County Fair

We all entered items in the county fair this year.

Here we are with the ribbons we won.

Coleen was especially thrilled that she won both first and second place and is proudly displaying her ribbons in her room.
William and I will put ours in our workspaces to remind us to always work towards the best we can do.

I think county fairs are great. It is one of the few chances any more that people get to show off their talents without the pressure of trying to sell it. There were some beautiful items entered. I only wish that there were more people participating. It seemed, at least here, that most of the entries were put in by people over 60 or by kids working on their 4-H projects. How do you create interest for younger adults to participate?

The towels have been off the loom...

for a couple of weeks now.

They turned out quite lush and lovely. They are woven with 8/2 cotton. 10 towels in all.

For Gwen

Gwen,
These are William's temples. He used the sample end off the last towel warp to make them. They are just very basic drawstring bags that he filled with pebbles (rice or sand would work also)

He uses bent paper clips to attach them to the edges of the selvedge. They help you keep a square grain in your fabric and also make it easier to keep your selvedges neat.


There is a corresponding one on the other edge.

Check out the information at The Woolgatherers. She has a wealth of information including this page on homemade temples. She does some really lovely work, especially in linen

William is also busy

William has been working this month on another set of towels.

The beginning of the month- warped and ready to go. Notice that there is fabric being used as a warp separator. William did go to lease sticks for these towels, but we didn't have enough. Careful wrapping of the fabric, to make sure it doesn't bunch makes it useable with fewer tension issues than on the last warp.

The first towel

These are two variations of the dornick twill (quite similar to a herringbone- the difference is in how the v's of the pattern meet up - in a herringbone, it will be a continuous pattern of v's in one color vvvvvvvv- in a dornick, the v's are offset one white v one black v,etc.

Another weft color
The second variation, with the squares, is just a different treadling pattern.


He's on a business trip right now, but hopes to finish these up in the beginning of February and start a new project. I think he warped 10 towels and has 7 done.

Christmas Presents

Now that Christmas is over, I can finally show the projects that William and I were working on.



William made dish towels from the Keep it Simple Pattern in the downloadable book top ten towels on 4 shafts





I made these clever Criss-Cross Coasters. I followed the tutorial at
allsorts. She does such a good job explaining how to make them. Just follow the link.



Coleen made owls for all of her cousins. All of them are really into the Harry Potter books and so she wanted all of them to have their own personal Hedwig.


She made painted glass objects for everyone else on her list this summer in a glass painting class she took at College for Kids in Winona, MN. Somehow I neglected to get pictures of them, but she had lots of fun making them.

William's Weaving

Just a couple of pictures of the dish towels William made.

They are really nice. Not only pretty, but soft and very absorbent.



These were finished at the beginning of the month. He is in the process of deciding on his next project.

Projects

William finished this scarf this week. We bought the fleece at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival last month. He dyed the turquoise. The gray is the natural color of the fleece and then he spun the yarn. Nice, yes?


Meanwhile, I worked on another shirt. This one is turning out quite nicely. I changed the shape of the collar slightly and am much happier with it. I did not try to match the pattern anywhere except the pocket as I used every scrap of fabric just to cut out the shirt. The next shirt, which is already cut out, is a more open plaid and I am trying to match it. Now, I just have to remember to mark all of my pieces right side and wrong side. If you could look closely at the pocket you would notice the twill goes the opposite direction of the rest of the shirt. I looked through my scraps thinking surely there was one large enough for a new pocket, but no... I will have to be happy with this one.