Today I’m going to attack my Toika loom, to complete winding the sectional warp with my AVL warping wheel using many segments that were handpainted. More later…

The neckline can be worn in several ways, ranging from a dramatic dropped shoulder with a collar or a draped cowl style neckline. There was no waste at all, as the two armhole pieces were made into a flower brooch which will be worn at the front when it is draped at the neckline. It looks far better on a human   than the static non moving dress form photographed.

I did a bit of Brooks bouquet on the weave which I really enjoyed. You can just see a piece on the front panel of the vest.

As I added this project to my list on Ravelry I had to name the work, which I did as ‘Divergent Thinking in Red’. This has come about because I’ve been reading about creativity and its value or lack of in our educational systems generally. Reading Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative and seeing Ken Robinson’s Youtube of his hypothesis here, I started to think more about how creative and ‘divergent’ weaving is. For me, it has sustained me in low and busy times in my life and also allowed me to become more educated about our world and history in nearly all areas of human interest. It has allowed me to peek modestly into what might be divergent thinking and imagine many ‘what-ifs’.

Wooldancer and EweGiveMetheKnits have given me the push with their friendly and inspiring blogs. Then co-incidently, as things do, the Online guild is hosting a blending workshop with Alison Daykin – Starts in February. They also recently hosted an Art Yarns course with Helen Melvin.

Interestingly, the style of weaving and techniques used in Saori often creates a texture and emotive response similar to handspun art yarn  but is created simply by a focus on fibre content and weave spontaneity alone. I’ve titled this post Art Yarns vs Weave Spontaneity which could imply some sort of decision, discussion or competition between the two, but this isn’t my intent at all. They are connected to each other and provide a greater palette for us to use in woven textiles. The weavers palette is more than colour alone - it includes the tactile, provided by structure, fibre and spontaneity as well. Aren’t we lucky.

There are so many new books out there on Spinning that I ordered the following for my birthday! The great  Abby Franquemont’s –  Respect the Spindle, and Jacey Boggs’s Spin Art: Mastering the Craft of Spinning Textured Yarn. Can’t wait for these ones. Keep Weaving.

Image courtesy of Australian Sheep and Wool Show Bendigo

I am so excited about confirming that I’m attending the Australian Sheep and Wool Show in Bendigo – July 20 -22.  I’ll be demonstrating weave and other magical fibery creations on the lovely Saori looms and hopefully meeting lots of fellow sheep interested people – knitters, spinners, crocheters, dyers, weavers and colour lovers.  And of course anyone interested in coffee. See the Woolcraft blog for the show here.

I know I’ll come home with bags of dyed sliver and hope I get an opportunity to see all the other demonstrators and exhibitors. It seems to me that the majority of fibre passionate crafters and artists come from Victoria. Even when I published the Curiousweaver journal, subscriptions from Victoria far surpassed all other states. It must have been an accident that I was born in NSW!

I basically cut out shapes and pinned them to myself. I made sure the squares which formed the front were on the bias to give a better drape. The pattern, surprisingly, became one that you can wear two ways.
Here is an image of the front and back of Designway One. Notice the knot like formations at the shoulder. I was trying to create a summer weight sleeveless design and this works well. Linen yarn may also work well as it is crisper for the summer look.
This is designway two which is equally as nice but more conventional in feel.

The warp was only 45 cms wide and the finished cloth 1.8 metres long.

I was given a most beautiful woven table runner for Christmas by a thoughtful friend who was saddened by my lack of newspapers cluttering the dining room table. Now they are all there in their woven beauty, albeit written in Indonesian. This type of ‘up-cycled’ ingenuity and creation of beauty is common in Indonesia and I can’t describe how beautiful it is. In contrast to this post on spinning the news, preparation of these newspaper wefts requires only rolling. This is how it is done. However just the right width of newspaper needs to be determined so it isn’t too heavy or too light. Colours in the newspaper peek through providing a quiet elegance. Achieved by random placement I suspect, as planning it all would make it too structured.

The other important design element lies in the threading of the loom. Easy to achieve on any 2 shaft loom, and more extended variations on more shafts,  it allows more of the newspaper to peek through when areas are threaded on the same shaft for a few threads. See the pattern. It’s a way of showcasing the weft.

Here is a similar type of thing without the weft showcase threading from Oxfam.

I’m going back to reading real newspapers. A weaver can always do with more wefts and real newspapers give of themselves twice. Once with depressing (I mean in the political sense) and stupid stories and secondly with woven beauty.

This upgraded loom is just like the SX60 but with additional features and improvements in an all wood frame.  It will retail for $1640.00. The WX60 shares all accessories with the SX60. Find out more details here.

As a unique and unusual introductory offer this loom is being offered to Australian customers for $1560.00 including delivery anywhere in Australia.  Offer ends 22 January. See here to order or inquire.

I’m pretty excited about this new loom and have some ordered for the studio as well. I dream about it being the catalyst for getting Australians to weave textiles…or even, more modestly,  knowing what a textile is beyond a tea towel.

I was struck by the beauty and colours in our frangipanis and thought this could be captured in a scarf with a yellow and grey random warp. I used a mix of tussah silk, spun silk, wool and cotton. As the warp was only 7 metres long I didn’t have any problems with tension at all, although I did cut off the first scarf and re connect for the second. This always helps with any lurking tension problems.

I wound a selection of colour mixes for the warp and interspersed a lovely Dairing yarn from Avril. I got this when I was in Melbourne in November. Unfortunately I was sick when I was there so couldn’t absorb the wonderful Dairing shop as much as I could have. For the neck wrapping segment of the scarf I used a wool/lycra singles which shrank up softly and differently from the rest of the scarf.

I’m really happy with the scarf and especially the tussah silk which has a crisp edge to it. More photos when both scarves from the warp are finished.

The techniques utilise a different part of the brain to traditional weaving and this is one of the many reasons I’m a weaver…I never stop learning and enjoying it.

My new studio is just about complete and it is wonderful. It is light and airy which I think helps to clear my mind when I’m working.

I’ve been weaving on one of the Saori looms which I warped up with purple and greens. The resulting cloth turned out well and I’m now shaping it into a top. It was a relaxing weave to get me in the mode for something more heavy duty on the Toika.

The Toika, as a now manual loom,  still isn’t up and balanced as I have to place a warp on it first – which is in progress. I still feel sick when I think of the high cost of the loom as a compu-dobby and now have to discard all my 24 shaft patterns and associated dreams with them.  Dreams have their issues -  I’ll look to contentment with what I have as a safer reality for 2012 and beyond.

On another note I’ll be offering the new SAORI WX60 folding loom with a great new year special discount to Australian customers in the next few days.