Blue Wrap

My latest creation is this wrap in bamboo with panels of dark blue Bronson lace in slub cotton.

The main warp is bamboo and it took quite a while to decide what to add to it to make it interesting.  On its own it was not quite wide enough for a wrap and also I felt it looked quite flat and bland even though it is multi-hued.  At Festival I found some nice dark blue slubby cotton on the DEA stall. I intend it for another use but stole a bit off the cone to make the lace stripes and even used it for the weft. I'm very satisfied with the look of the result.  It is quite light and drapes well.  I'm not too sure about the bamboo though.  It seems to crease quite readily and I suspect it might pill.  Time will tell.

The Long and Short of It

This is one result of a short investigation into shrinkage and wrinkleage.  A new book 'Magic Materials to Weave' by Lotte Dalgaard covers cruel and unusual punishments to make perfectly beautiful fabric into wrinkled and distorted caricatures of itself. Some methods use yarns with differential shrinkage and others, as here, include 'kinky' yarns that behave differently when washed.  I think I am over it now.  I really love perfectly smooth merino fabric.

Today I would have had a wrap off the loom if it wasn't for phone calls, visitors and a visit to the opera . . . Rigoletta from the New York Met, set in Las Vegas in 1960. A perfect setting for the story but I would really like to see it set 400 years earlier. Some fabulous singing from people I've never heard of. The music will still be going round in my head when I'm weaving tomorrow.

Festival 2013

Just back from having a great time at Festival. Stayed in a house with 10 other people where we were very comfortable. 

Here are the three pieces I had accepted for the exhibition.

 I was pleased with the way my fabric was hung - in fact all the fabrics were well displayed.

The long linen runner earned me a Merit certificate from the Linen Trust.

This one is shorter and is a mixture of linen and cotton. Both were displayed flat, which was nice as several table pieces, of necessity, had to be hung on a wall . . . one of the problems of exhibiting in a gallery.  On the whole the exhibition was great - only one or two things I would have displayed differently.