Love of Gotland curls

Back to blogging at last. The first half of 2016 has been difficult but now I'm back into my spinning, weaving and my new love eco printing.

I'm still in love with spinning Gotland from the curl. I hold each lock sideways and spin from the centre of the lock making a lovely soft yarn with little curls. I spun and spun and spun until I had enough yarn to make my husband a knee rug though I have to admit that since it has been finished I may have used it more often than him. Yes that's the warp and weft handspun.

 beautiful washed Gotland curls

 Dyeing the curls red gave an tan brown colour on the tips.

As my loom is only 50 cm wide I made 2 lengths for the rug and stitched them together. I didn't try to match the weft or warp threads. Most of the warp threads are 2 ply but most of the weft threads are spiral plyed with a fine commercial laceweight.

First length lying on part of second warp

Drying after fulling

 Those delightful curls in the finished rug.

Starting them young

Last week I was in Wellington playing with yarn with my grandchildren. They like weaving so we made cardboard looms out of the tops of pizza boxes. The kids, aged 6, 4 and 2, had fun choosing from art yarns I'd taken down.

Wearable art

Creativity flying as a butterfly

Creativity blossoming

 Another day we collected sticks and magically transformed them.

Saori weaving

These are a some more shots of my saori weaving. The first thing I tried was to weave just some of the warp threads to make the "tails". I used 2 strands of 2 ply yarn that I had dyed and it produced interesting colour changes.

Fractally dyed yarn gives are lovely blend of colours.

Here you see the effect of simply inserting some fleece locks into the weft. Lower down are beehives in thick and thin yarn.

Saori workshop with Louise Cook

I was lucky enough to attend a Saori workshop at the Waikato Area Education Day. I've spent many hours looking at Saori weaving on the net and this style has influenced the scarves I wove in May and June where I used lots of different weft yarns. One of the tenets of the Saori style is to decide what to do with the weaving after it is finished - that is a very different approach to my usual one. Saori is a free style of weaving and one becomes absorbed and immersed in the process. For more see Saori philosophy  Louise is the sole accredited Saori tutor in New Zealand.

Samples of Saori weaving from the course.

Dramatic red and black mobius scarf

A acarf to keep away the winter chills.

I'm finding that as soon as I weave one scarf I have ideas for the next  and the next with the result that my couch is covered in trays of yarns grouped by colour. I keep spinning more to add to the trays.
This one is was on the loom ready to weave when I thought of adding one strand of white boucle yarn to the mix to give the scarf an accent.


The thickest handspun warp is a pinkish red one with coils of black all spun from soft merino. Almost all the yarns are hand dyed including the finer 2 ply yarns which subtely change in colour from red to grey to black.
 

In places I have the black coils floating above the scarf. There's one at the bottom of the picture.

Autumn colours Mobius Scarf

I'm in two minds whether this is a scarf or a cowl. I've used different shades of mohair for the weft interspersed with tailspun Suri locks that I spun and dyed. It is wonderfully soft. The scarf is very versatile as it can be worn with the interwoven ends in front, on the shoulder of at the back. The cowl can also be deepened so that the fringed ends are mostly hidden.

 Here are the tailspun locks I used in the weft together with some 2 ply Suri that I used in the warp.

WOW mobius woven scarf

Having seen a mobius woven scarf  woven in Saori style by Jill Nikolene, I decided I wanted to make one. The scarf has no end as the threads from the front tie up are released to be used as weft at the other scarf end.
I put a 2.5m warp used an Ashford Knitters loom. The warp was a mix of handspun, hand dyed yarns and commercial yarns most of which I had overdyed. If you want to make one yourself follow Jill's instructions.
The length of the actual weaving was 1.9 m. Even though I thought I was following her method, when I cut the scarf from the back of the loom I found I had given it two twists. This doesn't matter as the scarf is long enough to accomodate the two.

Tailspun yarn,  fleece locks and spun beehives give a dynamic texture.

Here is the warp before weaving.

The scarf has been undone from the front beam, twisted, folded, wound back around the front beam. In the image on the right I have woven most of the front warp threads through the remaining warp attached to the back beam.


The colours are fiery like a brilliant sunset.




The result is a matrix of threads that can be worn in front, on the side or wherever.

Back to weaving

J had thought my weaving days were several decades in the past but all that changed when I saw a friend weaving on an Ashford's knitters loom. Like spinning, weaving has become more creative in the last 5 years or so. I have not quite reached the no rules approach - I still like even selvedges - but my weaving has become more playful. Nearly all the yarns I used were my own handspun. Here is a wine coloured single pulled up to make little loops.

 These are some of the handspun yarns I used in the weft - merino, merino boucle, merino and alpaca thick and thin which I had lightly fulled, thick singles also fulled, grey plyed yarn and many more. The mauve mohair is a commercial yarn. I'd also dyed most of the yarns.

 This part includes spaces, inlaid art yarn, more fine singles and thick and thin.

The finished scarf. I'm not totally happy with it 'cause the mohair section is wider than the rest.