Calendar Sample Pictures

I finally got the picture upload to work. Here is the cloth still on the loom. I did around 4 yards (and actually have more warp that I can weave). This was done in 10/2 cotton. The warp is a yellow and natural alternated. The weft is yellow and a light tan, also alternated.

This detail, isn't great, but the cloth is meant to be reminiscent of

strata of earth.

The samples are all cut and we have started assembling the calendars. We only did 100, so it wasn't too much work.

Calendar Samples

Well, it has been a while and many thing have been going on - not many of them weaving. The latest project is a perpetual calendar with my weaving discussion group. The theme is the Gold Country of California. We are weaving samples to use for each month of the calendar. I have October.

The samples are finished and cut to size and we are currently assembling the calendars.

The mechanism to upload pictures isn't working, so I'll have to post the pictures later.

Fair Results

The County Fair has come and finished this past Sunday. I am pretty excited because I won two ribbons for the three entries I submitted. The baby blanket got a second place in the baby category.


The end of the warp from the Shadow Weave class that I was too lazy to do more than just weave as a runner got a first place in the home accessory (or something like that) category. The third entry was two of the pink striped towels.




I was very impressed with the quality of the other entries. That made the awards more special.

I'm busy working on the next project, but more on that later.

Blankets are Finished - Mostly

At the left are two of the four blankets I got out of the warp I put on earlier this month. Actually I got 4 1/3 blankets. I haven't gotten the calculations correct so that I can just have enough for a specific number and I hate to just cut off the warp and try to figure out something to do with it. I think eventually I can make a kind of patchwork blanket out of all of the 1/3 blankets I have.

Here is a close-up of one of the blankets. (It's not great, but might give you an idea.)

I don't have anything on the loom yet, but I am entering four things for the County Fair next month - oneof these blankets, the brown and white runner and two of the striped towels. Our calendar project is coming together, so that may be the next project.

Towels Finished - On to the Next Project

Well, the cotton towels are finished, hemmed, washed, etc. They turned out pretty well. I used pink, yellow, green and brown for weft. The brown ones (center under the yellow towel) looked better than I thought it would. The green isn't my favorite, but doesn't look too bad. I am thinking about entering them in the county fair in August.



In order to keep the momentum going, I started on some baby blankets. You can kind of see my process for designing the blankets. They are striped using two different colors and yarn types at a time. I have a plan for how wide the stripes are and just pick yarn combinations that seem to go together. These blankers are in peaches, yellows and whites. The warp is all cotton - mostly knitting-type of yarn. The wefts will be some kind of synthetic blend - acrylic/nylon, etc. It makes a very nice hand for the blankets.

If I get these finished, I will probably enter one of these in the fair as well.

Striped Towels in Pink and other Colors

I am still working on the multi-striped towels in 10/2 cotton. I started with a sample that crossed all of the warp colors in the weft. This gave me a chance to see how each color would look as weft. You can see the sample to the right.


I have woven a towel with the pink and have cut this off. The picture below was taken before it was washed and its detail is below. (The hardest thing about this blog is to get the pictures where I want them. It must not be that hard since lots of blogs have pictures everywhere in their posts. sigh...)

I have woven a yellow and a green towel and will probably use the tan for weft next. The yarn colors that were darker like the hot pink and purple didn't look very good as weft, probably because the value was so much different than the overall warp. I am hoping to finish these before the end of the week. Cheers!

More Shopping Than Weaving

Between CNCH and a visit to North Carolina, I haven't had much time to weave. So I did the next best thing - shopped for yarn!


Those trips were great opportunities to find yarn. I know I don't need any more but it is hard to resist some of the new yarns in great colors and mixed fibers. The yarns to the left are all mercerized cottons. Perfect for baby blanket warp.

These blue yarns, on the right, (except for the small ball top left) are from the same company. They have slightly different content (wool, mohair, etc.) but are the same color. I found them in North Carolina and some in Carmel, CA. Unfortunately they are also available via the Internet.

I have been finishing the Shadow Weave sample. It is washed, but I haven't decided if I will add a fringe (and what kind) or just hem it. The pink towel warp is all wound, threaded and tied on. I just have to start weaving on that. More on those later.

Weaving by the Sea

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the CNCH Retreat at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, CA. It was a lovely spot to be and an even better place to weave. This isn't quite the view from the classroom window, but we could see the ocean.




I took a Shadow Weave class during the long weekend. My sample was an illustration of a 4-shaft shadow weave with a border - threaded on shafts 5 & 6. I used 3/2 mercerized cotton in natural and brown. (I was glad to use it up since the brown is definitely not my color and I don't remember why I bought it.) There were 17 students and the instructor brought a 16-shaft compu-dobby loom for the 18th sample. Many people brought table looms, which turned out to be the challenge for me but helped me decide to not consider buying a table loom.

It took a lot of work to complete all of the samples, but I did, although some are very short. I still have a bit of warp to weave off. I should use it to experiment, but I will probably weave it off as a runner.

Previous Unplanned Result

Before starting on the striped towels, I finished a set of linen/cotton blended twill towels. The yarn, a 30% linen/70% cotton blend wove into cloth with a great hand. Everything seemed fine until I washed them. The blue yarn bled - not just bleeding around the intersection of the white and blue colors - but across the entire towel. It also looked purple rather than blue.

At right is a washed towel with an unwashed towel on top. I originally washed the towels with a dye magnet sheet. I washed them a second time with a couple of the dye magnet sheets. I simmered one of the towels on the stove with a little detergent. The blue is still discharging.

I still have a couple of things I can do - more washing with dye magnet sheets or using a color remover. In any case, these towels will be mine rather than the gift they were intended to be. I guess that is a good thing since they do have a great hand and they turned out very well otherwise.

I haven't washed this one towel was done with mostly blue weft yet.

Taking the Plunge

There are two things I'd like to accomplish with this blog. Having removed myself from my weaving compatriots by moving across the country, I thought it would be an easy way to share what I am doing with them. I suppose the other reason has to do with keeping current and understanding the new technology trends. I also hope this will help me keep weaving.

My current project is towels done with 10/2 mercerized cotton. They are a stripe that I put together for a calendar project in 2005.

This is as far as I have gotten so far. We'll see have it goes.