Weaver to weaver 2015

Each year, Meg organises several online events that allows more contact between weavers than the normal reading and commenting on each other's blogs.

One of these events is called Weaver to Weaver where we send a small envelope of weaving-related items that mean something to ourselves and/or may inspire the receiver. 
I sent my envelop to Donni of loomandarty and received one from Patty of untangled string, from Utah in the United States. 

One half of the package relates to where Patty lives. The hand spun yarn and mohair locks truly reflect the textures and colours of her environment. Patty's pamphlet of the ski resort and the warning on 'you could die out here' made me smile as I am one of those totally non-outdoor person so there is no danger if I ever go to visit Patty in Utah................ although I really do appreciate the beauty of nature.

The second half are items from her extended stay in Thailand a while ago. It is very interesting as I have just been reading the blog post on Kaz's tour to northern Thailand and Laos. Despite the differences in culture, and landscapes of the 2 places so far apart, I can see some similarity in the colours! 

I am learning to use more colours in my work so these images and yarns are good push in the right direction. In saying that, the last 3 items that came off my looms were still black, white and grey. 

Thank you Meg and Patty for your inspirations, and happy weaving!

A day in the life of looms 2015

Every New Year's day, Meg has been posting photos of what is on her looms. She also has links to other people who are sharing their 'day in the life of looms 2015' at the end of her post. Join us if you are interested. She has also put up guidelines to the next Weaver to Weaver.

I been neglecting my blog last year as I got a bit hooked on Instagram. However, there are limitations as to how  much I can share on that platform and I am hoping to spend more time back here in 2015.

For the last couple of weeks I have been giving my big loom some very thorough maintenance:

2500 heddles: washed and re-installed

160 lamm to treadles cords: washed and re-installed

80 new connecting cords from treadles connecting to lamm cords: installed. (I don't know if this is the best way but it will have to do for the moment)

I only have 3 more treadles to tie up.......

Hopefully, before the day ends, it will have a new warp on it.

KaTe: Thorp 8 shaft countermarche

New treadle connecting cords

The Saori loom is folded up and without warp. I am also hoping to rectify that is the next few days.

Chibi: Saori SX60 2 shaft folding loom

Primo, my Ashford table loom is folded up and packed away to I can't even take a photo. However, I do have plans for it this year........

April Spool's Day

I have been hanging out here of late so this blog is a bit neglected.

These are the bobbins and thrums left over from my last 2 pieces of weaving for Meg's April Spool's day. Join us and show what is on your spools/bobbins/quills/pirns.

I will try to come back and let you know what has been happening at this weaving place soon.

A day in the life of looms

On the first day of the new year, Meg had been posting what's on your loom. This is my second time to participate in this. Once every few years, I have the opportunity to spend Christmas and New Year at home and get to weave in the new year.
So here are my looms:

KaTe has a 2/20 silk warp with weft Kasuri being woven. I have finished the first piece and am contemplating the second design. The wefts are being wound, then binding and dyeing to follow.

KaTe: Thorp 8 shaft countermarche

Chibi has a 150-thread black cotton pre-wound warp ready for Amy to come over on Friday to do some weaving. She had woven her own fabric before for her mum to make into an Arrietty bag.

Chibi: Saori SX60 2 shaft folding loom

Primo also has a 150-thread black cotton pre-wound warp ready for Ellen to have a go at weaving. I have set the loom on its stand so that it works with the peddles, like a floor loom.

Primo: Ashford 8 shaft table loom with stand

I will have to catch up on some blog posts but I have also been spending time here.
In the meantime, happy new year and happy weaving.

A good start........

Such a lot can change in a week. 

A bit of sunshine midweek, a bit/lots of chocolate (cupcakes, pearls, wafers), a bit of encouragement from friends, a bit of perseverance, and ignoring dishes, laundry and housework in general, I got the warp onto the loom.

There is something calming and beautiful about a warp on the loom, even when it not quite ready. This morning, I was quite determined to get some weaving started, but I did not have a long enough rod for the front beam. This is the widest I have woven on the table loom, almost the full width. None of the hardware stores nearby were open on a Sunday. Luckily, a good friend has some spare timber dowels and he helped me cut one to length with a barter of some chocolate/plum jam cupcakes from the freezer. It was a good trade. 

I got started. The spacing of the weft pattern and the balance of the cloth is working well in the first 5cm of the piece, at least to how I had envisage the piece. It is a good sign.

Out of the dark

If the 'dementors' were to visit me on friday, they could have sucked the soul out of me easily. It had been one of those weeks, months.
I threw out 2 desserts and barely rescued the third. I cast on 2 items but frogged them as I could not get them to work. Things that usually make me feel better don't seem to have the same effect.

I know that it is up to me to change that feeling from dark to light. I know that it is a matter of time. It is winter. I feel cold and pain. I feel tired and can't concentrate. We are past the shortest day. There are 4 weeks till craft camp.

I need to make something, to weave something. I have been thinking about this piece for a while. I had to ask myself though whether I was just asking for trouble.
I wound a warp with this yarn: 24 epi, 21 inches wide, 504 ends, 3.4m long. I don't know if I have calculated the sett correctly. It will be a light fabric, I think.

It looks beautiful. Like bundles of noodles.

And then I started to prepare to thread the heddles. I don't have enough heddles on some of the harnesses. I forgot to count them before I started...... I am out of practice.

It took me a couple of hours to fix this. I could have threaded the warp differently but I wanted the option to do plain weave or twill. There is enough length in the warp to do some experimentation. In fact, I think that this whole piece will be an experiment. I am halfway through threading. I think that I may be ready to start weaving next weekend......

And the weft yarn - a special hand-dyed yarn ( フリスビー手絣) bought from Avril. I think that this colour way has been discontinued.

Things can only get better. Right?

Small Piece exhibtion: Amy O'Brien

Meg from New Zealand has organised a virtual 'Small Piece' exhibition and I am hosting Amy's woven piece on my blog. 
Amy is 10 years old and this is only her third time weaving at a loom. Amy wove on a Saori loom, 2 shaft with a pre-threaded black cotton warp. She brought all the weft yarn with her from home. She wove this last Saturday and it took her about 3 hours.

"The idea of a ‘do whatever you what’ weaving piece sounded epic, but what the problem was … what should I do? At first I thought an aboriginal flag, then I thought about doing bubbles. Finally I decided an ocean landscape. I weaved different blues and greens together so it began to look like the ocean. Next was the hard part I made a sort of hilly thing and made clouds and sky above.

By Amy O’Brien"

Weaving by Amy O'Brien, Photo by Suzie Fry

Small Piece exhibition

Last year, 2 pieces of my weaving were accepted into the 'Petite' exhibition.
Meg has organised a virtual 'Small Piece' exhibition based on that idea, small pieces of textile work woven on a loom.

I repeated the 2 pieces that were acquired by Wangaratta Art Gallery, and added another 2 pieces into the series. This series of work was inspired by a lecture at the International Shibori Symposium in 2011.

'Yoshiko Wada explained at a lecture on ‘Slow Fibre’ that we must understand our materials in order to create something special.

My work explores the notion that in understanding how these fibres, made of different materials behave on their own and their interaction with each other.

It is then possible to manipulate them with calculated expectations.'

All the pieces were woven on a 2 shaft loom in plain weave with various yarn bases made from plant, animal and mineral fibres. All the pieces are approx. 23cm x 16cm.

From Left: Plant Mineral i, Plant Mineral ii. Plant Mineral Animal i

Plant Mineral Animal ii

Plant Mineral i - detail

Plant Mineral ii - detail

Plant Mineral Animal i - detail

Plant Mineral Animal ii - detail

This last piece is also new and is inspired by the Tour de France; the category climbs that the cyclists have to endure and conquer.

Col de Noir ii

Coinciding with this virtual exhibition, I have actually entered these pieces in the Brunswick Street Gallery 'Small Works' exhibition. If you are in Melbourne, you can see these pieces in real life and they are for sale.

Rebirth - Hilda

I was at an Ink and Spindle Open Day a couple of months ago and Teegs mentioned that she was given a table loom but she did not know how to use it. I said sure, come over and we can figure it out.

We had an initial inspection and decided on the parts that needed replacing. Teegs went to work, ordering new parts and refurbishing the loom.

Both of us are so excited that we needed to tell the world about the re-birth of Hilda and that Teegs is weaving! So this is a shared blog post:

Hilda is a portable 2 shaft/harness table loom, with a weaving width of just under 40cm. The 2 shafts/harnesses work by moving the handle on the top roller back and forth to create the shed. It was interesting to see that all the heddles were connected together, top and bottom. They were made of string with a metal eyelet in the middle. Unfortunately, they were very rusted and on the way to disintegration. The reed was 15 dent and also very rusted.

Teegs: Original, wonky, sad.

Teegs: The restoration & dismantling begins

Teegs replaced all the screws, the tying rods at the back and front beams, and the top and bottom timber bars supporting the heddles. She ordered a new 10 dent reed and Texslov heddles. The reed had to be cut down a fraction to fit within the frame of the beater.

Teegs: In pieces, hoping I'm as good
at puzzles as I'd like to think!

Teegs: Reconstructed, with a thick, fresh
coat of homemade beeswax & olive oil
timber conditioner for her very dry, thirsty wood.

Hilda was put back together again, in a much better condition! We just had to put the heddles back on with some adjustable Texslov loom cords.

Teegan: Hilda! Weaving!

The loom was made in Melbourne by Dyer and Phillips Pty Ltd. I did a brief search on the internet but there was not much information on the company. The address was in Flinders Lane, previously the centre of Melbourne's rag trade for the middle decades of the 20th century.

Teegs made a 7.2m long warp, 10 inches wide at 10epi, of Bendigo Classic 2 ply wool in black. We put the warp on front to back - sleyed the reed first, clamped to the table and then threaded the heddles. (Yes, I do work with a mix of metric and imperial measurements!)

The loom in action!

I had previously shown some of my Saori weaving to Teegs and she was quite interested in that. It has more of a focus on colours and textures, and is quite suited to a plain weave structure.

Weaving with a shuttle stick.

It took us from 11am to just before 6pm with a very short lunch in between to get to this stage. Teegs worked really hard all day and I just did a lot of talking.

Some tapestry techniques and fleece insertion.

Well done Teegs and Hilda! and all the best for your new adventure together. (Yes, Hilda is going sailing as well.) I cannot think of a more appropriate thing to do on a Easter Monday!

PS, I do wonder where did Hilda come from and what was woven on her before!?

April Spools Day 2013

Happy weaving!

White and plain

It has been hard to focus this year but craft camp at the end of February restored some faith and inspiration. It has taken nearly another month for me to get my act together and finally got a warp on the loom. It makes me feel restless when my looms are empty, without warps. It makes me feel like I am neglecting them. Do they have feelings? I don't know for sure. I think they feed off my state of mind, as to how they behave when I am weaving.

White cotton, plain weave. A bit of experimentation. Hopefully it will turn out to match what I have in mind, or not.........

Yabane

YABANE SCARF 矢羽 ya (arrow) hane->bane (feather) (jap.) - “fletchings, feathers of the arrow”

'Shaping of this scarf is inspired by the feathers of Hamaya - a “demon-breaking arrow”, a decorative arrow sold at shrines at New Year’s to ward off misfortune and to attract good luck. Pleated look of the scarf is actually based on Miura-ori style of origami that folds into a neat compact shape and opens into multi-dimensional textured accessory.'
quoted from Olga Buraya-Kefelian.

I met Olga on Skype through Sooz one day and she showed us her design of the Yabane scarf. I loved it and offered to test knit it for her. My most sincere apology as it is embarrassing to say that it had taken months for me to finish this project, despite the fact that it is a really simple pattern to knit. I have to admit that I am really SLOW knitter and always get stuck at the weaving in ends stage........However, the knitting part is completed, ends woven in and the piece blocked. Now I just have to wait till the weather turns cold to wear it.
I love the three-dimensional aspect of the structure and the simplicity of the design.

There was also the folded shibori/origami pattern that I came across at the workshop with Yoshiko Wada.

This book is also quite interesting. I have not tried anything from it yet, if only there are more hours in the day..........

What's more, it also reminded me of the 2-dimensional woven pattern that we  saw at the Nishijin Textile center. 

There was a display showing samples of the finished cloths.

woven samples

warp threads being prepared for dyeing

dyed warps

the 'warp shifting box'
warp threads being 'shifted' to create the arrow pattern

before

after

The pattern in the warp ready for putting onto the loom.
You can see some sort of bamboo reed to keep all the threads in place.

It is interesting to see how the pattern is formed to such precision.