Month: June 2021

New JST Kit!
Sea Foam & Pebbles
Designed from the lessons below

These towels are the result of a friend’s request for a thinner towel, with texture. We often weave towels with Bouclé in the warp and weft. That combination sett at 12 EPI and woven at 12 PPI makes for a lovely drapey, textured towel.

How to make them thinner….hmmm. Okay I’ll change the warp to 8/2 cotton and keep the same EPI/PPI – I’m always up for a challenge! The beat was very light and I watched the negative space in the web more than I watched the actual fell line. I was looking for little squares at the interlacement points and that really helped. After the first few inches, my beat was bang on and these wove up very quickly. Once washed, they fulled beautifully and have given my friend exactly what she wanted. The colours she chose reminded me of pebbles on the beach. It was so much fun to play with colour and repetitive sequencing in the weft. I thought I had made a 13 yard warp but it turns out it was only 10, so I just got 9 towels…but if you make it 13 yards, you’ll get 12! You’ll have plenty of yarn in your Sea Foam & Pebbles kit.

Level of Difficulty: Beginner
Weave structure: Plain Weave
Material: 8/2 cotton & Bouclé cotton

Each kit makes: 12 Towels

Purchase Sea Foam & Pebbles Kit

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Jane’s Weaving Architecture:

Step 1 of the Design Process, Part 2

Today we continue our adventure into the architecture of cloth. As those of you who know me – you’ve seen how excited I get when talking about the endless possibilities of sett. Sett is like a magic wand that you can wave over your design and have the results change with very little work on your part 😉 You can even change your mind after the warp is on your loom.  Hummmm, think you want to open things up – easy peasy – as members of my School of Weaving have learned. The possibilities that sett brings to your cloth are endless. You’ll find a link below that will give you the setts that I use after years of weaving with the yarns we carry in the studio. But first – just look at the possibilities with just 8/2 cotton! For most of my weaving career I have used many of the same yarns over and over again and I have learned that there is not just one sett for any one yarn, even if the structure never changes. For instance, consider the number of setts possible for a 8/2 cotton:

For our visual learners, these photos of finished pieces should give you a better idea of the many possibilities for handwoven cloth:

8/2 cotton warp and weft sett at 22 EPI /22 PPI woven in Twill as in our Garabaldi Flats 4 shaft version Tea Towel Kit

8/2 cotton sett at 12 EPI woven with boucle cotton at 12 PPI woven in PW delightfully illustrated in our new kit Sea Foam & Pebbles

Jane’s Fave Tea Towel Kit woven with an 8/2 warp and weft sett at 18 EPI /18 PPI woven in PW

8/2 warp and 20/2 silk weft sett at 18 EPI/18 PPI woven in Twill was the finale piece from Primaries & Secondaries Episode Kit….crazy huh!

8/2 warp and 20/2 silk weft sett at 16 EPI/16PPI woven in PW as in our Plaid Lesson Kit finale piece

8/4 cotton warp and 7 gauge bambu weft sett at 36 EPI for Repp Weave and then resleyed and opened up to 12 EPI/ 12 PPI in Plain Weave….two dramatically different fabrics from one yarn and one warp. I demonstrate this piece in the Warp Faced Episode.

Two things of note….

1. We can only weave the open setts if we have great technique and know how to control our beater.
2. As our sett increases there will come a point when we will no longer be able to weave the cloth balanced, no matter how hard we beat, because the fabric is heading towards warp-predominance. That’s not a bad thing, and under some circumstances might be just what you’re looking for.

At 40 EPI, 8/2 cotton will be totally warp-faced. So, if you want to use this yarn to weave Repp….you got it, baby! One yarn, many different setts and many different types of fabric. How cool is that! So many possibilities hidden in one yarn and it is knowing how to use your reed that makes it all possible.

I sample in plain weave then twill and finally explore supplementary weft structures.

From this testing, I develop what I call my “canvases”—and once I have those canvases I get to add graphic and colour, which I’ll get into in greater detail on the next blog post.

As promised, here’s the link to Jane’s Master Sett Chart – this is just my experience, try changing your sett and keep notes on your results on your own Master Sett Chart. Next time, we’ll delve into design and division of space as we start to see the world through Fibonacci’s eyes 😉

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Our featured scarf was woven with 8/2 cotton & 20/2 Bombyx Silk
from Season 2 Episode 6 – Designing Plaids
which eventually branched out and moved into stripes 🙂

Hey Kids,

In our last newsletter I told you a bit about an experience that changed my life and sent me running down many paths of exploration. Each path has provided me with the skills of testing, comparison, observation and have given me a lot self confidence around decisions I make. Many of these paths have also enhanced my sense of humour. I’ve had many opportunities to laugh at myself and my choices but now I realize nothing is the end of world,…..it is all a joyful journey, missteps and all. You could say that a mistake isn’t a mistake…it is a success in a different direction:)

Sending you all tons of love,
Jane

Weaving Architecture: Step 1 of the Design Process: Part 2

The experience of spending 3 weeks weaving samples formed the basis of my design process. I break this process down into three main components, which I identify as Architecture, Graphic, and Colour. In today’s post, I’ll start with Architecture. When I think about the architecture of a piece of cloth, I liken it to the architecture of a building.

• Buildings have good foundations; cloth has hemstitching or a straight header upon which to build.
• Buildings have studs; cloth has warp threads.
• Buildings have floors; cloth has weft threads.
• Buildings have a strong beam structure for exterior walls; cloth has a selvedge.

I build a piece of cloth the way I imagine a carpenter builds a house. And I feel that the most important decision that I make—the very first decision I have to make, right at the outset—is what my ends per inch (epi) are going to be. Ninety percent of what I weave is balanced cloth, because I generally make simple items—scarves, stoles, towels, blankies—things that we can wrap ourselves in. Highly functional and useful. Now, all of these items need to have optimal drape. And what I know is that a 50/50 piece of cloth will have the best drape possible, because it will have perfect bias. (For any newbies out there, a 50/50 cloth has the same number of ends per inch and picks per inch.)

Next time we’ll dig into the magic of sett and how knowing the right sett you need, to get the cloth you want, will change your weaving life forever. For our visual learners, we’ll have photos of finished pieces which will give you a better idea of the many possibilities for your handwoven cloth.

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Sea Foam & Pebbles New Tea Towel Kit!

These towels are the result of a friend’s request for a thinner towel with texture. We often weave towels with Bouclé in the warp and weft and that combination sett at 12 EPI and woven at 12 PPI makes for a lovely drapey, textured towel.  Bouclé is such a treat to use in your kitchen or bathroom – nothing can beat it for practical use when you want softness and absorbency.

How to make them thinner….hmmm. Okay I’ll change the warp to 8/2 cotton and keep the same EPI/PPI – I’m always up for a challenge. The beat was very light and I watched the negative space in the web more than I watched the actual fell line. I was looking for little squares at the interlacement points and that really helped. After the first few inches, my beat was bang on and these wove up very quickly.

Once washed, they fulled beautifully and have given my friend exactly what she wanted. The colours she chose reminded me of pebbles on the beach. It was so much fun to play with colour and repetitive sequencing in the weft. I thought I had made a 13 yard warp but it turns out it was only 10, so I just got 9 towels…but if you make it 13 yards, you’ll get 12! You’ll have plenty of yarn in your kit.

Sea Foam & Pebbles Kit
C$114.00

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Bouclé Cotton

An amazing selection of 50 colours to choose from when you dream of creating your own soft and absorbent towels

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Here to help!

You can always find us on the Jane Stafford School of Weaving Forum or on Weave with Jane Stafford at Ravelry.

Hi kids, I thought I would share a bit of my journey with you. It’s my story of how I learned and adopted design elements that enabled me to become a professional weaver and teacher. Each week we’ll go down a different path, starting pretty much at the beginning. Some of you may have read this series before – but it doesn’t hurt to revisit the basics of design, opening doors and giving you an aha moment. So – away we go down memory lane 😉

Part 1 into Weaving Architecture:

I’ve started every Colour and Design Workshop off by explaining to my students that there are hundreds of different ways to tackle the subject of design. Every designer has their own particular way of working, of organizing thoughts, and of bringing ideas to fruition.

All I can do, as a designer and a teacher, is to share my own system. It isn’t necessarily better than any other system. But it works for me, and it seems to provide my students with a good strong solid foundation around the process of designing.

I didn’t always work this way, early on there was a lot of hit and miss. But gradually, I paid attention to things that worked, I analyzed why they work, and I developed my system. I’m still refining it, and hopefully, I will be able to work on it until the day I die. I want to weave forever. I will never ever tire of making beautiful simple cloth.

We all have pivotal moments in our lives, and one such pivotal moment for me was having the opportunity to be the Teaching Assistant for Jack Lenor Larson at the Banff School of Fine Arts in 1984. Jack and Randall Darwall taught a course called “The Consummate Cloth.”

It turned out to be three weeks of doing nothing but studying sett and finishing our cloth. We wove everything mostly in white yarn and in 2 structures: plain weave and four-shaft twill. We sampled. And sampled. And sampled. And sampled. And over a three-week period, the 12 students attending created hundreds of samples striving for our teachers’ vision of “the consummate cloth.” Their criteria were simple⎼the end product had to have all of exceptional drape, hand, and bias. 

Next time I will share with you what I took away from that amazing experience – other than my commitment to sample, sample, sample 😉

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Ocean Bouclé Towel Kit

You asked for it – we listened 😉

We’ve been asked for more design options in our Bouclé towel kits. The pattern that comes with all the Bouclé Towel Kits is just your jumping off point to create your own design. Each kit weaves 9 tea towels on a 4 shaft loom using a 12 dent reed. Weaving width requirement is 22″ wide. Below you’ll find a more detailed approach to one version I did using the Ocean Kit … I have provided the exact warping sequence and treadling sequence I used in this set of towels. More to come in future newsletters.

There are 262 warp threads in each Bouclé Towel Kit…you can use this graphic with any of the kits.  Play with the colours in the kit 😀 All towels were woven 30” ish in plain weave. Some a little shorter, some a little longer.

Warp Colour Sequence:
6 Royal
60 Pale Limette
4 Royal
38 Alternating Turquoise/Limette 
4 Royal
38 Alternating Limette/Turquoise
4 Royal
38 Alternating Turquoise/Limette
4 Royal
60 Peacock
6 Royal

2” Peacock (includes hem)
4 picks Royal
4 picks Peacock, alternating with 4 picks Pale Limette for the entire towel
I started each colour on opposite sides and let them scallop up the selvedge.
4 picks Royal 2” Peacock (includes hem)

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2” Limette (includes hem)
3” Peacock
5” 3 picks Limette/1 pick Peacock
1” Peacock
2” 3 picks Limette/1 pick Peacock
1” Limette
1” Peacock
16” Pale Limette (includes hem)

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4” Peacock (includes hem)
4 picks Royal
3” Turquoise
4 picks Royal
3” Alternating Turquoise/Limette
4 picks Royal
3” Limette
5 picks Royal
3” Alternating Turquoise/Limette
4 picks Royal
3” Turquoise
4 picks Royal
5” Pale Limette
4 picks Royal
4” Peacock (includes hem)

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2” Royal (includes hem)
2” Peacock
4 picks Royal
20” Turquoise
5 picks  Royal
5” Limette
2” Royal (includes hem)

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JST Cotton Boucle Tea Towel Kit
Colourways

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Here to help

You can always find us on the School of Weaving Forum or on 
Weave with Jane Stafford at Ravelry