Rebecca Mezoff - Tapestry Artist

I added another blog to the blog list.

Rebecca Mezoff is a tapestry artist. I added her blog because she has made a video showing how to execute the weft interlock technique devised by the late James Koehler, another tapestry artist.

I appreciate she spent the time to make a video to help other artists. Bravo!

You can see the technique at her blog.
http://www.rebeccamezoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/james-koehlers-weft-interlock-join.html

You can see my blog list at my blog, down on the right side of the home page.
http://francosfiberadventure.blogspot.com/

Have a good day!

SWSG Saturday Dec 2012

Dec 1 2012, meeting of the Saturday Group, Sacramento Weavers & Spinners Guild. The topic of the day is Angora Rabbit with speaker Erin Maclean. Because of the rainy weather, Erin did not bring a rabbit to show off. So above is a picture of some Angora rabbits that I used to have, just so you know what kind of rabbits we are discussing.

Because of the rainy weather, we had a small turnout. Here is Erin speaking to the group.

 Here is some of the items Erin explained and described. Erin raises German Angora rabbits. The wool is sheared regularly. Above Erin has brought some of the yarn she spins. There are felted hats and mittens, knitted scarves and socks. The angora wool is slick but has a lovely "halo." Blending with other fibers can add stretchiness.

 Felted fingerless mittens.

This knitted scarf was made with "blue" angora blended with grey leicester sheep wool in blend that Erin calls Silver Blizzard. 

 Erin shows off a felted scribble lace scarf made with angora wool.

It was a nice presentation on a rainy afternoon in Sacramento.

Erin Maclean's website is Bungalow Farm
http://bungalowfarm.com/

The next meeting is January 12 (Sat) 1-4 pm at the Arcade Library
Linda York will show us how to read a weaving draft.


 You can follow our schedule at
http://www.sacweavespin.org/saturday

It was a good day!

Need More Fiber

Another blog: Need More Fiber
Interesting reading and lots of pictures
http://fiberneed.blogspot.com/

Have a good day!

Structo Tips From Daryl Lancaster

Daryl Lancaster's blog relates how she rounded up 9 Structo looms to give a class in weaving. Structo made the little 4 harness looms that students would use to learn and test weaving patterns.

See some details on how she tunes up the looms for work.

http://weaversew.com/wordblog/2012/09/21/warp-speed/#comment-6020

Have a good day!

SWSG Sat Sept 2012

Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild Saturday Group met on Sept 15 2012 at Arcade Library on Marconi St. We opened the meeting with a review of the upcoming events. We also had a visit from club librarian Cheryl who brought some weaving books that were being culled from the club library as duplicates or not much demand. She also brought some rental equipment that members had reserved. Cheryl has been bringing things out for us in the Saturday Group since most of us cannot make it to the weekday meetings.

Today is also "Spinning 101" day for the library! We are giving free spinning lessons to the patrons of the library. We are teaching drop spindles. We got started and I put the camera down and forgot to pick it up again until we were almost finished so I do not have many pictures. So the library promoted the event and we had about 14 visitors with us. I had some drop spindles I made from dowels and wooden toy wheels. Linda Y brought some drop spindles made from CDs and dowels. Linda also brought some brown wool roving and some white wool roving. So the students could see how the brown and white twisted around.

 A couple of young women tried their hands on the drop spindles.

These women also learned a little bit about spinning today. We also had spinning wheels for them to see.

It was fun for the Saturday Group members to work with new spinners. Members just floated from person to person helping them by answering questions or showing how to hold their spindle.  It was also fun for our Guild to give back to the library which lets us use their meeting rooms every month.

Please visit our website for upcoming meeting announcements.
http://www.sacweavespin.org/saturday

It was a good day!

Egyptian Sprang Cap

 Egyptian Sprang Cap - CE 400 to 699 AD, Whitworth Art Museum, Manchester UK

So this is how a fiber adventure starts. Somebody created a Pinterest page of Sprang pictures
http://pinterest.com/rosemaryeskew/sprang/

I post the link on the yahoo group Sprang_List
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sprang_List/

One of the questions asked was "does anyone have a clue how the yellow is incorporated into this Egyptian piece? seen alone here:"
http://emu.man.ac.uk/emuwebwag/objects/common/webmedia.php?irn=21756

Which is the cap pictured above. I would like to see the bottom edge but it is cropped out of the picture. I was poking around the the picture and it seemed like the yellow is a supplementary yarn.

If you would like to see how such a cap is constructed you should download this document (1.3MB MS Word Doc format)

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/petrie/documents/Textiles_in_the_Petrie_Museum

It shows construction of common pieces of traditional Egyptian clothing. Including a sprang cap with twined edging. It even shows the gathering at the top and the rope securing it. So if twining is common maybe the yellow is supplementary yarn.

 So I enlarged and digitally enhanced the picture using a program called Photoscape. Above you can see the red/green creates the open mesh familiar as sprang. The yellow yarn seems to fill the gaps in the mesh created by the red/green yarn. I expect there are knots on the inside where the yellow yarn circles are made.

 Looking at enlargement near top of the cap you can see yellow stripes are part of the design. The top of the cap in this case is the "middle" of the sprang. So maybe the yellow yarns are carried along the inside of the cap, kind of like stranded knitting. It also looks like the yarns are somehow twined together then interlinked. This is a fascinating possibility of technique.

 Finally, I enlarged the right side edge to see how the side was sewn up. I can't see it very well, except that it appears to be less organized in that area than the rest of the piece.

So that is a short adventure in sprang. If you have any theories to share, feel free to comment.

Have good day!

EDITED TO ADD:
Sarah Goslee gave us this link on Sprang_List,
the yellow yarn kind of floats on the back side of the piece.

Collingwood describes it, and see also here:

http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/donisfuff/coptic.html

Kelsey Museum of Archaeology - 202 Sprang Specimens
To view click on link below, 
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/k/kelsey2ic?from=index;size=20;start=1;type=boolean;view=thumbnail;rgn1=ic_all;q1=sprang

Whitworth Art Musuem, click link below and enter "sprang" in search box
http://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/collection/

SWSG Sat Aug 2012

Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild Saturday Group met on Aug 11 2012 at Arcade Library on Marconi St. We opened the meeting with a review of the upcoming events. Then we went around the circle with our "show and tell" period to catch up on each other's projects. I forgot my camera and had to use my phone camera. My apologies.

Upper left: Ardeth brought a rep weave made with rag weft. Upper right: Betsey brought a shawl she finished weaving. Lower left: Stephanie brought a cotton baby blanket she wove. Lower right: Lynn brought some little baby booties made with handspun angora rabbit fiber.

Then Connie gave us a class on Crochet basics.  Upper left: Connie in front of her multimedia presentation with computer videos to assist. Upper right: Lisa is experienced at crochet and cranks out the pattern easily. Lower left: Stephanie and Betsey work on the pattern. Lower right: I am making this look much more difficult than it is. I need a lot more practice. Also in attendance was Tanda, who could not stay long but she stayed long enough to learn how to crochet a simple edging for a dress she has knitted.

Connie also brought many samples of items crocheted as inspiration and evidence of the versatility of crochet. Also noted was the fact that crochet uses a lot of yarn making pieces weigh more compared to woven pieces of similar size. And yet crochet also creates fine lacy fabric.

One picture I did not get was of the awesome christening gown Connie is making. It is almost complete.

It was a good day!