I'm a Weaver

Over the years the painting that started this blog off has morphed through mixed media to quilting, art quilting and two years ago to weaving.  Having come back to this blog after a bit of a break I realise I have a two year gap in my journey as a weaver and have shown very little of my weaving here.  I have been sharing it over on Facebook but I thought I'd try and keep a record here too.  So far most of my weaves have either been for myself or for presents for unsuspecting friends and family.  As I mentioned previously I am going to be selling weaves for my niece's charity Evie's Gift.  I have such a stock of yarns that it will be a relief to move some of the results of my weaving on and to raise funds for an important cause in the process.

So, where to start with the fruits of my labours over the last two and a half years?

I love this fabric that is made with mostly wool and silk (mostly Noro yarns).  I think it will end up being a jacket but it is still waiting for me to finish the sewing.

This lovely turquoise and blue confection was woven on a rigid heddle loom and is a cotton weave.  It doesn't know what it wants to be yet.

My lovely husband modelling this cotton length for me.  This has been made up into a short bolero style jacket.

I was inspired to try this seaside themed shawl by some work I saw online.  The yarns were mostly a blend of merino and silk so it was very soft and light.  The warp does all the work here and the weft was done with clasped weft so I could use 3 colours and place them where I wanted them.  This was given to a very dear friend.

The blue shawl above is a merino/silk mix with insertions and was made for another friend for the cost of the yarns.

I really like this shawl which again has a high silk content.

All the scarves above were made on the Saori loom and have various fibres in them.

I do like the shawl above.  It's on a cotton warp but the yarn is a merino/silk blend with the details/rectangles done in a wool from Drops.

 

I'm not sure about the shawl above.  It's not my cup of tea colour-wise and was a bit of an experiment.

This shawl was on a warp that I made at The Saori Shed in Diss and was given to another very special friend a while ago.  I do love playing with colour and inserting textures and shapes.  Saori is such a fun way to weave.

Finally I have made myself a card/jacket similar to the red one I think I shared here some time ago.

It's a boxy jacket made from straight pieces of cloth and is very comfortable to wear.  Again, it's mostly Noro wool.  Yummy!

New Year, New Post

I make no apologies for my absence here.   Blogging seems to be drifting for everyone these days as social media takes over but I wanted to record some of my weaving projects in case it helps others who are struggling as I am to make the woven fabric into useful garments.   I'm not even sure how much I've spoken about weaving here but it is my avowed passion, ousting sewing and painting, although I do still dabble with some painting.  With arthritic hands and fingers, weaving is the least painful of the artistic endeavours open to me.

I recently wove a black mixed pre-wound Saori warp and it told me it wanted to be a jacket.  Much of Saori clothing is based around the kimono shape which is basically rectangles so, how hard can it be?!

The overall length of the fabric is 3.2 metres by approx 38cms.  In theory it wasn't quite enough fabric for the top I wanted to make so I had to do a bit of judicious cutting and stitching back together.  I knew all that patchwork would come in handy.

I was very good and made a cotton mock-up (toile) from a piece of sheet.  I had a Saori pattern for a t-shaped jumper but, just to be awkward I wanted mine to be like a cardigan, open at the front.  I was struggling with the actual construction and a friend of mine helped me to get to grips with that.  Added to that  a wonderful Facebook group gave me the solution to how to join the sleeves into the main body so I've had a great day today making the jacket.

I made a little model to test out how to join all the pieces together.

These two photos may not be that clear but I sewed the sections together in a set order so that the top and bottom were connected first and then the sleeve seams closed.

So, in order to get the right size pieces I had to do some cutting up.  If you're cutting woven fabric you need to stitch either side of the intended cut to stop everything unravelling.

Excuse the terrible photo but it was very sunny today.  I didn't have enough fabric to make the lower body section so I used the toile to map out how much I needed to piece to fill the gap.

It was a bit of a bodge job but actually it works well as you'll see in a minute.

The tricky part was getting the join at the underarm to work and be neat.  In the photo above the sleeve is forming the leg of the T shape.  I sewed the bodice seams first and closed the sleeve last.  There is a very useful video on YouTube that helped me get my head round this.



and also



So, how did it turn out?

I have added a pocket to the left front and I still need to sort out the fringes but it's been a long day so that's a job for tomorrow.  This has been quite a learning curve as I've never made a jacket before.  Needless to say this isn't lined as generally Saori is left unlined.

Back soon, well, hopefully sooner than 3 months!