SLO Yarns: handwoven

Showing posts with label handwoven. Show all posts

Saturday, July 19, 2025

Housewarming

Colorado kitchen: Log cabin towel and woven potholders.

7/6/25

Monday, June 12, 2023

Ena Band

The inkle band I started last week is done, tada.

The weaving was completed so it was time to cut the band off the loom, wash it, and start finishing. I didn't weave the entire warp so I attached clips and later I'll see if I can retie the unwoven warp back onto the loom.

The first piece I wove - the sampler - turned out to be very useful. Before I did anything to the actual piece I tried it out on the sampler first: checked the yarns for colorfastness (soaked in boiling water for 90 minutes, a.o.k.), sewed the long floats with the sewing machine (didn't work, too noticeable), a dab of glue to the floats (a.o.k.), tried out various fringe lengths.

Tada, Ena Band:

Thursday, June 8, 2023

Living Letters

For the past several days I have been living letters, literally. The idea to weave letters popped into my head Sunday morning and I have spent almost every waking moment since then thinking about the Ena project.

The Ena Marston Award for Excellence in Weaving began in 2016 and is a special award presented at the California Mid-State Fair by the Fair Judge. It was "instituted by the Guild to honor the memory of mentor Ena and the excellence of weaving in the Guild". In addition to a cash prize a beautiful handwoven handcrafted ribbon is presented to the recipient of the Award.

For the past couple of years Lupe has made the ribbon but this year under Lupe's direction the Little Loom group has taken on the making of the ribbon as a group project. We will meet next Tuesday with our woven bands in hand and construct the ribbon.

Lupe's beautiful Award ribbon woven on her Gilmore Big Wave loom:

2018

Sunday morning I thought to myself, Hmm, wouldn't it be fun to weave a band with letters?

I used Annie MacHale's tutorials from her blog and her Youtube video as well as her graph to chart the letters. I choose my colors, drafted the pattern, and warped the loom.

This is actually loom waste and will be cut off but I enjoyed seeing the yellow and purple yarn intertwined.

It took an hour-and-a-half of weaving (and unweaving) before the Aha moment occurred. I was still on the first letter "E" so I was starting to get frustrated. I rewatched Annie's video again. Once I understood what was going on the weaving went quicker and became easier.

By Monday afternoon I had completed "ENA MARSTON AWARD"

Tuesday, I brought the loom to Spinners' group for Lupe's advice on how to proceed. The band was already 10" long and I still wanted to weave "2023".

Lupe had brought her bin of Rosette-making supplies and showed me how she attaches the two side ribbons and asked if I could weave two shorter bands instead of one long one.

That is, could I remove "Award" and start a second band "Award 2023". I said I could do that. I have gotten most proficient in unweaving.

After I unwove "Award" I decided to call the first band a sampler. I put spacers in and started another band from the beginning for reals.

Next, figuring out how to weave the second band to read "Award 2023". Again, I reached out to Lupe for guidance, she thought option #2 was easier to read.

The two bands are attached in the middle by unwoven strands but the second band is woven upside down and backwards. I had to do some figuring with a strip of paper before I started the second band.

I know, it hurts the brain to think so much. I didn't weave at all today. Instead I washed laundry and did other chores. The next part will be finishing.

Best to take it one thread - one letter - at a time.

Resources:

ASpinnerWeaver.com Annie MacHale's Blog

Weaving Letters on an Inkle Band, Annie MacHale YouTube video

Inkle Weaving - How to weave in thread ends, Lorna Pollock YouTube video

The Weaver's Inkle Pattern Directory, Anne Dixon

Sunday, May 21, 2023

Hem and Haw

So the cloth - most likely dish towels - has been washed and they're sitting by the sewing machine waiting to be finished. July 12, 2021

Oh my, it's been awhile since I wove the dish towels. Last week I finally decided that I needed to hem the JST Muted Color Gamp dish towels. Mainly because I want them in use and out of the To Do sewing box.

Also, I wanted to get my Singer 301A (aka Black Beauty) out of the bag.

I purchased this beautiful work horse machine from an Etsy seller in September 2022. It was made in 1953 and is truly an engineering marvel. It came with a box of attachments, the original case, and the original manual. My main requirement was an unfaltering straight stitch, that's it, plain and simple.

10/8/22

The 301A was immediately put to the test by sewing port hole covers and repairing a leather and nylon boat cover. It did the job without complaint.

So anyway back to dish towels. The JST Color and Weave towels needed to be repaired. The hemstitched and fringe hems were starting to fray so I wanted to convert them to a double-folded hem instead.

I stabilized the handwoven cloth with stay stitching then used pinking shears to cut off the original hem and then sewed a turned hem with the machine.

Next I did the same with the JST Muted Color Gamp towels with the additional job of cutting off weft ends.

I sewed two rainbow towels on the machine and was unhappy with the results.

As I started the machine-hemmed project I knew this type of finishing wasn't going to be as lovely as a hand-sewn hem but I thought I would be okay with a so-so finished but functional towel. I was wrong. The machine sewn hem wasn't too noticeable with the black and white towels but the misalignment of the striping on the rainbow cloth was ugly and jarring.

Instead of ripping out the hem and thereby putting the unfinished towels back in the sewing box for later, I decided to call it a lesson and be done with the two wonky dish towels. I sewed on a label to use as a hang tab (and hopefully redirect the eyes away from the cloth and the hem) and will give the towels to The Man for the camper.