The Seattle Weavers’ Guild presented a special one-night showcase and demonstration of weaving at the Seattle Museum of Popular Culture (MoPOP) in conjunction with the opening night of the Ruth E. Carter Afrofuturism in Costume Design exhibit. The Guild’s showcase, “Cloth Stories,” included my Dutch Houses tea towel woven in 8/2 cotton from Venne. It was a lot of fun to attend the opening and study Ruth Carter’s amazing design work. She is an inspiration.

My weave structures study group is focusing on jin (sometimes mistakenly called turned taqueté) this year. I really don’t know anything about this weave structure, so this is going to be fun. The seemingly endless rainbow warp worked well for some initial experiments. After weaving off a yard of warp, I noticed that the fabric was weaving at about 18 1/2 picks per inch, but I was hoping for a fabric around 20 picks per inch. I’ll be sure to adjust the auto-advance next time.

For those weavers out there that are interested in learning about treadling the threading using a dobby loom with weaving software, I created this very short introductory video that shows the basic steps.

I love color. Few things make me happier than picking colors for a project and watching them unfold as I weave or spin or knit. And this project is no exception. I’ve set out to weave a series of rainbow tea towels with a heart motif that I adapted from a draft designed by Robyn Spady. If you look closely, you will notice that each warp section was created by blending two similar colors together. This technique adds depth and interest to the woven item.

I often photograph my yarns and fibers in black and white when I am planning a project. Doing so helps to ensure that the value of the yarns matches my intent. In this case, I wanted darker, medium, and lighter yarns to mix together in the warp. The first photo is an example of a value photograph. The second photo shows a multicolor warp wound on my loom. This warp features a range of values from dark to light blended randomly. The final photo shows a portion of the woven fabric on the loom. Notice how the colors mix together to create unique greens and blues.

I’ve been happily preparing for my community’s Holiday Bazaar this year by weaving and knitting items for my booth. The first picture below shows one of these scarves still on the loom. I handpainted the warp and weft yarns (both fine silk) in colors that remind me of the sunrise. The pattern for this scarf was designed by Bonnie Inouye. You can see the finished scarf on display in my booth on the right side of the second photo.

A recent issue of Handwoven magazine included a beautiful pattern by Linda Gettmann called Circle and Diamond Towels. Linda used a yellow, aqua, blue, and orange palette for her towels, but I wanted to weave deeper autumnal colors for mine. The warp is 8/2 Venne cotton and the weft is Venne cottolin in changing colors. This is a new favorite pattern to weave.

The study of blocks continues. With my loom I can we 4 blocks of twill, which gives me a lot of flexibility to play with different twill patterns to see how they combine. I set out to use all four blocks in a modified pinwheel design that I call Pinwheel Interrupted. In the end, I don’t think this is really a block weave, but I do love the design. The yarns for this project are USA grown and spun wool and wool blends from Mountain Meadow Wool in Wyoming.

I’m about to set off on my annual trek back to my hometown in Washington state. While traveling, I like to have smaller projects to work on (my big loom definitely won’t fit in the car), so this year I made a tapestry loom out of copper pipe from the hardware store. I have a lot of handspun yarn, and I thought tapestry weaving would be a great way to use up small quantities and showcase the beautiful color and texture of the yarn. The picture below is of my first small weaving. The yarn was spun by me from a roving dyed by my friend, Lori, of Capistrano Fiber Arts Studio.

Over the holidays this past year, we visited Amsterdam. I especially like to travel to Europe during winter because the cold weather is a pleasant reminder of growing up in Washington state. I’m always on the look out for inspiration, and in Amsterdam I was particularly enthralled by the houses along the canals, tall and skinny houses leaning this way and that way.

When I weave towels, I like to put on 6 or more yards of warp. That way, I can weave a series of towels that are related, but not identical. In particular, I love to change the color of the weft yarn with each towel.

Each year I participate in two fiber art shows and one holiday show. Ahead of each of these events, I spend months preparing items for sale, testing new layouts for my booth, and dreaming about the conversations that I will have with my fiber friends at the event.

Since the beginning, my weaving practice has primary focused on creating items that I can use or wear. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with coasters, placemats, and clothing.

My very first weaving project was a twill sampler woven with heavy worsted wool and mohair knitting yarn on a table loom.  I used a dark purple color for the warp and gold for the weft.  The fabric was a bit bulky, but it had nice drape and I've been enamored with twill ever since.  

For the past few weeks, I've been at the loom nearly every day. Sometimes for a few minutes and other times for a few hours. With each new project, I've learned more about weaving and about my loom. Late last year, a used AVL Folding Dobby Loom came to live with me. With 16 harnesses, automatic cloth advance, and a dobby, this loom will keep be busy for a good long time. Though I started weaving about 10 years ago, weaving on such a complex loom is an entirely new experience. I'm having a great time experimenting with structure and color.

I've been spending quite a bit of time dyeing spinning fiber in my studio lately. And I'm really excited for my shows this fall, where I will be debuting several new roving colorways, including new ombré colorways.

I'm very exited to announce my latest product:  handpainted ombré or gradient rovings!  This is something that I have been scheming about for a while now, and today the first of several colorways is live in my Etsy shop.

This Fall I have been exploring new creative arts, including making ceramic dishes and dyeing wool fabric. My ceramics class started in October, and I feel like I am just now beginning to get the hang of things. My first bowls are now finished, and I am happy with the results. The fact that each is unique (and a little wonky) is fine with me. My favorite item so far is the bowl shown below. It is the perfect size for oatmeal or yogurt, and best of all, it is purple!

I spent this weekend working on projects, and have several finished objects to show for it. Two of my projects were a baby quilt and a baby blanket for my soon-to-arrive nephew. All of the fabrics that I used are cotton flannel from Connecting Threads. I especially love the Yosemite fabric, which I used as the quilt top. I also couldn't pass on the blue and brown plaid for the baby blanket.

With the Vista Fiber Fiesta only one month away and the Torrance Fiber Festival in early November, I have been dyeing lots of yarns and rovings for my booth.