Twisp of Fate

Last week our local guild, Methow Valley Spinners & Weavers, experienced a long-awaited event.  We brought in a weaving instructor from Bremerton named Robyn Spady for a two-day workshop.  Here’s the link to Spady Studios.  The workshop we chose was “Extreme Warp Makeover” and everyone was very pleased.  For one thing, it was not a “round robin” format in which you move from loom to loom.  Rather, we all warped our own loom, allowing for some creativity while staying within the guidelines.  We were able to choose one of three threadings:  overshot, rosepath twill, or huck lace.  Then over the course of the 2 days we learned how to get different effects from changing tie-up and treadling, or using different wefts, all using the same warp and threading.  She had 15 different variations we could try, and an excellent and comprehensive handout which is really a complete, spiral bound manual.

Some worked on table looms:

and some worked on floor looms, but to avoid constantly getting down on the floor and changing the tie-up, we used a direct tie-up (treadle 1 to harness 1, treadle 2 to harness 2, etc) so it was really the same as using a table loom except we got to use our feet:

Robyn was an excellent and organized teacher, and also had a great sense of humor and was a lot of fun to be around.

Here’s some pictures of cloth as it was being produced on various looms:

Lillie's

Kaliope's

Kira's

Kay's

Sara's - always so creative!

I went back in on Friday and finished up my piece, which was woven on the Rosepath Twill threading.  Here is how it looked when I took it off the loom.  I cut it lengthwise with about 1/3 on one side and 2/3 on the other side, serging the edges, and now I am washing the bigger piece, so I will have a sample of how the cloth was before and after washing and pressing.

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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!

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I have been working in fits and starts on our guild’s 2010 challenge project, which is to “do something” with some old crochet cotton that our leader, Kay, had in abundance.  The project had to be done at least partially with this yarn, and dyeing was OK.  The original colors were… well, an unlovely shade of brown (in my family, we would call it “camel path brown”), and a bright emerald green.  Yech.

Last summer I over-dyed mine with indigo.  This made the brown into a nice light denim blue, and darkened the emerald green to a teal color.

I had the idea to make a curtain for the bathroom at our guild meeting/weaving room.  Kay met with me in October and got me started on planning a Bronson lace project.  But that’s as far as it got, life has intervened, and now we are supposed to be done and ready to share our results in a week (April 8).  Oh, and I am using my new loom, Mother Mary’s loom, which is currently living at the guild room.  This is the first project I am doing on that loom, hence the “maiden voyage”.

So I got the warp on, alternating colors every other thread, except for 1″ at each edge in the teal:

And today, with Kay’s help, I figured out how to tie up the first pattern and actually got started weaving!

As a knitter, I am used to thinking of lace as having holes in the fabric to make the pattern.  Here, it is actually floats of the weft color on the surface.  But I am learning a lot and am going to plan out some other patterns to use for the rest of the curtain.  It won’t be finished by next week, but I will have the documentation done and pictures of the work in progress.

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