September 2025 – Kate Alberta Weaving

Creative Fibre Auckland had its annual retreat last weekend at St Francis Retreat Centre in Mt Roskill. It’s a very relaxed weekend, you bring any projects you want to work on and there are also a few informal classes offered. One of the classes was on blending a gradient for spinning. One of my Christmas presents last year was an Ashford Corriedale sliver bright colours sampler pack which I hadn’t used yet so I decided to take it along to the class. Cher Lyall was the tutor, you can find her on Instagram at @waihipi . Cher is always inspiring, I did a slow stitching class with her at the previous retreat.

I blended my fibres using a drum carder, spun them up and washed the yarn to make a felted single. I love the result and am now trying to work out what I can do with it. I’m thinking of weaving with it, using it in the weft.

I decided to use up some cones of 8/2 cotton, predominantly shades of green, and weave some tea towels using bumberet weave. I didn’t bother to work out a colour sequence before winding the warp other than winding groups of three to work with the threading. However I was forced to ignore this plan and change colours part way through a group of three in a few places when I ran out of a colour. I was a bit worried when weaving the towels that this was a bad mistake and I should have planned the colours a bit better but once the towels were all finished I’m quite happy with the results.