Summer Sage Weavers Meeting

Weaving can be a solitary endeavor, but weavers are always eager to join with other like-minded artisans to share what they have been doing and talk about their passion.  It has been so good to get back in the social swing of things for members of Reno Fiber Guild.  We met at the South Valleys Library this past weekend for a couple of hours of show and tell and exchanges of ideas and information.  Since there were so many great handwovens shared at our meeting, the blog posts have been divided into smaller bites.  Watch for the next post in a few days.

Jochen D. shared this throw that was woven on his new AVL K Series loom.  The profile draft that Jochen used is from the book "Keep Me Warm One Night"  Should you be so lucky and own this book, it is Profile #419.  

Jochen also wove a whole series of mohair scarves on his four shaft counter-balance loom.  These are plain weave, using an off white loopy mohair for the warp and different colors and fibers in the weft.   

Would you like to weave some of your own?  Jochen shared his details with us. The threading is a straight draw on four shafts.  The sett is 8 epi. and sleyed in an 8 dent reed.  Sley two in the first dent, then 1 per dent for 16 dents.  Skip 10 dents and repeat ending again with 2 ends in the last dent.  His scarves were a total of 80 ends and he wove them at 6 to 8 ppi.  To finish the scarves, wash by hand in warm water or put in the hand wash cycle of your washing machine.  Put in the dryer for 10 minutes (I would check frequently to see what is happening).  After that, let them dry completely on a rod.

Jochen's warp was 25 yards long and since he wove with many different colored wefts, he has a large variety to choose from.  See Jochen's ad on the main blog page (right side).  Jochen gives weaving lessons and starts his students weaving with mohair.  He also sells his handwovens.

A Visit with Jochen Ditterich at Sage Weavers

 

 Sage Weavers was a week later than usual this month so that we could spend  time with Jochen Ditterich who was in town visiting his son.  Jochen has been teaching weaving for many years and was recognized this year by Handwoven as one of their two handweaving teachers of the year.



 Jochen showed us a rug he wove for his son when he received his PhD.  The technique he used is called shaft switching and it allowed him to get the involved pictorial image of his son bicycling.  Unfortunately, the dog made his mark on the rug - but otherwise it has stood the test of time well.

Jochen tells us he has many hundreds of pounds of wool in his studio and from the video show we watched, he wasn't exaggerating.  In order to weave the basketweave rug shown above, he combined several ends of slightly different colored yarn.  This gives the rug a much more interesting color effect than using just one color.



Here is an airy scarf woven in silk using bead leno as the weaving technique.  Note the nice little picot edging along the scarf.

 

Another sumptuous piece - this time a shawl woven in cashmere.

 

And, then on to Jochen's standby scarves - rayon chenille warp and weft.  No two are the same and there are usually many different warp colors in each scarf

A friend made this jacket using 8 of Jochen's chenille scarves.  A real luxury piece.

We enjoyed the afternoon talking and sharing with Jochen and hope that he will let us know when he is in Reno again so that we can get together again.  We had hoped he would be moving to Reno, but he tells us not now.  He has too many looms and too much yarn to move.   I guess most of us can identify with his dilemma.

 

Read more about Jochen here at his website and take a look at this video made by a friend of him in his home studio in Grand Rapids, MI.  https://youtu.be/lsVmPkKN1vQ