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.

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!

A visit to Cotswold Woollen Weavers

 We recently had a little holiday in the Cotswolds. We found this old weaving mill with museum, shop and café. It really is a delightful place to visit. The following photos were taken on my mobile phone camera, so do pop over to their website to see and find out more,

http://www.cotswoldwoollenweavers.co.uk/

 Being able to view some old looms close up was great. I particularly get excited when I see wonderful old wooden looms. This is a beauty, it is so lovely to get up close, wander around having the museum all to ourselves.

Here you can see the Woven Cloth on the Loom, a packed room of woolly weaving goodies!

Bobbin, Spools, Shuttles Galore! Fleeces, Wools, Cones, Baskets,
Spinning Wheels and all Woolly Weaving Paraphernalia! 

Close up view of the Warp Threads, Heddles, Reeds on the Loom.

Even the building itself is beautiful. We enjoyed lunch in the café before we had to head out on our journey home to catch our ferry to the Isle Of Wight
We like holidaying out of season and on weekdays it's an ideal time to relax and potter around.