Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2020 i Handwoven

First of all, a big thanks to you and your publishing efforts. As a mostly self-taught weaver who only occasionally has the opportunity to interact with fellow weavers, I look forward to receiving each issue of Handwoven. I am writing to offer a content suggestion, which is a Cook’s Illustrated takeoff. In each issue, they publish eight or so quick cooking tips with illustrations submitted by their readership—suggestions such as “You can use kitchen gadget X for another task, use aluminum foil in place of X, etc.” Some of the smallest ideas have a great impact. I know that weavers are as creative as cooks and suspect there are a zillion tips out there for ways to count warp threads, keep track of where you are in a weaving sequence,…

ORIGINATING IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST, Chilkat weaving is a complex finger-twined weaving style requiring a great deal of expertise, time, and dedication. A single Chilkat ceremonial robe—also called a dancing blanket—can take one to four years to weave. These magnificent dancing blankets are worn for ceremonial occasions by dignitaries and high-ranking tribal members of the Haida, Tsimshian, Tlingit, and other Northwest Coast indigenous peoples of Alaska and western Canada. They are symbols of wealth and endow clan leaders with great prestige. Chilkat blankets are sought by museums, art collectors, and cultural leaders alike. Last summer, I took a trip to Juneau, Alaska, and while I was there, I had the opportunity to meet Lily Hope, one of the few remaining traditional Chilkat weavers. She graciously met me at the Juneau-Douglas…

Downloadable Drafts Never run out of inspiration with the downloadable draft collections from Handweaving.net. Many of the collections are translated from old weaving books, and some even include PDFs of the original sources. Examples include drafts from a pattern book published in Japan in 1903 and from a German book of block patterns for 15 to 40 shafts published in 1740. Each collection includes hundreds and sometimes thousands of WIFs that can be instantly downloaded to your computer. www.handweaving.net Arras Loom Weave something wonderful with the new Arras Tapestry Loom from Schacht Spindle Company. Designed for a more comfortable weaving experience, the Arras is designed so you can warp the loom in a horizontal or vertical position and adjust it to whatever angle is most comfortable for weaving. For ease…

I’M A PEOPLE WATCHER; I don’t really observe the people themselves but the clothes they wear and the designs on their outfits. I might see something of interest in a designer’s weave structure or even just an interesting color combination in a fabric. Those eye-catchers, whether pattern or color, inspire many of my own creations. I love to design with overshot—it’s my favorite weave structure. For this project, I combined two overshot patterns I found in A Handweaver’s Pattern Book by Marguerite Porter Davison to form a new overshot pattern: the focal point was Johann Speck’s Design No. 33 with some minor elements of Gertrude’s Fancy. This process is similar to the mental exercise that I use when I see fiber designs on clothing. Something small will catch my eye—it…

AS A MODERN WEAVER, I enjoy the vast amount of readily available weaving information. For the last year, I have been exploring shadow weave, and I am still far from bored. I started on the safe, traditional side, using a single light/dark combination. Then Deborah Heyman’s “Shadow of Doubt Shawl” from Handwoven, September/October 2019, taught me how a touch of contrasting color can liven up my weaving. Next, Nancy Taylor opened up a whole new world of possibilities to me by saying that you could use any number of light/dark combinations in “Shadow-Weave Circles” (Handwoven, November/December 2019). I put my own twist on these ideas with this napkin design. Typical yarn choices for kitchen linens are cotton and linen—but I wanted to try something new. I see a growing availability…

AS WEAVERS LIVING IN MODERN TIMES, we are often reminded how good we have it … and I must agree. From the skillfully engineered equipment to the wide range of commercially available weaving materials, we are lucky in the selection we have. Still, I often find myself looking back to textiles of the past for inspiration. It is never short of amazing to me the drama that can be created out of pure simplicity. With respect for and in homage to those weavers who came before, I created my shibori-inspired rug to echo shibori’s widely recognized structure and imagery. At the same time, I also wanted to embrace modern conveniences and aesthetics. I started by searching for fabric I thought would resemble indigo dye weathered with time and usage to…

IN THE PAST FEW YEARS, hemp has had quite the revival, from anything and everything enhanced by cannabidiol (CBD) oil, to the 2018 Farm Bill making it legal to once again grow hemp in the United States. Hemp and its by-products have taken the United States by storm. While hemp might seem like a new phenomenon, there was a time when hemp was far from illegal. During the Colonial period, hemp was one of the most important crops in America. Though hemp was a vital part of the economy of the original 13 colonies, hemp is indigenous to Asia. The earliest known surviving example of hemp fabric comes from the Mesopotamia region of Iraq/Iran and dates to 8000 BCE, while 10,000-year-old pottery shards found in Taiwan bear the impression of…

IF YOU ENJOY DESIGNING YOUR OWN textiles, a computerized weaving program is for you. If you want to adjust or test colors on an existing draft, one of these programs is also for you. I love my Fiberworks program, purchased in 2004 (long enough ago that it came on a 3.5-inch floppy disk). I’m still using that program on my Windows 10 PC, so rest assured, you won’t have to keep buying new versions to work with new operating systems. You can try out sample weaving programs before purchasing. Once you make your decision to purchase, just download and you are off and running. There are three main programs for manual loom handweavers: Fiberworks, PixeLoom, and WeaveIt. All three are available for PCs and Macs, have many of the same…

I LOVE TURNED TWILL. I have used the weave structure in many ways over the years. Not long ago, I was watching an episode of Jane Stafford Textiles’ Online Guild in which Jane shared a silk scarf that had horizontal stripes on one side but not on the other. It seemed like magic. Although the episode was about using graphic designs, and not turned twill, I decided to figure out how to re-create the effect on my own. The key to the magic was in the tie-up and treadling. In traditional two-block turned twill on an eight-shaft loom, block A is threaded on shafts 1 through 4 and block B is threaded on shafts 5 through 8. Four treadles are used to create ⅓ twill in block A and 3/1…

THE IMPACT OF CHRISTMAS on the Miller family household started the first year my husband and I were dating. He showed up at my house with a huge pile of presents, including a fully decorated 2-foot tree with an ornament in the center that said “Our First Christmas.” I knew right then he was a keeper! We were married the next year, and we still display that tiny tree. Over the years, our decorations have grown to include a forest of trees, Christmas villages, and a whole house full of trimmings. No one in my family was surprised that I wanted to design and weave a runner to include in our holiday decorations. When I started looking through drafts, I was immediately drawn to balanced twill. The crisp, diagonal nature…

I BELIEVE THAT EVERYONE has “boing” moments. You see something and ideas start clicking in your creative mind. I had one of those while looking at the latest edition of Rag Rug Handbook by Janet Meany and Paula Pfaff. The new edition has some additions, making an already great book an even better book. One of the additions is the twill project “Love’s Path Rug.” It is based on an old draft from Finland, and the draft creates arcs in the rug body. Taking the original draft as the basis for my design, I used weaving software to change the arcs into ovals, allowing me to meld the century-old pattern into what I had in mind. I give thanks to the weavers who came before me and the programmers who…

WHILE I WAS PONDERING MODERN DESIGNS, those that are pared down, minimal, and simplified came to mind. Modern materials could encompass many fibers, but I was interested in one that has been around for a long time but has not been widely available to handweavers until fairly recently: hemp. The nubby, organic look and feel of hemp yarn, as well as its exceptional absorbency, makes it a great choice for handwoven towels. There are many beautiful toned-down colors of three-ply hemp that partner well with two-ply natural-colored hemp yarn. Wanting to enhance the texture and natural feel of the hemp yarns while keeping the overall design simple, I chose summer and winter as the structure for the towels. By turning the draft and putting the thicker three-ply yarns in the…

EDITOR’S NOTE: As one of her Yarn Lab samples, Liz sent us a beautiful scarf. It was so lovely we decided to provide a little more information about that particular weaving in case anyone wanted to weave something similar. Please note that because of how Fidalgo dyes their yarns, some colors may no longer be available, and new lots will probably not exactly match old lots. 1 Wind a warp 3 yd long of 120 ends of Poseidon, 72 ends of Tawny, and 48 ends of Natural. Sley 2 per dent in an 8-dent reed centering for a weaving width of 15". Thread for plain weave. 2 Wind a bobbin of each of the weft colors. Spread the warp with scrap yarn. 3 Leaving a weft tail 1 yd long for…

FOR THESE SCARVES, I decided to look at overshot from a different angle and explore how it would look and feel using the wonderful materials handweavers have available today. Overshot was introduced to me, and thousands of other weavers, through the beautiful and functional traditional coverlets woven by our collective grandmothers and grandfathers. Many of these amazing patterns were gathered and preserved for us by the likes of Mary Meigs Atwater, Marguerite Porter Davison, and Weaver Rose. That is what I believed overshot to be throughout the early years of my handweaving life, but for this project, I wanted a more modern vibe. I wove two scarves on the same warp of 8/2 cotton using 20/2 silk as my pattern weft and Bambu 12 as tabby. For my draft, I…

GROWING UP, I PLAYED ALONG THE RIVERBANK of the South Umpqua River in Douglas County, Oregon, for hours on end, enjoying nature’s reflections and abundant wildlife. I was always curious about how the water reflected a mirror image of the trees and sky beneath my feet. Jumping from boulder to boulder, I felt like I could touch the tops of the trees in the water. To capture some of that feeling in my runner, I chose a rich forest green and creamy ecru, and combined them in a rep pattern that creates what looks to me like ripples. My desire to weave a bed runner was twofold: I wanted to accent my down comforter, and I wanted to use the pattern “Rep Warp-Float and Plain-Weave Blocks” that I learned in…

IN MY YEARS WORKING in a weaving and knitting shop, I met many weavers who learned their craft in the 1970s and 1980s and were advised against using “knitting” yarns in their weaving by a popular instruction book of the time. Happily, for weavers both new and established, the range of knitting yarns has grown vastly since those words were written, and there are a good many knitting yarns that are not only okay but are a delight to weave with. A current favorite of mine is Reed from Shibui Knits. What I love about Reed is that it has the strength and drape that make linen wonderful while also having a thoroughly modern chainette structure that makes it much more manageable for new weavers. It is smooth and inelastic,…

THE YARN Sea Silk, known officially as SeaCell, is a lyocell (rayon) product developed from seaweed. The lyocell process is a closed-loop system, with no chemicals released as waste—it’s also carbon-neutral and completely biodegradable. The seaweed rayon is embedded within a natural cellulose rayon; therefore, the 30% SeaCell product is actually a combination of seaweed and common rayon. The fiber is suitable for a vast range of applications, from sport and fashion clothing, underwear, and loungewear to home textiles, and combines easily with other fibers. Marine Silk Lace is a mix of 51% silk, 29% merino wool, and 20% SeaCell. Henry’s Attic, a family-owned and operated company specializing in high-quality yarns and fibers, imports the yarn to North America. Three years ago, I discovered Marine Silk Lace yarn at Fidalgo…

PROJECT DIRECTORY Levels indicate weaving skills, not sewing skills. AB = Advanced Beginner, I = Intermediate, A = Advanced. “All levels” includes very new weavers. RH = rigid heddle. SUPPLIERS Brassard, Maurice, et Fils, 1573 Savoie, C.P. 4, Plessisville, QC, Canada G6L 2Y6, (819) 362-2408, www.mbrassard.com (Mitchell 26–28). Brown Sheep Company Inc., 100662 County Rd. 16, Mitchell, NE 69357, (800) 826-9136, www.brownsheep.com (Zeps 35–36). Carr Park Artisans, (970) 481-3435, www.carrparkartisans.com, (Lamb 32–34). Eugene Textile Center, 2750 Roosevelt Blvd., Eugene, OR 97402, (541) 688-1565, www.eugenetextilecenter.com (Lamb 32–34). Fidalgo Artisan Yarn & Clothing, (360) 293-7377, www.fidalgoyarns.com, fidalgoyarns (Moncrief 66). Halcyon Yarn, 12 School St., Bath, ME 04530, (800) 341-0282, www.halcyonyarn.com (Zeps 35–36). Jane Stafford Textiles, (250) 537-9468, www.janestaffordtextiles.com (Mitchell 26–28). Lunatic Fringe Yarns, 2008 E. Indianhead Dr., Tallahassee, FL 32301, (800) 483-8749,…