SWSG Saturday Group May 18

On May 18 2013 it was the meeting of the Saturday Group of Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild at Arcade Library, Sacramento, CA  From left to right Vonnie, Sue, Kathy, Janelle, and new spinner Kelly.

From left to right Connie, Linda, Jan, Peggy, Stephanie, Ardith. Not pictured is Jane, our membership chair who was sweet enough to come out to help us with with new memberships and renewals! Thank you Jane! Those kindnesses make us feel like we really are part of the big Guild.

After a few announcements it is time for Show and Tell! What have you been up to?!

Connie shows off her watermelon socks that she knitted.

Since our topic is fingerweaving Jan brought a wall hanging that she made back in the 70s. Its been hanging on her wall all this time.

Stephanie attended the Guild workshop last month with Bobby Irwin on "Shimmering Colors - The Magic of Iridescence" She brought the sample pieces. These picture do not fully convey the subtle color effects of the piece.

Peggy brought a couple of shawls she made on a rigid heddle loom.

Ardith didn't like her yarn until she combined it with other yarn. The green face and eyes are part of the carpet at the library.

 

Kathy showed off the knitting she has been working on.

Kelly is a new spinner and she is just getting started on the obsession.

Janelle is working on upcycling materials. She is holding a basket she crocheted with medical tubing and plastic. It is sterile material that was stored past its shelf life and would end up in the landfill if she didn't do something with it. She also has a water bottle holder with strap that she made from video tape.

Our project was finger weaving using pencils and cardboard frames Here is some of our results.

Next meeting is June 29, 1-4 PM Arcade library
Visit our webpage for schedules
http://www.sacweavespin.org/saturday

It was a good day!

Other items of interest
Kathy said she loved the roving she got back from Morro Fleece Works
http://www.morrofleeceworks.com/Pages/About.htm

Books

A Manual Of Fingerweaving
by Robert J Austin
Published 2000, Crazy Crow Trading Post
ISBN 1-929572-00-X

Finger Weaving: Indian Braiding
by Alta R Turner
Published 1973 by Sterling Publishing
Reprinted 1989 by Cherokee Publications
ISBN 0-935741-13-5
previous ISB 0-8069-5264-4

The Basic Book Of Fingerweaving
by Esther Warner Dendel
Published 1974 by Simon & Schuster
ISBN 071-21697-X

Fingerweaving Untangled
by Carol James

I love Carol James book.  It's the perfect book for
beginners with enough advanced patterns to keep you
busy for a long time. You can't beat the color pictures
and diagrams showing the hand movements.

You can order at this site:
http://www.sashweaver.ca/

Czech Sprang

In Ravelry, Sylva-Res posted the following link. I checked it out, it is safe and the file is awesome research paper with pictures. Go to the link and download from there:

Hi, I´d like to share with you something about sprang in my country - The Czech Republic. Finally I finished a research PDF document about sprang. Because at the moment I have n´t got any personal blog or website, I placed it on my work website. Here is the link, where you can find it.

http://www.restaurovanikamen.cz/html/sprang.html

This is all I´ve gathered about sprang in Czech lands until now. But I´m still searching.
I know there are still some more old books and journal articles, but it is not easy to get to them. When I discover something else I´ll share it with you here.

Hope that these information and pictures will be interesting and useful for you.

Ravelry ref link
http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/talk-about-sprang/1958909/1-25#21

Have a good day!

Navajo Weaver Clara Sherman Cards & Spins

NAVAJO WEAVER CLARA SHERMAN CARDING AND SPINNING 

Watch her on youtube

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D_p7OIghMVw 

 10 minutes with a master weaver.

 Have a good day! 

Beka Rigid Heddle Loom

 From the archives: 20" Beka rigid heddle loom that I owned back in 2008-2009. I bought it on craigslist with the manual, and all the stuff above. Notice the little teeth on the front and back beam. The tension is held with nuts that are tightened to hold the beams. You have to loosen and tighten the nuts to move the warp beams as you weave. I think it was made in the 1970s.  
The upright device is a stand that one would use by sitting placing on a chair, then sitting on the flat square area with the upright portion in front of you to support the loom. The person who sold it to me told me that her husband built the stand following a set of plans they saw in a weaving magazine.

Here I am sitting on the stand with loom in approximate weaving position. I don't have any pictures of the loom being used. I sold the loom in 2009 when I was cleaning out the closet and needed to make room. I kept my Erica rigid heddle loom.

These towels were finished in January 2009.
(click on picture for larger view)Woven on Beka 20 inch rigid heddle loom, 8 dent (threads per inch warp), wet finished (wash & dry), hand hemmed, finished size 14 x 24 inch.
This is woven with peaches and cream cotton yarn, the worsted yarn weight, not the heavier double worsted.

No. 1 white, I bought a 14 oz cone at Walmart about $7 No. 205 gumdrop, 2 oz ball, $1.75 ea, two balls

That should be enough for 4 towels altogether, I wove two at a time on the loom.

It takes most of one colored ball to warp for two towels.

Here is the pattern, 128 ends wide, 8 dent heddle

8 white, 8 color, 96 white, 8 color, 8 white

I warped with about 78 inch threads, allowing 15 inch for cutoff.
Your yardage may vary.

Wet finished means after weaving and cutting off the loom, I put it
through the washer and dryer.

Here is a video that showed me how to hemstitch with the fringe.

hemstitch video by Cherri Hankins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHBKqG2Do2I

My fringe is almost all three strand, but there is one two strand fringe because 128 is not divisible by 3.

The pattern should work with any variegated color yarn that you think would look good with white.

Have a good day!

The Hunt for Biil

Biil wool/biil dress/rug dress

A biil (beehl) dress is traditional Navajo womens' dress made from two woven panels sewn together with openings for neck and arms.

Here are some links I found

http://weavinginbeauty.com/weavers-and-their-stories/there-is-no-substitute-the-biil-dress

http://weavinginbeauty.com/weavers-and-their-stories/special-assignment-completed-spider-rock-graduation-album-posted

Juanita's dress is coming home

http://navajotimes.com/entertainment/culture/0810/082110dress.php

http://www.navajotimes.com/entertainment/culture/2011/1111/110711dress.php

see last picture bottom right

http://www.ohio.edu/museum/weaving/Images/wilgallery.swf

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/navajo-textile-mills-wool-blanket-throw#.UXszaMrk-So

woven dress show

http://www.fourcornersgeotourism.com/content/genevieve-j-hardy-rug-weaver/fca2E5952BDA016C96E3

Native Treasures website - nice pictures

www.nativetreasures.org

https://www.facebook.com/NativeTraditionalOutfits/info

see mbm332 first picture
It evokes the old-style biil (Navajo dress) as well as the skies of Dine' Bike'yah.

http://www.migrations.com/blackmesa/blackmesa7elvirah.html

the navajo - juvenile books

http://books.google.com/books?id=HcPq9ulllHUC&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=biil+wool&source=bl&ots=dgQPMuamJA&sig=l34n1paRk8bWYq3tLAtyQPt5XVs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ljZ7UfGSN6i0iQLRyIGwCA&ved=0CF0Q6AEwBzgU#v=onepage&q=biil%20wool&f=false

Navajo weaving spirit pathways or spiritlines

https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/mar/article/view/1033/2037

24 blankets come to Navajo Nation

http://cool.conservation-us.org/jaic/articles/jaic37-03-007.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stayinthemagic/2867442964/

Biil pictures

http://www.migrations.com/weavingthelight/weavingthelight5.html

see manta blanket dress

http://www.bairsindiantradingco.com/Navajo-rug-weaving-styles.htm

rug dress

http://www.twinrocks.com/archives/products/2855.html

More pictures

http://statigr.am/tag/rugdress

A portrait

http://lenorajbowman.blogspot.com/p/traditional-navajo-rug-dress-rachel-lee.html

Online book Indian Blankets and their Makers

http://southwest.library.arizona.edu/inbl/

Bayeta blanket

http://weavinginbeauty.com/its-all-about-the-rugs/the-brilliance-of-the-navajo-germantowns-late-classic-weaving-and-bayeta

look for biil dress

http://miquilter.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html

about churro wool

http://www.riograndeweaving.com/docs/blanket_1.pdf

Have a good day!

Backstrap Workshop Day 2

I just threw together some pictures out of over 100 pics taken today. Back at it on Sunday morning. Some of the students worked on the brocade (supplementary weft)  bands overnight. Laverne remarked at the creativity exhibited as weavers modified patterns to create new figures,.

Laverne demonstrated how build a warp with stripes on the sides. 

Weavers partnered up and built new warps of their own.

 Sometimes you need to get up close to build a warp.

Setting up string heddles on a new warp.

 Students learned to create patterns with warp floats and how to make the pattern reversible.

Laverne also demonstrated pebble weave. 

 

A closer looker at the pebble weave band.

Class picture. Students learned to weave on a backstrap loom, to build warps, build string heddles, to weave supplementary weft pattern, warp floats, and pebble weave. In two days. Awesome.

 

Here I am with my friend Laverne Waddington. It was fun to help out with the class.

I will be posting more pics over the next several days.  

Many thanks to Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild for hosting this workshop.

It was a good day!

Links of interest

Backstrap Weaving - Laverne's blog

 

http://backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/

Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild

 

http://www.sacweavespin.org

Backstrap Workshop Day 1

Some quick pictures from today's workshop in West Sacramento Calif., hosted by Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild. Laverne Waddington shows samples of weaving and holds a sample of "coccoon" shuttle made by winding yarn around a small hank of yarn.

 Weaving stations are setup around a table near a door with lots of light coming in. Laverne is sitting to demonstrate.

Laverne shows basic band weaving.

Weavers practice band weaving.

After lunch break Laverne shows samples of supplementary weft weaving.

Betsy works on supplementary weft pattern.

Laverne helps Janet with her supplementary weft pattern.

More workshop tomorrow!

Have a good day!