Motif Metamorphosis

Some of my hourglass motifs have turned into butterflies... or dragonflies... well, some sort of flying insect anyway, just fluttering by.  Call it a "flutter-by".

The fabric surrounding the bug is a little 2/1 point twill.  The rectangle where the sprang warp leaves the fabric then becomes a 2/1 straight twill in that area.

They are fluttering around on these scarves, adorning them with their colorful wings.

I've been playing around with different yarns: some wool/rayon, some silks, even some metallics for a little sparkle for the holidays.  Some of these handwoven scarves will be available for purchase at SCHG's Weaving and Fiber Festival, Sunday November 3rd, 2013 at the Torrance Cultural Center in Torrance, California.

The jungle challenge - my answer titled: "Predator"

You are deep in a jungle. You look around and try to absorb this wondrous new world. Many colors, shapes and textures surround you, but you can only choose 3 of those colors to make up 75% of your piece. You must also use a weave structure to represent something you see in your jungle for 50% of the finished piece. The jungle does not care what size or shape you create, but your creation must be woven or knotted/interlaced/spun/felted, but not knitted or you may not make it out alive!

The above was the 2013 Challenge issued to members of the Southern California Handweavers' Guild.  On the right is my answer to the challenge.  I'm not sure I got all those percents right, but I'm sure there's a way to make it fit.

The surrounding fabric is what I showed in earlier posts, a 3/1 twill where the thick wool and thin cotton alternate in the warp.  In the middle section, the wool was left unwoven while the cotton made a plain weave background for the sprang.  The sprang this time is double-layered sprang, with holes or slits left so pieces of the layers could interchange and wrap around one another like vines in a jungle.  The striped vine-like bits represent a tiger prowling around in the foliage.

Last weekend was the big reveal at our guild meeting, and I was all set to show my answer here as well, but my camera and computer decided they weren't on speaking terms.  So I had to wait for a new cable to arrive before I could get the photo uploaded.

As usual it was really fun to see all the different ways that my fellow guild members had come up with to answer this puzzle or challenge, and their beautiful and creative results.  They will all be displayed at our annual Weaving and Fiber Festival, Sunday November 3rd at the Torrance Cultural Arts Center, Torrance, California.

How would you have solved this challenge?

Serendipity strikes again

The green/orange/black weaving/sprang is off the loom.  I made quite a bit of warp because I wasn't sure whether I would have to make a second attempt at the sprang part.  It came out all right, so I just wove off the rest of the extra warp, and I really like the look of this fabric.

It looks almost like a warp-dominant or warp-faced plain weave, but structurally it is a 3/1 twill.  Every other warp is a dark green cotton that doesn't really show unless you look very closely.









I especially like the back side, where the black weft and the dark green warp make a tiny outline of each dot of color.

Funny thing is, I would never have set out to design and weave this fabric.  The colors, the stripe sequence, the very close sett... all were designed for a certain effect in the sprang portion of my piece.  The woven portion was just to be a border or frame.  But I might actually think to weave something like this again.