Yarn and What we do with It!

Marie had ordered some 8/2 cotton last week and true to form it had arrived during the week and Marie had it in her car. Dana brought it in and they set to work making sure that the order was correct and planning to put the yarn on the shelf right away. Only thing is several of the weavers began picking up cones from the island in the kitchen for their next projects, before you know it there was very little 8/2 cotton to put on the shelf after all!

I caught Phyllis on her way back to her loom with a handfull of wound bobbins for her project. I followed her back to her loom to get a picture of how the yarnie goodness in her hands works together with the yarn of the warp to make her fabric.

Jenny is winding on a new project this week and her plan is hand painted warp and weft. She will be making fabric for garments in plainweave so that the mix of the hand dyed colors can do the talking!

Marilyn and Cathy are having a good laugh as Cathy and Patty are putting on Cathy's new mug rug warp.

Susan #3 was very close to finishing her fabric this morning and by the end of the day she had cut it off the loom!

Liz had threaded her handtowel project in a difficult 12 shaft pattern that never actually looked like she wanted it to, so today she tried a different treadling that as it turns out she likes even better than the original!

One of our new weavers, Wendy had come to the end of her project and she will be hem stitching her project at home this week!

Now it is time for show and tell! Rhonda brought in a couple of pieces she has finished at home. One is either a short scarf or a table runner, and the other is a piece of fabric that we think could make a stunning top by turning the cool stripes in a couple of different directions.

Betsy is on a mission! She is weaving baby blankets for all of her children, Nieces and Nephews! This is an onging project and a labor of love!

Laura has made the cutest little hat! The only problem is that it is a little too little!

Alice brought in a book she has recently picked up on bandweaving.

I have some show and tell as well! In 2018 I was at Maryland Sheep and Wool and I bought a very dirty Finnsheep fleece for not very much. I washed it fairly quickly after I got it home, then I combed it and handspun it to keep it soft and bouncy. I last year I got up the nerve to dye the yarn using a wool tincture to make it blue of course! Then I found a pattern I wanted to make and November 4th 2025 I began to knit. I finished the sweater a couple of weeks ago and ordered some lovely buttons to complete it. I sewed the buttons on yesterday so that I could bring it in for show and tell today. 8 years almost to the day of when I bought the fleece, I have a finished sweater and enough yarn still to make a vest as well! Now I call that slow cloth!

That is all of the fun for today, come back next week to see what we get into! Until then this is Tina, for all!

Two Weeks in One!

I have a few pictures from last week that I am going to slide into this weeks post. Last week there were many weavers that were out of town, seems like this week they have all come back and we are once again bursting at the seems!

I have a few pictures of fabric on the loom I would like to post that shows the variety of the projects we make.

Now some pictures of the various jobs that are done in the room on any given Tuesday morning! Yarn ordering, needle weaving, warp winding one, towel cheat sheet marked and heddle management to name a few.

Laura has been busy sewing some of the fabric that we have woven into a ponch that is modled by Marie and a vest that is modled by Patty, though it fit Jenny even better! Oh and by the end of the day Kathy had cut off her project!

Just like that it is time for Show and Tell! Last week Patty told us all about her travel to Japan! She brought back some kimono and the project she did when she was taking a Sashiko class!

Patty had Show and Tell again today, she wove a sample following some instructions from the Jane Stafford online course.

Dana wove a project that she had been meaning to do ever since she started weaving. She used 8/2 in the warp and 6/2 in the weft.

Shannon brought in a keyfob that she had woven for the Heritage Center in Townsend.

That is it for today, join us next week, Carol will be out of town and there is no telling what we may get into! Until then this is Tina, for all!

After the Rain

We got some much needed rain overnight and we have several more days ahead with chances of rain! While that is going one outside in East TN, we have various stages of loom dressing and weaving going on inside the weaving center. Betsy is almost finished threading the barn frame loom, this will be fabric for a top.

Kris is threading here towel warp through the reed.

Judith is loading a rug shuttle with thick wool yarn for a rug.

Mark is weaving more placemats.

Alanna is weaving another project on the ashford table loom.

Carol and Pat have started going through some of the hand dyed warps and wefts and putting together projects for us to weave.

Alice finished another inkle loom band! She is unstoppable!

Last week Jenny picked out some hand dyed rayon that as been around for a little while. She has been finding it a little tricky to control. She finally had some success winding it onto a cone using it as a nostepinne and then with help from Nikki they wound a warp with Jenny feeding the yarn to Nikki who was winding the warp.

Liz and I both had some problems today. I am weaving at Laura's loom for a little while as she will be gone. Only proble I had was that Laura had already started a towel and I have a different natural beat than she does. I wove for and inch or two and found that I beat harder than Laura does. I had to unweave back and start over paying special attention to my beat.

Liz had started a new towel project from an old book that Carol loaned her. The picture of the fabric from the book looks like little Ty fighters from Star Wars. When she went to weave the fabric however something seemed off, the A block seemed just right but the B block wasn't turning out at all. We checked treadle tie up and it was just like the instructions said it should be. Then we began comparing the treadle tie ups and the treadle sequence. We ended up adding 2 shafts to treadle 7 and we added shaft 1 to either side of block B. You can see the progression of the fabric in the second photo.

Time for Show and Tell! Shannon wove a blanket for her Mom's bed yesterday in 5 hours!!! The blanket is in the same colors that Shannon and her Aunt are using on a quilt that is also for her mom.

Rhonda did the finishing for her shawl this week, the fabric is much admired and I know several that are planning on trying a variation of it.

I have a Tip and Trick for you today! There have been a rash of rescue heddles needed over the last 3 weeks and Marie talked me into using sagfety pins instead of just string. Well I must say that I have fallen in love with this technique and plan to use it in the future. The beauty is that once you are finished with your project you can unfasten the safety pins and save them in your bench for the next time you need one!