Monthly Archives: July 2015

Blazing Shuttles, Summer Daze

After the Blazing Shuttles workshop, I purchased yarn from Kathrin Weber. It came in the form of a lovely painted warp called Summer Daze. Warp is the yarn I put on the loom to set it up for weaving. Setting up the loom is the most technically tricky part of weaving and can take hours.

The first set of Summer Daze scarves

The first set of Summer Daze scarves

 

The warp consisted of 400 threads and I used half of them at a time. First I set up the loom with 200 threads of Kathrin’s hand-dyed warp in the middle and about an inch of commercially dyed black on the outsides. After weaving 4 scarves I had gotten to the end of the first set of warp threads. I put on the last 200 warp threads and put an inch of bluish gray threads on the outside where the black had been before. I’m almost finished weaving off the second set of scarves.

Scarves with silver, taupe and black weft.

Scarves with silver, taupe and black weft.

Taupe weft on the left and black on the right.

Taupe weft on the left and black on the right.

Each scarf is different from the rest. I use different colors of weft, the thread that goes back and forth between the warp threads. I also wove some slightly different patterns. It is really fun to see how the colors combine.

Orange weft

Orange weft

Still on the loom

On the loom

Still on the loom, but it look luscious.

Still on the loom, but it looks luscious.

Purple weft scarf still on the loom.

Purple weft scarf still on the loom.

When I’m finished with them all, I’ll twist the fringe, wash, dry and iron them. At each step along the way they relax a bit and should give lovely, soft, shiny scarves.

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Blazing Shuttles Workshop, Part II

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Off the Loom

 

 

The fabric from the Blazing Shuttles workshop is off the loom and in my hands. It took longer than I had planned, but that’s because it’s summer and I love to play outside. When humidity or showers forced me back to the studio, the sunny colors of the warp on my loom greeted me.

 

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So Many Colors

 

What fun it was to weave the rep weave piece. I used Kathrin’s workshop suggestion number 3 and threaded blocks randomly throughout the warp. I wove blocks randomly, too. That’s different for me. I feel much more in control when I have my piece planned out ahead of time. This was fun.

Here’s a bit of technical information for you weavers. I combined two hand-dyed 8/2 warps with a black 8/2 warp and set the warp at 24 ends per inch. The warp was a bit sticky at times, but I learned to make accommodations by clearing the shed with the reed.

Next in line is to finish a 5-scarf warp I have on the big loom. When done I’ll dress the loom with a Blazing Shuttles 6/2 tencel warp and weave some scarves with that. In the meantime I’ll figure out what to do with the workshop fabric. I’m thinking bags and maybe a runner or two.

 

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Random Blocks

Weaving these warps is good summertime play. I can come into the studio from working in the garden to a whole new palette of colors.

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My Favorite Section

 

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Love the Movement

 

 

 

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