Back to Weaving

After a bit of time off, I am back to my looms and it feels good!  On October 12, 13, and 14, I took a trip downstate to attend a doubleweave workshop with a weaving friend.  It was taught by Jennifer Moore.  I had more information crammed into my brain that I will ever be able to use!  It was a great class. 

The class was run in a round-robin style, with everyone bringing their loom warped with an assigned pattern.  There were close to 20 in the class, so most of the patterns were on two looms.  

Jennifer gave 2 short lectures per day, and the rest of the time was spent weaving on each others looms.  Since I wasn't a speedy weaver, I didn't get to all of the patterns, but I did weave on several that interested me.  

The pattern assigned to me was a 2 block doubleweave windows. Some of Jennifer's samples of that structure are shown above and below. 

My own weaving on the warp left over is going pretty slowly, since it is being done on my new table loom, an 8 shaft Glimakra Victoria.

I did a little weaving on it tonight after work and dinner.  As can be seen by the length of the sample, it is slow going!

I chose to not weave the squares in the order they were threaded because I didn't want a diagonal line of solid color squares.  They are a little more random, as can be seen if the photo is clicked to enlarge it.  They are the colors I dyed earlier in the month that I wrote about.

Another project that I was working on was a set of 6 placemats.  I finished with the weaving a couple days ago, and finished with the wet finishing and ironing yesterday.  I was going to hem them, but decided to do a simple fringe after they were washed.  I think hems would have been too bulky.

These placemats were part of my effort at stash reduction.  Unfortunately, they hardly put a dent in the stash!

The warp was from a very large cone of 4 ply varigated blue, and the weft was from many cones of yarn used to make chennile bedspreads.  The colors remind me of the old Fiesta dishes from years ago.

I have enough warp left on the loom for another set.  I will think about it a bit, before I start the next set, since I don't want to do the same thing again, and I don't want a lot of yarn color changes, because I hate starting and ending yarn. 

Preparing For a Doubleweave Class

After a long hiatus from weaving and writing, I have started preparing for a class I will be taking next week.  Michigan Weaver's Guild
http://www.michiganweaversguild.org/workshops.html
is offering the three daydoubleweave class with Jennifer Moore, author of a new book on doubleweave. 

A friend from downstate told me about it and invited me to stay with her and go to class together.  I'm really looking forward to the class and getting together with other weavers again. 

After checking out the class, I realized I needed a loom with more shafts, so I started looking online and a couple days later, found this sweet loom.

It is a Glimakra Victoria 8 shaft table loom on a stand.  This class is getting expensive already!  I haven't even tried it out yet.  One thing I would like to do with this loom is to convert it to treadles.  If any readers have one like it with treadles, I would value your input on how they are hooked up.  What little I have found about converting, is that the company only makes a kit for the 4 shaft table loom.  I just need to see how they are hooked up, and I think Bob and I could make our own kit.

The doubleweave class is set up as a round-robin, which means everyone weaves samples on other class member's looms.  I received my pattern draft last week, and since that didn't leave enough time to buy more yarn, I am using my stash. 
The pattern calls for seven colors, which I didn't have, so out came the dyes last night. 

Since the beautiful fall season is upon us, I chose a fall color theme. I took the few colors I had of a 6/2 weight cotton and overdyed them to get the colors I wanted.


I finished rinsing them out today after I got home from work, and they are out on the line drying right now.

As soon as they are dry, I will start winding my warp, maybe today, or possibly tomorrow after work.

I love working with color, and trying ones that aren't my favorites.  It keeps me out of a rut, and have actually gotten some new favorites through the dyeing process.