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.