Enjoying My Weaving Time

My classes are over until January, and I am enjoying some weaving time.  I have also put up the small Christmas trees I bought on sale last year.  I had been looking for something to frame the front door and was deciding on these trees.  When I checked them at the store, they had dropped in price and so I bought two for the doorway.  

I took them out last week and added red balls and some green holly leaves...they already had lights. I like the look of them at the front door.

Front door for Christmas

As I said, my weaving time has been productivel.  I finished the towel warp and I have six towels and some samples for the notebook.  I am in the process of hemming them now and I can't wait to see how they will look after they are washed.  

Finished fabric on the cloth beam

A pile of finished towels

When I took the towels off the Baby Wolf, I put on the scarf I designed from the Pont du Gard pictures.  I like the colors from the stone and lichen and I love the memory of being there.

While everyone was taking pictures of the wonderful aqueduct  I was taking close-up pictures of the stone and the lichen growing on it.  I also loved the graffiti ..there was the original 2000 year old numbering system the Romans had used so that the masons could fit the pieces together. And the marks left from the many masons that visited the site through the middle ages.  I guess when you were made a "Master" you traveled to visit the great sites, then signed your name...or your mark if you couldn't read, to show that you had been there.

Yes, I did take pictures of me there, too.

Here is the scarf after weaving.   I had threaded it correctly with the twill block changes in the center of the color stripe, but the first time I wove it, I didn't change the pattern in the right area.  Here you can see the pattern when the block changes at the same place as  the color.

Now here is the redone pattern with the block change happening in the middle of the color change.

I am very pleased with this pattern.  Two block twill patterns are found in many of the books, but this design with the color changing in the middle of the block is one I found in Sharon Alderman's book "Mastering Weave Structures."  

Because of the splicing I am doing at each color change, I am only weaving 26 inches an hour.  On the second scarf, I will have to see if I can be happy with a quicker color change method.

My teaching at Pioneer Craft House is doing pretty good.  The classes last quarter filled nicely.

I have been having fun going through the old textiles there.  I have been washing and hemming some of them to use for class examples, to decorate the Weaving Studio there and just to look at the craftsmanship of them.   

A few of the woven pieces have labels in them and I recognize some of the weaver's name from reading old "Handweaver and Craftsman" magazines.  But check out this table cloth.  I don't think it is handwoven, but the workmanship is wonderful.

This piece has stitchery in the center section and pulled thread work on the side pieces.  I really love the seams...some of them are functional where two fabrics were joined, but some are just decorative to balance the pattern...

Here's a closer shot of the pulled thread work.  I believe the piece is linen, and there is also a slightly smaller one done very much the same.  Were they done by the same person, and when were they done.  I wish there was some information about the textiles, but unfortunately over the years it was all lost.  But I think most of them are from the 1930's and 1940's.