This is an example of an 8 shaft woven shibori in Chenille. It is very effective.It’s always the most wonderful surprise when I open up the dyed shibori but I get so eager that I usually start doing it when it is wet. This isn’t a good idea. As it’s MUCH easier and SAFER to do it when it is completely dry. I know this because I cut a little hole in the woven fabric in my last tencel woven shiboris which effectively destroyed the whole textile in my view. I darned up the little hole but it would be impossible to sell or give as a gift.

I also experimented with wrapping up the fringe as you can see in the photo. This meant that the fringe stayed the original colour. All sorts of wrappings could be applied to fringes to make them interesting. In a handwoven textile the fringe is an area of embellishment which factory woven textiles neglect! It’s like our special signature.

The Online Weavers Spinners and Dyers Guild have recently completed a spinning workshop using the rare Bowmont fleeces.(See Leigh’s blog entry) Unfortunately for me, Australian Quarantine stopped my package, despite inquiries about regulations beforehand. But I didn’t miss out thanks to Beverley in the UK. She sent me a wonderful sample of spun and dyed yarn. I just had to send something in return so I crocheted an "itty bitty friendship bra". It was a cute way to show off the beauty of the fibres and Beverley’s dyeing.

The other two photos are more of my current work. Scarfs with ridges and wide plain weave selvedges. But sadly thats the end of nice photos for a while as my camera is broken. A compact flash card apparently slots into a pin system and I’ve bent them inside the camera, probably in my haste to get the tricky card in. These weaves are Tencel, silk and wool and are very luscious but have an incredible widthwise shrinkage. This means I have to weave wide to get quite narrow.

Tomorrow I start dyeing again for the next project and I’m using a few new Drimerene K colours. Like Brown! With each colour I make up a shade card using just 1gm of yarn and various strenghts to gauge colour potential. I’m finding that using the same range of colours repeatedly helps me to predict outcomes better. Dyeing makes weaving even more exciting.

The first drape is almost completed on the loom and weaving up well. Each of the three drapes will have a different patterning and there are silk rya knotted fringes within the textile at each end.

I’m using floating selvages which I’ve decided I don’t really like. They slow down the weaving process, but there isn’t much choice with a fabric like this one that doesn’t leave any spare shafts for a nice plain weave edging as I’m using all 24 shafts.

Keeping me really busy at the moment is learning more about peg plans for my compu-dobby loom and how The Woven Pixel can be manipulated in Photoshop and transferred to my weaving software, Fiberworks.
The Woven Pixel by Alice Schlein and Bhakti Ziek is a very impressive publication. It really hits the spot with weavers who are artists and Photoshop fans.I feel as though it has opened new doors in my mind and, as you can see, paths to better peg plans which are more fluid and painterly. Although the book is mainly aimed at Jacquard or TC-1 looms, I’ve found it inspiring for dobby loom application as well. I’m developing all sorts of abstract ways of getting peg plans from imagery. I think the authors are successful in unlocking Photoshop for weavers… showing me how to customise it as though it was especially developed for me and woven textiles.

PS Terri has some great pics of a trapeze in operation!