Main Room in Studio - Renovations in progress

We have been diligently working away at preparing our future studio. The picture with the dark walls was what the room looked like when we bought the property. We have painted all the walls lighter and more neutral colours. Fortunately the room has lots of windows, as well as a round sky light.

We decided to go with laminate flooring throughout the entire house except for the bathroom and front entry. With looms and fibers, we wanted to make sure it would be easy to clean. The bathroom has been tiled and we will probably get to the front entry tiling next spring.

We have added crown molding at the ceiling. Some of the walls still need the crown molding and the base boards. Most of my weaving life has been spent weaving in unfinished basements. It will be so nice to finally work in an area that has lots of light.

Canadian Weavers Guid

On Wednesday, May 4th the president of the Canadian Weavers Guild presented 2 of its volunteers with service awards. The event was hosted at the Alberta Craft Council and I was one of the lucky recipients. Monique Dumas was the other lucky recipient. Monique was given a special award prior to this one to honour the work that she performed as a translator of the newsletter. What a task this must have been as both newsletters needed to maintain the same layout and appear exactly the same.

Monique was given a liftetime honorary membership for all of her contributions to the guild, including Quebec provincial representative for several years. I received the award for being the Alberta representative from 2007 to 2011.

Baby Bonnet

I love old weaving books and magazines and have a complete collection of Mary Sandin's Loom Music. A few years ago my kids gave me some CD's from Handweaving.net as a Christmas present. I have gone through these and marked all the things I would like to try. The baby bonnet pattern came from "Practical Weaving Suggestions".

The fabric for the baby bonnet was woven at the end of the pillowcase warp. Often I weave off the last little bit of warp and have no idea what it will become. I not only have a stash of yarn, I also have a stash of small bits of woven fabric. Sometimes when trying to decide something about a future weaving, the answer will lie in these little bits and pieces. Sometimes the bits and pieces become something.

When my youngest daughter announced grandchild number 10 would be a girl, I decided to get my act together and create the bonnet. The original bonnet was done in wool but when I wove the sample in cotton, it immediately cried girly girl baby bonnet.

In the original bonnet, ribbons were sewn to use as ties, but I worry about anything like that being around a babies neck. Once I crocheted around the edges with a shell stitch, I decided I would crochet a piece to match that could be pulled around a button. This would make it easy to change the size and not have anything hanging that could be a potential choking hazard.

I have enough fabric to create another bonnet but this time I will trim it in white. After all my future grand daughter has to wear an original design!

Woven Shibori

One of the shawls, I created in the spring gave me a chance to play with woven shibori. For a few years now I have wanted to try this technique and was really pleased with the results. The warp was a fine worsted wool and the weft was a fine alpaca.

The loom was threaded in a 4 shaft Monks Belt pattern and woven with 4 rows of plain weave inbetween each of the pattern picks. I used a spool of quilting thread that I had on hand from a quilt I made 30 years ago. It gathered up really nicely and was the correct weight so as not to disort the plain weave. Better yet I just placed the spool on the bobbin and wove away with out having to wind a single pirn or bobbin for the pattern thread. I could not believe how easy it was to weave up the shawl.

The shawl was for a silent auction for the Weekend to End Women's Cancers and so I decided to dye the shawl pink. Once dyed and the threads were removed, the shawl had a textured appearance from the pleating. I really liked this effect. If you did not want this you could steam press the fabric to make it lie flat.

At the moment, I am threading the loom for a shibori shawl but this time using tencel.

Double Happiness Wedding Shawl

Whew I made it. I was to leave my house at 5:45 to pick dh up from work and head to Vancouver. I finished the shawl at 4:30. We drove until 11:30 and then stopped for dinner and a nights rest. Next morning we headed back on the road arriving in Vancouver at 3:30 in the afternoon.

Fine gold mylar was randomly added to the warp which was Orlec in a Champagne colour (the perfect match to the dress). The border and double happiness symbol was woven using the Theo Moorman technique. Since I wanted the double happiness symbol to stand out, I added an embroidery stitch around the outline in a double thread - the thread for the pattern area was also doubled. The shawl had a beautiful drape and came in handy with the cool wind.

Through the Reed

The warp is through the reed and ready to be moved to the loom. Unfortunately the gold mylar does not show up very well in the picture. Normally I would warp using the sectional and warp back to front, but with such a short warp, I decided to use the warping board and warp front to back. It will also let me check that the tie down threads are in the correct order and threading the reed at the kitchen table where I have very good light will ensure there are no missed dents.

Now off to thread the heddles.

Warp for the Shawl

I have decided to do the shawl in the Theo Moorman technique. This technique uses a tie down thread to hold the pick up design in place. Above is a picture of half of the warp chained and ready to be moved to the loom.

The warp consists of 2 Orlec threads and a fine polyester tie down thread that is just a shade darker than the Orlec. Since I wanted this shawl to honour the wedding occasion, I have introduced fine gold mylar randomly. The thread will go through the same heddle as the tie down thread.

The double happiness symbol will be inlaid in the gold mylar or a gold embroidery thread that I have. Now on to threading the reed. The Orlec will be sett at 20 epi and the tie down at 10 epi.