Another Dimity Towel

For this towel I am using black for the weft. This really draws your attention to the black stripes. I expect this will look a lot better after it has been washed. My stove is white with a black oven door, so it should look right at home there.

Walking the Treadles

Walking the treadles is when you have your treadles tied so you can 'walk' across them. You can take your draft and rearrange how you step on your treadles. (Some of us do that when we move our tabby treadles to fit us better.) For this dimity draft, they picked five treadles. As you can see, treadle 2 and treadle 5 have the same shafts tied.

         1                2                3                  4              5              

This is so you can keep 'walking to the left' and not 'dancing around' on your treadles.

The draft tells me to treadle 5, 3, 4, 2, 3, 1. I start with my feet on treadles 5 and 3.

Next I will slide my right foot to treadle 4, and then my left foot to treadle 2.

Next I would slide my right foot to treadle 3 and the left foot to treadle 1.Then go back to treadles 5 & 3 and keep repeating.

 



Dimity with White Weft

For towel number three, I am using white weft for the whole length of the towel. Hummmm... can't wait to see this one after it has been washed. What will the dimity ribs look like? Of course you know, I have tied this up for a shinking shed loom and I am using a rising shed loom.... The mind wanders and remembers, evenutally.

This is the top side of towel number two.  

June 25 Guild Meeting

Guild meetings are great places to visit with other weavers, learn new techniques, drool over exciting textiles, and share. We encourage each other with our talents. (click on any photo to enlarge).



Jane: Natural dyed , hand spun wool rug.



Shirley: Cotton scarf with beads.



Shirley: Shadow Weave.

      







Shirley: Wool Cocoon.



Bo's coverlet put together.*



                                                                       

Dawn: Hand woven wool felted pot holders.

   


Shirley entered her coverlet in the Ava Art Guild's exhibit.*



Larry: Cotton/cotton slub napkins, washed and unwashed example.



Shirley: Suri Silk woven purse.

* Eleven of us completed twelve friendship coverlet squares and exchanged them so we each could have a coverlet woven by each other. Our overshot mentor, Jeff,  wove the extra twelfth squares for all of us. Those who participated were: Dawn, Shirley, Becky, Ann, Jeff, Karolyn, Jane, Bo, Terry, Gayle, and Barbara.

Dimity, Stripes within Stripes

That first towel I used the light brown for the whole length. For towel number two, I think I will put stripes on just one edge. I could go look at the cones of cotton I am using, but it's much easier just to tell you what I think the colors are. They are light brown, dull black, and dim-white. The stripes will be with the black and white.

Another thing I had forgotten about until I started working on this was that the treadles have been tied up to "walk the treadles".  I had never heard that expression until I took the weaving class as John C Campbell FolkSchool. Sure makes the weaving go fast. Not only do you use only one shuttle, but your feet just glide across and after a while you don't even need to keep track of your feet.




I have three stripes of white and two of black, and have started on finishing the rest with the brown.



Dimity Towels

My friend, will be helping me weave these towels. DH caught her keeping a watch on my progress. She was telling me to pull the beater bar from the center!



Ready to Weave Dimity

Ready, set, weave...................  Dimity Towels. These will be large kitchen towels. I make big messes, I need big towels: 22 inches in the reed and will weave each for 33 inches. And I found out, I do not have tabby with this draft. Oh well, that's part of the fun--- learning.



Front to Back

I usually put my warp on front to back. I have gone back to front, but that takes to much thinking, so I go FtoB. I suppose for those of us who weave as a hobby, it's usually how we learned that determines how we get out 'stuff' on the loom. I know for the most part, I learned from the Deb Chandler book. But I sure have picked up a lot of info from fellow guild members. I think I am a strange kind of learner. I need to read it and see it!

Dimity Progress

Working on getting the dimity towels on the loom. I was going pretty slow until I went and found my friend to help. She always inspires me to do my best.

I looked back and this is the same draft I used when I did some scarves. I must like this draft!

For these towels I am using 8/2 cotton and I had dented 18 epi. Once I get set up, they should go pretty fast, as this is a one shuttle weave. I will tie up the treadles with 5 pattern treadles and two plain weave treadles.

DH (Dear Husband) Socks

Got DH's socks done in time for father's day and his birthday. No I did not give him one sock for father's day and the other for his birthday. (But I have done that in the past!  LOL)

Have started working on the aplaca/silk that I dyed a while back. These socks will be for me! Um, soft!

Finished Shibori

Dry, resist threads pulled out, washed, and ironed....... these didn't come out as I had envisioned. I was hoping there would be some of the white showing. But to me, that is part of the magic of this technique.  After all, I weave just for the fun of it! And I learned that if your draft has some floats in it, you can merge it will a plain weave draft and by doing woven shibori and get some pretty cool effects.





Dye Drying

If I spelled the title correctly, you will know I have put the woven shibori textiles on the back porch to dry. We might have rain today, but hopefully these will dry enough to pull out the resist threads tomorrow.

I see the local squirrels have left their signature on this table. (Click on the photos to enlarge.)

Dimity

While I wait for the Woven Shibori to dry, I have started putting a Dimity warp on the Baby Wolf. I was given this draft when I took a week long weaving class at  John C Campbell FolkSchool .
 If you ever get a chance to go there, go! It was a great experience and I hope to go back one of these days. Pam Howard is the resident weaver and can help you find a class you would enjoy!

Anyway, back to Dimity. This is a six shaft draft that I have started putting through the reed. I am planning on some towels.

Dye Pot and Woven Shibori

Now for the messy part of this exercise. I am using only three colors, lemon yellow, turquoise, and kelly green. (I was doing this in the shade, so the photo's all have a blue cast to them.)  I have rolled them in cling wrap and will let them batch overnight. Then I will need to let them dry so I can pull out the resist threads. before I can put them in the washer, dryer and given a hard press.

     

Pulling Resist Threads II

These will be runners.



This one I have woven just plain weave to go with the woven Shibori. If I measured correctly, it will be the back to this small pillow.

 Now I have all five of my projects ready for the dye pot. Hopefully in the next day or two I can get that going. In the mean time, I have some dimity calling me to get it on the loom.....................

Pulling Resist Threads

The resist threads has been pulled on two. Only three more pieces to go before we play in the dye pot.  

Last One

OK, I had a little more warp left and just did some free-shuttling.... (that could be a word!) This could be a small pillow top, or insert, or.... well, let's see what it looks like after the dye pot. I will have five different items to pull before they hit the dye pot. I 'think' that there will be a couple of runners and a pillow top or two or three........

First we pull, then the dye magic.

Woven Shibori Draft

This Swedish Lace draft has two pattern treadles and the other two are for your plain weave treadles. They can be used in any combination you could come up with. This is what the draft looks like for the post of June 12, 2012.

Some More Woven Shibori

Still using the two Swedish Lace blocks, I am weaving a pair of resist picks with the usual four picks between. But now I am weaving eight picks between the pair. This should spread out the design a little.  



Pick Up Shibori

So far with the woven Shibori resist threads, I have gone from selvage to selvage. For this next sample, I am just picking up certain areas for the resist threads. When the resist threads are pulled I should get a pleated effect with solid color and mock texture.

Woven Shibori Again

For this next experiment using my two blocks of Swedish Lace, I am using the resist picks in groups of eight, three, three, three, and eight.

Woven Shibori and Swedish Lace

It will be interesting to see how this draft works up in the woven Shibori technique. I have put on a six yard warp so I will have lots of length to play around with. I am using the picks that have the floats of the Swedish lace as my resist picks, with four rows of plain weave between. Using six resist picks per block it looks like a checker board.

Tying On More Woven Shibori

This is the Swedish Lace draft that I have tied onto. The fun thing about woven Shibori is you can use almost any draft that has long floats. The finished yardage will be plain weave.

Finished Woven Shibori Scarves

Here is the sample from the original scarf whose draft I used to weave these Shibori scarves. It had areas of twill, huck and plain weave.

The scarves have been washed, dried and ironed. (You can click on the photos to get a closer look.) If asked, I will say I used a very tiny paint brush to get the design on this plain weave fabric. (tee hee)

The Other Shibori Scarf

This is the second scarf I dyed at the Weaving Diva Dye Workshop. I used Burn Orange, Bronze and Chino on one side and Clear Yellow the back.  

I am not sure where the Burnt Orange went, but I see the Chino, Bronze and the Clear Yellow. I would have thought that the Burnt Orange would be bolder than the Chino. Maybe I thinned the Burnt Orange to much. But that is half the fun. You really don't know what you are gonna get until it's done.