Ally 

Linen ikat with marigold, iron, and very faint Myrobalan

My latest ikat project let me practice some of the skills from the Natural Dye Workshop and get to know my newest loom. The ikat project I measured out 4 yards of linen warp and prepped it for dyeing.

The piece is made from natural linen. I used myrobalan as a tannin, dyed it with marigold (the yellow part), and then overdyed with iron. The marigold turned brown with the addition of iron. The myrobalan tannin faintly reacted to the iron, but much of the color difference disappeared after wet finishing.

It was a practice piece to get to know my “new” loom and to experiment with natural dyes and ikat. So mostly it was for experimentation, but I’ll probably sew something with it at some point.

Gudrun 

Kumihimo braid key fobs

These key fobs are a collection of braids in various colors and techniques, mostly cotton, some silk.

Can you spot the Lady Bug pattern, the blue-yellow flowers on a vine?

Most of them are Japanese Kongo Gumi braids made on a Kumihimo disk. The red, yellow, turquoise spirals have the nickname Laramie Braid and are derived from European straw-plaiting.

Barbara 

Quick update on three new exhibits that I want to share with you in a timely manner.
Pulp: Book and Paper Arts will feature my Faulty Towers: Night and Day, a plaited paper
sculptural pair made of shredded artist prints. Inspired by the SF Millennium Tower that is
sinking on its foundation, this work also refers to the many things that are faulty in our society today. If you look closely, you can see the faces of little children. It is for their sake that we need to fix our world. My work is featured on the postcard and on the website.
https://www.sebarts.org/exhibits The exhibit at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts runs from July 30 – September 4, 2022. This work just won first prize in the exhibit at the opening July 30th. Nice surprise for me.

Faulty Towers: Night and Day, 2020, plaited shredded artist prints.

Traditions Evolve is sponsored by the Northern California Chapter of Surface Design and will include a sculptural basket from my newest series Welcome Pineapple 236. The exotic
pineapple was a symbol of welcome in wealthy homes in Europe and the Colonies. My work acknowledges the human capital of colonization that made the display of this luscious fruit possible. The form is built with 236 plaited cane flower knots on a hemp leaf plaited base.

Welcome Pineapple 236, 2022, flower knot plaiting in dyed cane on a hemp leaf plaited base, twined top pieces

The exhibit will soon be available on the Surface Design website.https://www.surfacedesign.org/events-exhibits/exhibits/
Every 1 is an inclusive exhibit sponsored by the National Basketry Organization.

My Welcome Pineapple 236 will also be featured here. You can view it online at the NBO website after the opening reveal at NBO’s conference Virtually Woven 2022: Crossing Boundaries July 28 to 30, 2022. The exhibit will remain online until December 31, 2022, and it includes a large collection of the best of contemporary and traditional basketry being made today, one piece by each artist. It is worth taking time to peruse this site! https://nationalbasketry.org

I wish you all good health and much joy as you navigate the rest of summer 2022.—

Barbara

Archana 

Working on CNCH workshop project, Falling Stars pattern. I had a false start but on track
now.

Falling Stars pattern on the loom

Archana

Ange 

I’ve been wanting to try some rug weaving, so when my darling husband declared we needed a rug of a certain size and material, I browsed the library looking for inspiration and guidance. I settled on A Rug Weaver’s Sourcebook,  edited by Linda Ligon, and following directions in the book, wove this rep rug. I used 8/4 poly cotton rug warp sett at 30 EPI with 4 strands of mop cotton as the thick weft.  Those of you who have talked weaving with me recently are aware of the many issues I’ve had with it, but I’ve learned a lot and I love the rug. The book is a “compilation of weaving techniques”, and is more of a how-to book than a book of projects, and covers a number of techniques, with a lot of focus on weft faced and rag rugs. Especially helpful was advice on how to keep your loom from walking across the room! I want to try the card woven edges on my next rug; the appendix article by Martha Stanley clearly explains how it’s done; I’ve watched Gudrun demo this, but have not yet tried it myself.

— Ange Mirer, Guild Librarian

Sarah:

Upcycled cotton thrums and blended with wool and spun for a second life.

Kathleen:

Weaving with cotton knit rag coils from Great Northern Weaving

Allison:

The Natural Dye Workshop from Maiwa School of Textiles wraps up this week. I spent the past 2+ months creating nearly 200 unique dye and fiber samples. Such an incredible class!

Double Ikat sampler made with 5/2 Perle cotton and dyed with indigo and madder. For more information, visit my blog. https://www.allykraus.com/blog/

We’ve got a lot of show and tell this month. Make sure to scroll all the way to the bottom so you don’t miss anything!

John: 

Our friend Melanie Fuller passed away earlier this year, quite unexpectedly. On her floor loom she left an unfinished blanket for her new granddaughter. A family friend reached out to the guild to see if the blanket could be finished. I volunteered for the task and recently completed it. The family is very happy with the blanket and with the sense of closure.

Barbie:

This square ribbed basket is based on traditional Appalachian basket designs handed down over generations. The basket has an extra detail along the top of the handle which was a lot of fun to weave and easier than it looks. It took just about all of the 10 hours that the teachers predicted. It was a lot of fun to weave and a basket that I’ll enjoy for years.

Jodi:

My ikat scarf from Mary Zicafoose’s Shifted Warp Ikat at CNCH. Warp is 10/2 tencel that we measured, tied resist wraps & dyed in class before warping the loom & learning shifting techniques; weft & stripes are Bambu 12 from Cotton Clouds.

Johanna:

 

 

Ulla:

Jodi:

These are pins/pendants (the larger pieces have a bail on the back to accommodate a leather or satin cord) made from both woven and sashiko fabric. They range from 1” – 2.5”. The fabric is mounted on a small piece of wood that fits into the hoop frame and then covered with a matching size wood before the pin back is attached.

Johanna:

Huck lace tunic in white made of 8/2 cottolin.  It is a Robin Spady pattern from Heddlecraft Magazine. It was woven on my 8 shaft AVL loom. I made it using a Simplicity pattern.

Gudrun: Twill Blocks

Terry:

Crochet Temperature Blanket for 2022. For each day of 2022 I am crocheting a granny square with the center color representing the high temperature of the day.

Ann M:

Ange:

These are two card woven mask lanyards. I used 20 cards of 10/2 cotton in black, charcoal, natural, and white, then sewed the bands to lobster clips to attach to mask. The patterns are in John Mullarkey’s monograph  Tablet Weaving: Egyptian Diagonals.

Barbie:

My project is an experiment with collapse weave. In this structure, two different fibers in the warp react differently to wet finishing. The black warp threads shrank and the brightly colored cotton threads did not. This gave me wonderful bumps. The degree of agitation and the water temperature affect the degree of shrinkage of the wool parts. The bumpy texture of the cotton areas emphasizes any iridescence that might come into play between the complementary colors of the warp and weft threads.

Diana:

My project is a set of placemats from a kit I purchased from Halcyon Yarns several years ago called Peaceful Harbor Placemats. They are plain weave with a warp set of 10 EPI, and a warp length of 3 1/2 yards to make 4 placemats. There are three different variegated and solid color yarn’s, a heavy weight, medium weight and light weight alternating throughout both the weft and warp. It’s woven on a Schact Flip rigid heddle loom.

Leela:

I made some valentines Kuhimino bracelets for a couple in my apartment complex. One is made of hemp, and the other is made of assorted yarn from my stash.

Teddie:

Huck lace runners.

Archana: 

6th and final towel on the warp on the loom.

Barbara S:

Fantom Boats, inspired by our view of ships in the fog that we see on the SF Bay. I wove the
stiff silk kibisu yarn into a long panel in 2020, and later cut it up to create these sculptures. The fabric is almost stiff enough to stand on its own. Each boat has a speckled Japanese paper-covered cardboard deck. Each one is about 16”L X 14”H x 4 to 6”D. Lots of fun to make these.

Betsy:

Peach-colored, huck placemat made from a draft by Madelyn van der Hoogt. The green/yellow tea towel is made with 3/2 mercerized cotton using a draft from Handwoven. The yarn was dyed at Creative Endeavors.

Gail:

Gloria:

These are towels woven in a modified Huck Lace with a natural 8/2 cotton warp and woven in 8/2 cotton in colors. Towel with natural weft was woven with hemp.

Gudrun:

This is a collection of scarves woven in Deflected Double Weave. The pleasure of this  structure is that the weaving has two very different sides, possibly different colors, or circles on side, squares on the other, horizontal stripes vs vertical stripes. Any kind of  yarn can be combined, wool, silk, tencel, cotton. Check your stash.

Jane:

My latest art installation titled “In Deep Water” is featured now in a new publication Arte Morbida published in Italian and English.  It is a magazine focused on contemporary textile arts, and it has many interesting articles for weavers and other textile artists and should be of interest to Black Sheep Handweavers Guild Members. The news about my exhibition in Sonoma through Feb. 23, is at this link, and from this people can also look at the whole website for Artemorbida. https://www.artemorbida.com/in-deep-water-jane-ingram-allen-and-jami-taback/?lang=en

John:

This is my first chenille project and my first try at a log cabin draft. I didn’t realize that the red yarn was twice as thick as the black yarn until after I had wound the warp. Dottie Calabrese helped me recover from this mistake and I made two decent scarves.

Sharolene:

Knitted sweater. This is a sweater that Brenda of Pans Garden dyed for me from 1 handspun strand of alpaca and one from a soft wool. I spun the yarn for it at about a dk to fingering weight yarn. The pattern is Sarah Swett’s Magic Medium Sweater. The color inspiration was from the color of a sky at sunset. I think she interpreted that very well.  A big shout out to Brenda, a fantastic local master dyer.

Stefanie:

These are dish towels for my daughter, I wanted to make it an American theme.

Ange: Ikat Scarves

I dyed 20/2 natural colored cotton with black procion dye for a random
ikat pattern. I’m not sure what went wrong with the dye process but I
got dark navy instead of black. I wove both scarves in a birds eye
twill; one is woven with yarn dyed with the weft, and the other is
commercially dyed cotton. It’s hard to tell from the photos, but the
one with the black weft shows the blue delightfully leaking into the
white areas.

Ange: Spun Paper

TIssue paper sewing patterns spun then plied with red silk singles; the knitted sample held up to hand washing. I learned how to do this in a 2021 SOAR class with Judith MacKenzie.

Ulla: Margit’s Flower Yarns, 23×30″, Linen, Cotton, 2021