Innholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2019 i Handwoven

In the past thirty years or so, drafting formats have become fairly standardized—in weaving books, magazine articles, and computer weaving programs. Many beautiful and intricate overshot patterns appear in much older texts, however, in unfamiliar formats. Some of these drafts were written using shorthand methods, developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to save precious paper and ink. Here are steps for converting the drafts from five major collections of early overshot patterns into our current drafting format. FIRST, EXAMINE the contemporary overshot draft in Figure 1. The threading shows four blocks, A, B, C, and D. Each block is threaded twice (Block A = 1-2-1-2, B = 2-3-2-3, C = 3-4-3-4, and D = 4-1-4-1). However, because shaft 2 is in both Block A and Block B, the last…

Shuttle Pins Proclaim your love of weaving without saying a word with these boat-shuttle enamel pins from Softgrid. Designed by artist and weaver Morgan Hale, these cute pins are available in two color schemes—teal and tan with black nickel or cream and brown with gold—so you can match your enamel shuttle pin to your favorite wooden weaving shuttle. www.etsy.com/shop/softgrid American Cotton Looking for a thick, thirsty cotton perfect for weaving up placemats, baby blankets, and even clothing? Look no further than Bluegrass Mills 6/2 cotton, available at the Woolery. This versatile cotton is grown, spun, and dyed in the United States and comes in 21 colors. If you want to see this yarn in action, check out this issue’s Yarn Lab on page 64. www.woolery.com Band-Aid Beat your bandweaving in…

“THE EARLIEST WEAVING APPEARS to have been limited to the capacity of the simple four-harness loom. Several weaves are possible on this loom, but the one that admits of the widest variations is the so-called ‘four harness overshot weave,’—and this is the foremost of the colonial weaves.” So wrote Mary Meigs Atwater in The Shuttle-Craft Book of American Hand-Weaving when speaking of the American coverlet and the drafts most loved by those early weavers. Overshot, in my mind, is the most North American of yarn structures. Yes, I know that overshot is woven beyond the borders of North America, but American and Canadian weavers of old took this structure and ran with it. The coverlets woven by weavers north and south provided those individuals with a creative outlet. Coverlets needed…

MY FIRST LOOM WAS AN 8-INCH FOUR-SHAFT Structo Artcraft that I inherited from my grandmother. My second loom was a 36-inch eight-shaft Schacht Mighty Wolf. After several years of being confined to a narrow width, I decided to broaden my horizons and make big, wide projects. I have bunk beds, single on top and double on the bottom, that are destined for our rustic Alaskan cabin. I decided to replace the old kid-themed comforters with traditional coverlets that would feel like they had always been in our cabin. After making a summer and winter coverlet for the top bunk, I wanted to try a different technique for the bottom. At the ANWG (Association of Northwest Weavers Guilds) conference in Victoria, British Columbia, I took a workshop by Margaret Coe called…

EARLY IN MY WEAVING LIFE I vowed I would never waste my time weaving a dish towel, so I surprised myself by entering the Convergence 2018 dish towel exchange. By participating, I learned that towels are a wonderful weaving project. They are a chance to experiment and learn about weave structures and color interaction. At the exchange, I was amazed at the many approaches, unique patterns, and colors that the participants used. Both beginning and expert weavers couldn’t wait to take home five beautiful new towels. Last March, I visited elderly aunts in Texas, where I admired the vast fields bursting with bluebonnets. Back at home, I remembered the delicate blossoms waving in the wind and felt inspired to weave a towel with flowers. I liked a friend’s rosepath sample,…

REGARDLESS OF YOUR PROJECT, the basics of fingerweaving are the same. You wind a warp, complete with a cross. For a weft-faced structure, starting with the end at the far right, you weave each warp end in turn across the width as weft. The weft returns to warp position at the left side. This tutorial gives you the basics of fingerweaving with just 8 strands, but if you succeed with 8, you can succeed with 80. Using more strands will create a wider strap. The arrangement of colors and the distance each weft thread travels are what create the patterns. Once you’ve got the technique down, belts and scarves make good beginner projects. Choose a thick yarn so that the project progresses quickly. To minimize the length of the not-yet-woven…

I’M SOMETHING OF AN EXPERT on traditional North American weaving. I’ve run my weaving mill, Thistle Hill Weavers, for over 30 years, specializing in custom and commissioned weaving. At Thistle Hill, we serve our clients by producing whatever they require using our yarns, and we are known for our historically accurate reproduction textiles. We’ve woven special pieces for private collectors, museums, and even the movies. We use antique handlooms that were running in the textile mills of America—old Crompton and Knowles “W” and “S” looms. We sample and develop fabrics on these handlooms and then produce our textiles on dobby and Jacquard industrial shuttle looms. In my work as a trained fancy weaver running a job shop similar to those in the 1830s, I often wonder what makes my work…

I LOVED JUDIT OZORAY’S DESIGN for the Starry Sky Placemats (September/October 2016) and the sentiment behind it. The designer wrote that her daughter lived overseas, but because we all see the same stars at night, they could still share meals when using the placemats. Last year, my daughter and her wonderful Catalan boyfriend decided to marry and live in Barcelona. I thought of that beautiful design, and to celebrate, I wanted to weave it in tablecloths and napkins for my daughter and new son-in-law, his parents, and for us. I modified the design by expanding it into a tablecloth, but I wasn’t sure what yarns to substitute or the sett to use. With some suggestions from the incomparable Elisabeth Hill, I experimented by weaving a baby coverlet using the design.…

WHEN IT COMES TO AMERICAN WEAVING HISTORY, I can’t think of a better example of American ingenuity and inventiveness than the Weavers Delight floor loom made by the Newcomb Loom Company in Davenport, Iowa. First, let me recount my own experience with the Weavers Delight loom. At the time, I was living in Colorado and was highly active in the local weaving community. The town of Burlington, Colorado, located on the eastern border of the state, requested my help to identify and rehabilitate an old loom housed in their farm equipment museum, the Old Town Museum. It just so happened that this was a holiday weekend, and Burlington was celebrating a Heritage Festival. I am always game for an adventure, so my answer was “Yes!” In the museum, I found…

WHEN WEAVERS THINK OF “WEAVING YARNS,” I’m guessing most of us think of yarn on cones: cost effective, easy to handle, and strong enough for weft or warp. But the wide world of fiber doesn’t all fit on a cone. Lots of us also knit or crochet or handspin. We have stashes full of lovely skeins that could find their way onto our looms if only we were sure they could handle the rigors of weaving. I recently decided to test the limits of what can be used for warp, and the result was better than I imagined. If ever there was “not a weaving yarn,” it is Icelandic lopi. It is fat and fuzzy, so softly spun that its two plies appear to be one. I first fell in…

MY WEAVE STRUCTURES STUDY GROUP has been focusing on Bateman weaves this past year. Dr. Bateman was a retired scientist who developed a number of block-weave threading systems divided into categories such as the evocatively named “Park” and “Boulevard.” One of the things my group surmised is that Dr. Bateman may have been more concerned with permutations than with practicality! Many of the structures that result from his threading patterns have long floats on the back, confining their use to items such as pillows, where those floats are safely enclosed. Luckily, this shawl pattern does not have long floats and, in fact, the contrasting pattern on the back adds visual interest. The tabby shots can dilute the clarity of the pattern, so I used a thin 20/2 cotton for my…

TO FIT THE THEME OF NORTH AMERICAN WEAVING, I considered weaving a traditional coverlet, something that has long been one of my weaving goals. Then logic and reason set in regarding the time and materials involved in such an endeavor. My second idea was a table runner, a mainstay of 1800s America. This idea sparked my creative interest and meant researching the use of table runners. During my research, I found a photograph of a table setting with two table runners placed lengthwise along both sides of a table with the dinnerware set directly on top of them. This caught my attention and sent me along yet another research path. I learned that some American pioneer families used table runners in lieu of tablecloths, which tended to be expensive, or…

THE NORTH ANDOVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY started what would become the American Textile Museum in 1960, basing it on a collection of spinning and weaving equipment that Caroline Stevens Rogers inherited from her father, Samuel Dale Stevens. In 1984, the name was changed from the Merrimack Valley Textile Museum to the Museum of American Textile History to reflect its broader scope. In 1997, the museum’s name changed again to the American Textile History Museum, and it moved to Lowell, Massachusetts. In June 2016, the museum closed permanently due to budget deficits. For me, the closing was a big loss, not only for the weaving and spinning communities but also for the nation as a whole. I visited the American Textile History Museum twice and was intrigued by the stories told about…

Cotton is a staple in a weaver’s studio. It is often the first choice for household textiles for its absorbency, easy care, and availability in a variety of sizes and finishes. Recently, Bluegrass Mills introduced a new line of 6/2 unmercerized cotton yarn. The cotton for the yarn is grown, spun, and dyed in the United States and is sold by The Woolery in a palette of twenty colors packaged in 1-pound cones. THE YARN Bluegrass Mills 6/2 Cotton; 2,520 yd/lb; 100% unmercerized cotton. This yarn is a little heavier than the more commonly available 8/2 unmercerized cotton. At first glance, it looks similar, but side by side, the 6/2 cotton is noticeably thicker. Bluegrass Mills 6/2 cotton has a soft twist and a slight sheen. The yarn is strong…

KEEP ME WARM ONE NIGHT. It was my first weaving book. Ambitious, certainly, for a beginner who had only recently seen a loom for the first time, not counting my pot-holder loom. I bought the book not for its charming title or its beauty or even because it could teach me to weave overshot. I bought it because it was evidence that I had joined the age-old procession of women and men who magically linked beauty and utility, creating comfort. It made me feel part of something larger. In the late 1970s, I was a reporter working on what used to be called the “Women’s Pages” on a small city daily. The city editor sent me to interview a newcomer to the community, a woman, he said, who was a…

THE OTHER DAY, I PUSHED MY GROCERY CART to the car, feeling pretty good about myself because I hadn’t used a single plastic or paper shopping bag provided by the store. Everything I bought fitted nicely into my own shopping bags. You know the ones: the bags you buy from the store that are heavy-duty and usually have brightly colored logos with store names. I used to feel a little guilty taking a Trader Joe’s bag into my local family-owned grocery store because it made me feel disloyal. However, my local store doesn’t have Persian cucumbers, and I subtly want the checkout person to know that I shop around—I have no shame. I even use Red Stone Glen Fiber Arts Center canvas bags and do a little advertising for the…

WHEN OUR GUILD DECIDED TO HONOR Madelyn van der Hoogt for her contributions to the weaving world through our guild exhibit at Midwest Weavers Conference, I did some research to decide on my contribution. While researching, I found an article in Handwoven written by Madelyn that explains tied overshot in wonderful detail. In the article, she mentions that tied overshot “is relatively new in our weaving vocabulary, first appearing in the 1970s.” It is a tied-unit weave with regularly spaced tie-down warp threads. Because of the tie-downs, tied overshot opens up the possibilities of designing a utilitarian fabric with much larger design areas than found in traditional overshot. Over my 40 years of weaving, I have woven a lot of traditional overshot pieces, but this was a new structure to…

WHEN IT COMES TO HANDWEAVING, the word “Americana” conjures up the amazing array of coverlets woven generations ago in New England and the Appalachian Mountains. These coverlets, woven in overshot, summer and winter, and doubleweave, share a rich vocabulary of similar motifs. When I first started weaving, I faithfully copied the threading and treadling of the Whig Rose pattern in Mary Black’s book New Key to Weaving. At the time, I knew very little about block design theory. The overshot patterns appeared magically as I wove the checkerboard motifs known as Star and Rose. When I started accumulating weaving books, I began to see how these two motifs were arranged in a wide variety of coverlet patterns. Because my favorite weaving technique is warp-faced rep, I designed a bed runner…

RECENTLY, A FRIEND GIFTED ME her multicolored stash of rug wool. After weaving three striped rugs in plain weave, I decided it was time to branch out. Looking for inspiration, I came across an article for a saddle blanket by Clotilde Barrett in the July 1976 issue of The Weaver’s Journal. Barrett was born in Belgium in 1932 and moved to the United States in 1955. After coming here, she studied art, maintained a pottery studio, and received an MA degree from Northwestern University in 1967. In 1976, she started a quarterly journal for weavers, The Weaver’s Journal, and published it for eight years. The saddle blanket pattern was published in the first issue of the magazine. While there was enough information in the original article to get started, plus…

YOU MIGHT NOT REALIZE IT, BUT FINGERWEAVING is a technique near and dear to the hearts of many North Americans. Practiced on this continent long before the Europeans arrived with their treadle looms, fingerweaving remains an important and iconic craft for several cultural groups to this day. I came to these braided textiles through my husband, a staunch Québécois. When he told me about fingerweaving, a textile technique new to me at the time, I immediately fell in love. North American textile making goes back thousands of years, but because textiles decompose easily, there aren’t many ancient examples of handweaving in North America. Fortunately, there are ways around that problem. In her book Mississippian Village Textiles at Wickliffe, Penelope Drooker describes studying fabric impressions in ancient pottery from the Wickliffe…

PROJECT DIRECTORY Levels indicate weaving skills, not sewing skills. AB = Advanced Beginner, I = Intermediate, A = Advanced. “All levels” includes very new weavers. ERRATA In the January/February 2019 issue, there was an error in the treadling order for the In the Pines Runner. The color order for the 4 picks immediately following the last 3x repeat within the larger 11x repeat bracket should be light green, dark green, light green, dark green. A revised copy of the draft can be found at www.interweave.com/interweave-errata-corrections. SUPPLIERS Black Sheep Fiber Emporium, 173 NE 3rd Ave., Suite 103, Hillsboro, OR 97124, (971) 732-5391, www.blacksheepfiber emporium.com (Garton 36–38). Camilla Valley Farm Weavers’ Supply, PO Box 341, Orangeville, ON, Canada L9W 2Z7, (519) 941-0736, https://camillavalleyfarm.com, nmanners@camillavalleyfarm.com (Dunlap 48–50; Heyman 40–41). Eugene Textile Center, 1510…