ArtPrize Bits and Bobs Fiber Art Entry
Bits and Bobs is a fiber clothing creation that developed from all the bits and bobs from my hand spinner and weaver stash. I wanted to create something that was not only practical but also pleasing to the senses. This is very Tactile with texture and softness and very Visual with lots of color.I hand spun all sorts of bits and bobs of different types of fiber in various colors and thicknesses to achieve yarn that is truly unique. That was woven into a jacket, wrap skirt similiar to a kilt, and matching bag. My fiber was predominately Merino, Angora, with a few odd pieces of wool and some alpaca thrown in for fun. Some of the yarn has angelina in it for some bling!A Complete Hoof to Ward Robe Experience!
This entire ensemble will be for sale in Alba Ranch's Online Shop after the Art Prize Show and the 9th Annual Heart of Colorado Wearable Art Show. Look for in the shop around the end of October 2011.
Handspun alpaca cell phone pouch
This is the last of my first sample batch of handspun alpaca yarn and the second project I have made with it on my backstrap loom. I saved all the left over warp from the first project and used it as supplementary weft for this one. I had just enough yarn left to make this cell phone pouch and decorated it with supplementary wefts. The motif is a scroll that I saw on an Indonesian textile at Conevrgence last year. The scroll was repeated across the width of the textile. I stacked the scrolls and went alternating and inverting them and in doing so created this new design. I made a drawstring closure for the pouch
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Martha's First Weave
My neighbor Martha borrowed a loom as she wanted to weave with her handspun. She provided knitting yarn for the warp. This is her first woven project, and she was fast and had great selvedges from the get-go! She also developed a great feel for obtaining consistent tension when she advanced the warp. Martha is a potter, and I thought her piece looked spectacular with some of her hand made pots.
Martha treadled this project in plain weave, but is considering Anne Dixon's Handweaving Pattern Directory for treadling options on her next project.
Mallard jacket fabric
A friend wanted her skiens of handspun, 2 ply, woven into a a fabric suitable for a jacket. The handspun was a lovely dark heather that reminded us of mallard ducks. The handspun was limited. Chose a pattern for the jacket with out collar cuffs, lapels and princess styling to avoid the bulk of darts; needed 2.5 yds of 45" fabric. Wove the cloth half width to reduce the loom waste. Added two yarns to the handspun; a milk chocolate suri alpaca with 10% tencel) and a teal boucle. Made the warp 22" wide and 6.5 yards long for 6 yds. woven fabric and 1/2yd. loom waste. A 2/2 twill structure allows the cloth to be dense enough and still be pliable enough for a jacket.
The cloth is 75% hand spun, threaded in a straight twill with both accent yarns both on H4. Woven as a straight 2/2 twill with 3 shuttles. The cloth is quite lovely but has been hard to photograph; the curls of the boucle seem to catch the flash and seem much more prominent in the pics.
white hand spun silk on inkle loom
***UPDATE 28 Jan 2011 ***
After a little over a month of it sitting on the shelf I've picked up where I left off - a broken warp that needed mended and finishing the weaving. I'm about a third of the way through. I'm rather pleased with the result thus far. The hand spun silk singles are proving to be stronger than I expected, and more even than I thought. My selvage is a little rough but nothing serious - especially given that this entire project is experimental (testing my silk).
*** *** ***
This is going to be interesting - I've recently finished my silk/linen project (still finishing ends) and am surprisingly happy with it. The next phase is to try something pure silk. I've decided to try it on my inkle loom because its a small project, and because I need the space in the living room (taken up by my weaving stand) for the Christmas tree! I need a new ribbon for one of my books and this - if successful should do just nicely thanks.
pickled cucumbers
Some yarns just sing to be used…but struggle in certain projects.
This yarn has talked to me for a while now. I really enjoyed dyeing it in shades of greens and blues....when spun the blues settled in and green became the dominant colour - just as I planned.
I spun it into a thick and thin single.....and also spun some and the plied it together to use for the warp.
I cast on a Lady Kina with it and almost completed it. The joy of using it was tempered with the fact that every now and then, as is the way with handspun slub, I knit a really thin section….and I just felt that even though I had almost finished the project, that it wasn’t going to hold up to being loved and worn a lot.
So I frogged it.
And wove it.
Sigh.
Wonderful.
Its about 2m long with fringes and 35cm wide. I used a 7.5 DPI reed with 64 ends….
Then I gave it a soak in the sink with some dishwashing liquid, bashed it around a bit, put it in the washing machine to spin the water out and THEN, I dried it in the dyer.
WONDERFUL.
It shrunk a little but is very very very soft and looks amazing.
Couldn’t be happier. (And I still have a whole ball of yarn left to use for something else.)
handspun linen one piece bag
I treated my handspun linen with starch as per a suggestion by someone here on site (apologies I can't remember off the cuff who it was) - this pre-treatment I think has made an enormous contribution to the success of the weaving to date. One thing that seems to happen - and it could simply be my inexperience with spinning linen - is that it gets a bit fuzzy - the starch helps prevent snags but you still have to keep an eye out for the occasional fluff-catching-fluff on the back side of the heddle.
I started out using two heddles and quickly realised that this was not going to work - I'm not entirely sure why yet. I have noticed that using two heddles does not work with every fibre. I was able to quickly assess that this was going to be the case - and re threaded the heddle with two threads in each hole & slot. This combined with the single weft thread has made for a really nice texture.
I'm about 3/4 finished weaving - once its off the loom I'm planning to try to make a bag using the single strap pattern.
Assuming all goes well the next thing will be to play with dyeing, and using some string heddle patterning.
***Update*** 28 Mar 10
finished. I had to sit and carefully look at the diagram for the pattern I was using (which is very clear by the way) to be sure that I got the "inside" in and the "outside" out - for things like finishing edges.
A quick zig zag stitch along the ends of the piece allowed me to clip off the "fringe" and give it a nice folded edge. If it were wider I might have tried a french roll but since a nice "hard" edge is good for a bag I went for a basic folded seam.
I'm really pleased with the end result. It was purely experimental and I worked on a learning curve to be sure but the end product is attractive and functional - what more could you ask for (grin).
CoCo
This scarf is made from 80/20 Alpaca/Bamboo roving from Black Tulip Farms, http://www.blacktulipfarms.com/, produced by an alpaca called CoCo. I made another similar one using black Chinese lamb's wool lace weight for the warp, and unlike the same product in orange, it kept breaking, so for this one, I used a charcoal superwash merino sock yarn (I'll add the brand later).
