Summer Blue blankets

What better way to celebrate summer than with some beautiful summer blue blankets?

Available from

 Pauanesia store in central Auckland.

 

Red blankets

So here we are into April with autumn knocking on the door and the first weaving story of the year.

This is not a warp under control but a lot of patience and stubbornness got the warp with about 50 and more different types of yarn and different red shades onto the loom.  I tie onto a dummy warp which allows me to spread each variety of yarn reasonably evenly across the loom thus avoiding the seersucker effect.  I say reasonably because I use the eyeball method.  One rule I follow is a smooth yarn always goes next to a fluffy mohair one.

Some of the threads are quite fluffy especially the mohair so I find it useful to raise every second thread opening a shed while winding on front to back.

A pleasure to weave once its ready to go.

Two very different blankets from the same warp and they have both found their forever homes.

 

More 2020 Roundup

During the year a friend asked me to weave her some napkins/serviettes reflecting Tapa Cloth.  At the time I was playing with designing using techniques from the book Stubenitsky Code and the two came together perfectly.  The threading remains the same and the treadling is tromp as writ;  its just the tieup that changes.  There is a set of six of these available to purchase if anyone interested.

I was commissioned to weave a wrap reflecting the Puriri tree flowers which can vary from burgundy/wine shades to pale pink.  Not being very confident in using The Code I just dyed enough of a beautiful fine 74/2Tex merino which I had bought in Rome, Italy on a previous visit for one wrap.  I think its the only time in the many years I've been weaving I've woven just one piece on a warp - and do I regret it.  It is a devine garment.

Some time ago many of us acquired some very fine cotton hanks from Agnes.  I love the structure and sheen as its wound but what a lot of work winding enough to use.

In the past months I have woven many metres of fabric for pillow slips.  I love sleeping on handwoven fabric and The Code makes a soft but dense fabric so ideal.  Some were made for gifting, some for an exhibition so you may see them in the future.

 

Another event which happened this year was a very quick course in Crochet Basics.

My physio/pilates instructor had been asking me to teach her for several years so we finally put it together as a workshop.  Now there are a bunch of happy hookas out there.

 

And through it all the waves kept rolling in and rolling out twice a day cause no one told them its been a hell of a year for some.  

 

Wishing everyone the very Best Wishes and Good Health for 2021

 

Other fibrey things happening in 2020

I think I know why this blog isn't kept up to date.  It is so damn difficult getting photos from phone to laptop or PC to organise them.  In previous years I have done a roundup of the years work at this time so lets see if I can do a year's blogging in one go!

 

Early in the year two enthusiastic new weavers arrived in my studio.  Interestingly Mr 9 was very interested in the set up, threading etc while Miss 6 1/2 loved the weaving.

The result.

You may have read the post about acquiring a new to me Oxabach drawloom just as NZ went into full Covid lockdown.  While dear hubby built a flyshuttle system for me I wound warps using many left over threads from projects from a lifetime of playing with fibre.

The loom was bought specifically to weave blankets.  I have always tied one warp to the next so this was ideal to mix up the many different types of thread to avoid differential shrinkage.  A technique not for the faint of heart!!

 

 Threads for Paua blankets

 

 

Sea blues blankets for Pauanesia

One of the things about lock down was that I was getting very low on my regular blanket yarn, both wool and mohair.  We had called at the mohair place on our trip home from Coopers Beach before lockdown but they had closed already.  

 

I got very inventive and found enough to keep me busy.  Like the boucle mohair used in the blanket below reflecting Moeraki Boulders, South Island.

 

 

NZ had 6 weeks in full lockdown from 25 March to 28 April.  I have to say it never bothered me, in fact it was wonderful having my groceries delivered.  We have about 5 different walking trails within reach of our door without getting in the car to go to other reserves.  And two looms and a houseful of yarn ...

Level 3 was less restrictive and we could go to businesses to purchase stuff but socialising from a distance.  May 14 we hit Level 2 and I wrote on the calendar FREE.  Not quite but no big gatherings didn't bother us.  I didn't record the date of Level 1 but did organise a weaving workshop with Rene Corder Evans for the Bay of Plenty Area for August 11 and 12.  We had a great time with enthusiastic students the first day but that night we were shifted back to Level 2 (Auckland at Level 3) and the second day of the workshop had to be postponed.  6 weeks later on September 21 we were back at Level 1 but in the meantime Rene kindly gave us the second half of the workshop via Zoom.

Forgive me recording this here but in 10 years time I'm thinking I may appreciate the memory.  It may seem this country has had an easy time through Covid and maybe we have but tell that to those who are unemployed and those who lost businesses. We are an island nation which helped and because of this I believe we could have locked our borders a lot earlier while setting up quarantine facilities and getting prepared to cope with the huge number of citizens returning.  There is a cliche - we went hard and early.  If we had gone earlier we wouldn't have had to go so hard - just saying.

 

Back to weaving which is what this blog is about.

A run of bright red blankets for Pauanesia (who celebrated 25 years in business this year - Congrtulations)

 

 

Another run of bold moody red blankets, again for Pauanesia.

Lets continue with blankets.  These below reflect Anawhata Beach, West Auckland, again for Pauanesia.

And below are blankets reflecting the NZ native bird, the Tui using more threads from my stash;  I recall this had 64 different chains of different threads.  Available at Waihi Beach Gallery.

 

 

Part 2 of the catch up for 2020 will follow.