Reasa's Scarf

I have fallen terribly behind on keeping track of my projects, so it's time to catch up!


This scarf was woven for my cousin Reasa. The warp is painted by Carrie May in her Autumn Harvest colorway. It is 8/2 Tencel sett at 24 epi. The weft is brown wool crepe from Habu.

The draft for this scarf was inspired by and is very similar to Jill's scarf. It is a straight threading on 12 shafts, with a plaited tie up and an advancing twill treadling. When I wove Jill's scarf (and its sample), I noticed that it had a tendency to collapse slightly. I thought that maybe I could use the same thing successfully with an overtwisted weft, and it worked! I love the way the plaited tie-up created subtle curves, rather than the straight linear pleats seen in an eight shaft 3/1/1/3 collapse piece. Bonnie Inouye's Advance! workshop really gave me the tools to design this.

Scarf inspired by Advance! workshop

Last year our guild hosted a workshop with Bonnie Inouye, and the topic was "Advance!". The workshop left me with so many ideas. For this project, I took an advancing points threading and wove it as overshot, to try my hand at weaving curves. The the warp and ground weft were a rayon / flax blend, and the pattern weft was a hand-painted bamboo / silk blend. I liked the idea of a shimmery pattern over a matte background. This was a lot of fun to weave; I enjoyed choosing the directions of the curves as I went. On the loom, the scarf looked very cool. After I finished it and looked at it from a distance, I wasn't as impressed. I can see that I definitely need more practice weaving the curves to make them appear smoother. In some places, they look a little abrupt to me. But I'm happy I tried it and intend to practice some more. And I will enjoy wearing my new scarf! :-)

This sideways photo shows the front of the scarf:

And this one shows the front and the back:

Scarf for Jill

It has been more than a year since I bought a 4 shaft extension kit for my Louet Spring. Life happened, and I just recently installed it, giving me 12 shafts in all. My plan is to work through "Exploring Multishaft Design", but first, I wanted to make something. I decided on a straight threading. I used a plaited tie up from Bonnie Inouye's "Advance!" workshop handout. I played with several treadlings and chose advancing points. I first tried to weave a scarf with slubby rayon, but the texture of the yarn hid the pattern. I cut off that warp and used Bambu 12 instead. I sleyed it at 30 epi. I used the color cilantro for the warp and coral for the weft. I am trying to weave scarves for all of the girls in my family, and those colors made me think of my cousin Jill.

I was a little anxious about whether I could comfortably use 14 treadles, but that was no problem at all. The loom squeaked some when I treadled, so I used a little silicone spray on the rollers. That did the trick.

I actually remembered to measure the scarf before I gave it away. It was 5 5/8" x 70 1/2" on the loom and 5 3/8" x 67 1/2" after finishing. I added some of the coral yarn to the cilantro fringe. The cilantro by itself just stood out way too much.

I had a hard time getting any good pictures of it because they yarn reflected the light so much. Here is a shot showing both sides:
And here is a picture showing the front in more detail:
I was pleased with the way it turned out, and, more importantly, so was Jill!

"It is more blessed to give than to receive"

It's the time of year in which many of us think about helping those in need. This year, in my town, where the local economy depends heavily on Chrysler and GM, there is no shortage of opportunities to give. I was afraid that this year, having taken a cut in pay, I wouldn't be able to help much, but when I received a list of needs for some local senior citizens, I was inspired. The list included the normal socks, puzzle books, sweatshirts, and... knitting supplies! I immediately thought of my stash of handspun. Over the past couple of years, I have accumulated quite a few skeins for which I had no particular project in mind. So I washed the skeins that looked useable (not my beginnery handspun), wound them into balls, and took them to work to be included in the gift bags for the seniors. I can't tell you how good it felt! After hearing the stories of some of these seniors, many of whom have no family or friends to care for them, I was amazed to think that something I made could touch them.

Earlier this year, I decided to play with echo weave. I wove two scarves on one warp using Mora yan. They turned out pretty well. Since I'm getting to the point where I have more scarves than I can wear, I decided to donate them to a local charity auction, and they were sold this weekend. Those scarves are pictured below:

I was hesitant to write this post because I don't want to pat myself on the back and talk about how good and generous I am. But my hope is that someone may read this and be inspired to use their own talents to reach out to others in their own, individual way. If you aren't sure where to start, I would suggest contacting a local church or the United Way in your area. They can surely direct you to someone who would be encouraged by your gift of fiber (or whatever else). If you have any other ideas for giving, please leave a comment!

Advance! warp samples

After Bonnie Inouye's Advance! workshop, I had plenty of warp left on the loom. I had a lot of breaking ends because, I believe, the tencel warp wasn't getting along with the flat steel heddles on my Baby Wolf. I'd had that issue in the past, but it had been a while, so I kind of forgot about it. Anyway, I didn't want to fight the warp to make a scarf or anything, but it was perfect for weaving more samples.

The warp was 8/2 tencel sleyed at 28 epi. Each of us in the workshop was assinged a different threading. Mine was an extended advancing twill: 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc... I enjoyed this threading because each pattern had a large scale. That was one of the points that Bonnie tried to make, that it's nice to be able to see that a textile is interesting from across the room. Below I'll show the samples that I wove, both during the workshop and at home.

The first sample, below, is tromp as writ, with wide bands of color moving diagonally across the sample.

The next sample, below, starts out with a regular 5 pick advancing treadling. Then I moved to an extended advancing treadling, and you can see the slope of the lines change. Then I reversed the treadling, and you can see mirror symmetry at those points.

The next sample below shows an advancing and descending treadling. Here, you can see the slope of the lines reverse, but the twill continues without the mirror symmetry seen above.

The next sample below shows an advancing point treadling. This one was a lot of fun. It was really easy to change the slope and the direction of the lines.

This sample shows an overshot treadling. For the tabby weft, I used Bambu12 in a color that blended with the warp. The pattern weft was 8/2 tencel. Here I played a little, trying to get some curves. I had my for the other samples, I had the treadles tied in a walking format, so I decided to re-tie the treadles for this overshot sample so that the tabby treadles would be next to each other. After I was done with this sample, I figured out that one of my pattern treadles was tied up wrong.
This sample is the last one I wove during the workshop. It has a network treadling. At the beginning of the sample (the left in this picture), I used the treadling that Bonnie gave us in her workbook. Toward the right, I treadled freestyle, using a technique that Bonnie explained in her lecture. I started to get the hang of it, but to be able to create curves that really look good, I'll definitely need some practice.

This sample, I wove at home after the workshop. I wove all of this freestyle, using the techniques that Bonnie taught. The far left, light blue, is a combination of advancing and extended advancing treadlings, which changes the slope of the diagonal lines. The middle sample, dark blue, is an overshot treadling. The tabby weft in this sample is rayon chennile, and the pattern weft is the Bambu 12 that I used as tabby weft in the overshot above. The effect was very subtle, and the sample looks nicer from a distance than it does close-up, which is shown in the next photo.

The sample below shows overshot with Bambu 12 tabby weft and 8/2 tencel as pattern weft. To the right, I played some more with advancing and decending treadling. I need to study this a little more since I understand the basics, but something about it hasn't quite clicked. I think I'll understand it more if I continue to play with it.

Finally, the last sample, on the right, shows network treadling. I'm starting to get a better feel for this, but, again, it will take some more practice to really get the hang of it and create some nice curves while I'm at the loom.

At our guild meeting this weekend, we all brought our samples from the workshop for show-and-tell for the other members. One thing that stuck out to me after our discussion was how many of the samples (mine and others) looked better from across the room than they did close-up. As people across the room would hold up their samples, I thought, wow! Then, as they were passed around and came to me, I thought, well, that's interesting, but I don't love it. That wasn't the case for all of the samples, but for some. This is something I'm definitely going to play with more and practice, to see what I like best, and how to use it best.

Weekend Workshop

Last weekend, our guild hosted Bonnie Inouye, who presented her Advance! workshop. This was an amazing workshop. In it, Bonnie gave us tools for using advancing twills, network twills, advancing points, overshot, etc. By advancing these units, we have the ability to control scale and to use curves in our weaving. Bonnie is a great teacher, very clear and encouraging. This workshop was challenging and inspiring, and it left me full of new ideas. One question I have been considering since then is: How can I best use these tools to create something in my own style? In other words, how do I keep it from looking like a copy of Bonnie Inouye's work? I think the answer is just through practice. I think it will take time to develop my own style. I think it will be a slow, challenging, and enjoyable journey to take just one project at a time.


Below are a few pictures of the samples we wove in the workshop. I still have some of this warp left on my loom, and I'm looking forward to just playing with it and weaving more samples.