Handwoven Holiday Napkins in progress

I wanted to put another project on my loom quickly - I missed throwing that shuttle! I rummaged in the stash and came up with a warp that I received in a guild exchange last year.  It was supposed to be for 2 short towels, but I'd rather have regular sized towels, so I'm weaving 3 napkins instead. The structure is a simple twill, and is weaving up fast.

Handwoven: Rep Weave runner

I love my New Orleans Weavers/Spinners Guild. Creative women encouraging one another in the fiber arts - I'm so very glad to have found them! A smaller group of us meets once every two months to weave a different structure together - many are new weavers who need more experience warping their looms and have never tried some of the warp structures we're experimenting with, so this is great for them. I have fun too, and get to do some mentoring (and I learn a lot too - there are lots of things I haven't yet tried!) We call ourselves "Weavin' Chicks" and have a great time together.

Our focus this weekend was Rep Weave, and we used a draft from Weaver's Craft magazine (highly recommended - really good info) for rep weave placemats. I chose to weave a runner instead, and had some interesting moments when trying to make sure it was mirrored on each end. I like this structure - had fun weaving it, and will definitely do it again. I used 5/2 cotton in red and blue for the warp and the binder weft, and 8/8 white cotton for the heavy weft.

Here's my runner - I'll cut the ends off and turn under the hems and then wash it, and I'd better do it tomorrow, because I used red/white/blue so I could have it for the 4th of July, and that's Wednesday!

Handwoven SAORI Market Bag

Our guild Retreat is coming up fast. Such a lovely time to relax with friends and fiber, with no responsibilities and no schedule. Wait... there IS one responsibility - every year we're given a different challenge, to create something incorporating some handspun. This year it's a market bag. I was planning to knit something... and then suddenly I realized the time had gotten away from me, and knitting was going to take too long. Enter weaving - so fast, so fun!

I dug around in my handspun stash, and found a skein of fingering weight silk singles I'd spun a long time ago from a pastel-rainbow tussah silk top (in the picture, I've already wound it onto bobbins). Perfect for my main weft. Thinking SAORI-style, I grabbed some multi-colored silk hankies and a small handful of mulberry silk top, along with some leftover bits of cotton yarn from another project.

Then I warped my Cricket loom with black 5/2 and 8/2 cotton, held together, in the 12 dent rigid heddle. This gave me a good background for some color play.

You can see that I used the handspun silk as the ground weft, and randomly tossed in torn-off bits of the hankies and top, creating hills and valleys and delightful textures. In true SAORI fashion, I didn't worry (much, I'm still a structure girl!) about the edges, and knew they would be sewn in anyway.

In practically no time, the piece was done.  The warp was 3 yards, and 7.5" in the reed/heddle. My finished piece was 90" x 6.5". I used this guide on Doni's Deli's blog to create the bag - essentially, the strip of cloth is folded like origami and sewn up the sides.

Et voila!

(That's the bag simply pinned together, before sewing.) I sewed it by hand, partially because I was intimidated by the thought of trying to get the thick fabric under my machine's foot, and also because I wanted to use the same black 8/2 cotton as I had in the warp. I was glad I'd made that decision - the fabric felt good in my hands and the sewing was relaxing.

Here's the finished bag. I folded the strap's edges in and sewed it as a tube (using an invisible ladder stitch) to narrow the strap and to give it strength. There was no cutting involved in the construction.

I am absurdly pleased with this bag. Once I add a lining, it will become my new everyday bag. I'm secretly hoping people will stop me and ask where I got it, so I can proudly say, "I wove this myself!"

Roc Day 2012

I joined the New Orleans Weavers Guild in November 2007. I found the local guild via internet listings, and begged them to teach me to spin. :) Two months later, they introduced me to the Roc Day tradition. We celebrate it on the first Saturday of January every year. The hosting of the event is rotated among the Gulf Coast guilds in our area. We have a great big Spin-In, and there are vendors (yay!) and we share lunch, door prizes, and tall tales. :) This year it was held by the Lake Charles area guild, the Spinners and Weavers of Imperial Calcasieu. A number of us went on a girl's road trip and had a great time. :) On our way to the area, we visited Running Moon Farm, where our friend Margrett keeps a flock of Gulf Coast Native sheep.

It was a lovely weekend. The sharing, the camaraderie, the laughter - I'm so glad I found this great group of fiber friends!

Custom Confetti, and Another Scarf

Remember when I talked about designing a handspun yarn, specifically the rainbow yarn that my customer friend requested? Here's the resulting yarn (remember, she chose the "confetti" option):

Rainbow colors with black accents. I'm happy with the way the two skeins coordinate, considering the original braids of fiber were slightly different. They're 400 and 380 yards of 16wpi fingering weight 3-ply.

And I finished another of those fun scarves on my Cricket loom - this one is the mirror image of the Rainbow Waterfall scarf, which had a purple center that flowed down into red fringe. Instead, this Rainbow Cascade scarf has a red center flowing down into purple fringe:

50" long, with additional 4" handtwisted fringe on each end, 6.5" wide.

I'm really pleased with the way these scarves turned out - they're soft and drapy, colorful and fun. I see more in my future!

Today is World Wide Spinning In Public Day - I'm taking my Matchless to the library. We have a guild meeting, which is usually just us sitting around a table discussing weaving/spinning and passing around FO's. Today I'll demo for passersby and see if we can't attract some new members!

I love October.

October means the sweltering heat of our 5-month summer is behind us. The humidity drops a bit, the high temperatures dip down into the 80's, and we actually get temps in the upper 60's at night. We celebrate by throwing our doors and windows open to air out the house and relish the DRY. :)

I've been on vacation from work this week, recharging my batteries and reorganizing my space. My "studio" (that means my corner of our large living room) had become cluttered and was stifling my creative breath. With things put away and neatly stored, I have room to move and play and dream. :)

Weaving-wise, I've finished (finally!) the Huck Lace dishtowels - I love them, with their earthy organic cotton colors and thirsty texture. Now to hem and wash (finishing is my weakest link).


I've also been weaving some cool cotton openwork scarves on the rigid heddle looms. It's leno with a 'twist' - the entire scarf is twisted while weaving, creating a lovely fishnet effect. I'm working on a variation this weekend that includes bands of plainweave - I'll post pictures of that one when I'm done.


Spin, spin, spin - you know I always have yarn in progress, since my wheel brings me balance and sanity. Its treadles are my footrest in the evening, and the repetitive motion is so very soothing. I've finished lots of yarns, some for the Etsy shop, some for custom spinning requests (yes, I take them - I can spin fiber you've purchased elsewhere... just drop me a line for details) and some for ME.

(as always, click for big)




Oh, and I attended a cotton-spinning workshop with the guild - had fun sharpening my skills on spinning cotton yarn. I chain-plied my samples into one yarn - fun! I'll have to weave a little something with it as a memento.


And knit: I'm knitting along with the Camping Shawl KAL in the Southern Cross Fibre group on Ravelry. I'm using commercial yarn for this one, a lovely heathered brown in Knitpicks Shadow called "Redwood Forest".


My lace skills are beginner, definitely, but I'm excited to be knitting my first circular shawl. It's nice to have knitting in my lap again, now that the weather is cooling - did I mention that???

Love you, October!

If I wait for pictures, I'll wait forever.

My daughter frequently nags me about feeding the blog, and I say, "OK - but I need to take some pictures first." The problem is that I don't LIKE to take pictures. I do it out of necessity - someone really wants to see a specific item, or I have a yarn ready to put in the Etsy shop - but I don't enjoy the role of shutterbug.

Lest May get away from me without a post (as April nearly did), I thought I'd just type and see what happens.

My weekends have been full lately with required re-certification workshops for the daycare (where I am head of the infant department - 8 sweet little newborns!) but I did manage to squeeze in a wonderful spinning/weaving retreat in Lake Charles, Louisiana last weekend. It was sponsored by the Spinning/Weaving Guild of Imperial Calcasieu (parish) and was held at the St. Charles Retreat Center in Moss Bluff, about 3.5 hours away from me. I went with Cheryl (my weaving mentor) and 6 other fellow guildmembers. We spent 4 days relaxing, spinning, weaving, laughing, and learning. The retreat center had a conference room for us to use 24 hours a day - we made "nests" with our wheels and spindles and RH looms and fiber piles, then played whenever we wanted and rested back in our rooms when we were tired. You could go spin at 3am if you were so inclined. Heaven!

I finished Jessica's Opal Magic socks, and started 3 more pair with handspun - all Spunky Eclectic. Two are Club (Soul Windows and New Day) and one is Panda Emerald Isle. I firmly resolve to take and post pictures for you when they're finished. :)

I've been spinning and knitting this past month, with no attention spared for the loom. Ezara has inspired me, though, with her descriptions of warping her Baby Wolf. I have sleyed the reed for the Monk's Belt towels on the Macomber - but they need threading, and that's what I plan to do today. There, I typed it, so now it will come true!