workofmonth

December 2018 Meeting
(Thanks for the photos and cropping, Lisa!)

Natalie Boyett, founder, owner and weaving guru of the Chicago Weaving School, presented our December program which was followed by a potluck of delicious food brought by members. Natalie's program was genuinely inspirational. It was full of encouraging advice on how to progress and find satisfaction as weavers and was the more convincing because it came from a weaver who had been teaching weaving at her 90-loom school since 2004. Many of her suggestions apply not only to weaving and other crafts, but also to life in general: for example, reduce the scale of challenges to get them done (she recommended cutting goals in half, repeatedly if necessary, and breaking down dauntingly complex tasks into more easily accomplished incremental steps). Everyone left with her\his own most memorable pieces of advice Natalie had presented in her very engaging program. We went home all fired up and ready to take on new challenges in our crafts and weave, weave, weave; spin, sin, spin; and knit, knit, knit.

Natalie Boyett who presented our December program is on the left with Ellen, the member of our Program Committee who invited Natalie, on the right.

December Show and Tell


Lizz brought two scarves to show us. She wove both with cotton/acrylic blend yarns in plain weave. The one on the left was woven with variegated yarn in the warp and weft, and the scarf on the right with a black warp and purple weft.		Shelby modified the pattern for this sweater when she had finished knitting it by converting the neck from a too floppy turtleneck into a more graceful cowl neckline.

In the photo above, Donna is holding one of the two pieces of fabric she wove and brought to show us. She wove the fabric shown here with a cotton warp and novelty yarn (nylon, cotton and acrylic) weft set at 7.5 epi. She will wet finish it and bring it back so we can see how it turns out.


Among the several skeins of yarn Terry spun and brought to the meeting, were these two skeins that started as a purchase batt and a separate silver thread.		Jeane showed us this runner she wove in an 8-shaft twill using 10/2 cotton.

On the tiny looms she is holding, Chris is weaving tiny fabrics to use on brooches she is making. She incorporates locks of fleece into the weaving. [A note to spelling police: the spelling is, indeed, brooches though I agree it looks odd :-).]

Joyce brought three items she had knit to the meeting. On the left she is holding the hoody vest with an Airborne patch she knit for her grandson, and on the right she is holding a hat with an opening at the top for her granddaughter's curly hair. She knit the alpaca vest she is wearing and re-purposed it for herself.

Ellen's weaving show and tell this month was the scarf she is holding in the photo above. She wove it with silk yarn of different weights with a variegated warp and tweedy weft in a crackle weave.


Michaelle brought four pieces of weaving to show us, including the shawl she is holding in the photo. She wove it in a shadow weave using tencel yarn.		Sue knit the toddler-size sweater she is holding for a great-nephew's birthday present.

November 2018 Meeting
(Thanks for the photos, Lisa!)

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After a brief silent auction which raised more than $500 for the Guild, the program for the meeting was a panel discussion on weaving, knitting and spinning. Members were invited to ask the expert panel for advice or for information about anything related to these crafts. The panel and the moderator, Jacque, are shown in the photo above. From the left: Jacque, Sue, Shelby, Margaret, Melvenea and Chris. Some questions were technical: how to tighten warps evenly, how to finish edges of rep weave and stockinette knitting, how to oil a specific part of a spinning wheel, and some questions were of more general interest: what fibers the panel least preferred to work with (acrylic won that distinction), how Melvenea grows cotton in South Bend, and how to use a blending board to prepare rolags for spinning, a process that Chris likened to painting with different colored fibers.


Joyce wove her scarf with wool yarn and ribbon and included metallics for glitz.		Using her funding after she was selected for to be a 2018 Artist by the Valpo CSA ( Community Supported Art organization), Chris developed an eyeglass case to add to her line of products.

On the left, Shelby is holding the wool summer & winter throw she wove and on the right, she is holding a scarf she knit with a slip stitch pattern, which she said was easier than it looks.

Using a 100% llama warp and silk weft, Margaret wove the scarf in the left side photo. She also showed us a table runner she wove in cotton (on the right).

Mary did some more work on achieving a Certificate of Excellence from the Handweavers Guild of America. On the left is a tapestry she wove which features circles (challenging to weave), and on the right, she is holding a tapestry that combines rug and tapestry weaves.


Marianne completed a textile course as a part of her undergraduate degree. This jacket was a dyeing and weaving project she did in the course.		Shirley used linen yarn to weave this generous table runner (could also be a shawl?) in a huck lace weave.

Lisa told us the sad tale of how this shawl, which she had woven for her Greek sister-in-law, was stolen from her backpack in the Athens airport.

Cindy Goshert presented a very interesting program on weaving crimp cloth. She explained that the crimping process uses as weft (or warp) a yarn such as orlon or polyester that softens when it's heated. The technique is related to weaving shibori in that there are "pull threads" woven into the fabric that are drawn tight after the fabric comes off the loom, but instead of going into a dye pot as a shibori project would, a crimp cloth fabric is steamed and allowed to cool. Once it is cool, the pull threads are removed, and the fabric has a permanent 3-dimensional crimp pattern that reflects the weave pattern used for the pull threads.

Cindy brought a number of very attractive examples of crimp cloth which she had woven with cotton warps and wefts of orlon with upholstery thread as the pull threads. Some had pull threads woven in a twill on a plain weave of orlon; some had pull threads in plain weave on a patterned weave of orlon; some had twill for both types of thread/yarn. There are lots of different possibiities for creating different textures for different types of garments. In addition to her very informative presentation, Cindy gave us a clear and very well illustrated handout explaining the process with three drawdowns to try.

September 2018 Meeting
(Thanks for the photos, Ken!)

The program for our September meeting was an extended show and tell in combination with members bringing their favorite textiles to show the group.
We also had a 50:50 sale of fiber-related things brought and bought by members.

Group

The photo above shows most of the people who attended our September meeting.
We welcomed several new people in addition to a good turnout of our current members.

5050

Above are some of the items members brought for the 50:50 sale.
We will have a silent auction (100% for the Guild) later in the year.


Lizz's favorite fiber is the mohair yarn she enjoys weaving with.		Sharon brought a beaded scarf she had knit over the summer.		Here is a closer look at the intricate pattern of beads at the ends of Sharon's scarf.

Jackie made this trick or treat bag for a Halloween trip to
Disney World with her daughter and grandson.

Jackie's favorite textile is this historic tulle embroidery sampler which was made by her great-grandmother in 1861.


This Hmong skirt is Melvenea's favorite textile piece. It is made of handspun indigo-dyed cotton, then decorated with batik, cross stitch and ribbon applique.		Melvenea has been experimenting with surface design. Her show and tell piece was a towel she wove and decorated with a gingko leaf stamp.


Jacque brought two favorite textiles: One was this rep weave table runner in desert colors.		This silk scarf is Jacque's other favorite. Look closely to appreciate how the weave patterns shift on it.

Jane's favorite textile was this threadwork sampler. It could be inspiration for a future workshop.

The basket above was a project Mary made in a workshop this summer On the right she is holding a quilt
which is a work-in-progress. She is making it for a one year-old.

Paula (on the left in both photos) with the help of Jeane (on the right) showed us both sides of the 8 block pattern
cotton coverlet she wove last summer.

Trio

Melvenea (in the center) led a workshop at Jackie's house on textile surface design.
In the photo above, Sue (on the left) and Margaret (on the right) showed us the scarves they had decorated
with freehand and stenciled wax batik in the workshop.

For show and tell Terry brought a red, white, blue and gray batt along with skeins of yarn she had spun with
fleece from Gotland Sheep (in the left side photo). She also showed us yarn she had spun
from a red, white, blue and gray batt (on the right).


Chris's "Fields of Clover" handspun yarn ran out before she was able to complete her project.		Marcia suggested that Chris could wear it as a scarf as in the photo above rather than having to tear out a lot of knitting and re-knitting it. The green doily is Chris's favorite textile. It was her grandmother's work.


Sherron's show and tell project was a tencel bird's eye twill shawl she wove using a kit from Halcyon.		Above is a closer look at the several different weave patterns in the shawl fabric.

Margaret wove this cute sample strip of carrots using rosepath weave pattern.
She promised us more vegetables (and fruits?) in the future.


Jamie, the owner of Spinnin' Yarns, brought a rug her husband had woven.		And she brought several colorful towels she had woven, including some using turned taquete weave.


In the photo above, Margaret is holding a photo of two stoles woven by a friend for the friend's brother who is a Deacon. Paula did some embroidery on the stoles.		Margaret won a blue ribbon at the Lake County Fair for this baby blanket she wove. She can add this year's blue ribbon to her collection of them :-).		More show and tell from Margaret: A scarf and fabric she wove using warps of painted tencel.


On the left is crimp cloth fabric just taken off the loom. On the upper left edge you can see loops of upholstery thread. If you look closely, you can see long floats of the thread on the surface of the fabric. The fabric on the right had the pull threads drawn tight, the fabric (with its orlon weft) was steamed and cooled, and the pull threads were removed to make the richly textured cloth.		Cindy is holding the very handsome scarf she created with the fabric shown in the photo on the left. Her drawdown in the background shows how to weave fabric that can undergo this amazing transformation.		Above is another example of a crimp cloth scarf. Cindy wove this on a striped cotton warp, using a weft of pull threads woven in twill with orlon plain weave. The hem on this scarf was woven without pull threads to give a different effect and show the warp colors.


In her effort to use up her stash, Margaret wove both a cotton runner at 18epi and yardage at 12epi. The latter will become something wearable before long.		Lizz wove this scarf with a variegated worsted wool/nylon blend warp and weft.


Jeanne wove six inkle bands out of hemp yarn in a workshop and combined them to make this seat for a folding stool.		Look closely at Kathy's wool rug to appreciate the optical effects of the weave patttern she used		Mary wove the fabric for her vest using a variegated yarn and two different log cabin weave patterns.


Our busy Newsletter Chair Chris found time to knit this shawl.		And she also knit these tiny sweaters for Christmas ornaments.