Woven Shibori Two

So much has been happening lately. Spring has sprung and my peas are up! The warmer days demand outside time getting the garden back into shape and cleaning up the winter mess. On top of all of that, we are in the process of changing the exterior of the house. We are taking off the cedar siding and replacing it with HardiPlank siding, yup, doing it ourselves! Does'nt everyone love to be 20 feet up on scaffolding? Needless to say that means weaving takes a back seat…..but I am still plugging along.The Stainless Steel Tea Towels are off the loom and have been hand hemmed. I really like this pattern, it was easy to thread and a delight to weave, now I wish I had put on more than 7 yards.I ended up weaving 3 tea towels with black weft, 1 with white weft, 1 with light grey weft and 1 with red weft. The red weft is completely different looking and is without a doubt my least favourite, but I had to try it! You can see some of the wonderful texture that this weave provided, just great for slurping up water. I will definitely be doing this pattern again, maybe in summer yellows, greens and brown, but for now I have enough tea towels….

On April 10-11, I participated in a PCW Fiberworks Workshop with Bob Keates and Ingrid Boesel the co-creators of the weaving program. All I can say is look out, I’m dangerous now! While providing a good background on how the basic program works for the beginners; those of us who had used the program also had plenty to learn. I got a lot out of this course and feel that I can produce original drafts in half the time! I heartily recommend this weaving program – go for Silver if you have 8 or more shafts.

On my loom right now is Woven Shibori, which looks very uninspiring as it is being woven, but afterward……yummy! You have to squint to see the twill progression in the pattern weft, but it's there.I created this pattern using 8 shafts and 10 treadles. It is plain weave with a twill pattern that will create a strong pleated effect after finishing. This is just one pattern repeat, about 5 inches. My warp is 2/10 natural coloured cotton. I was on a mission to use some stash, so there are two different warp threads. One is mercerized and one is not. The weft is 2/16 unmercerized cotton for the background and 2/8 Orlec for the pattern threads, which will be pulled out after dyeing.This is how the edges look; I’ve left small loops so that I can easily pull them to create the smocked effect needed for the dyeing step. You can see the whole process here.