Innehållsförteckning för March/April 2020 från Handwoven

FOR THE BACKDROP IN THE PHOTOS in this flora and fauna issue, we chose the Earth Chacra farm in the Fort Collins area, hoping to get shots of the models in the fields and interacting with the sheep, goats, and chickens. We were also taking pictures for Easy Weaving with Little Looms 2020, which also has nature as its theme, so an outdoor shoot seemed perfect. What we couldn’t control was the weather. Although we were shooting spring and summer issues, the photo shoot took place in November when the weather in northern Colorado is iffy. You may have a beautiful fall day, or you may have a snowstorm. We held our breath and checked our phones only to see that temperatures were dropping and rain was predicted. Sure enough,…

THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN COVERLETS and the state of Kentucky are forever intertwined. While coverlets were handwoven in many states, Kentucky gave birth to two of the most famous experts on handwoven American coverlets: Eliza Caroline Obenchain, perhaps better known to weavers as Eliza Calvert Hall who wrote the classic A Book of Hand-Woven Coverlets, and Lou Tate Bousman of Little Loomhouse fame, who dedicated her life to collecting, writing about, and preserving drafts for old coverlets. Berea, Kentucky, is home to Fire-side Industries and Berea College, both of which worked with local Appalachian handweavers to sell their goods for fair prices and to train students, also often from rural Appalachian communities, to weave and market their weaving. To this day, weavers make pilgrimages to Berea College to take classes…

I DON’T LIKE TO DYE. Normally I would live with that just as I live with the fact that I don’t like to bungee jump … except that sometimes I would really love to be able to create the precise color I want. You know the one—it resides exactly between two colors that are commercially available. However, I have a couple of major factors working against me in the pursuit of the elusive “in-between” color. One, I don’t have access to water or a heat source in my barn studio. This makes the kitchen my only dye studio option, which means I worry about switching my dyepot with my pasta pot, having to clear and set up for cooking meals, and filling my normally soup-and-bread-smelling kitchen with an aroma that…

The green weft does not travel from selvedge to selvedge but starts and stops on the inside of the violet edge stripes. Carry it up the sides as you weave. Cut the other colors of weft when you have finished each color sequence and tuck the tails into the last shed of the previous block. Bring the green weft above or below the outside violet stripes as follows when entering the shed: 1 After the violet blocks (treadles 1 and 2), insert the green weft (treadles 3 and 4) into the shed from above. On the last pick of green weft, exit the shed below the violet edge.2 Weave the first red or magenta block (treadles 5 and 6). Start the green block (treadles 7 and 8) with the shuttle…

WHAT I LIKE MOST ABOUT SPRING is the emergence of new life. It feels as if new flowers bloom every day with an ever-increasing number of butterflies livening up my garden. These heralds of spring inspired me to create towels that bring my favorite flora and fauna to life. In this project, I found good use for my largest and smallest looms. Because of my inkle loom’s small size, I was able to take it on holiday and weave the towels’ hanging loops using tablet weaving. I wove the towels on my floor loom at home. Using the same shadow-weave threading but altering the treadling sequence allowed me to weave a stylized butterfly and a poppy motif. Butterflies hold a special place in my heart as my husband took me…

A FRIEND ASKED ME TO WEAVE A BIRTHDAY GIFT for her mother-in-law, who is a gardener and, as such, loves garden colors. This made me think of greens, yellows, and reds, but just as I was about to start winding a warp, a mutual friend told me that the mother-in-law also loved natural birch bark. That made me wonder if I could create the illusion of birch bark in a woven piece. To get my color palette I studied birch bark images online as well as my own photographs (I also love birch bark). I decided that a mixture of silver gray and natural white 8/2 cotton arranged in random order would best represent the background colors. For the weft I chose a cotton bouclé. I believe the bouclé adds…

TWISTING (OR PLYING) THE FRINGE Divide the number of threads for each fringe into two groups. Twist each group clockwise until it kinks. Bring both groups together and allow them to twist around each other counter-clockwise (or twist in that direction). Secure the ends with an over-hand knot. (Use the same method to make a plied cord by attaching one end to a stationary object.) SIMPLE HEMSTITCHING Weave several picks of plain weave (or the basic structure of the piece), ending with the shuttle on the right side if you are right-handed or the left side if you are left-handed. Measure a length of weft three times the warp width and cut, leaving the measured length as a tail. Thread the tail into a blunt tapestry needle. Take the needle…

MAY/JUNE 2020 Draft Play Sometimes, it’s by chance that our weaving plans change, and other times, it’s by intent. Whatever the reason, in this issue you’ll find projects that “flip the script” and demonstrate how changing one or several elements of a plan or draft can completely or subtly change the look of a project. SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020 Thoroughly Modern Weaving Many people, and not just us, think that weaving is growing in popularity. We’re not sure if it’s due to great new yarns, new equipment, technical weaving innovations, or the DIY community’s embrace of the craft—or a combination of all four. This issue will celebrate weaving in today’s modern world. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 Dynamic Duos Remember the scarf you carefully wove, only to take it off the loom and find that…

Annie MacHale has produced a beautiful and useful book for inkle weavers who want to understand color and proportion in their woven bands. Right from the start—on page 1!—MacHale introduces a variety of yarns, and describes how their sizes and fiber contents will affect a woven band. An often-repeated question among new weavers is “How many ends will I need to weave a band 1 inch wide?” MacHale answers this in one clear photo, and then goes on to tell the new weaver what characteristics inkle band yarns should have and why. There is a section with a brief but comprehensive discussion of color: color terminology, value, and color relationships. This is not dry theory; instead, the section is amply illustrated with beautiful full-color photographs of examples of how colors…

EACH FIBER-FESTIVAL SEASON, I can’t wait to see which yarns will catch my eye and become inspiration for the next project. Will it be an irresistible texture, such as bouclé? Or perhaps it will be a fiber in a luscious shade of bright coral, buttery yellow, or deep rich cream. Last year, when the inspiration finally hit, I was unable to access my floor looms. What I did have at hand were a 7-by-10-inch Harrisville peg loom and two Weavette pin looms, one sized 4 by 4 inches and the other 2 by 2 inches. For my palette, I chose a selection of naturals and neutrals: a handspun cream wool, copper silk strips, brown and rust suede strips, dove gray yarn, and tweed yarns in browns and charcoals. I came…

BROUGHT ON BY AN UNUSUALLY RAINY SEASON, a super bloom is a rare phenomenon in which an enormous wave of desert wildflowers blossoms around the same time. So big are these blooms, in recent years this phenomenon can even been seen from space! This past year, I was awestruck by the poppies and verbenas in California dappled across the green hills as they created a sea of oranges and purples. I wanted to bring the beauty of this spectacle into my home. I began by focusing on creating a set of pillows and chose a structure I thought could provide the right composition: deflected doubleweave. Recently, I have been enamored with deflected doubleweave; there is a tantalizing duality to it. It is a simple yet complex structure, consisting of areas…

ARIZONA Fiber Creek Suite 123, 1046 Willow Creek Rd Prescott, AZ 86301 (928) 717-1774 fibercreekprescott.com Tempe Yarn & Fiber 1415 E University Dr Tempe, AZ 85281 (480) 557-9166 tempeyarn.com ARKANSAS Red Scottie Fibers 51 Eureka Springs St Eureka Springs, AR 72931 (479) 253-0711 redscottiefibers.com CALIFORNIA Alamitos Bay Yarn Company 174 N. Marina Drive Long Beach, CA 90803 (562) 799-8484 yarncompany.com Cardigans Yarn and Fiber 3030 State St Santa Barbara, CA 93105 (805) 569-0531 cardigansyarnandfiber.com Cast Away Yarn 100 Fourth St Santa Rosa, CA 95401 (707) 546–9276 www.castawayyarnshop.com Dharma Trading Co 1805 South McDowell Blvd Petaluma, CA 94954 (435) 259-8404 dharmatrading.com Uncommom Threads 293 State St Los Altos, CA 94022 (650) 941-1815 uncommenthreadsyarn.com COLORADO Lambspun of Colorado 1101 E Lincoln Ave Fort Collins, CO 80524 (800) 558-5262 lambspun.com Schacht Spindle Co…

FLORA TO KEEP OUT FAUNA When we announced our theme for the March/April issue, we received many wonderful submissions—far too many to print—but this one made us smile so much we had to share it, even if we couldn’t publish it as a project. —The Editors Honeysuckle deer protection—weaving inspired by flora and fauna! This is likely quite a variation from what you had in mind. Carolyn Ohle, via email QUERY FROM READER: I bought this years ago, thinking that it was a dhurrie or kilim. It isn’t—none of the motifs can be found in either of those traditional weavings. Upon close inspection, I have noticed that it seems to be two layers of plain weave or tabby weave woven together in a floral pattern. Both warp and weft are…

In the introduction article to his “Huck Lace Towels with Color-and-Weave Effects” project in Handwoven, May/June 2018, Tom Knisely described an “aha!” moment. It was the moment he realized that log cabin, a color-and-weave pattern based on an odd number of ends and picks, could be combined with the 5-end blocks of huck lace. That moment sent him down a path of discovery as he investigated further, which in turn lead him to writing his latest book, Huck Lace Weaving Patterns with Color and Weave Effects. This is not a book for beginners. It doesn’t teach you how to warp and weave as Tom’s other books do. It is a study and a systematic cataloging of the pattern possibilities that exist within a relatively small grouping of warp ends and…

DESCRIBING A WEAVE STRUCTURE can be a bit tricky, and not always completely obvious. When playing around at the loom, you can sometimes come up with things that could be described by several different technical terms at once, as in the case of this “spider weave.” How you describe a certain type of weave structure can depend on your weaving cultural background. In the case of the technique presented in this article, most of my American colleagues from whom I sought advice described it as a variety of deflected doubleweave, which it is, whilst my Swedish colleagues described it as a huckaback type of weave, which it also is. Weave structure definitions can be simultaneously far-reaching and bewildering. However, instead of going into a lengthy discussion about weaving terminology and…

I LIVE ON TOP OF A MOUNTAIN in central Virginia, surrounded by woods. I often glean weaving inspiration from the colors I see outside our house. Even the soil in our area has a multitude of shades of brown, and, of course, there is the red Virginia clay. Anyone who has walked in it can attest to the permanent dyeing potential of that clay; it won’t come out of white clothing or footwear! As the basis for my draft, I used an extended point twill originally designed for a scarf by Laura Fry in 2004. After adjusting the size of the draft and changing the colors for my towels, I also changed the treadling to get lacy sections in the middle. For the first set of towels, I used various…