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.

Home and Nurture

Being home has had its blessings. I made a decision to use the weeks to nurture home life and do all those projects that have been on my list. Probably like most folk I set to, sorting and cleaning and Skipper got a few DIY and painting chores done. What has been much more fun however has been delving into my weaving, spinning and handknitting for our own home

Also the garden has my full attention, over these past weeks and months the greenhouse is full of seedlings, the raised beds planted up with salad and veg as well as my annual flowers for natural dyeing of my wools. Happy days spent in the garden with the spinning wheel working through my stash of fleeces. While Skipper has been busy in his workshop wood turning I have been in my workroom busy weaving. 

A project that has been waiting for some years! I bought the wool, stored it thinking to make a throw/ blanket on my Saori loom knowing that I would have to weave it in panels and sew together due to the loom's width. Now I have the David loom I was able to weave it in one piece.

Checks and Stripes, simple plain weave. A warm, snuggly blanket with red detailing.

A piece of cloth in a twill pattern, woven free style. I will make cushions and a runner from this piece.

Using the same warp as the previous free style weaving-having dressed the loom with over 8 metres so as I could do both projects from the same warp. I then "opened the sett" which entails re threading the reed for a wider cloth. Then I changed the treadle tie up from twill, back to plain weave and using a different colour palette wove this small throw.

And my loom has got a little top runner to protect and decorate. A Rosepath design on cotton and linen.

It has been such fun to make some items for our home. Giving our home a hug as it takes care of us.

While I will have to wait until I can re start my weaving workshops and there are no craft events or outlets open on the Island to sell our work for some time. I will continue to weave, spin and knit supplying our online shops with new stocks of goodness for you and your home to purchase.

Thank you to our customers for keeping us going.

Keep well and keep safe

A Celebration Of Wool

UPDATE, THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

Just to let you know of my next Event at Quarr Abbey.
I'm very excited to be taking part in this new event and it will be so nice to be exhibiting at Quarr in early Spring time for a change.
If you are on the Island we hope to see you there.

Meanwhile we will be busy in our home studio making new items to sell through our online shops

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.

Weaving on the David 2 Loom

 My first blog post for 2020 is the very first weaving I made on my new David 2 Loom.
It was hand woven back in October last year, now as promised you can see the loom all dressed and producing cloth.

I used a linen cotton blend from Rowan for this first weaving something that is easy to warp up with. I wanted to avoid any problems such as broken warps or sticky threads so this was a perfect choice while I got to know my lovely new loom. I dressed the loom with a 5 metre warp a pattern of 3 wide stripes 120 ends.

 On the warping frame, then chained off ready to use

 The David 2 Loom is dressed from the back to the front, using lease sticks and the built in raddle.
So simple and very satisfying to do, it was easy to load 5 metres of warp on to the loom without assistance.

 In these two photos you can see the raddle at the top separating the warp threads and spreading them out to the correct width. In the bottom photo you can see the lease sticks holding the cross for ease of heddle threading in the correct order.

  The warp is rolled onto the back roller of the loom, I use strong paper to wind it up with, this keeps the warp threads neat and tight.

 I thread the heddles

 I sley the reed

 Then I was ready to weave, the David 2 Loom offers a beautiful wide shed to throw the shuttle and weave the weft.

 I wove this project in Plain Weave or Tabby, the tie up only uses two treadles.
I wanted to just understand and get the feel for the loom as well as produce something beautifully simple from the exercise. Having three colours of equal width across the warp and weaving a border at either end of the runner gave me an interest of design I was looking for.

 The grand first cutting the cloth off the loom was so special! Once washed my new table runner and two mats look and feel pretty good for a first project off the loom.

The whole process was brilliant, I know I made the right decision in choosing this particular make of loom. David and I are going to get on very well indeed.

Grow Colour, Dye, Spin, Weave, Handknit.

                                                              Our Garden in Summer.


The end of 2019 already, my that was a fast year! Got a lot done, but still have so much more to do. Wintertime is always a bit of a struggle for me, cold, grey days wet, windy not my idea of fun. But I understand that Nature needs to rest and nourish herself to come back strong and fit.
 I love sunny warm days, blue skies and a happy sailing breeze. I look forward to the days getting longer and lighter.

However the winter days mean;
 I can start to plan next year's garden.
 I can get spinning the fleeces into skeins of gorgeous woolliness in preparation for natural dyeing from my garden plants.
I can sit at my looms weaving in colour, texture and joy to my cloth.
I can sit in front of a roaring fire knitting next year's stock of handwarmers, cowl and socks.

So as this year comes to an end and we start a new decade, I hope you will pop in and enjoy reading my blog. I will be updating its look, so please bear with me.

2020 will be exciting, I have plenty of posts to share.

A big thank you to all our customers, thank you for making Woollen Tree grow from strength to strength.
Wishing you all a Happy Healthy New Year!