April – Part 1

April 16, 2023April 16, 2023 FrancesLeave a comment

Weaving some tea towels on my Mecchia dobby loom, using up odd spools of cottolin. The draft is A Basket of Stripes Towels by Megan M. MacBride in Handwoven May/June 2022.

Sewed up a skirt using fabric I wove way back in 2020. The skirt pattern is one I have made up a couple of times already, but this is the first time using handwoven fabric. It’s the Clair skirt, a zero waste pattern by Liz Haywood, mine isn’t quite zero waste as my fabric was narrower than the recommended fabric and I also managed to measure one piece incorrectly and had to do some piecing. Very happy with how it turned out though.

Continuing to weave the Deflected Double Cloth sample blanket from Exploring Woven Fabrics by Janet Phillips. I’m nearly halfway through and I’ve found that my understanding of this structure has definitely increased after working through the different lift-plans. Really looking forward to finishing this warp so I can plan some projects based on it.

Mā te wā | See you soon,

Frances

Weaving

December 2022

January 16, 2023January 16, 2023 FrancesLeave a comment

I had good intentions to post during November but now it’s December and that obviously didn’t happen. Better late than never I suppose, so here’s a quick roundup of what I’ve been up to.

Weaving

I finally hemmed the hand towels that were my first warp on my Mecchia dobby. They are already in daily use, replacing our rather worn out old towels.

I put a warp on my Ashford jack loom to work on the Summer & Winter lesson from Jane Stafford’s School Of Weaving. I enjoyed weaving the tea towels even though I managed to make a few mistakes, mostly due to inattention when weaving the tabby picks.

In the middle of November, I attended a workshop on Echo Weave, led by Agnes Hauptli. The workshop was organised by Creative Fibre Auckland, as part of their Spring Education Event at the Estuary Arts Centre in Orewa. I really enjoyed it even though lots of concentration was required.

Different treadlings on my workshop warp.

Reading

After the workshop I purchased a copy of Weaving with Echo and Iris by Marian Stubenitsky. It’s a pretty expensive book but it has a wealth of information in it and I’m slowly working my way through it.

Dog Tales

Rufus is still growing and still full of energy. Occasionally he does have quiet moments.

Dyeing · Weaving

August – Part I

August 22, 2022 FrancesLeave a comment

Weaving

August is racing away, I don’t know how we are already over halfway through the month. The weather has been wet and cold so it’s been good to be inside weaving. First up are some photos of the double weave scarves that I mentioned in my last post.

Each scarf has a wintery phrase woven in morse code, from left to right they are: “It’s Cold Outside”, “Wrap Up Warm” and “Looks Like Rain”. The right hand side of the photo shows the full front and back of “Looks Like Rain”. They were on display at “Gathering”, a collection of works by members of the Franklin Arts Festival committee. It was held at the Franklin Arts Centre, Community Gallery from 3-22 August.

The tea towels are finally off my Mecchia loom and are now waiting for me to hem them.

Last week I put a cotton warp on my Ashford jack loom and wove some woven shibori pieces using the techniques from Catharine Ellis’ book “Woven Shibori”. I wove four pieces with a cotton warp and two with a polyester weft. On Saturday my local weaving group had an indigo dyeing workshop and I dyed all the cotton weft pieces and one of the polyester weft pieces. I dyed both polyester weft pieces with Rit Dyemore dye as well and steamed them to set the pleats.

Handwoven pleated purple coloured pieces hanging on a branch, — Cotton warp and polyester weft, the piece on the left was first dyed with indigo before both were dyed with Rit Dyemore dye.

Dog Tales

Rufus is now 6 months old and continues to keep us on our toes as everyday he finds something new that he can reach. He loves playing with his balls and running around.