Wednesday 30 January 2013

Handwoven claret and mid-grey Tailored Strands alpaca

I completed the weaving of these two scarves over a week ago but have not yet got around to  finishing them.  The fringes need to be twisted and the scarves washed.  They have been handwoven using claret and mid-grey 4-ply Tailored Strands alpaca yarns sourced from Alpaca Plus in Henley Brook.
In the unwashed condition the scarves are 1850mm x 225mm and weigh 142g so they will  be slightly smaller once washed.
The reason I have not finished these two scarves is that I have started handweaving an interesting 4m bolt of fabric to be made into a garment.  The following photos show the material on the loom.  It is slow going as I am using two or three different colours of Noro Silk Garden yarns on the same weft.

I will show you the finished garment in due course.

Wednesday 16 January 2013

Hand-woven raw silk fabric

Have just completed hand-weaving a bolt of material using raw silk yarns, with some of the weft yarn being hand-spun.  The short crinkly area is where I tried using three different yarns, hence different shrinkages, but  reverted back to a single weft yarn for the last metre.  The piece is 5.6m long and the first 4.5m  is about 550mm  wide and the last metre 520mm wide.  The first photo shows the entire length of the fabric whilst the second has the fabric doubled over.
You will have to wait to see the  finished garments made using this fabric.  Hopefully they will be on sale at the Perth Upmarket scheduled for Sunday 3 March.

Thursday 10 January 2013

Hand-woven cashmere shawl with a difference


The two lengths of hand-woven cashmere fabrics shown recently have been sewed together along one of their long lengths leaving arm holes in two places. This makes an interesting shawl as shown in the photos. As the two pieces of fabric are different you can reverse the front with the back of the shawl to get two different appearances of the garment. In addition, if you turn the fabrics over the reverse side of the fabrics again give you two more appearances of the garment. So simple, apart from a lot of weaving, but a very interesting garment.





Saturday 5 January 2013

Aster and black handwoven cashmere fabric

Since returning from an European river cruise in late November, early December, I have hand-woven two lengths of cashmere fabric.  One is in a hand-dyed aster colour and is 1640mm x 380mm and weighs 146g.  The aster colour has a bit more mauve in it than shown in the photos.
The second is in the same pattern but I have used a black weft with the aster coloured warp.  This piece is 1630mm x 370mm and weighs 133g.  The pattern gives two different appearances on both sides of the fabric.

These two pieces are going to be made into an interesting garment which will appear in a later blog.


HELP:  I am not able to download photos to this blog from my own computer.  What has changed in Blogger?  I found I could upload using Google Chrome but not Microsoft Explorer!