Cast On, Warp of Possibility.

Back Roller Beamed

Winding a warp for my Saori Loom is always lots of fun. I love the way I can be completely free with my creativity. I selected some wool yarn from my stash and put them in a basket ready to make my warp. 

All the colours reminded me of happy days on the beach, looking closely at the rock pools, studying the sealife that lives in the warm shallows as the tide retreats.

It is a whole miniature world of beauty and mystery. When I started winding the warp I used "two threads in the hand" and mixed the different balls of yarn together in a random way. The hues and tones blended and became a gorgeous combination of woolly goodness!

Lease sticks for the cross

Warp ends on raddle, ready to thread heddles and sley reed

So now I have a Warp of Possibility!

It is completely unique. It awaits - calling me to come and weave.

My inspiration comes from those little rock pools, my next selection of yarn for the weaving will again be taken from my stash.

Just think all this is within my loom room a place to escape, imagine and smile fondly at happy memories to help me through the cold January days in Lockdown. 

 

Summer Colour in Cloth

                                               Our garden is full of colour and inspiration!

I am always influenced by the nature around me, summer colours start to feed into my woven cloth at this time of year.
This month I have been making vibrant cotton warps for the looms. It is a nice break from working in wool on the looms. (I'm busy spinning on the wheel in the garden, so there will be plenty of woolly projects later in the year).
However some people have allergies and do ask me if I weave and knit in cotton, so its always good to offer an alternative. Also in the summer months its great to work in cool cottons and linen.

 Hand weaving the Saori Way along with more tradition weaves of stripes and squares in gorgeous colourways.

 New cloth fresh from the loom.

Beautiful Summer Wraps/Shawls in soft cotton. The perfect "go to" accessory for the Season.

Muted Colour Inspiration

 A Sunrise on the south coast of the Isle of Wight- Ventnor.

 Steep Hill Cove Beach- Ventnor
Peddles, rocks and sea

Looking across to Ventnor Harbour

A seaside collection of driftwood

 The promise of Spring- Snowdrops

Muted Colour Inspiration

These wonderful colours were just singing out to me on a beautiful February day.

I'm drawn to the blues, greys, lavenders, the soft tangerine oranges and browns. Light is so precious in the winter days and to be bathed in the gentle winter sun absorbing the muted hues of the sky, sea and land is so inspiring.

I gather my yarns to plan a weave.

Solar Dyeing, Using the Sun to Natural Dye Wool in the Garden

 This is the first time I have had a go at Solar Dyeing some wool. It was so easy and great fun watching the colour deepen and very satisfying to achieve such a lovely sunshine colour from my garden.

The method to solar dyeing is so simple,
1st
Find a glass jar, this is an old coffee jar, make sure it is clean.
2nd
 Pick / gather fresh flowerheads, I chose calendulas and coreopsis from the garden, both are very good plants for natural dyeing.
3rd
Fill jar with very hot water, a pinch of alum, a pinch of cream of tartar, a pinch of soda ash (to mordent the wool). Add wool.

Leave jar in full Sun for about two weeks, turning and gently shaking every few days. I added a new flower bloom now and again too just for fun!

The Sun would warm the water each day and the dye colour deepened.

When I was happy with the colour I rinsed the contents of the jar in fresh cool water, removing the old flowerheads and leaving the wool out to dry.

Now I have a small sample of Shetland fleece ready to be carded and spun. I just know this will look amazing in some Saori weaving.

I'm now collecting glass jars so as I can have a full row of Colour Dyes made by the Sun in my garden next year.

Coat Jacket - Hand Woven On My Saori Loom

Making the cloth

Here you can see the warp and weft of the cloth on the loom as I weave the colours and textures together.

Woven cloth rolled on the beam.

Newly woven cloth cut straight from the loom and laid out. Can  you see the small slits in the fabric at intervals through the right hand side of the cloth. These are where I wove the collar shapings as I created the weaving. It means that there is less cutting to do when I sew the jacket together so giving me a neater finish. 

Cutting and Washing the Cloth

I always have to take a deep breathe here. Double check, measure twice, cut once.

Then all the pieces are washed to Full the Fabric and hung out to dry on a lovely sunny day.

SEWING A GARMENT

 A little bit of sewing and the Jacket all comes together!
I hand knitted the drop sleeves, the collar and front trim.

THIS JACKET WAS HAND WOVEN AND INCLUDES HANDPAINTED AND NATURALLY DYED YARN WITH SOME HANDSPUN SLUBS IN THE CLOTH.

IT HAS HAND KNITTED SLEEVES AND FRONT TRIM.

WOVEN IN THE SAORI WAY, BEAUTIFULLY SLOW CLOTH.

Weaving Part 2 -Woven Weft With Hand Spun Natural Dyed Wool

 Back in October last year, I blogged about the Warp of my weaving process. This post is about the next part of weaving to make the cloth.

 The Weft -This is the crosswise thread on my loom that passes over and under the warp to make the cloth.

For this particular project, "a small wall hanging", I chose some of my handspun wools which I had naturally dyed in my garden over the summer (please view earlier posts for this process).
A small selection of  Shetland, Jacob and Suffolk fleece were handspun on my wheel then dyed with various natural colour sources such as  woad, logwood, brazilwood and eucalyptus.

 The balls of wool always look so inspiring and beautiful together when naturally dyed.
I do a rough plan for how I want to weave the colours through, so as I develop a gradient flow of  colour in my work.

 The material is then wound on to either stick shuttles or my boat shuttles ready to weave the weft.

I love the rhythm of weaving, the absorbing nature of working with my hands and feet.

Slowly seeing the cloth grow and the colours blend together.

The thrill and satisfaction of taking a fresh fleece and spinning, dyeing and weaving it into something that is naturally beautiful.  

Year End, Year Begin

Here we are at the end of the year.
 Thank you to all for dipping into our blog, we hope you enjoy the posts and to all our customers for your support and purchases whether at our exhibitions or online shops.

Wishing everyone a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful 2019,

Warp Speed - Part One

 Warp - the threads stretched on the loom.
In this photo you can see the warp threads being loaded this is called dressing the loom.

On my Ashford rigid heddle loom I thread the warp directly on the loom using a free standing wood peg to hold all warp wraps. I thread each one through the heddle as I go. It's a great way of mixing and experimenting with warp stripes.  

 For my Saori Loom I like to make my own warps (even though you can purchase ready made warps for this make of loom). I enjoy  creating cloth that is totally unique with my own warp patterns, colour choices, yarn, widths and lengths.
 To do this I have a warping frame on which I make my warp first, before transferring it to the loom to be threaded up. It is a slower process but Slow Cloth is just that, it take time, weaving knowledge with purpose and love for the craft.

 Here is a close up of the warp threads. Each warp end is individually threaded in the reed.

 Here you can see the heddles are all threaded too. I'm ready to wind the warp on to the roller. I have a 6 metre length which is kept under a light tension as I slowly wind it on to the loom.

When all the length of the warp is on the roller, I adjust the loom until I'm happy with the evenness and tension of the warp.
Time to make cloth!

Ancient and Modern

Blue Woven Cloth

I have been busy weaving some cloth on my Saori Loom, enjoying the process, using my blues, purples and grey hued yarn to blend together in the warp and weft to make a soft subtle colourway. Adding handspun and hand dyed slubs as I weave to create texture and interest making my cloth unique.

My weaving has a modern twist, but the method of weaving cloth is an ancient craft.

My loom is a modern style, designed by  Misao Jo, but there are hundreds of different ways to weave and many different looms that have been made.

http://www.saorinomori.com/eng/index.html  

On a recent visit to Cardiff we spent an enjoyable morning looking around St Fagans Museum of Rural Life. It is a work in progress and well worth a visit, unfortunately the weaving mill wasn't open for our visit which was disappointing, but here is a loom set up in a Round House setting.

https://museum.wales/stfagans/

We were pleased to find while staying in the area the (forest and rivers) far Open Studios was on. So of course we had a little tour of galleries and studios, chatting to the artists and makers and being inspired by the work produced, particularly enjoyed spending some time with two lovely weavers.

Here are the links to their websites. Really beautiful work and it is so wonderful to see the energy, skill and enthusiasm of these talented young women. 

https://www.rhianwymandesign.co.uk/

  

https://www.gabydevitt.co.uk/

 Weaving from the Ancient to the Modern is an absorbing craft, the more I learn the more I want to learn, to improve and develop my skills. Hand weaving to make slow cloth - many hours, carefully made by hand and with thought and love.   

With the weather being so glorious Skipper and I just had to get on the River Wye again.
We hired a canoe for the day, took a picnic and made our way gently down the river around 14 miles of meandering bends and sparkling shallow shingle banks, watching the fish jump, herons sleep, swans and geese glide and seeing the hundreds of damselflies in countless colours dance above the water's surface.

Inspiring Colours

 There is plenty of colour inspiration at the Kaffe Fassett Exhibition currently running at

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/mottisfont/features/christmas-at-mottisfont

It was lovely to visit and absorb all these wonderful colours on a winter's day.

This year I have been immersing myself in colour whether it be "naturally dyeing yarns" from my own garden plants or using prepared dye pots, it has been really good fun and the more I learn about the process the more I want to increase that knowledge.

And so back to my own Exhibition "Christmas Crafts at Quarr Abbey" It was another lovely week, the weather was sunny, crisp and very cold which was great for my sales! Hats, Hand Warmers and Scarves were my top sellers this year with some customers requesting " no need to wrap them I'll wear them now" which was very pleasing.  

Now we are in December already and the year has flown by. I think of all the places we have visited this year, the beautiful gardens and rivers and landscapes on the mainland in Devon, Herefordshire and Wales. Historical Castles, Houses, cities and towns all with little details that inspire- giving food for thought and of course our very own little Isle Of Wight's Downs and Beaches especially on a clear sunny day with the sea and sky so blue and the land so green. I have taken so many photos this year and gathered oodles of  inspirational ideas.

 I try to choose yarns and textures in my hand knitting and hand weaving to give a natural ease and simplicity to my work- following Nature's lead.

 Below photo shows some Hand Painted Rolags in the steamer.
These will be Handspun into soft gentle colourways.

 Here are some rolled up Hand Woven Light Weight Fashion Scarves

 The photo above I will use to plan a new design.
The photo below is of a length of cloth woven on my Saori Loom.

Looking forward to 2018

It will be the start of my 8th year writing my blog and I feel it is time for a bit of an update and re-design. I will be trying out a new layout and want to bring you more Casting on and Casting off Adventures on Wool and Water.

I hope you will pop back soon.

Wishing you all a Very Happy and Peaceful Christmas and New Year.