Tag Archives: v-shawl

Weaving Retrospective 2024

Posted on by
Reply

I number all my warps (except for the ones I forget to put in my notebook like some of the rigid heddle projects). Someday I’ll have to look for the notebook with #1, although that wouldn’t be truly #1–it would be the first one I recorded. I think that notebook is here somewhere.

The first one this year was #1351. The notebook page says 12-26-2023, but that would be when I started winding warp. I wove most of the ten blankets in 2024. This photo is two Year to Remember blankets. The one on the left was a custom blanket, commemorating the recipient’s wedding anniversary.

This Year to Remember blanket (Vacaville, 2023) is woven with yarn I dyed using plant material growing here. It is still available on the website.

One of my favorite patterns, also woven on this warp using gray Jacob yarn for weft.

I wove several v-shawls in 2024. The one on the left is still for sale here.

Warp #1387 went on the loom in July, but I didn’t finish the last blanket until December. I get distracted by weaving on other looms and the rest of life going on around me. This photo shows how each weft yarn may behave differently. Some yarns have more elasticity than others, either due to the type of wool or whether or not they have been naturally dyed. The warp and all the naturally dyed yarns are Timm Ranch wool from various years.

Here is that warp off the loom. The blue weft yarn was naturally dyed with my home-grown indigo. The brown yarns are mostly dyed with walnut hulls. Yarns on the left are Ashford DK.

Finished indigo and walnut hull blankets.

The last warp of the year was #1404, a warp for three chenille shawls. This is the first piece off the loom in the process of twisting fringe. This warp is still on the loom with two more shawls to weave. I had wanted to get at least one off to get it to the Artery before the last couple of shopping days before Christmas.

Warp # 1403 went on the loom before the chenille warp, and I finished it just in time for our family Christmas on the 27th. There are ten hemp towels.

There are two colors in the warp and a different weft color in most of the towels.

Another favorite this year was a chenille warp. I wove two rectangular shawls and this piece that is sewn to leave a neck hole and be worn over the shoulders sort of like a poncho. I will put this on the website soon.

Weave a V-Shawl (13 of them)

Posted on by
3

I taught a 2-1/2 day workshop this weekend for CNCH (Conference of Northern California Handweavers). It went very well, mainly because the attendees were all very enthusiastic and patient. That is a lot of people to have in a hands-on workshop when learning a brand new idea. I came home inspired and I hope they did too.

Here is a view of the classroom after I unloaded my trailer. I brought 6 looms for people to use as well as all the gadgets that go with them and the yarn for the projects.

I brought several shawls to as examples and we figured out a way to hang them, clothesline style.

This is how the classroom looked after I had all my things arranged. This was before 7 more looms showed up and we had to find room for warping boards.

I knew that we wouldn’t be able to hang warping frames on the walls and I suggested using metal grid wall to provide “walls”. The room got more and more cluttered looking as we set up work stations around warping boards and looms. It was already cluttered looking because of the dramatic design of the carpet and the stripy walls.

This is the classroom next door. There is still a distracting rug, but overall the classroom looked much more organized with the looms all arranged in rows like a desks in a classroom. These looms were brought to the show already warped, so they didn’t need to start with warping stations like we did.

Our classroom looked a little more chaotic, but there was a lot of work going on here. In this photo some people are still warping and others are threading their looms.

At this point everyone was weaving. It is hard to tell that there were 13 weavers in this room (some just out of the photo).

It was fun to see the variety of warp designs.

This photo shows one of the shawls partially through the Weave a V part. Warp threads are cut in pairs at the back of the loom and then those warp threads become weft, creating a plaid design.

On Saturday night teachers were asked to stay in their classrooms so that other attendees could wander through and see what was going on in each class. Some of the students stayed as well and were glad to demonstrate the technique (while making progress on their projects).

This seems to be a random photo. I left the hotel early on Saturday and Sunday mornings to take a brisk walk around the golf coarse.

Sunday noon. Some of the students didn’t finish the shawls in class and will finish at home, but some did finish in time to open up the shawls and take photos. These shawls all need finishing touches–tie or twist fringe and wet finish. Then they will have an ore finished look. It is fun to see so many color ideas!

The unique design of the V-Shawl is evident when you see the backs!

Thanks to all these students for making this a great weekend!

Weaving in Blue

Posted on by
2

I got a new loom! It wasn’t from Santa. I realized that if I was going to try to sell Schacht looms I’d better have some examples here. I have the smaller looms, but not a large floor loom. So the week before Christmas my loom came. It’s an 8-shaft, 46″ loom and I ordered a double back beam and sectional beam. Wow! What should the first project  be? Fortunately I didn’t have time to worry about the appropriate first project. I had an order to weave a chenille throw and I’d been putting it off. The deadline was Christmas.

Here is the first warp on my new loom. I think that a 46″ wide chenille throw is a worthy project for the occasion.

Back view of the loom (before adding the extra beam or even the rest of the treadle tie-ups.

The piece on the left is the original throw that I was to duplicate. The loom was a joy to weave on, even with a 46″ wide warp. I am thrilled and can’t wait to wind the next warp.

In the meantime I had a deadline for a piece to (hopefully) be used in the next issue of Handwoven.

This was finished  yesterday and mailed today. Its a v-shawl out of yarn called Bambu Lace.

What’s happening in the studio

Posted on by
3

I taught a v-shawl class last week.

The second day of the class was Sunday. On that day the weavers were ready to weave the “v” part of the shawl. These shawls are woven in 2 layers up to the “v” where the fronts join to create the back.

Here is what the shawls looked like when they came off the looms. (The fringes will be trimmed later.)

I think they are happy because they survived this class!

I’ve been doing my own work in the shop as well.

Red chenille scarves.

More chenille scarves.

These are samples of needlefelted ornaments that we will make this weekend at our Holiday Market Open House. These will also be available as kits.

 

 

 

Weaving

Posted on by
7

The November show at the Artery will be the work of all of us fiber artists. I had plenty of warning about the show (many months) but, because I tend to work from deadline to deadline here is what I’ve been doing in the last couple of weeks.

This is a stunning purple chenille v-shawl that includes a sparkly  yarn.

Close-up of the shawl.

Chenille scarves to be displayed with the shawl. You can’t tell from the photos but there are sparkles here too.

 Rayon & cotton shawl.

Advancing twill blanket in organic Merino wool.

 

 

Merino wool scarves that were woven using a “name draft” that I created for Katie’s wedding.

 The end of the warp that wasn’t long enough for a full scarf.

I was just talking to my friend who said that this wasn’t a bad accomplishment considering that I had deadlines for Handwoven magazine, my daughter’s wedding and a concert in my barn all in the last month.

 

 

V-Shawl Class

Posted on by
4

I taught a v-shawl class last week. It’s always fun to see the variety in these shawls. The v-shawl is warped for double weave. The fronts of the shawl are woven with two shuttles and the back is woven by cutting one pair of warp threads at a time and weaving them in as weft.

Tina chose natural colored Rambouillet and Jacob yarns.

Jackie used brown Rambouillet and a space-dyed yarn for accent.

Marilyn used softball cotton in natural and tan with accents of ribbon and a novelty yarn.

Yolanda has space-dyed wool yarn with a blue stripe.

These are the shawls right off the loom so there has been no finishing of fringes.


The back view shows the designs that you get from the warp stripes.

Windy weekend

Posted on by
1

The title implies that I dealt with the high winds that we had this weekend. I didn’t really spend much time in the wind. I was inside at the Art & Craft Holiday Fair sponsored by the Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento. I was surprised at the number of people that came through. Not as many sales as I’d hoped for, but it will be worth going back next year.

These are some of the v-shawls I had for sale.

You may recognize some of these scarves from previous blog entries. I meant to count the scarves. I think I ended up with over 50.

These are 3-D wire pieces that I liked.

And this is an example of another artist’s work that I liked. All his pictures have a time theme and are made from watch parts.

A friend visited me at the show on Saturday and look what she brought. This is a sheep from the WoolPets felt kit that I sell and she knit a scarf to go with it. I wonder if she used toothpicks for knitting needles!

So what was with the wind? It howled all weekend. We hadn’t had any significant damage from the other winds that we’ve had this fall. This wind took the top of the big tree in front of the house. Fortunately all that is damaged is a fence board.

This is upside-down and used to be…

…up there.

The tree is lopsided now–used to have 2 tops that looked like one.

Two busy weekends

Posted on by
3

I spent the last two days in Placerville teaching Weave a V-Shawl to the Hangtown Fiber Guild. Here are the results:

shawl front-w

Ladies,  please turn around.

shawl back-w

These are the warps for shawls not quite finished:

warp1-w

warp2-w

warp3-w

Quite a variety of shawls!

Last weekend was Lambtown in Dixon, CA. The fiber building was so busy that I barely got outside to snap a few photos. The sheep-to-shawl contest was one of the most popular events. Teams come with looms already warped and they need to prepare and spin the yarn and weave the shawls during the contest. This year the fiber for the weft was Jacob wool from my flock. It got great reviews from the spinners.  Here is the winning shawl woven by the Silverado Guild from Napa:

silverado-w

And a close-up:

silverado2-w

The Del Oro Guild got second place:

del oro-w

I didn’t get photos of the other shawls, but I did get one of Hangtown Guild’s portrayal of their theme of  “Au Naturel”:

bikini-w

There is a new use for all that roving that you don’t have time to spin! Hangtown always does it with a sense of humor!

One last photo taken at Lambtown:

chincilla-w

Do I want to swap out my sheep for a flock of these  cuties? Hmmm…what is a group of chincillas called? Covey–no, that’s quail. Warren–isn’t that where rabbits live? Crowd? How about Cloud?

I Have a New Daughter!

Posted on by
6

Yes, I have a new daughter (-in-law).  And I didn’t have to deal with the teenage years. My son, Matt, married Kaleena on Saturday and we are all very happy. Kaleena started planned the wedding last summer and her organization paid off. (If she ever wants to quit her U.S. Forest Service job she could probably be a wedding planner.) The only thing she couldn’t control was the weather, but the rain didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits. Here are some photos.

dsc_0181-w

In the photo below that’s my husband, Dan, me, Matt, Kaleena, and her mom, Mary. I am wearing the v-shawl that I wove to wear with the dress that I dyed. That was my wedding dress and with the input of my weaving friends, I finally chose a color to dye it.  Then we chose yarns for the shawl. My main idea was to not stand out in the crowd. I figured that if no one noticed me then I did all right.  I didn’t want to have people say “Who the heck is that?” or “Why is she wearing THAT?” Kaleena’s colors for the wedding were dark brown and sage green and Mary and I both matched pretty well. (Mary sewed her dress and jacket too.)

dsc_0196-w

In this photo that’s my other kids, Chris & Katie on the left of Matt & Kaleena, and Kaleena’s sister on the right. Didn’t Kaleena choose a great setting for her wedding colors? Or did she choose the colors to go with the setting? Even the clubhouse where the wedding and reception were held was perfect. The carpet and chair upholstery was the green of the dresses and the huge picture windows had a view into the tree tops.

dsc_0197-w

Kaleena let all of her little nieces and her nephew participate in the wedding. The littlest flower girl tried picking up the rose petals that the others dropped down the aisle.

dsc_0207-w

Another weaving class

Posted on by
2

I taught the Weave a V-Shawl class in Stockton this month. Judy Allen of Gilmore Looms organized it and we used the space at the shop to hold the class. Five students took the class and here’s what they created. These shawls are right off the loom so fringes and wet finishing will be done later. Aren’t they incredible? And all so different.

dsc_00243

In the photo above you can get a feel for the warp. It’s the photo below that shows what happens when the shawl is woven–you get fun plaids on the back. The second, third and fifth shawl are out of my Jacob wool. The first is a cotton mix that Judy wove for her mother (modeling the shawl).  The 4th shawl is out of beautiful handspun and the shawl on the far right is a variegated alpaca yarn–so soft.

dsc_0026

One of the most fun things for me was that I took an old Gilmore loom I have to the class on the 2nd day and Bob spent a lot of time fixing things for me. This loom was made in 1962 and I acquired it a few years ago. Bob fixed the space where the reed goes in the beater so that I don’t have to jam it in. He cut slots so that the top bar that holds the reed in place will slip out without having to undo the bolts. He showed me how to fix the reeds that have the tape coming off of them. And most exciting–he turned the beam into a sectional beam for me. Photo to come later.

Thanks to Bob for the loom work and to Judy for organizing the class…and of course the students.