mohair

The final two fabrics for eleven Teddy bears will come from this warp.  Both yarns were dyed by me.  The wool with the slubs is brown and I'm using it as my warp.  The angora/wool blend weft was dyed pink, and the fabric will be for a bear for our newest granddaughter.  I am sewing the bears and they will be in the Demon Seamstress group.  I have one completed so far.  Jenny Bellairs from Charlevoix the Beautiful

* Merino* Mohair* Alpaca* Hand Dyed* Hand Woven* Hand spun and plying* 5.75 inches wide * 5 inch fringe on both ends * 67 inches long without the fringe * 77 inches overall length long including fringe (6ft 5in) The weft is 2 ply light fingering weight 100% merino that I hand dyed with an acid dye to be a Black Cherry. It did not come out the dark purple red of Black Cherry but instead came out a lovely Orangey Red that has gone most gloriously with the natural colors of the warp. In fact, when I saw the color that the dye turned out, I specially decided to make and use the yarn for the warp to complement it. The warp is a thick single ply of cream Mohair that I hand spun myself and was later plyed with 1x 2ply light fingering of alpaca mohair blend and a 1x 2 ply light fingering of merino mohair blend yarns. The alpaca used is a red or apricot color and the mohair was a faded red, these colors combined with the white merino gave it various shades of cream, taupe, fawn, and light brown. These colors went just awesome with the bold orange red of the hand dyed merino.This scarf has been sold.

 Dropped in 4 shafts and used spit shed technique (form of pick up) This is a rug I just completed.  It is mohair, mill spun from my customers mohair goats.  The yellow is dyed with mesquite.  The mesquite chips were soaked in alcohol to extract the color.   My blog on dyeing is here.  I confess that I need to catch up on some of the other color runs I have completed!

The rug is done in the split shed method.  A method taught and used by Jane Evans.  Here is her web page with her publications listed about split shed...janeevans.ca/Publications.shtml

I love using split shed, you have to allow for the warp peaking thru a bit but if you allow for it to participate with a color fit, it doesn't matter.  I reference my cobra finish here.

I also keep myself to a triad of colors.  It would be easier with 2 colors and the rug would be reversible but I find that 3 colors make it more interesting for me to weave it.

and here is an update, the client just receive the rug and is very happy, they will send me photos of the rug mounted over the fireplace on an iron rod....yahooo

 Ant blanket commission, client's mohair, yellow is mesquite extracted from wood shaving, Theo Moorman inlay, only have 4  shafts on loom, would have loved to have done this in double weave or summer & winter!