Cloth Beams and a Warp Beam

What struck me this morning when I walked in was the fabric on all of the cloth beams. Linda'a towels, Marilyns towels, Joyselyn's shawl's, Bonnie's fabric for tops, Pat's rugs on the barn loom, Pauls rug's on the Studio loom, Laura's towels on the small Macomber, Susan's fabric for bowl cozy's, and Ruth's towels.

I caught Patty just in time as she was cutting a wrap off of her loom and then she modeled it for us.

Karin too cut a scarf off of her loom!

Just before lunch I saw Paul and Pat cutting strips for Pauls next rug, and Patty and Marie were putting a new warp on Patty's loom.

Time for Show and Tell! Pat brought in a beautiful linen mat that she had woven, Liz brought in 2 baby blankets that she had finished and is ready to hem them.

Once again Mark is back on Campus, with something to show! He wove a rug for his Sister, we all said that we were sisters!

While all of this was going on Betsy and I restrung the cords on the large Macomber. The strings on the second beam seem to be in good shape, but the first beam needed the attention. We added a few eye bolts to the back beam and ran a metal rod through them. This seemed a whole lot easier than the original system!

That is all for today, see you next week, Tina for all

A Special Visitor

The word went out several weeks ago that today we would be taking a Christmas picture to update the blog photo. It was mentioned several times and I think that by looking at the new photo you can tell that we really did get into the spirit this year and that we had a special visitor that came by around lunch time. There are several rug looms in operation in the studio. Pat is on the huge barn loom and she is making rugs with random stripes. Paul is making rugs with a single weft color on the Hollywood warp.

There were a couple of warps that came off of the looms as well. Betsy cut off her bath towel warp and Diana cut off her placemat warp.

Jenny has wound her warp on the back beam and I told her she could now take the raddle off of the loom. (I'm not sure she believed me)

Liz is weaving with the cloth strips she was cutting last week.

Patty has made progress on the shawl warp she started last week.

Marilyn and Lou Ann were working on their looms, the patterns on their towels are similar, but the colors are different.

Just before lunch the door opened and who should appear...... bringing laughter and cheer, our very own Santa!

For Show and Tell there was the handspun wool fabric that we had recieved a couple of months ago. It needed to be disassembled and washed. Pat took care of that for us and it looks really! Jenny brought in some lavendar filled sachet that she had made from handwoven fabric.

That is all for today, see you next week, Tina for all

Cold Day and a Long Warp

Months ago Laura finished the long black warp on the Norwood loom, and it has been waiting for a new warp for ages! Now that the show is over and Thanksgiving is behind us we are going to get busy and do it.

We like to use long warps for our signature "Ellens Pattern" placemats and runners, and for long warps we need looms that have sectional warping racks built in. We usually have a loom with a white warp and one with a black warp, this time we decided to do a navy warp. Dana will be weaving on this warp and she has selected a group of colors that is going to be so cool! The navy is more true on the loom pictures than it is in the box picture. By lunch time we had 5 sections warped with 40 yards, and only 3 more sections to do after lunch. By the time I left at 2:30pm I had threaded the heddles. It is now ready for Dana to sley the reed and tie on next week.

Liz is working on weft strips for placemats. She has taken a length of fabric and made a tube out of it, now she is cutting around and around the tube to make a one long strip of fabric.

Time for Show and Tell! Joanna brought in some placemats she made especially for her oval dining room table.

Marilyn did some keychains using the Krokbrag method on her inkle loom! It is sheeps! I was so focused on the cute little sheep I didn't notice my little sister Amy in the background!

I finished another skein this last week, BFL spun in a fractal manner, low twist single and high twist ply.

That is all for today, until next week, Tina for all!

A Gray Rainy Day in the Studio

We are so glad to have a rainy day! It is a great excuse to be inside doing all the things we like to do of course, but it will also help extinguish some troubling wildfires that have been popping up all over the Southeast this last week! I was late getting to the center today, and when I walked in there were tiny conferences going on all over the place! Patty was talking to Phyllis, Jenny was bringing in tubs from Carols car and they were talking about what we were going to do with all this fabric and stuff, Shannon was talking with Betsy about something, but in all that confusion Diana was working patiently on her table loom.

Carol was then helping Bella with the first steps of putting a warp on the loom, while a new student looks on.

Dana is choosing colors to weave on a Navy warp. (Next week we will get that loom warped using the sectional warping method.)

Patty is working with boucle and eyelash yarn on this shawl warp!

Here is another shot of Shannon and Jenny going through tubs of stuff!

Time for Show and tell! Shannon swears that this is not the same towels she showed and told the last 2 weeks! You know how you learn something new everytime you weave on a new loom? Shannon learned that she just couldn't beat the yarn in well enough on this warp using a rigid heddle.

Jenny brought in the warp that she finished weaving last week and some handspun yarn.

I also had show and tell, this week I finished spinning a fleece! I ended up with 2 lbs of bouncy squishy light worsted yarn from a Finn sheep. I had bought the fleece at Maryland Sheep and Wool in 2018! I bought it because it was so cheap! It was so cheap because it was the filthiest fleece in the whole room! Doesn't scare me!!!! It has been a quest of mine this year to spin thicker softer bouncier yarn, partially because the yarn feels so good but mostly to use up more of the fleeces that I have in my studio more quickly! This is only 2 of the skeins...

that is all for today, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Tina for all!

Lots of Finished Warps (and other things)

Shirley is busy threading a towel project on her loom. I caught sight of the inspiration pictures and I just had to show you!

Shannon is continuing with her red and white towels that were so popular that they sold before the show! She had finished a set last Tuesday afternoon after I left and she is back at it again today!

Joycelyn is working on a shawl, and finding it challenging to keep her concentration in this busy studio!

Linda has finished several towels and was asking me what colors I thought she should use. I asked her what she had used before and she proceeded to unroll what was on her cloth beam so that we could see the colors that she had already used.

Now, on to the warps that are coming to the end. Betsy is on her final beach towel.

Jenny has finished the 14 yard placemat/runner warp I put on ages ago! Thank you Jenny!

After lunch we enjoyed a cake that Patty had brought in to celebrate her Birthday.

Barbara brought in some scarves she had finished on a bamboo warp. One of them she wove with cotton and the other one with bamboo. She was really pleased with how and accidental shifting of the warp threads caused a perfect stripe in the scarf all the way down.

Dana brought in the last towels she will be weaving on a rigid heddle, because she has a floor loom!!!!!

Mark wove a scarf for his son this week, he had put a stripe of a different yarn on the side of this one to make sure it would be wide enough.

Patty put a mixed warp on her loom at home, using up a lot of bobbins in a lot of different colors. She wove a variety of twills and plain weave. It was astonishing what a single warp can be just by changing those two things and then adding in colors. She emptied all of her bobbins!

Shannon rounded out her week by making a backpack with a subtle Winnie the Pooh theme. There is honeycomb fabric and bee fabric and a sweet button of Pooh!

That wraps it up for today, until next week, Tina for all