More Show and Tell

Cherrie's first weaving . . . she thinks big! 

The warp was wound on  our warping party day back in July, threaded in a pattern and methodically woven with a very minimum of instruction

Some close ups show the patterns. Cherrie plans to make a huge draught stopper for her door before the winter,

I think we need to stop calling Betty a beginner weaver. Here is her latest item . . . partially at least, it started out life as a knitted scarf. Deemed to be not soft enough for the purpose, it was unravelled and used in this throw.

The photo below shows a close up of the weave and is more true to colour.

This one was knitted by Rosemary . . . no chance of this being unravelled and repurposed. It's lovely the way it is.

February Show and Tell

Fabrics that go "bump"?  Perhaps not bumps in this lively scarf from Chris, maybe more of a gentle ripple. Various threads including silk and ribbons make sure this piece does not go unnoticed. The glorious colour tops it off.

The warp for this piece from Rose is 16/1 linen, doubled, with two different colours being run together for the subtle shading (as well as the stash reduction of oddments.) The weft is a fine cotton with small slubs or knots, a reminder of our late friend June.

Judy B had a lot of us drooling over the jewel-like colours of silk available from Glenora. This company is no longer in New Zealand but, hey, it's just over the ditch in Australia which sometimes seems closer to us than the extreme distances of our own country. Looking forward to seeing what Judy will do with this.

Jolet was disappointed in her first piece. The yarn is from June's stash and has a lovely tweedy look to it. Unknown to Jolet, this yarn feels harsh because of the spinning oil still in it. We used to get a lot like this in the old days so it brought back memories. We promised Jolet it would improve no end after washing and become more like a fabric and less like a sack. The creamy colour and brown fleck will make a great cloth with no need for any pattern weaving.

Rose is determined not to forget June. The dark thread in this bobbin lace tree is also from her stash. It is fine and shiny and has multiple colours of red, green and blue and was perfect for working the lace on this tree.  The long ends were then manipulated into branches and roots. The tree was lifted off the lace pillow and attached to a handwoven table runner that made an ideal background.

More Show and Tell to come in a few days.

I'm just going to pretend that January didn't exist this year and get right on to our February meeting. (January's photos are on our facebook page.)  An amazing thirteen people attended the meeting and there are still others who were not able to be there - so what a growth spurt we are having. And yet another loom has come out of the woodwork looking for a new owner. It's a very tidy 4-shaft, 6 pedal Ashford jack loom. It's a bit noisy but we have people working on that. There is a perfectly woven cushion length on it so we know it performs well.

Photos this month will come in instalments, the first covering the topic of the month which was tea towels. Members brought lots - many that have been in use for years, others just hot off the loom. No two were alike either in size, colour or pattern. There was plenty to spark off inspiration, and many questions were asked, which was pertinent because we intend to launch into a group tea towel project this year. Some things most of us agreed on: towels need to be a generous size, and a mix of cotton and linen seems to be the best for drying dishes. One thing was questioned . . . why do we always think that mercerised cotton is not so good for tea towels? Have we ever tried it? There were anecdotes about use of mercerised cotton being just fine, so let's look into that and find out if it is just a myth.

Here are the towels we saw . . . old and new.

These are not only tea towels, they are also happy memories.

Some are from previous projects, others are gifts from friends

Above and below, these good-sized towels were woven by Anne in the linen/cotton yarn from DEA, all woven on the same warp yet all different.

Above and below, these table mats in various yarns were woven by Rosemary. She also wove a massive number of napkins and tea towels for a wedding present, also using the DEA yarn

More show and tell soon provided there are no technological inconsistencies!