Spring and Fall Scarves

These two scarves have been on the Newcomb since last winter and I finally finished the second one this month. They took quite a long time because of the goose-eye inlay.  The other thing that took quite a while was selecting colors and patterns.  You would think that using random colors and treadling would go faster, but I had to consider each pick and how it fit with the rest of the cloth.  Much of the weft came from cotton sweaters that I had frogged over the past couple of years.  Most of the yarn is cotton, but I had a little raw silk that came on a second hand AVL end feed shuttle that I purchased last year.

The weft for one of the scarves uses blues, greens and yellows - all very spring like colors.  The second scarf is more muted with varying shades of browns and tans.  The sett is 16 epi, which is very loose for 8/2 cotton, so it required a soft touch with the beater.  The resulting cloth is light enough to wear through the summer.  The inspiration for these scarves comes from seeing photographs of the work of Ilse Acke, a handweaver in Bruges, and Susan Johnson of Avalanche Looms in Wisconsin.

Date Finished   April, 2014

Loom   Newcomb Studio

Weave Structure  Plain, twill

Reed   8, 16 epi

Warp     Fiber  cotton

              Count  8/2 and 8/4

              Color  natural and eggplant
Warp     Width in Reed  9"

              Ends  152

              Length 6 yds

Weft      Fiber  various cotton, silk

              

Beat                       50/50                     

Log Cabin Placemats - NOT

This winter I finished up a pretty piece of cloth, woven in Color and Weave, log cabin pattern.  I planned to make a set of placemats, but unfortunately didn't plan for a wide enough warp.  I now have 3 yards of cloth, 10 inches wide.  I don't have a clue what to do with it, but as a temporary measure it makes a nice table runner with the unfinished edges tucked under.  I could hem a section for a table runner, or use it to sew a vest, or make a whole lot of bags.  Inspiration may come one day on just what this cloth should become.

Gary's recent woodturnings, a set of candlesticks and a bark edged bowl, look wonderful on the cloth.

Date Finished  January 2014

Loom   Baby Wolf

Weave Structure  Log Cabin

Reed  8, 16 epi

Warp     Fiber  Cotton

              Count  5/2

              Color  Burgundy and Black

              Mfr  Valley

              Source   Webs

                  

Notes

Doubleweave Mug Rugs

Doubleweave is one of the structures that I have wanted to explore since I started weaving again.  I was teaching a friend to weave recently and she picked doubleweave from a project in Handwoven as the weave structure she wanted to use for her second project.  The Handwoven project used rayon chenille and she wanted to make cloth using a heavier weight cotton to make a tote bag.  I wasn't sure what sett we would need to use for 5/2 cotton, so I decided to put a short warp on to sample and found this pattern for mug rugs, so we could kill two stones with one bird.  Glad that we sampled, cause her structure didn't look so good, the colors ended up pretty muddy, but the mug rugs came out great.

Date Finished  February 2014

Loom    Baby Wolf

Weave Structure  Doubleweave

Reed  8 dent, 32 epi

Warp     Fiber  cotton

              Count   5/2

              Color  yellow, orange, burgundy

              Mfr  Valley Yarns

              Source  Webs

Warp     Width in Reed  5"

              Ends   168

              Length  3 yds

Weft      Fiber  same as warp

              Count

              Color

              Mfr

              Source

Beat                       50/50                     

Christmas Rosepath

Last year I wove an overshot table runner in red and white, that I had hoped to get finished by Christmas.  Well, I didn't get it completed till January, so I called it a Valentine's Day table runner.  I had similar plans this year to weave small figures using an 8 shaft rosepath threading, including Christmas trees, stars, hearts and gingerbread people.  I was not sure exactly what I would do with the cloth, but thought that it could be cut up and made into flat Christmas tree ornaments each about 2 or 3 inches square.  My other plan was to make Christmas cards with a cutout in the front cover peeking through to a woven tree or heart as shown on Amanda Cutler's blogpost here.  I ended up with Christmas trees, stars, and hearts.  I couldn't find a draft for a gingerbread man that would use only 10 treadles and 8 shafts.  I had to change the tie-up for each of these designs.  Tim's Treadle reducer program was helpful to reduce some of the drafts from 12 or 13 treadles to the 10 treadles on my loom.

Date Finished  December 2013

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure Rosepath

Reed  8, 24 epi

Warp     Fiber cotton

              Count  8/2

              Color  natural

              Mfr  Valley Yanr

              Source  Webs

Warp     Width in Reed  6.6"

              Ends  160 plus 2 floating selvedges

              Length  3 yds

Weft      Fiber  cotton

              Count  8/2 cotton

Pattern Weft      Fiber  cotton

              Frogged cotton in red, green
              5/2 perle cotton in blue
Beat       50/50                     

Size

Notes  The 5/2 was not thick enough to make a good pattern.  3/2 would be a better choice.

Chenille scarves

Do you like my new model? He's not quite a mannequin, but he makes a good prop for scarves.  Last summer, Gary and I were visiting friends and left their house by way of the alley and found a mountain of trash from neighbors cleaning out their garage.  The owners of the house owned a department store that had been a fixture in town for decades.  They sold the real estate and closed the business and had lots of leftovers from the business, including 6 styrofoam heads used to display cowboy hats.  Other scores included rodeo posters from the 80's, old Christmas decorations that were made in Japan (pre-Chinese), and a big roll of store gift wrapping paper.

So back to the scarves, this winter I bought a number of sweaters at the Red Lodge Senior Center Thrift Shop.  One of the sweaters was a red chenille women's sweater which had flecks of blue, yellow and purple.  I thought that the yarn from this would make a great weft in a winter scarf.  The warp yarn was frogged from a cotton sweater of Gary's.  It is a heavy 4 ply cotton with virtually no twist.  What's better than free yarn?  The scarves are woven in an undulating twill, draft #204 from A Weaver's Handbook of 8 Shaft Patterns.

Date Finished         February, 2014

Loom                     Baby Wolf

Weave Structure     Undulating Twill

Reed                       8 epi

Warp     Fiber         Cotton

              Count        Unknown

              Color         Red  

              Mfr           

              Source Frogged      

Warp     Width in Reed   8 in

              Ends                 64        
              Length             6 yd warp for 2 scarves

Weft      Fiber        Rayon chenille

              Count       unknown

              Color       red

              Mfr

              Source     frogged

Size  6: x  72

Notes