With the Victorian era came a blossoming use of decorative textiles. Dresser scarves were commonly used in homes, adorning dressers, sideboards, end tables, and nightstands. These linens weren’t just decorative but provided protection for the wood beneath, and they are still used in homes today. I wanted to design a dresser scarf to bring the past and the present together. My grandma made tatted lace and was a seamstress who earned income doing alterations. My mom is a seamstress and quilt maker. They have inspired me all of my life. Crackle woven as paired summer and winter has the look of a patchwork quilt and the appearance of lacework within each little block. Its pattern is a nice reminder of these women in my…

This draft came about as I was teaching a deflected doubleweave class at New England Weavers Seminar a few years ago. I was talking about the possibilities of using 4-shaft twill draft s as profile draft s for 8-shaft deflected doubleweave. As I was saying the words “but you shouldn't use broken twill as a profile for this,” I had an “Aha!” moment and realized . . . Yes, you should!” I quickly draft ed it out on my computer and came up with a very pretty motif that I have been using and tweaking ever since. Once you get started weaving deflected doubleweave, you will see that it is easy to warp and weave because the alternating color blocks keep you on track when threading and treadling. You may…

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…

CHEERS FOR TOM KNISELY Tens of thousands of weavers are now cheering for Tom Knisely and his yarn plan (“Notes from the Fell: Yarn Housekeeping,” September/October 2015). Please encourage him to write a sequel in a year. The article was inspiring, albeit only inspirational, for most of us. —Kate Colwell, via email A LESSON FOUND IN TARN While browsing the March/April 2014 issue, the tarn rug caught my attention (“Tarn-nation Rug” by Linda Silvern). My son is college bound, and I thought a rug for his dorm made out of his high school T-shirts, as well as some of the family’s, would make a perfect gift to remind him of home. Although it involved a bit of labor cutting up all the T-shirts, we were both very pleased with the…

Mango Moon Scarf Yarn Pack How many lovely handwoven gifts will you make this year? We have 15 stunning color combinations of the “Ladies Who Lunch” scarf, featured in Woven Scarves. Glowing Capra kid mohair/silk & the fun flags of Parade make this a luxe gift that you will weave many times over for family and friends. Supplies limited. See them all today at www.mangomoonyarns.com UnicornFibre Cherish your Favorite Handwoven Creations with a Unicorn Fibre Wash and Fibre Rinse Gift set. Deep cleans, refreshes and conditions natural fibres and yarns...Earth Friendly (16oz bottles, includes net washing bag). Check our website for more information! www.UnicornFibre.com 800.711.8225 DJE Handwovens Ornaments kit for Zoom Loom! All three patterns, Mountain Colors Yarns (mountaincolors.com )and Kreinik Metallic Threads (www.kreinik.com) are included in the kit. Keep…

WEFT, THICK & THIN Thick and thin yarns alternate in colorful rep and down-home denim bumberet. Two shuttles and two weft s are the reasons why warp rep designs pop! One shuttle carries a thick weft to create a rib, while a second shuttle carries a thin weft that locks the rib in place. The alternation of thick and thin weft s creates the ribbed appearance in this warp-faced structure. Rep is threaded with a group of warp ends (known as a block) on two different shaft s: a pattern-colored end on one shaft alternating with a background-colored end on the other shaft. For this project, I designed a table runner that requires an 8-shaft loom. The main motif is a 4-block design based on a point arrangement of blocks:…

Innovation is the oldest tradition in weaving. We’ll never know who first thought to cross warp and weft , but from that day to this, weavers have been coming up with new structures. Shadow-weave patterns are a relatively new example of this tradition, introduced by Mary Meigs Atwater in the 1940s. Occupying a quirky corner of the color-and-weave world, shadow weave combines a plain-weave structure with a block threading to produce a pattern that looks like twill. Although it has similarities to log cabin, Atwater came to it through her study of rep weave. So who is Ralph? I discovered this threading among Ralph Griswold’s archives in an article entitled "Variations on a Shadow Weave." Ralph was a computer science professor from the University of Arizona with a fascination for…

Baby Wrap eBook We’d like to give a big thank-you to everyone who submitted projects to Handwoven’s upcoming babywrap eBook, Patterns for Baby Wraps. This new eBook will feature draft s and designs suitable for baby wraps, including three designs sponsored by Halcyon Yarn, Lunatic Fringe Yarns, and Yarn Barn of Kansas, as well as an article on safety and weaving baby wraps. We’re so excited to share this new eBook with you; the designs in it are perfect not just for baby wraps but also for other handwoven items such as blankets, napkins, and towels. For more information on the baby wrap eBook, and to purchase a copy when it becaomes available, visit interweavestore/weaving.com. Vesterheim Exhibit The Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa, will be running an exhibit featuring…

The familiar circles, roses, diamonds, and stars of overshot patterns enchant many a beginning weaver. Overshot draft s, however, can intimidate even the most experienced weaver. Understanding how overshot works is the key to using its astounding pattern potential. THE TWILL CONNECTION Overshot is often referred to as a derivative of twill. I like to imagine that once upon a time, a weaver, bored with the tiny floats of 2/2 twill (see Figure 1), wondered how to make them more dramatic. Spreading the warp threads farther apart would make the floats longer, she thought, but the cloth might become unstable. How about alternating the twill weft with a tabby weft to add stability? And, if you did that, you could extend each 2-thread float pair so that instead of passing…

STRIKING Vibrant patterns and color combine to create dazzling designs. I love the level of complexity found in nature, but without the resources to purchase a dobby loom, much less a Jacquard loom, I had to come up with a different solution. I realized that people have been weaving stunningly complex patterns for thousands of years using pick-up techniques, so I bought a 25-inch rigid-heddle loom last fall. I decided to begin my rigid-heddle adventures with a scarf. I envisioned a water-themed scarf with large spirals. I had some jade-colored 3/2 pearl cotton, perfect for warping my 12-dent rigid heddle, and for weft , a partial skein of variegated sock yarn. STRUCTURE Free-form overshot. EQUIPMENT Rigid-heddle loom, 7" weaving width; 12-dent rigid heddle; 1 boat shuttle with bobbin; 1 stick…

Two-shuttle weaves create wonderful patterns. Among my favorites are overshot, monk’s belt, summer and winter, and shadow weave. But there are limitations! Patterns typically run from selvedge to selvedge. And even though you can break up the pattern lengthwise by weaving stripes of plain weave, you may wind up with “humped” pattern sections that are wider than the plainweave sections, depending on the size and density of the pattern weft . What if you want to use a very expensive yarn or a skein of handspun but have limited quantities? Even with careful planning, you may run out of pattern weft . What to do, what to do? Supplemental warps to the rescue! A supplemental warps is an extra warp chain or chains that can be spaced across a ground…

1. Profile draft 2. Unit draft Dr. William G. Bateman left a legacy of manuscripts from his years of exploring new weave structures aft er he retired. I joined a Bateman study group, and aft er looking at page aft er page of his manuscripts and samples, I despaired of choosing just one for my study group project. Then I found the Boulevard weave structure in one of his books that were left to my guild library. The structure reminds me of an ancient abacus and futuristic computer binary numbers combined. I learned that Dr. Bateman submitted this weave structure to the Shuttle Craft Guild editors in the early 1950s. They researched the structure, found nothing like it, and decided to name it aft er the area of Seattle where…

My father used to joke that the Horton family blazer was a denim jacket. Like many American families, we love our jeans and denim jackets. Not long ago, I was looking at a stack of old jeans on their way to the thrift shop and decided to put them to one last noble purpose: rag rugs. I also had a couple of old red men’s ties left from another project, so I decided to use them as inlay. I am trying to give some of my weaving a more random feel. I call it “random with purpose” because I’m not comfortable without some planning. As I wound my warp for this rug, I tried not to care which of the blue threads I was using, but I wanted each group…

San Francisco Fiber 3711 Grand Ave. Oakland, California 94610 (510) 995-6667 (510-99LOOMS) Email: info@sffiber.com Website: www.sanfranciscofiber.com, www.sffiber.com San Francisco Fiber is a weaving studio dedicated to the teaching and support of the fiber arts. All levels of classes are offered: beginning, intermediate and advanced, as well as classes for all ages. We offer floor loom, rigid heddle, frame loom and tapestry weaving. We also give classes in both spinning wheel and drop spindle. We host a monthly "Spinners Night Out." Our guest teachers include felting, dyeing, tablet weaving, and basketry. Private lessons upon request. Meridian Jacobs 7811 N. Meridian Rd. Vacaville, California 95688 (707) 688-3493 Email: robin@meridianjacobs.com Website: www.meridianjacobs.com Robin Lynde of Meridian Jacobs, teaches weaving, spinning, dyeing, and sheep management at the farm. Robin is an accomplished weaver whose…