Harmony Weavers Guild

MAFA2025-3952

I was intrigued by this pattern and I call it “Bubbles”. It doesn’t look like the pattern pictured in the magazine – probably because I chose to use a ground weft in between each pattern weft. Using a variegated royal blue, gold and aqua for the ground created an interesting pattern.
The size was 19″ in the reed and 28″ woven was the length on the loom; but after wet finishing, its size is 15 1/2″ X 23 1/2″.
Total number of ends was 457.
I used white sewing machine thread for the hem (turned under 1 1/2″ on each end and machine stitched it in place.)
I think it makes for an absorbent towel.

MAFA2025-3917

Needed floating selvedges; also, replaced the cotton floating selvedges with a 2/20 brown rayon as the cotton kept breaking.

Because the silk tussah is a boucle and is “sticky”, don’t use it for warp again. And the silk is a Giovanna Imperial yarn, which is no longer available – it was a happy accident to find the multicolored, bumpy polyester (from Made in America) was such a good substitute in the weft (the warp has the majority of the silk in it).

Used 3 ends / dent in a 10 dent / inch reed which is 10″ wide in the reed. I found the draft in Handwoven; but, changed the fibers used, order of color, sett, treadling, etc.; the only thing original is the satin draft.

Had some major issues with the shed as the shafts were misbehaving (some were rising when they weren’t needed); almost cut it off and threw it in the trash. But, my hubby/loom engineer helped a great deal and we got the correct shafts to raise or lower when required. This was woven on a 2002 24 shaft AVL Production Dobby Loom with a Compu-Dobby III – old but a workhorse. I use an old laptop – not attached to the internet to drive my loom; so I can’t download a wif file from it.

Inspiration was the fact that I have some left over 20/2 cotton (in white and taupe) from a previous project and thought the silk boucle was perfect match; and wanted to try a satin draft. Plus, my daughter found the draft and suggested that she would like a table runner; and, I am trying to use finer yarns in my weaving.

MAFA2025-3880

I had designed a 16 block rep weave for a tote bag that resembled vertical entwined ribbons. I took this lift plan and used it with a 32 block rep weave threading. After tweaking, the design result was a lattice.

My thread stash included purple and a raspberry thread. I do not usually weave with these colors. I decided to expand my color choices and used these two threads with a gray 10/2 to design the warp colors.

MAFA2025-3874

This reversible rug was designed as a three-end tied unit weave and woven using shaft-switching. The selvedges were card-woven. The gold color was hand-dyed.

MAFA2023-039

282 ends. Advanced twill threading inspired by Susan Balascio.

MAFA2019-055

The hand-painted stripes were dyed using Procion MX Fiber Reactive dyes.

I used a different color weft for each towel.

MAFA2019-081

The yarn was predominantly unmercerized cotton. The goal was to use yarns from dark to light so that the light warps would stand out. The colors were chosen as I wound the warp. Occasionally perle cotton was used if the color sequence required it and I ran out of other options.

MAFA2019-075

Used 5 stripes of my hand dyed 8/2 cotton (purple/blue, orange/pink, yellow, greens, red/orange) – each 3″ wide with 1/2″ wide stripes of purple, teal and blue of commercially dyed 8/2 cotton. The hems are plain weave (1 1/2″ long, turned and machine stitched). Crocheted a hanging loop from Red Heart Scrubby Smoothy cotton from JoAnn Fabrics. Chose a turned twill to best show off the hand dyed cottons. Originally tried to use a boucle cotton; but it completely obliterated the pattern – so I found the no. 8 white cotton in my stash (Phildar 316 Relais no 8 (made in France) purchased in an estate sale), which is actually a 4 ply but seems to be the same weight as 8/2 cotton. I think the pattern and the stripes are a beautiful complement to each other.

MAFA2021-035

The colors I used were blue, gray, red, and turquoise. This was a fun project to weave. I also added a hang tag woven with the same colors.