Overly Enthused?

The New Hampshire Weavers Guild meets in the spring and fall months - leaving summer to play and winter to hunker down and weave.

Today was the first guild meeting of the fall season.

We have 2 hour workshops in the morning, lunch break, a business meeting and an afternoon speaker. (Plus there's a library, and the yarn table...two more highlights!)

Color and Weave

My morning workshop today was on Color and Weave by Beth Guertin, a weaver and teacher from Waltham, MA.

Blooming Leaf Shadow Weave Scarf in Chenille
from Handwoven: Design Collection 19, Scarves & Shawls for All Seasons

Shadow weave, log cabin, stars, pinwheels and houndstooth are some of the most well-known color and weave effects.

Log Cabin

Color and weave can make a simple structure (like plain weave) look much more complicated.

Color and Weave Gamp

Beth has experimented extensively with different color and weave effects. Ever since I made those star dishtowels from Handwoven, I've loved color and weave.

I feel inspired to experiment with it more!

Yarn Shopping

Huge Amount of Yarn

Last night I promised myself I'd only buy fancy fibers today....say no to cotton or wool.

And yet, I still managed to bring home a lot of good stuff from the yarn table today. Silk, linen, cottolin.

There was some Peace Fleece - one of my favorite wool knitting yarns - and a wool that matches the blue in my living room. So a little wool did creep into the mix.

The alert photo sleuth can also see part of a pool cover for use with felting. I have a big nuno felt plan....so this is my small test piece of pool cover for my felting experiments.

I am so excited by this yarn.....I moved it up to my studio and I keep going up there to take a peek at it again. Project ideas are whirling through my brain. At least some of it will be used for knitting. So much fun!! (Have I mentioned that the design phase of projects is my favorite?!)

I'm promising myself that by mid-October I'll get into a better routine with more weaving time! (And I guess, by saying that here, I'm promising you too!)

Mixed Warps (AKA Garbage Warps)

Mixed warp including cotton, chenille, possibly bamboo and ribbon yarn

The afternoon lecture, on "Garbage Warps" was also by Beth Guertin. She covered lots of ideas for projects you can make using small bits of many yarns.

Striped wool scarf from leftovers

This topic is extremely apropos for me for several reasons:

1. I just bought a huge amount of mixed yarns - and tend to do that whenever the guild yarn table has good stuff on it!
2. I am a frugal Yankee, some might even call me a yarn miser, so I like the idea of using every last bit of my favorite yarns.
3. I want to weave some blankets this winter, and I don't want it to cost me a fortune.
   

Blue and White Blanket

I'm interested whenever I see weavers combining different yarns, as opposed to purchasing all of the same yarn for a project. Today's lecture had many beautiful examples....including many blankets.

I am totally motivated to head up to my studio and design away. See you later!!!