Lace towel
If you remove the white stripes in the towel you can weave this with only 8 shafts.
Ghostly gray lace scarf
Blocks of lace are based on a name draft of Louis May Alcott
Bronson Lace for Windows
This is my take on a Bronson Lace pattern for a window treatment. I decided to do this in 8 shafts and sort of worked backwards into the design by determining the desired sett and resulting number of warp ends needed. This gave me a template to work within. I then played around with threading and lift plan combinations until I came up with a plan i liked. The pattern will repeat until I have the length I want. As you can see from the file name I have made several variations! Note: This is a liftplan draft, I prefer to do block-style designing in liftplan.
Bronson Dishtowels & CCW Exchange
I had 17% take up and shrinkage in both length and width. I washed this fabric in the machine, regular cycle, using clear Ivory dish detergent, and dried in the dryer for 30 minutes, then pressed damp with steam.
Of the 7 yards, 4 yards went toward making 4 towels, 2 yards were for Cross Country Weavers samples, and the last bit was for sampling and loom waste. The theme for the CCW exchange this year was Bronson. I had a lot of fun reading Dorothy Burton's book Versatile Bronson when thinking about this challenge. It has a lot of great ideas! The book can still be purchased via the Boston Guild.
The towels were made to match a new set of dusty-blue and chocolate-brown dishware we recently purchased. At least that's the cover story. The real story is my husband is The Cook, and it drives me crazy when there is an emergency in the kitchen and he grabs one of my "good" towels. So I decided to weave him a batch of "good" towels in a dark colorway that won't look horrible the first time he wipes up spilled gravy or tea!
You can find the draft under the draft tab, Bronson Dishtowels
Lavender Runner with Lace weave
I didn't measure the length on loom very accurately - I don't think I really had that much take-up. This was my first attempt at working with any lace weaves. The yarn is a mystery fiber - I bought a couple used cones off ebay. My best guess is a polyester It's a little bit stretchy and I do believe I would have been happier with the runner if I had used a sturdier yarn.
Curtains For Trauger House Kitchen
This fabric is being woven to replace the existing curtains in the Trauger House kitchen located in historic Millbrook Village, Delaware Water Gap National Park, on the New Jersey side. The design emulates closely that which was woven nearly 30 or 40 years ago by Cordelia Cafone (currently "practicing" for her 97th birthday in 2011) and her dear friend Carmen Smith, who passed away a few years ago when she was in her early 90's.
In keeping with the spirit of their past weaving adventures, I am trying to use up what I have "in the stash". I needed to combine a lighter maize yellow with a more golden yellow to have enough material to make the length needed, AND match the original bright and cheery yellow before many years of sun-fading took its toll. That means I am weaving with two alternating shuttles in the yellow stripes, every other inch.
For the white areas, I have two passes of white, a pass with the green shuttle, and then I quickly begin the Bronson treadling. The addition of the Bronson in the center of the white checks was to add a little more light into the room, and make the treadling a little more interesting for me if I am to slog through 9 yards of this. (Recommendations for a good audio book or two would be appreciated!)
Although this looks like pretty simple fabric, it is a bit disarming how complicated planning a project like this can quickly become! Ironically, I have a Bronson challenge coming up in March/April of 2011, and I didn't think this was challenging enough to enter when I was considering the undertaking. (I am rethinking that now!) I can highly recommend the book Versatile Bronson by Dorothy Burton. (I believe it is still available via the Boston Weaver's Guild.)
