Dye Day at the Gardens Again

This coming Sunday is Fiber Arts Day at the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens.  It was such a nice day last year I'm participating again.  Fellow SCHG member Jamie and I will be dyeing using various plant materials, across the Herb Garden from the Tea Room.  Other area guild members will be demonstrating spinning and weaving.

Here are the colors I got at last year's session, using madder, Navajo tea, cutch and logwood.  This year I've selected a less exotic selection of local plants I hope will be easier for visitors to relate to:  madder again because it grows like a weed in my yard, black walnut leaves, a weed called wild lettuce, and ... red cabbage!  What colors will I get with these?  Join us at the Gardens to see, or you'll have to wait until I post the results!

Upcoming Doup Leno Presentation

At the June Southern California Handweavers' Guild meeting, I'll be giving a talk "Doup Leno: Adventures in Loom-controlled Gauze Weaves".  Photos and illustrations will cover the characteristics of gauze structures and how they can be made on the handloom including special steps to set up the loom to form the crosses in the warp and produce the tension needed to form clean sheds. With simple accessories added to your loom, a variety of beautiful and fascinating fabrics can be woven.  I'll also have samples for in-person viewing.

Saturday, June 13 2015 9 a.m., San Fernando Valley Arts and Cultural Center, 18312 Oxnard Street, Tarzana.  For more info see the guild web site, http://schg.org/index.php/member-resources/meetings.

Weeds - Fodder for the Dye Pot!

At our last guild meeting Jamie led a great workshop on natural dyeing.  We tried something I hadn't used before - wild lettuce, a common weed.  It gave a light greenish yellow on wool.  And lucky me, I have a bumper crop this year.

Lacy Fun!

The leno that I had on the loom the other day has been wet-finished.  I like the curvy crosses that are happening in this weave.

Here's a close-up taken with my scanner to show the structure in detail.

Back to gauze weave

I've been doing some more gauze weave samples.  This sample is in 10/2 cotton set at 20 ends per inch, 4 ends per dent in a 5-dent reed.

The pattern is from a publication from 1890 about mechanized production of leno and figured leno, Die mechanische Weberei und die Fabrikation der Kunst- und Figurendreher, available on http://www.handweaving.net/ or http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/weavedocs.html- The notation is all in German but I can follow the diagrams just fine.  I had to rearrange the shaft usage for best sheds on my loom.

It will be interesting to see how this looks once it comes off the loom and is wet-finished.

Back from a Fiber Retreat

Asilomar...sigh.

I spent three wonderful days at the Conference of Northern California Handweavers (CNCH), which was held this year at Asilomar Conference Grounds. This was our weaving classroom:

Inside, the weaving class that I took.  I got a couple ideas during the lectures to apply to a design for which I'm currently making samples.

A weaving path to a sunset.

Tonag with a Twist

A tonag, I learned recently, is a sort of a Scottish poncho.  Here's my Fraser tartan made up into a poncho-like garment.  This version can be worn asymmetrically for an updated look.  It's really a cozy little thing to wear.

The lacy sprang decoration adds to the eccentricity of the garment.