A Gift Given, A Gift Received

Good Day Bonnie,

3 1/2 years ago you offered up on your blog the President's Horoscope. I got one and held onto it. I finally wove it in Bambu 12. I added your "Almost Ikat" (that I picked up from your You-tube instructions) to add a Southwest flair and 3 inch purple boarder. I, then, donated it to the local county Democratic Party for their fundraiser. It was a huge hit and raised $750 in their auction. Must say the warping took a lot of time, but the weaving was a breeze even with a rag shuttle for the doubled weft yarn.

The whole concept is such fun!!! I really loved working with the colors and seeing the combinations. Just that alone has given me some ideas of color choices for other projects. Thank God for digital cameras to record which ones I like best and add them to my notes.

Louisa

PS. I have really enjoyed your published work over the years. Your website gallery is terrific and inspirational to me. I am, and have been, a fan of your work. Thank you for reaching out so openly to weavers like me.

Ikat Dye Day in Sequim

After enjoying Bonnie's inspiring presentation to our North Olympic Shuttle and Spindle guild in Sequim/Port Angeles WA on the joys of designing with Turned Weft Ikat, a group of members held a wrap, dye and warp day in July.

We assembled at my house with 8/2 cotton skeins wound and buckets ready. The first order of business was to use Bonnie's strategies to wrap our warps followed by adjournment outside to dye. We had four different dye buckets of bronze, deep green, blue and burgundy and used the standard bucket dye recipe for fiber reactive dyes. We also used the exhaust baths and ended up with about 30 skeins of beautiful yarns. Some linen and rayon skeins were also included and dyed successfully.

We then looked at a variety of towels and scarves woven earlier by Kathy and Lynn and set up a warping board for everyone to practice Bonnie's match and tie method. A loom was already warped and partly woven so all participants could see how to set up a pleasing warp.

It was an excellent, though lengthy day, and all participants left with dyed yarn and lots of enthusiasm. We hope to see a series of towels this year at our monthly show and tell and want to thank Bonnie again for an excellent concept.

Lynn Baritelle

Chair, NOSSG

Inspiration from Afar

Hi Bonnie,

Last summer we spent some time dyeing lots of wool with mainly plant material and cochenil.

I ended up with 2 kilo's of wool in beautiful soft colours. As my old blanket started to wear out, it was a good idea to make a new one.

I have used your woven words-system to organize the colors.

My words are: TRUST(vertrouwen) and GRATITUDE (dankbaarheid) for the middle-part and LOVE (liefde) for the side-parts.

Quite a few things went wrong, but I am very pleased with the result and it feels lovely to sleep under.

Before weaving the blanket I had to weave a sample to determine the sett.

As I wasn't sure to have enough wool I decided to alternate thick wool and very thin cotton.

The threading was 1-2-3-4 and I've tried several threadlings.

Twill 12-23-34-41 looked best. I've also tried plain tabby without the cotton threads

I wouldn't mind the texture, but didn't like it in my coloured stripes.

The sett was 5 thick and 5 thin threads in 1 cm, which is about 25 threads to an inch altogether.

I've tried to weave the whole blanket in one go (double width), but made a mistake in calculating the thick and thin threads.

So after dressing the loom I found out, that I only had half a blanket. So this became my middle panel.

After weaving this I've warped my loom again for the side panels.

Photo below shows the connection between two of the panels sewn by hand in the green stripe. It also shows the finishing of the top- and bottom of the blanket.

Yours, Irma Spaargaren