Navy teal possum wrap

The wheels of weaving wind slowly.  (And blogging even slower!)

I posted this picture on facebook weeks ago and got great reaction but have been very slow to tell you about it.

Slow partly because I couldn't figure out how to finish the ends.  The warp is alternating threads of navy and taupe and the weft a teal.  The tassels just didn't look right.  Took me ages to figure out I could add a thread or two of teal to the fringe and that pulled the wrap together.  The tassels now look like they belong.  I can tell you it took ages to undo the navy taupe tassels.

The fibre is possum merino silk and look at the twist in the untasseled threads; makes me want to try some shibori as it would hold the texture.

Wrap woven as an echo weave.

Possum merino wrap and Infinity scarves

Walked to Orokawa Beach this morning, glorious day and I had done my 10,000 steps before lunch.  Hence time to write to you.

I have the loom threaded with an echo warp so thought I'd use up a prewound warp I've had on the shelf for hur hmmm I don't remember.  One thread is possum merino silk and the other a fine cashmere.  The possum is about 2 1/2 times thicker than the cashmere so wondered how it would work out.  

 Worked out pretty good actually.  This wrap has a 60/2 silk weft in black.  All these luxurious fibres are devine together.

 Above is a double wrap infinity scarf and below a single wrap infinity scarf.  These have an elasticated merino weft which again is awesome, closing the warp threads up.

 The top scarf has a point twill weft and the bottom another version.  What is the difference between point twill and gebrochene - can anyone tell me?

We have a wonderful new gallery opened at the beach called Waihi Beach Gallery.  I took these in to Ana and Andrew expecting them to choose one, maybe two.  If you'd like one they are all on display at the Gallery.

We are going away for a few days to Mt Ruapehu to do some walking.  Well Pete will stride it out, I'll struggle along behind, catching up when he stops for a photograph.  Hence the training walk this morning.  Catch up next week, all gong well.

Mosaics of Ravenna

A while back Peter called me to his computer and asked what do you think of this, want to go visit.  It was a whole page of pictures of Ravenna, a city in Northern Italy and steeped in history and art.  You bet I want to visit.

At the same time I was gob-smacked.  It was just what was on my computer screen (sort of) in Fiberworks (for the uninitiated  fiberworks is weaving software) and I was threading the loom with a navy and turquoise cotton warp sett at 40 epi.  The pattern is a 4 colour double weave with blue and an apricot in the weft.  Treadled as the warp threading with weft threads pretty much the same thickness as the warp to square the pattern.  I thought I was pretty clever with that allowing for shrinkage at different rates in warp and weft.  Don't fall off your chairs, for once I did sample.

I'm really smitten with this pattern, there is so much going on.  Are they square tiles or diamond shaped?  The patterns within the tiles are fun and where the diamond tiles meet there is another circle event happening.  The straight draw border brings it all together.

And here is the reverse side with a whole lot of more fun.

The ghastly labels are not mine but this has been entered in the Bay of Plenty Area Exhibition and one must follow the rules.  Selection was last weekend so think I'm safe publishing this.

Its a bit odd photographing a table runner on the deck but someone was filling ink cartridges for a photographic printer and had an ooopsy!  Our table is not the best now.

The second runner on the same warp with the same weft colours is designed using an altered tie up similar to what Marian Stubenitsky shows in her wonderful book "Weaving with Echo and Iris".  Its still four colour double weave but I've altered one half of the tie up.

Have now tied another warp on, this time orange and white.  I just love it when the knots all line up nicely.

These are still on the loom and again, lots of little pattern areas to make me excited.  Again woven with an altered tie up on 16 shafts in 5 end advancing twill.  This time the weft threads are slightly thinner than the warp giving the warp more emphasis.

Love these echoing hearts.

Can't wait to get these mats off the loom.

Ann's kitchen towels

This post is really a record for me.  The photos are awful but if you look at the light stripe on the outer edges you will see the treadling line followed.  Threaded in 6 shaft echo, 28 tpi, 2 threads of 20/2 cotton together, charcoal and rust alternating.

My brief was the colours in these bracelets.

 Below, echo weave, pohutukawa green weft. 2:1 twill

 Below, turned taquete, apricot weft, two shuttles one with single thread the other with double thread.  The pattern is not very distinct.

 Below, 4 colour double weave with white and green in weft.

Below, 4 colour double weave, apricot and green in weft 

 Below, apricot weft, echo.

 Below, echo, white weft, treadling line same as threading

 Below, echo with 2:1 twill (which I just read is called jeans twill)

 Below, echo with pale green cotton/linen weft

 I think this last is echo again with a cream weft. 

 I seem to have missed photographing one which I'm sure was 4 colour double weave.
 Out of 9 towels there are just 2 left, 5 will go to the States and 2 are off to France.

Exhibition work

For the last month or so I've been busy working on exhibition pieces.  I can't show them until the exhibition opens but a sneak peek at some beading on one of the garments won't let too much out of the bag.

 I had some warp left over on the loom so wove off 2.5 metres of fabric.  This hasn't been fulled yet but you can just see an echo, particularly at the bottom of the pic.  Once its been wet finished I'll put it in the stash till it tells me what it wants to be.

Tea towel warp

Playing with different tie ups and treadlings while testing the "fixed" loom.

The threading is the same as for the banner and winning alpaca shawl and has a warp of alternate threads of cotton and linen.

I probably should have ironed the fold creases but ....

First tie up included 1-3, 3-1 twill and tabby.

No 2 woven as an echo weave.  This towel has a ramie weft and is probably not as absorbent as cotton or linen.

Woven as 4 colour double weave.  Showing a bit much pink as you can see by the 'white' background.

and the reverse side.

These were fun to play with so may do more for the Cargo Shed after 50 metres of scarf material.  I better get working.

Loom is fixed.

Where are the days going?  One more day and it'll be autumn; must make the most of the sunshine while we have it.

So, I finished two garments for the Festival fashion parade and I hear they have both been accepted and I finished three pieces for the Exhibition, well one really, the other two were woven last year.  Selection is next week.

Since then I have been working on trying to solve the fault with my compu dobby loom.  As I wove away it would just stop, like putting your foot on the car accelerator and nothing there.  Sometimes it would happen after two pics or 200, or anything in between, very inconsistent.  I could trace it back to the start of last year when I changed computers.  We tried everything we could think of to fix the problem and in the end I gave up and accepted it was as good as it would get.  Seems a strange thing to say but I was kind of relieved to learn of another weaver with same loom and same problem and then a third, so, OK this had to be fixed.

Many emails have gone back and forth, even across the Tasman sea.  As I was reading some of them to Peter a light bulb went off, he emailed No. 1 son who came back with the solution to my problem.  Not a hic cup since but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be the answer to the fixit of the other two looms.  I am so grateful to all the help from the weaving community and it is such a pleasure to be weaving properly.

If you're interested it was because I was using a 9 pin to USB converter cable which are notoriously unreliable.

What did I weave on while testing the loom?  Cotton linen towels which I tied on to the previous warp.  This one is echo weave with a pale green (which looks dirty white) ramie weft over green cotton and olive cotton linen.  I didn't realise I was getting long floats at the points, probably not the best for towels.  Don't know how the ramie will work as a towel but this experiment will let me know.

 And the last one is 4 colour double weave which is looking rather exciting though in reality not so bright.  What is showing violet is more a grey.  There are a couple of others on the roll so look forward to seeing them soon.  A fun way to experiment.

ArtWaikino Exhibition

 Hand dyed warp threads.

Lovely fine NZ merino.

One thread from each chain on to the loom

 First scarf woven turned taquete.

Beautiful drape.

Second scarf off that warp woven advancing point twill.

"Coral Habitat"

Twill close up.

"Chromatic Interlude"

(You saw this in a previous post

but read to the end.) 

"Kakabeak Cloak Throw"

Hand knitted from thrums.  

The strips are crocheted together as it would have been too heavy

to join as it was knitted.

Coral, Chromatic and Kakabeak will be part of the ArtWaikino exhibition this Labour Weekend.

Design Award

At the end of the last post I said I was off to the opening of Creative Fibre Experience Exhibition in Hamilton.  I have been walking around with a smile for two weeks having been rung to be told I'd won the Design Award kindly sponsored by Gisler Architects of Te Awamutu.  Its the first weaving award I've earned at a national level so doubly delighted.

 Apparently I clinched it with the border at top and bottom.  As I said to the audience last year it differentiates the article from a length of fabric with tassels to a designed garment.

Peter had his camera and took many shots of the exhibition but it'll take a while for them to be developed from RAW.

 

A comment from a recent post was ....the whole idea of putting my weaving out there scares me witless!  I've always thought that though there can only be one winner for each award it takes many entries to make an exhibition worthy of an audience, to make it worthwhile for the many volunteers who work real hard to make it happen, to make it viable for the sponsors, to make it worthwhile for viewers to travel often many hours to get to and from the exhibition.  I work to the best of my ability and if the magic is there I enter it.

 

I will add that I'd paid the entry fee for another piece to be entered but, a. it wasn't finished in time and b. to do it in a hurry it wasn't going to be as good as I new it should be.

 

I do hope Creative Fibre is going to continue to support and finance this wonderful Experience Exhibition as it is a great window to the Society.

(PS - the leg is healing well.)

Tangerine Dream

I entered Tangerine Dream in Creative Fibre Experience exhibition and it has been accepted.  Whew!
16/2 cotton, 48 epi, weft 2 x 16/2 threads.
A networked warp based on a three end initial with 3 echoes.  That is 4 warp lines each a different colour, blue, green, orange, yellow.  I should probably have used two different colours in the weft but I don't have a great selection of cotton so I used the same blue and orange as in the warp.
Click on the pics for a clearer look.