June's House

When I was in Blenheim in April for the block weave workshop, I had the great pleasure of visiting June McKenzie at her home.  The house itself is a lovely old villa with a rambling garden, but what was so exciting was every room was full of June's woven work, not just scarves and fabrics, but garments and even upholstered pieces. 

So, may I suggest you make yourself a nice cup of something lovely, and "walk" with me?

 Possibly my most favorite piece of the day was this foot stool. 

Rain got heavier and the light very bad, so the colors in the photo above and below are not representative of these fabrics, but I knew you'd want to see the texture and the design.

Thank you for a lovely time, June.

You can see more of June's work here.


by Meg Nakagawa

Lake Rotoiti Retreat

This large and lovely throw in 8 shaft twill blocks is one of Chris's stash reduction projects, held by Jan.

Katie has done some superb finishing on her felted jacket. Back in June at our garment workshop we saw this jacket being fitted. It had started out as three sleeveless tops. Great conversion Katie!

This magnificent bag started the weekend as a pile of flax. By Saturday morning it was a bag and by the end of the retreat it would have plaited straps to make it into a backpack.

by Rose Pelvin

Fabric from Start to Finish

Reels of polyester, three ends at a time with a slub cotton/viscose warp. Colour changes at intervals to create a blue/green blend.

On the warping board.

I don’t want to play this game any more.

Whew, all sorted and ready to thread.

A fine linen weft makes a nice firm fabric.

Work in progress.

And finally, the finished fabric.

by Rose Pelvin

Judy is Going Japanese

I received an email from Judy Bool, who was at Saturday's garment fitting workshop.

Says Judy: "Today I finished winding the warp for the first part of my Japanese Vest (1 November 1994 issue) - the fronts and back. I'm using 2/28 alpaca/silk yarn - warp is camel and weft will be black. I was going to use a peacock blue with the camel but I think the black will be more striking. I'm off to wind on the warp and start threading."

We are so looking forward to a fashion show at the end of this year.

by Meg Nakagawa

June Meeting: Fitting Garments - Special

Sue is fitting a jacket on Katie McDonald, a felter; Katie started out with three felted sleeveless tops and ended up with one full jacket with a nifty shaped closure.

Text by Rose Pelvin, photo by Chris Beech

June Meeting: Fitting Garments

Last Saturday, we had sewing guru Sue visit us to help with fitting garments. We were encouraged to bring ideas, patterns, or calico already cut and ready to try on. Weavers arrived with different stages of their projects, as well as books, magazines, patterns and woven samples and garments created in the past.

In the top picture, Sue is helping Katie McDonald fine-tune a felted garment.

Joan had made a garment and leftover woven sample felted rigorously enough in the wet finish that it could be cut like a felted piece.

Of course you don't have to construct the entire garment with handwoven cloth, but use commercial cloth in the curvy bits. Rose used up warp ends in this manner.

Or, on one warp, a weaver can weave different structures or with different wefts to create contrast fabric.

Drafts and samples from April's Crape Workshop were also available.

It was hard to look up and stop working when the official end time came and Sue had to leave. Some members stayed behind to complete what they came to complete.

Everybody went home with inspirations and more concrete ideas on what/how to make a garment, if not with calico already fit and altered.

by Meg Nakagawa

New Loom, First Project, by Noelene Gratton

In July 2008 I bought an 8 shaft Mecchia Loom, from Invercargill. After getting it home, assembling it and sorting out a few hiccups and many duh!! moments, with the generous help of Margaret (Mecchia, by email), I was ready for action.

I wanted to start by doing something quick to check if everything was working as it should. As I am not a person who samples, a plain weave chunky project was called for. A sleeveless vest, quick and easy. To add interest, three colours were used - green, navy and violet, all very pale, alternating in both the warp and weft so as not to get a striped effect. In the process, I learned a little about batch dying, something I have never done before, preferring a random effect so as to hide any unevenness of colour.

The resulting fabric was pleasing and the loom worked well with no further adjustments necessary.

After almost 2 years the jacket is finally finished. Good timing for the year of the garment.

by Noelene Gratton

Garment Idea, by Rose Pelvin and Helen Lukes

For weavers wanting to take up the challenge to make a garment this year, but nervous about cutting their precious fabric, here is an idea from Anne Field's collapse weave book. Here is Helen Lukes of Wellington with her take on this simple but very effective design I had a chance to see during my latest trip to Wellington.

by Rose Pelvin

Eyelash Blouse, by Rose Pelvin

I wrote it for my Cross Country (sample exchange) project previously.

At the last Weavers meeting last year, Joan was wearing a lovely white cotton shirt which had blocks of dense weave and blocks of more open weave. It had intrigued me before and we had a discussion about it. She had bought in it Nepal and had actually seen the fabric being woven.

I was keen to work out how it was done and prepared to work out a complicated draft, but Joan explained how it was done, with a whole lot of overshot floats which were trimmed off afterwards - easy peasy! My sample is a lot softer than Joan's crisp shirt fabric but has a nice handle and drape. The first sample (with colours and eyelashes) was beaten quite hard, so the next was was beaten much more lightly. Perhaps something in between would be about right.


I was glad to have something different to send to CCW for my own choice. I've been a member for so long I'm running out of ideas!

Does that clear your confusion, Meg?

by Rose Pelvin

March Meeting

"What inspires you when you weave to create a garment?" was the theme of this month's meeting last Monday. We discussed how we are inspired to weave for a garment.

Some weavers look at the yarns and design fabric. Some of us look at what is in fashion in clothing stores and catalogs and go home and create their own. Others start with colors.

We got to see and feel some garments, as well as samples of garment fabrics.

One of Jenny's lovely coats.

Rose's eye lash sample of Joan's blouse? (I miss out on a lot by not going to every meeting!)

And we also had our usual show and tell.

Judy's merino sample - unwashed

Judy's merino sample - fulled

Betsy's bag with sari yarns - summer side

Betsy's bag - winter side

Betsy's mohair wrap - the middle part of the wrap was brushed, but in the two ends boucle loops were kept.

Anne Udy scarf

Nancy's hat from a kit set (?)

Nancy's hat on Joan

Last but not the least, Nancy's husband Robin Taylor's debut piece; the weft is hand-spun (by Nancy) alpaca, the warp is 80% wool, 20% alpaca.

I'm sorry for the sorry photos and report; I am both thrilled and overwhelmed by the idea of sewing and I was very preoccupied.

by Meg Nakagawa

2010 Starts - Part 2

It was a glorious day and I think there were 16 people who came for at least part of the time.

Win with Cina, our member who lives between Hawaii and Marlborough Sounds

Jan, Sue (on the floor) and Dawn have a catch up

Joan perches in a space between looms

Joan and June in conversation; Judy, Peg and Jan in the background

Judy and Peg both came in from the Marlborough Sounds for the occasion

Win and Chris inspect Win's latest work in progress

Some of my fabrics from way back. . .

. . . and some from even further back! we had some good discussions about what I could do with them.

Bead leno on the 8 shaft countermarch loom - looks like fun but it was a struggle to find the shed

Crepe samples on the 8 shaft table loom. So many possibilities.

Baby Blankets on the 4 shaft jack loom

Judy had a GORGEOUS double weave wrap. Anne had a soft colourful throw and Chris had floor rugs made from denim jeans. Sorry I didn't get pics of these.

by Rose Pelvin