V-Shawl Class

I taught a v-shawl class last week. It's always fun to see the variety in these shawls. The v-shawl is warped for double weave. The fronts of the shawl are woven with two shuttles and the back is woven by cutting one pair of warp threads at a time and weaving them in as weft.

Tina chose natural colored Rambouillet and Jacob yarns.

Jackie used brown Rambouillet and a space-dyed yarn for accent.

Marilyn used softball cotton in natural and tan with accents of ribbon and a novelty yarn.

Yolanda has space-dyed wool yarn with a blue stripe.

These are the shawls right off the loom so there has been no finishing of fringes.

The back view shows the designs that you get from the warp stripes.

Windy weekend

The title implies that I dealt with the high winds that we had this weekend. I didn't really spend much time in the wind. I was inside at the Art & Craft Holiday Fair sponsored by the Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento. I was surprised at the number of people that came through. Not as many sales as I'd hoped for, but it will be worth going back next year.

These are some of the v-shawls I had for sale.

You may recognize some of these scarves from previous blog entries. I meant to count the scarves. I think I ended up with over 50.

These are 3-D wire pieces that I liked.

And this is an example of another artist's work that I liked. All his pictures have a time theme and are made from watch parts.

A friend visited me at the show on Saturday and look what she brought. This is a sheep from the WoolPets felt kit that I sell and she knit a scarf to go with it. I wonder if she used toothpicks for knitting needles!

So what was with the wind? It howled all weekend. We hadn't had any significant damage from the other winds that we've had this fall. This wind took the top of the big tree in front of the house. Fortunately all that is damaged is a fence board.

This is upside-down and used to be...

...up there.

The tree is lopsided now--used to have 2 tops that looked like one.

Two busy weekends

I spent the last two days in Placerville teaching Weave a V-Shawl to the Hangtown Fiber Guild. Here are the results:

Ladies,  please turn around.

These are the warps for shawls not quite finished:

Quite a variety of shawls!

Last weekend was Lambtown in Dixon, CA. The fiber building was so busy that I barely got outside to snap a few photos. The sheep-to-shawl contest was one of the most popular events. Teams come with looms already warped and they need to prepare and spin the yarn and weave the shawls during the contest. This year the fiber for the weft was Jacob wool from my flock. It got great reviews from the spinners.  Here is the winning shawl woven by the Silverado Guild from Napa:

And a close-up:

The Del Oro Guild got second place:

I didn't get photos of the other shawls, but I did get one of Hangtown Guild's portrayal of their theme of  "Au Naturel":

There is a new use for all that roving that you don't have time to spin! Hangtown always does it with a sense of humor!

One last photo taken at Lambtown:

Do I want to swap out my sheep for a flock of these  cuties? Hmmm...what is a group of chincillas called? Covey--no, that's quail. Warren--isn't that where rabbits live? Crowd? How about Cloud?

I Have a New Daughter!

Yes, I have a new daughter (-in-law).  And I didn't have to deal with the teenage years. My son, Matt, married Kaleena on Saturday and we are all very happy. Kaleena started planned the wedding last summer and her organization paid off. (If she ever wants to quit her U.S. Forest Service job she could probably be a wedding planner.) The only thing she couldn't control was the weather, but the rain didn't dampen anyone's spirits. Here are some photos.

In the photo below that's my husband, Dan, me, Matt, Kaleena, and her mom, Mary. I am wearing the v-shawl that I wove to wear with the dress that I dyed. That was my wedding dress and with the input of my weaving friends, I finally chose a color to dye it.  Then we chose yarns for the shawl. My main idea was to not stand out in the crowd. I figured that if no one noticed me then I did all right.  I didn't want to have people say "Who the heck is that?" or "Why is she wearing THAT?" Kaleena's colors for the wedding were dark brown and sage green and Mary and I both matched pretty well. (Mary sewed her dress and jacket too.)

In this photo that's my other kids, Chris & Katie on the left of Matt & Kaleena, and Kaleena's sister on the right. Didn't Kaleena choose a great setting for her wedding colors? Or did she choose the colors to go with the setting? Even the clubhouse where the wedding and reception were held was perfect. The carpet and chair upholstery was the green of the dresses and the huge picture windows had a view into the tree tops.

Kaleena let all of her little nieces and her nephew participate in the wedding. The littlest flower girl tried picking up the rose petals that the others dropped down the aisle.

Another weaving class

I taught the Weave a V-Shawl class in Stockton this month. Judy Allen of Gilmore Looms organized it and we used the space at the shop to hold the class. Five students took the class and here's what they created. These shawls are right off the loom so fringes and wet finishing will be done later. Aren't they incredible? And all so different.

In the photo above you can get a feel for the warp. It's the photo below that shows what happens when the shawl is woven--you get fun plaids on the back. The second, third and fifth shawl are out of my Jacob wool. The first is a cotton mix that Judy wove for her mother (modeling the shawl).  The 4th shawl is out of beautiful handspun and the shawl on the far right is a variegated alpaca yarn--so soft.

One of the most fun things for me was that I took an old Gilmore loom I have to the class on the 2nd day and Bob spent a lot of time fixing things for me. This loom was made in 1962 and I acquired it a few years ago. Bob fixed the space where the reed goes in the beater so that I don't have to jam it in. He cut slots so that the top bar that holds the reed in place will slip out without having to undo the bolts. He showed me how to fix the reeds that have the tape coming off of them. And most exciting--he turned the beam into a sectional beam for me. Photo to come later.

Thanks to Bob for the loom work and to Judy for organizing the class...and of course the students.

A Successful Weaving Class

I spent the last two days in Placerville, about an hour from my place, teaching a beginning weaving class. The Hangtown Fiber Guild meets at a great facility. They use a classroom at a local church with plenty of space--tables, running water, etc.  There were 7 students and a few helpers and everyone finished their scarves in the allotted time. It is always fun to see the variety of scarves and this class was no exception. Here are some photos of the scarves on the looms.

These are the finished scarves before washing or finishing fringes. Great job!

Power ram?

I took this photo of Houdini and told my husband that I thought he looked like an evil cartoon character. Dan replied that he looked like one of the Power Rangers, which he just happened to see on Saturday morning. (I guess it came on after This Old House.) Now that it has rained and the sheep are walking around in tall wet grass a lot of the color from the marking harness has come off of Houdini, but in the first few days of breeding season I was ready to call him Alien Ram because he had a green tinge all over his wool.

When I'm not dealing with sheep, hay, classes, etc, I'm supposed to be weaving. I finally got a huge job finished. These are 4 queen size blankets and one double blanket that I just shipped on Friday. They are woven from wool grown by the customer's family and she wanted blankets for her family members. They don't look too impressive in the photo, but it was a lot of time.

Now the fun stuff (while my computer is still letting me download photos--don't know what happened overnight). I like making these V-shawls and here are some friends helping to model them.

And this is my son making his escape after I made him take these photos.

Below is a striking shawl made by one of my students in the last v-shawl class I taught. This is her 2nd weaving!