Twisp of Fate

We had a huge turnout for the weaving guild meeting yesterday.  It was time for the presentation of the “challenge” project for this year.  I think I mentioned before that it was a little different this time – instead of being a particular weave structure, the idea was to “do something” with a large quantity of rather vintage Bernat Quick Crochet Cotton that was given to the guild some years ago.   At least 25% of the materials we used had to be this yarn, and dyeing was OK.

Here are the original colors, brown and emerald green:

People had more or less kept their projects a secret, so it was really fun to see what we had come up with!

Alison P. had 2 projects.  The first one was a tote bag using the green yarn in the center panel, but she discharged dye from areas by “painting” the yarn with automatic dishwasher liquid, leaving it for an hour before rinsing out, then overdyeing with indigo.  The grey bands are 8/4 cotton.

Then Alison dyed the brown yarn with indigo to get a khaki color.  She used this with some other cottons to make a small towel in Thick and Thin weave with the blocks arranged in an undulating order:

Lucy R. had used the brown yarn “as is” in the warp for some chenille bath towels, which she had given away last year as a gift, so we only got her notes and a picture.  I remember them, though, and they were beautiful!

Cathie L. used the yarns “as is” as warp for some placemats using cotton valance fabric for the weft:

brown warp

green warp

Christina K. used the green cotton “as is” in both the warp and weft for some placemats, but the warp and weft also included several other types and colors of cottolin and cotton:

Kira J. used the brown yarn “as is” in both the warp and weft  for a color-and-weave rayon chenille scarf.  She used 2 colors of chenille, burgundy and orange, and I think the result is outstanding:

Dorothy E. used 8/4 carpet warp in 3 colors for the warp, and both the brown and green challenge colors in the weft, for some overshot pattern hot pads.  They were folded in half with a heatproof material inside, crocheted around the edges.  And they are reversible!  Pretty cool….

Janet L. used some of both colors in this gorgeous rep weave tote, using 1″ strips of cotton fabric for the thick weft and 8/4 cotton for the thin weft:

Susan S. used the challenge yarns along with some cotton flake and lightweight chenille to make towels:

Kay R. made a large bath towel using the green challenge yarn, along with some other cottons and a nylon ribbon, but somehow I didn’t get a picture of it yesterday.  Sorry, Kay!

Sandra W. made point twill placemats using both colors of the challenge yarn alternating in the warp, and some acrylic knitting yarn in the weft.  Then she dyed the mats with evening blue Rit dye after they were completed, which made the brown into more of an olive tone and darkened the green:

Lill W. had 2 projects.  The first was a brightly colored scarf using some of the challenge yarns, and then she really gave herself a challenge and created a small tapestry (never having done tapestry before, plus she dyed all the yarns herself):

Then were a couple of people (like me, with my curtain) who were not finished, but on the way…

As you can see, we had quite the variety of projects come out of this humble and rather uninspiring yarn!