I’ve been following the lesson on Monk’s Belt with Colour and Weave in Season 7 of Jane Stafford’s School of Weaving. Juggling 4 shuttles is not fun and there have been a few dropped shuttles but I do like the outcome.
I’m also working on a project for the Certificate in Design correspondence course offered through Creative Fibre NZ. I’m at the sampling stage but it’s taking longer than I expected as I experiment with various yarns and structures.
Meanwhile the typical Spring weather of rain and wind interspersed with the odd day of sunshine continues. Rufus doesn’t mind but it’s not much fun for the lucky person who has to play ball with him.
It’s halfway through the first month of 2023 already, and February already seems to be getting too close. The weather has been all over the place, lovely sunny days, days that are just too hot and sticky to move and then heavy rain and wind. The poor old vege garden and fruit trees don’t know what is happening.
Weaving
I’m still working my way through Season 6 of Jane Stafford’s School of Weaving, I have a rather hopeful plan that I will finish all the lessons by the end of the month. Episode 6 is Crackle Weave which I hadn’t tried before so it has been fun experimenting with this technique and weaving some tea towels. Below are a couple of photos of the sampler I wove on the warp first. The towels are waiting to be hemmed and then I will take some photos of them.
I have also been experimenting with pulled warp technique, something I have wanted to try after reading an article on loom woven baskets in The Weavers Journal – Spring 1986 issue (you can find this issue here: https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/wj.html ) I put a narrow cotton warp on my table loom and used triple strands of 2 ply wool as the weft for an intial play. I made a couple of necklace pieces and then tried making a tiny basket which was fun though rather fiddly. I will put on a wider warp at some stage and try making a larger one.
Dog Tales
Rufus is mostly banished from my weaving studio as he has a tendency to stealthily pick up yarn and other things and head outside to chew them. I relent every now and again and let him in, and he behaves himself for a bit, then he gets bored and starts looking for trouble. Here’s a picture of him busy telling me it’s time to stop weaving and go outside and play.
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.
July has been and gone so I thought I’d better post here before too much of August has passed and I had forgotten what I’ve been up to. Thank goodness the photos on my phone have dates on them 🙂
I finished weaving the Monk’s Belt placemats from Season 6 of Jane Stafford’s School of Weaving. They’re waiting to be hemmed, which might get done before the end of August.
Once my jack loom was free of the placemats I got to work weaving some samples for a trio of double-weave scarves I planned to make for a small group exhibition coming up in August. I used some 2 ply corriedale wool I had dyed previously that was in similar colours to what I planned for the final scarves, wove a small sample to check the sett was OK and then wove off the rest of the warp. I used double-weave so that I could weave phrases using Morse code into the scarves.
Once I had finished the samples I moved on to dyeing some more wool and warping up the loom for the final project. I cut the scarves off the loom on the last day of July, which was a relief as the exhibition they were for opened on the third of August. I’ll post some photos of the finished scarves in my next post.
June has flown by and I’m not quite sure where all my time went. At the beginning of the month I took part in a Pop-Up Artists in Residence event at the Franklin Arts Centre which was good fun. I took a couple of looms, a rigid heddle for visitors to play on and my table loom, and some of my work. I worked on one of the doubleweave samplers from Jennifer Moore’s book in between chatting to visitors and another local artist Eric Braks popped in and drew a lovely sketch of me weaving (masked up of course). The colourful works on the gallery walls were painted by some local high school students who were also part of the event.
I completed the doubleweave sampler and continued working on the Monk’s Belt placemats from this season of Jane Stafford’s School of Weaving. After a few months of setting up my new to me Mecchia dobby loom (it’s around 40 years old I think) I finally put the first warp on and started weaving. One of the wires leading to the dobby unit came loose soon after I started weaving and had to be reclamped but I have now managed a few hours weaving on the loom, with not too many issues (i.e. flying shuttles flying off the loom ). There’s a bit for me to learn, I’ve never used a dobby loom, flying shuttle or sectional beam before but I’m enjoying it so far.
First steps on the Mecchia dobby loom
Doubleweave sampler
Dog Tales
We visited dog-friendly Rooseville Park in Pukekohe after being told about it by a friend and it lived up to the recommendation. The wet weather met that there were lots of great fungi to see as well as all the native trees. We only explored a small part of the park but we’ll be going back again to see more of it.
I have finished weaving a couple more of the double weave accordion books, one with four sections and one with six. Handwoven using 2 ply corriedale yarn dyed with harakeke seedpods, the books are fun to play with and rearrange into new shapes.
Rufus
We have gone to the beach at low tide a few times with Rufus while we waited for him to be fully immunised for parvo. This week we are finally able to go walking in public with him which is great and will hopefully help burn off some of his energy.
The tea towels in the last post have been washed but still need to be hemmed. There has been much moving of stuff and rearranging looms in my studio so not much actual weaving. I have finished the double weave projects on my table loom and have a few ideas on what to do differently next time.
I have finished weaving the warp from Season 6 Episode 2 of Jane Stafford’s School of Weaving. I love the colours and patterns and once I get around the hemming them all I’m looking forward to using some of these tea towels in my kitchen.
Weaving continues on the double weave warp on my table loom. The warp and weft is corriedale dyed with harakeke (NZ flax) seed pods.
Reading
I purchased second hand copies of a couple of books about double weave that were offered for sale in a NZ weavers facebook group: Doubleweave on Four to Eight Shafts by Ursina Arn-Grischott and Double Weave by Palmy Weigle. They both look very interesting and am working my way through them. The latest issue of VÄV magazine arrived, I particularly liked the article “Twisted Colors”. I’m also reading Miss Pinkerton by Mary Roberts Rinehart as part of the Shedunnit book club.
Rufus
Still growing and exploring, he likes playing with the hose but doesn’t enjoy baths quite so much. He had his first puppy preschool class and now we’re working on the takoto/lie down command. He is pretty good at e noho/sit especially when food is involved.
Kate Alberta Weaving 