Shibori Treadling Options

I am still weaving on the towel warp and my shibori resist threads. I have the loom threaded to a Bronson design, and am playing with the treadling. I have two treadles tied to plain weave, so my base cloth will be plain weave. I have a total of 10 treadles tied up, but with this next towel I am only going to use 4 treadles for the resist pattern and two for the plain weave. Just because I have 10 treadles tied up does not mean I must use them all. Remember, I am thinking 'out side the box' while weaving this Woven Shibori!

I really don't have the treadles tied up as the original draft wanted. It called for 12 treadles, so I modified them to only 10 and made sure I had some kind of floats that would work as the resist.

I could use one treadle throughout or mix and match. (Using only one treadle throughout would give me columns.) Designing on the loom is fun!

Woven Shibori Selvage

I am weaving pattern resist threads into my cloth and I am thinking 'out side the box'. I will be pulling these resist threads and then later discarding them. And I remember that I do not have to go from selvage to selvage. In that mind set, I have not used a floating selvage. Later, if I decide to weave the towels in the Bronson Lace threading I will, of course, add floating selvages. But for this technique  I am weaving a plain weave towel with a shibori resist dye pattern. It will be OK that I don't go all the way to the edge. Trust me! It will work!!!

New Magazine

There is a new weaving e-magazine out there from Robin Spady. Check it out and see what you think.

Heddlecraft 
 http://www.heddlecraft.com/

"A new weaving magazine that strives to offer something new and different!
It's a digital weaving magazine designed for weavers who love to weave and want to know more!"

I took a class from Robin at a Midwest Weavers Conference once and found her to be very good at teaching so I think her magazine will be good too!

Woven Shibori Towels

Onto another warp of Woven Shibori. This time I am working on weaving some towels with 8/2 cotton warp and weft. The resist thread is 5/2 cotton.

I have gotten my resist pattern form "The Bulletin". This is put out by the Guild of Canadian Weavers. I am a member of this group. They have a real - life - touch - feel - sample in each newsletter!

The Summer 2012 issue had the sample:  Diagonal Bronson Lace 8 S Sample by the Monashee Weavers. I did a little playing around with the treadling, but used their threading. Lots of different weave structures work well with woven shibori. Just make sure your floats are long enough to give you a nice area to resist the dye.


I will dye these towels this summer.

Novelty Guild Meetings

Ah, the new year is here and guild meetings are on again..

This Cabool guild doesn't meet in December, so we had a nice showing of show-and-tell yesterday. Our assignment since the last meeting was to weave with novelty yarns. We had quite a few who were able to accomplish that.

Let me just show you what we have been up to. From Rep weave to rug hooking to kumihimo to knitting with local wool to ........it was a real treat!

rug hooking

knitting

painted warps

weaving with novelty yarns

weaving with novelty yarns

weaving with novelty yarns

weaving a kit

felting

weaving with novelty yarns

found treasure - coverlet

rep weave

beading the fringe

tencel

kumihimo and wire

ktichen towels

Rep and Done

Finished my place mats in Rep Weave. I was a bit disappointed in that the weft wasn't completely covered. I think for the Kelly Marshall workshop that she is calling for a closer sett.

My goal was to get used to weaving with a ski shuttle. A bit different than throwing a nice boat shuttle. I used some mop cotton on a couple as the weft and 24/3 cotton for tabby. On the other mats I used three strands of  'Sugar and Cream' . Two of white and one of a mostly white with blue and green flakes. And again the tabby was 24/3 cotton. Because the weft did show some, the little bit of color in the weft made for a nice color effect.

One mat hemmed and ready for use.

Four more mats waiting for hemming. 

Plain Weave and Rep

Kelly Marshall is coming down to my neck of the woods for a Rep Weave workshop in April. I wanted to try wrapping the loom since it sounded strange.... but didn't want to buy any new materials. ...so I am using left overs! (carpet warp)

I might get a couple of place mats out of this. Just trying to get into the rhythm. I have had this mop cotton on the shelf for ages. I think it was for a rug, it is kinda rough. Or as we say in the fiber world:   "natural"!!

This threading is from the Joanne Tallarovic Rep Weave Book. I have Kelly's book now and will be reading it in preparation for her workshop.

This draft is only on two shafts! I am going for an 8 shaft draft when I go for Kelly's workshop in April. Love Kelly's color work.

Woven Shibori Program

After 6 months of prep work, I gave my Woven Shibori program yesterday. I was a little worried that the way I learned might not be how the "books" say to do it. But I gave it my best shot. My way works for me and I guess that is all I can hope for. I try to put on more warp than my project requires, then I work some 'woven shibori magic' on it.

A friend sewed together my fabric Shibori 'samples' into a blouse. I call it "My Blouse Of Many Samples". Thank you friend! For you see, I can make the cloth, I just can't sew the cloth into anything!!!

Here are a few of the samples I showed and discussed with the guild.

These two are kitchen towels.Showing your resist threads do not always have to go from selvage to selvage. 

This is a few scarves with some smaller samples. Some times the warp or weft  can be 'a color' and not just white (red sample).

More scarves and small samples. Sometimes you can use a rubber stamp to get the look you want. 

I find that the weaving isn't as challenging as the dying. The weaving was pretty simple- in I would do some plain weave rows with a resist rows between. But the playing around with the color and then when opening the fabric...... now that was exciting! Deciding if I want to use more than one color, which sides get which color, questions like that. And I found that if I didn't like the result, I could over-dye it or stamp on it, or even put some more resist threads using a needle and thread and dye some more....... This is not a subject I will abandon. I see lots more Woven Shibori in my future.