Category: Weaving

 

Spring has arrived here on Vancouver Island. The rain is still with us but there are more sunny warmer days to enjoy outdoor activities. Guild members have been busy finishing up all the winter UFO’s before gardening season begins to take up time away from our needles, wheels and looms.

The Deflected Double Weave study group members shared some of their finished projects at the March meeting. Karen brought her DDW scarf woven in 2/16 cotton. Barb H and Melody used the same draft from Handwoven Jan/Feb 2007 issue. Barb’s was in 2/16 cotton sleyed at 24 epi at 2/dent in a 12 dent reed. Melody used 2/8 black and white cotton at the same sett. Both scarves are lovely examples of how one draft can be used for very different results.

Tammy finished a cozy woollen wrap using 40/60 mohair/wool that is perfect to cuddle up with on a cool evening.

Janine is a new weaver who is not afraid to tackle interesting weave structures and yarns. She wove 4 tea towels using 2/16 Venne organic linen and 2/16 Venne organic cottolin in grey, white, steel blue and anemone in 2/2 twill. The towels looked lovely and will have place of pride in her home.

Linda P shared a framed set of five tapestries using borderless tapestry technique.  Her inspiration was the three flowers Dr. Bonnie Henry had carried, one inspired by a tulip vase she has at home, and one inspired by the same vase but this time she increased the difficulty and wove the tulips on the vase itself. If you look closely you might see a familiar virus woven into one tapestry.

Coleen visited a tourist market when she was in Peru. The hats for sale in the market were made from synthetic materials but the vendor’s hat caught Coleen’s eye. She told us he took months to knit the hat and that she paid handsomely to bring it home. The inside fabric is tightly knit with very short floats to keep the wearer warm and dry during Peruvian winters. She shared that some Peruvian hats form part of the ritual surrounding a marriage proposal. The prospective groom knits the hat and takes it to his beloved. Her family takes the hat to a lake and fills it with water. If the hat holds the water on the way back then the marriage is approved.

Alison is working on a project for the winter issue of Little Looms magazine. The theme is winter weaving and her inspiration is the final page of a lovely book entitled Grandpa Bear’s Fantastic Scarf. She used pickup to weave the last sentence of the book on her inkle loom in a pebble weave technique.

We are so happy to be meeting in person once again it has been wonderful sharing fellowship with each other. If you live near us and are interested in joining the guild please join us at one of our day or evening meetings.

Until next time enjoy the Spring days wherever you find yourself.

The Deflected Double Weave (DDW) Study Group has been very busy these past few weeks. We are back to virtual meetings so they are not able to meet in person. Social media posts and photos are one way the group is keeping in touch and sharing their progress learning about this weave structure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During one of our 2021 virtual guild meetings the topic of study groups came up. We had a discussion about options for study and asked for volunteers to  organize and run the group.  We are so happy that Tammy volunteered to run a Deflected Double Weave study group for guild members.

What is Deflected Double Weave (thank you Tammy for these notes).

“A weave structure in which groups of threads from one weave alternate with groups from the other in both warp and weft. On the loom, the threads lie side by side in a single layer. When the fabric is removed from the loom and wet finished the threads of each weave slide above and below each other into adjacent float areas. Where they do this, they also curve to make waves and circles”

Madelyn Van Der Hoogt

DDW is a block weave that has grown rapidly in interest over the past few years.

We have a DDW guild study group of 11 members studying the principals of DDW on both 4 shaft and 8 shaft looms, but more members are welcome to join.

The guild table loom has been set up with an 8 shaft DDW draft and all guild members are welcome to try their hand at weaving a short sample to understand how to shuttle dive to get clean crisp selvedges on multiple layers.

 

Study Group Members have also chosen DDW drafts to weave on their own looms at home.

They will experiment with colour and fibre choices in both warp and weft, as both have a huge influence on the finished weave especially where differential shrinkage is a factor.

We will also be learning about draft planning with the aid of computer software such as Fibreworks.

It is hoped that this study will provide  members with enough confidence to write their own DDW drafts for future projects and to use fibres other than those recommend in published drafts.