Ending Class

I finished teaching for the semester.  Here are a few more pictures of things the students wove.

I had such a great class this time.  It was really great to see all their experimentation each week.

I finished two scarves on my off white warp this time.

And even continued with a multicolor warp.

I finished one scarf on this before class was over.  It was nice to be able to weave so much.  The students really worked on their own for most of the time, weaving away like little bees.

Second

I wanted to show these pictures last week...but couldn't find them, oops.  So here is my weaving from last week.

Second blanket on my warm colors double weave warp.

Love seeing these knots move around the beam...almost finished!

And here is is!  I just tied these tassels (as opposed to twisting the last blanket).  Not sure it would hold up to multiple washing, but for now it worked fine.

This beauty, with its special quirks, will be staying with me at home.  I overstuffed this one and the fabric definitely suffered for it.  From one side, you can't really tell there are problems, so I am thinking of hanging this on my wall.  That is if I can figure out how to suspend something this heavy.

Basic Twill

I talked about my weaving class a little last week and I am happy to say all my students are now weaving!  The lengthy process of warping the loom as always a bit of a shock to first timers.  Above is the pointed twill scarf I am currently weaving.  Since I usually really push my woven surfaces, it is nice sometimes to just weave a basic twill, count in my head while listening to the loom and just enjoy the rhythm of weaving.

Small view of the tapestry techniques and dimensional weaving I teach in my class...have to throw some of that in.

Sampler one of my students wove...she had never sat at a loom before my class.  Seriously, this is the best part of teaching.

Saying Goodbye

Not sure I ever shared pictures of my completed blanket, so here are a few close ups.  I gave it as a gift last week and honestly I am missing it already.  Look at this awesome texture, seriously it was like holding over a thousand of the softest little pillows ever.

I have finished weaving the second blanket in this series and hope to have the ends finished so I can wash it today.  Sadly, it will most likely have to go in the "failed" pile, but I want to finish it and figure out what went wrong.

Weaving Class

I am back warping a loom again.  But this is not my loom, it is a loom at the NC State Craft Center.  I teach beginning weaving there once a semester.  It is a once a week, for six weeks class where students learn to warp, dress a loom, weave and go home with a handwoven scarf.  All in six weeks!

This fall is my 6th class.  It is always interesting to see the mixture of students ranging from college girls to grandmas (I have never had a male student, although they are welcome).  My first class was interesting since I learned to weave in a university setting and the craft center is very, very different.  I have learned a lot about teaching (it's not really for me), weaving and people interaction since then!

So favorite parts of teaching... excitement in the eyes of someone who falls in love with the motions of weaving...the students who get so consumed with sampling different patterns, colors and weights of yarns and techniques they spend our whole time experimenting and never do a "finished project"... definitively inspires me to get a 5-7 fresh weavers each semester and see how they think about weaving...set aside time at a loom for six weeks, I really loved this while my space was under renovation...finally, I have learned tons about myself and my craft by teaching weaving and finding new ways to talk about what I do.

And the not so fun...class runs from 6:30 - 9:30 at night.  To say this is late for me is a huge understatement...I drink large amounts of caffeine and then talk really fast.  It was especially hard my first class leaving a 3 month old Oliver once a week.  I am definitely a hands on learner and often wish the students could just watch me and learn...that talking, it's a killer.  I often lose my voice after the first night.  I did get a bad teacher review once...still a little bitter.

But all in all, I am so thankful for this opportunity.  I will try to post some more about my class near the end of our time.  Join us in the spring!

Beginnings

Not sure yet where this will lead me, but here are the beginnings of my next project.  I went to school with Andrea Donnelly and love the new work she is doing with warp painting and ikat.  I am also looking at the work of Catherine Ellis (sorry best website I could find).  I did a lot of woven shibori work in college both for myself and as an assistant to another artist.  The two fabric samples on the right are knit fabrics I made in college.

I think step one will be some dye samples and deciding where to start with the warp.  I am not sure if I want to use Ikat techniques to dye before I put the yarn on the loom or paint the warp once it is on the loom.  (Not sure I have the space for that)

Then I will explore the weft yarns and see which best shows off the work I am going to do on the warp.

Finally...many, many moon from now...I will need to decided if and what dyeing to do to the final project.  Oh yea, and what to do with the end fabric.  I am not a huge planner, so this will probably be about all you get.  From this point I usually just dive in and hope for the best.  Usually things turn out ok :)

Complete!!!

Here is a picture of my double weave fabric off the loom!  I need to twist the fringe (which will probably take longer than the weaving, grr), throw it in the wash and then it will be 100%.  The perceptive eye may tell that it is not a square.  Some shrinking and shifting will occur when this is washed.  Most likely it will be a square after that.

I am surprised at how heavy the fabric is.  It is a double cloth and each pocket (256 of them) is stuffed with polly-fill.  It is approximately 36 x 36 in.  End use?  My original thought was baby play mat.  It may go on the wall.

There is enough yarn on the loom to make another piece this size.  Now that I have finished, I kind of want to go ahead and weave that as well.  I want to do stripes in stead of the squares using my favorite two weft yarns from this piece.  Stay tuned :)

No Really...

I really do intend on weaving, and blogging about it.  But since it has been over a month since my last post, I am sure it is hard to believe.  July was a hard month, looking forward to August being more...colorful, yarn-filled and fun.

So here I was Saturday afternoon and again this afternoon.  I am 3/4 finished with the project so maybe tomorrow afternoon?  or Friday? I can show it off the loom.

I am so ready to move on from this project.  The tension has been really weird making weaving very slow.  I hate weaving slow.  I have another project in mind and need to get some notes down.  Maybe I can share those soon as well...maybe even some samples?

I was tempted mid-July to scrap this project and come back later, but my tiny weaving room wouldn't allow that.  I have two looms, but they can't both be extended fully at once.  I had started this piece of fabric so I couldn't fold up the loom and work on the other.  It is probably for the best.

Winding Warp

Most weavers I have known come close to hating warping the loom.  I strangely enjoy it.  I love the repetition and counting when working on the warping board.  And then through the slow process of drawing through (or this time just tying on), I am always so excited to see how the yarn will look on the loom.  Drawing the yarn on the loom has to be one of my favorite parts because I love seeing this terrible mess...

Become a beautiful sheet of yarns!  This is the rainbow warp I was working previously.

New warp knots coming through!  It really was difficult to wind this warp on.  The yarns are set 30 epi (ends per inch) and I am using a 10 dent reed.  In English, there are 10 holes in every inch, but I have 30 yarns in every inch.  So things are quite tight and trying to move knots through that same area made for and even tighter situation.  Btu I can now happily say the new yarn is wound on the loom.  Time to tie on the front and get back to weaving!

Weekend's Warping

On Friday I was making such great progress warping and said "maybe I will be weaving by the end of the weekend."  I was doing so well it seemed like that would be an easy goal to accomplish.  

But oh yea...today was Father's Day so I spent all day Saturday preparing food for my favorite husband.  I did find sometime for warping this afternoon and here is my beautiful progress.

The full width of this weaving is made from sixteen - two inch squares.  I have eleven areas re-tied.  As I was  at the warping board preparing the final five and thinking about colors, it hit me.  The last two blocks I had tied up were wrong!  Ugh!

Basically, if you look at the bottom two corners of this sample piece, they are both light blue.  Then the two in from there are purple, then blue, pink, green and so on.  This is not how the cloth looks in my head.  It should be a rainbow going from blue on the left to purple on the right (this is why I am re-warping).

Somehow I already forgot about this change that needed to happen (mom brain) and was tying up my new summer colors cloth with this same flaw.  Thankfully, I will only have to re-tie two squares and then the remaining five.  Tomorrow of course, I just didn't have the heart to do it today.  And then I should have sixteen different beautiful squares to weave with!

New Color Way

Started re-warping my pockets blanket and I am really excited about the summer colors!

Warp #1

Warp #2 (There will be 3.  This weaving is so wide, it won't all fit on the warping board at once)

I can optimistically say I am about a half finished.  Maybe by the end of the weekend I can be weaving again.

Rainbow Pockets

Nearly two years ago, I started a project thinking I would make a baby play mat.  I wanted to use a rainbow warp and weft and this was magically going to line up so I would see squares of color in certain areas.  The blanket was to be a double weave with 2 inch "blocks" and I wanted to stuff the pockets to give some textural interest to the blanket.

Warped the loom (480 yarns, wow that took a long time) started weaving and saw multiple problems with my idea.  And then...the big remodel happen.  More on that in another post, but basically I stored my looms away thinking it would be 6 months at the max.

But this week I can happily say I am back at the loom!  Would love to say I am weaving like a crazy person, but all of those issue didn't resolve themselves while in storage.  Go figure.  I started with just white weft in hopes I could make at least one blanket with this warp...no.  There were some tie up problems that were easy to fix...and some warp color issues that although "easy" to fix will require re-warping the loom.  Sigh.

I did make a small sample so I could see how the fabric will behave off the loom.  Good news, I am going to be able to do the original rainbow pockets I had in mind!

The sample before washing.  Threw this beauty in the wash and dryer with a load of towels and it did great.  Nothing is a priceless heirloom here...get used to it.  The pockets puffed more during washing, but other than that there were no changes.

Welcome to my new blog. Exciting things coming soon!