Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2020 i Handwoven

TRONSTAD RANCH, at the foot of the Medicine Bow Mountains, is home to Border Leicester and Border Leicester-cross sheep. Husband and wife Bryan and Lusha Tronstad grew up in northwestern Montana, raising animals and crops. After college and a brief stint in Alabama, the Tronstads found their way to Laramie, Wyoming, for a PhD program. Though they longed to have their own property among the vast plains and rugged mountains of southeast Wyoming, it took five years to find the perfect location. Once they found their ranch, they decided to raise sheep to slow down Lusha’s production of crocheted afghans, a craft she learned from her grandmother. Bryan suggested that if Lusha had to raise the wool and spin it, the house would fill with afghans more slowly—how true! The…

WEAVERS ARE OFTEN DIVIDED INTO TWO GROUPS: those most attracted to structure and those most attracted to color. Nevertheless, in the many years since I learned to weave, I’ve yet to meet a weaver who didn’t love Lunatic Fringe’s Tubular Spectrum yarns. As a very new weaver, I bought a Tubular Spectrum set of 20 hues in 10/2 cotton and used the colorful cones as decorative accents throughout my house. Arranged in order on top of a bookcase in the office, they enlivened many a boring phone conversation. The colors were so clear and bright that I could hardly bring myself to weave with them. Eventually, the yarns became warps and were used for several color gamps. I used the leftovers whenever I needed a pop of color in an…

UPON DISCOVERING SHADOW WEAVE, it quickly became one of my favorite weave structures. The large intricate patterns based on color placement fascinate me. I would have never guessed that such complex motifs could be created using only four shafts. I was no stranger to shaft envy, looking at all the beautiful patterns eight or more shafts could bring. Fortunately, shadow weave truly made me appreciate the power of my four-shaft loom. Handwoven has been an inspiration for me to start designing my own projects. The 2005 and 2012 articles on shadow weave (see Resources) show the technique at its best. One of the things I love about these articles is that they explain the theory behind the shadow-weave technique, which allowed me to come up with my own design. I…

PROJECT DIRECTORY SUPPLIERS Brown Sheep Company, Inc., 100662 County Rd. 16, Mitchell, NE 69357, (800) 826-9136, www.brownsheep.com (Goudsmit 54–56; Simmons 26–28). Cowgirl Yarn, 119 E. Ivinson Ave., Laramie, WY 82070, (307) 755-9276,howdy@cowgirlyarn.com, www.cowgirlyarn.com (Tuthill 22–24). Deramores, us.deramores.com (Goudsmit 54–56). GIST: Yarn & Fiber, (781) 349-6465, hello@gistyarn.com, www.gistyarn.com (Resnick 34–35). Halcyon Yarn, 12 School St., Bath, ME 04530, (800) 341-0282, www.halcyonyarn.com (Williams 36–38). Happy Ewe, happyewefibers@gmail.com, www.happyewefibers.com (Fox 46–48). Izzy Knits, (800) 231-0154, www.izzyknits.com (Moncrief 64–65). Lunatic Fringe Yarns, 2008 E. Indianhead Dr., Tallahassee, FL 32301, (800) 483-8749, (850) 539-1964, www.lunaticfringeyarns.com (Benson 42–44). Studio Three, 1440 W. Gurley St., Prescott, AZ 86305, (928) 778-0307 (Dunlap 30–32). Treenway Silks, 2060 Miller Ct., Lakewood, CO 80215-1325, (888) 383-7455, (303) 383-7455, www.treenwaysilks.com (Bhatia 50–52). WEBS, 75 Service Center Rd., Northampton, MA 01060, (800) 367-9327,…

10/2 Unmercerized Yarn Weavers rejoice! After years of being off the market, dyed 10/2 unmercerized cotton is back, this time thanks to Ashford. Available in 16 vivid colors and the usual natural and white, Ashford’s line of unmercerized cottons is perfect for weaving fine, thirsty towels and napkins as well as summery lightweight scarves and other garments. Use it by itself or pair it with Ashford’s new unmercerized 5/2 cotton to create fun thick-and-thin texture. www.ashford.co.nz Merchant and Mills Scissors When you’re snipping yarn tails in your weaving, it’s important to use scissors that are small, sharp, and precise so you don’t run the risk of cutting into your cloth. Ideally, they should also be aesthetically pleasing. Fortunately for us all, Merchant and Mills’ wide bow scissors, available at Halcyon…

THE SUBJECT OF TREADLING COMES UP in my workshops, and I confess I’m usually the one to raise the issue. It surprises me when I see students treadling in the manner that they learned as “traditional” because it didn’t occur to them that there may be a better way. The method that I use has been around for a long time, though it doesn’t seem widely known. Before I get into specifics, I want you to first think about ergonomics. Our bodies are well-balanced, and the pelvis is constructed for smooth movement of the legs. The hip joint rotates enough to give an adult a comfortable stride of 10 to 20 inches forward, backward, and to the side. Now this may sound basic, but if you consider your walking cadence,…

IF YOU HAD ASKED THE 20-YEAR-OLD version of myself where I thought I’d end up settling down, I never in a million years would have said Alabama. I grew up overseas, a military dependent, and always struggled with feeling a sense of a place being mine. I am not a native Southerner, yet somehow here I am, in the Deep South, making a home for my family. Growing up moving around a lot did teach me to embrace the idea that home is where your heart is. So even though I didn’t expect to live in Alabama, it is now my home and, at 33, I am starting to learn what it feels like to have a true sense of place. Nothing makes a place feel like a home more…

FOR A NEW SET OF TOWELS, I searched for a twill that would give an overall texture-y look, without a distinct line or pattern. The Brighton honeycomb structure looked like a perfect choice. While the tie-up is somewhat complex, it is easy to thread and very easy to treadle (this is important because I weave in short intervals). I warped stripe groups of both colors and natural, with dark ends outlining each six-end unit. After washing and drying, lo and behold, like magic, perfect little circles appeared in the natural stripes! They could be made out in the colored stripes, but only in the natural stripes did they “pop.” How did this happen? I discovered that for the circles to show, the dark ends had to be on shafts 1…

WHEN I TELL MY AMERICAN FRIENDS how much I adore possum-merino yarn from New Zealand, I always get a confused reaction. I quickly tell them that this is not the North American opossum but a different species altogether. The brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) is a native and now protected marsupial species of Australia. This animal was introduced into New Zealand for the fur trade in 1837. It quickly made itself at home and became a seriously invasive species as it has no natural predators there. It has decimated forest habitat as well as bird populations, especially the beloved kiwi. Additionally, the brushtail possum carries bovine tuberculosis that can spread to cattle and deer populations (both important agricultural animals in the country). Therefore, the New Zealand government has had a bounty…

I AM A KEIKI O KA AINA—born and raised in Hawaii, descended from immigrants brought to the islands to work on sugarcane plantations. As I became interested in weaving, I harked back to family memories of palaka, the Hawaiian term for a particular plaid fabric, usually blue and white. The history of palaka in Hawaii is really a reflection of Hawaii’s past, from its first European interaction to the present. Pre-European Hawaiians dressed in tapa (also known as kapa), a beaten cloth made from paper mulberry, but after European contact, they rapidly adopted harder-wearing woven cloth and dress. It is one garment in particular, a sailor’s shirt or “frock” as it was called, that was apparently transliterated as palaka, and the name shifted to mean the coarsely woven fabric from…

NESTLED IN THE MATANUSKA VALLEY just north of Palmer, Alaska, you’ll find the sprawling, 75-acre Musk Ox Farm: a unique project steeped in intrigue. It’s also where I work. Although we’re now a nonprofit organization, our journey with musk oxen began in the 1950s with our late founder John Teal Jr., anthropologist and arctic explorer. Teal’s vision to domesticate musk oxen in their indigenous regions was not only an attempt to demonstrate that farming a geographically appropriate animal was more sustainable, but it could also boost local economies by providing Alaskan artisans the materials necessary to make knitted goods through harvesting the animals’ underwool, a fiber known as qiviut (pronounced ki-vee-Üt). Over 60 years later, the farm honors this original vision by continuing to domesticate the musk ox for qiviut…

I LOVE COMBINING MANY COLORS in my weaving. Pearl cotton has the largest color selection of any yarn I can think of (excluding perhaps some wools, which, as a Southern Californian, I don’t generally use). I use pearl cottons frequently, and as a result, I have lots of bits of leftover yarn in quite an array of colors. Those little bits occasionally make me want to weave a stashbuster project to use up accumulated inventory. Many of my weaving projects require a lot of preplanning, so sometimes it’s refreshing to alternate those with something more freeform that allows me to be more spontaneous in my decision-making. For this design, the only yarns that may need to be purchased are the white and the black ones (which are always useful to…

YOU PROBABLY HAVE MANY FAVORITE yarn stores. I know I do—I love visiting them to see what new fiber colors or threads there are that may catch my designing mind. Every yarn store has its own personality. Some are cozier than others, but they all draw me in. I particularly like Studio Three in Prescott, Arizona, because it reminds me of a small-town store, like the ones I grew up with, where everyone there knows you and your family. Studio Three has what I call the “kitchen table” because that is where people tend to gather. When fiber people come together with a collective knowledge of fiber arts, it becomes a powerful thing, and at this table, fiber magic happens. That is what brings me back time after time. I…

THE DEEP TEXTURE OF WAFFLE WEAVE and absorbent cotton yarn combine to make soft and scrubby luxury bath mitts. While experimenting with Bluegrass Mills 6/2 cotton, the waffle-weave sample seemed perfect for this use, so I wove off a little extra and sewed one up. My face had never felt so clean! Light, neutral colors give a clean, calm look, but these mitts are easily customized to your own bath colors, and they’re the perfect accompaniment to your favorite handmade soap. 1 Wind a warp of 149 ends 2¼ yd long using Paper White. Wind 2 additional ends for floating selvedges and set them aside. Warp the loom using your preferred method following the draft in Figure 1. Sley 2 per dent in a 10-dent reed, centering for a width…

SILK IS THE FIBER CAPABLE OF TRANSPORTING ME down memory lane to the grand celebrations and festivities of India, which I once called home. Silk is revered in Indian culture as is evident from its mention in mythological and religious scriptures. Considered luxurious in color and feel, silk has always been the fiber of choice for traditional Indian apparel. India is the second-largest producer and exporter (after China) of natural and wild silks. Sericulture thrives there as a cottage industry in rural areas and villages where several wild varieties of silks are cultivated. Muga is one of the wild silks produced mainly by Garo tribes in the state of Assam. For some time, I have been wanting to use muga silk in my weaving. My attempts to find a source…

WHENEVER I AM IN THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS, I try to add to my palaka fabric stash, and it was a scrap from one of these purchases that got me started on an ongoing palaka journey. I picked apart the scrap to get an idea of thread count, then adjusted it to account for my own weaving. The pattern is made up of two blocks, one a solid blue and the other of four white stripes separated by blue. For both warp and weft, one block is six white, two blue, six white, two blue, six white, two blue, six white, for a total of 30 threads, and the other block is 30 threads of blue. When I set up a project (scarf, placemat, or baby blanket), I ensure that the…