Some Projects from our Summer Weaving Study Group, Part One

Reno Fiber Guild and some CNCH guild members have been studying color-and-weave and shadow weave for the past five months.   I thought it would be nice to see the fruits of our labors over the summer. 

The first projects were woven by Karen W. from Foothill Fibers in Nevada County, CA.  These are a  series of color and weave towels. See what Karen says about her project.

My color and weave project was a set of kitchen towels inspired by the May/June 2023 Handwoven Mid-Century Modern Runner by Merriel Miller. This is a 7 shaft pattern which has repeats of the same color warp on the same shaft, and the weft in the same pick to give it strong definition. I wove it in 8/2 cotton in black and natural sett at 24 epi.

 

 This is towel number one.  As you can see the front and back of the towel are very different.

The original drafts that these towels were based on appeared in A Weaver's Book of 8 Shaft Patterns, edited by Carol Strickler on page 27.  If you compare the draft in the book with the draft above, you can see the double threads in the threading and treadling, giving a pronounced black bar in the cloth.

To try other variations, I put it into weaving software and varied the treadling.  Here is the next one I wove.

 

The third one I wanted to design using more prominent enclosed units, so I varied the treadling between the first 4 shafts and last 4 shafts, doing a double pick at each reversal in the treadling.
 

 

The additional double picks (every 4th pick) made an interesting pattern but also
made the hand not as soft.