Month: October 2021

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October 26th, 2021 newsletter

Weaving for Babies

I know some of you will already know why I love this blankie sooo much. My youngest son Daniel was given such a blankie when he was born, soft, luscious and always there to wrap him in love and warmth. He always wanted to know where ‘she’ was when he was little. (I was given permission to make this public knowledge :^). Blankie doesn’t look quite this good anymore but even though she’s been washed and thrown in the dryer about 10 million times, she’s hangin’ in there.

We thought it only fitting to put blankie into a pattern for other schnookums in our lives – especially now that I’m an absolutely delighted grandmother!

Canvas Weave Baby Blankie

Level of Difficulty: Beginner

Weave structure: 4 shaft canvas weave
Material: Monte Cristo cotton & 8/4 cotton
Each kit makes: 1 blanket

Loom requirements: Shafts: 4

Weaving Width: 35″

Reed: 12 dent

Each kit includes: Weaving instructions (including draft)
1 1lb cone of Monte Cristo cotton, 1 cone 8/4 cotton in nile, 1 cone 8/4 cotton in periwinkle

We can make this kit in any colour we have in stock! Check here to make sure we have your colour in stock then simply, put the Canvas Weave Baby Blanket kit into your cart, on the checkout screen in the “notes” section let us know what colours of 8/4 cotton you would like us to make the kit in.

Shop Canvas Weave Baby Blankie Kit

Monte Cristo Baby Blankie

Level of Difficulty: Beginner

Weave structure: Plain Weave
Material: Monte Cristo cotton
Each kit makes: 1 blanket

Loom requirements:

Shafts: 4
Weaving Width: 35″
Reed: 8 dent

Each kit includes:

Weaving instructions (including draft)
1 1lb cone of Monte Cristo cotton

Shop Monte Cristo Baby Blankie Kit

We are so lucky to have Sharon Broadley on our team of creators. She always shares her amazing talents so generously, sharing patterns with us for our ongoing Maiwa Foundation fundraising, weaving for our show and tells in the School of Weaving and this time an extremely special blog post. Sharon and I have both become first time Nana’s this year and as all you Nana’s out there know…..it is a very special moment in our lives. If only I could have done this for my little Freya…..but she knows she is loved and thank goodness I have time ahead to create some lovely things for her.
I know you will enjoy Sharon’s post 🙂

If you would like to see more of Sharon’s weaving, give her a follow on Instagram @colour.woven.

Grandma Sharon’s Weaving for Baby

Once upon a time, a weaver found out she was soon to be a grandma. So she did what all good grandma-to-be weavers would do: she dusted off her loom, pulled all her yarn out of the cupboard, boxes and (ahem) from under the bed and began to plan what her new grandchild might need.


A couple of cotton bouclé hooded bath towels in rubber ducky colours were woven just like a regular tea towel using 12epi/12ppi except they are about 40 inches square on the loom. An extra 12 inches was woven to create the triangular hooded part. A quick trip to the fabric store ensured that the handmade binding coordinated well. The corners were rounded using a bowl as a template so that none of the binding would need to be mitered.

This grandma-weaver also had some leftover waffle weave fabric and some hand printed Maiwa cotton which were shouting to be put together so a vintage pattern was found. And because this stuffie ended up much larger than remembered from when she’d been a sister-crafter over 50 years ago, she renamed it a Pillowpotamus.

And then when she was told that this new baby would be a girl baby, the grandma-weaver was over the moon because, as all this grandma’s friends know, pink is her favourite colour.


Huck lace woven 41 inches square with two thirds of the warp in baby pink 8/2 organic cotton and the other third in cream organic cotton, playing with these two colours for 2 blankets and adding some other stripes for the 3rd. The sett is 16epi/16ppi.

Plain weave towels in the colours requested by the mom; added light stone grey and pistachio to the pink and cream. Some of these blankets were hemstitched off the loom and some had machine sewn hems. These blankets have become the go-to blankets for all things baby: swaddling, covering, drying, draping…


After weaving some samples on a very long warp and (finally) getting bored, re-sleyed to a narrower sett and made a series of smaller weavings that were planned as samples to refer back to but then, being in grandma-weaver mode, decided to make the best baby wash/spit-up/whatever cloths. The sheep was supplied by the new mom.

Finally, this grandma-weaver wants to share this knitted sweater she made for her first born which will now be worn by her granddaughter. Four children in the family have worn it so far and because my sister carefully wrapped it in acid free paper almost 30 years ago it looks brand new.

Oh and they all lived happily ever after.  
The End.

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October 19th, 2021 newsletter

Two 20/2 Bombyx Silk Colours on Sale!

10% off Shamless 20/2 Bombyx & Coral Flame 20/2 Bombyx Silk
on instock only

The autumns of my youth had a much more vibrant palate than those we experience in our little rain forest on Salt Spring Island! I miss bright ORANGE and RED at this time of the year – our natural forests are evergreen with a dash of yellow here and there. But I do have one Japanese Maple that turns a brilliant red. It greets me at my gate and never fails to bring a smile to my face. This weekend I sat outside admiring my tree sipping a pumpkin latte and decided to offer some orange and red silk in this newsletter.

Happy Weaving xo Jane

Coral Flame 20/2 Bombyx Silk 10% OFF!

For optimum drape we sett 20/2 silk at 20 epi for Plain Weave and 24 for Twill.
  20/2 is available in 100 g skeins with 1,100 yds/skein (5,000 yds/lb).

Shop Coral Flame 20/2 Bombyx Silk 10% off

Shameless 20/2 Bombyx Silk 10% OFF!

For optimum drape we sett 20/2 silk at 20 epi for Plain Weave and 24 for Twill.
  20/2 is available in 100 g skeins with 1,100 yds/skein (5,000 yds/lb).

Shop Shameless 20/2 Bombyx Silk 10% off

JST Hand Dyed Silks

Watch how our silks are all hand dyed right here on Salt Spring Island!

Ask Jane

Wet finishing fine yarn fabrics (taken from the JST Knowledge Base)

I have recently woven a 20/2 silk scarf in a lace weave, which turned out beautifully. However, when I washed it, spun it for 30 seconds in the gentle spin, hung to dry and ironed it dampish, the fabric is still showing creases, which won’t iron out. The same thing happened with the last three bamboo scarves in plain weave. I cannot get the creases out. I rewashed them but it didn’t make a difference. Where have I gone wrong? Silk loves to crease when it is wet. When I wash my silk, I never wring it out. I have always hand washed my silk scarves and stoles in the kitchen sink and I let them drip dry in my shower. Imagine taking your silk scarf and lowering it into your sink, lowering it down like an accordion. I then raise and lower the silk up and down to wash it. When I have finished the washing I accordion it into a lasagna pan sitting beside the sink. Rinse it the same way, always ‘accordioning’ it, never wringing it. I then take the lasagna pan up to the shower and drape the scarf over a broom handle stretched across the shower (I have a corner shower) and I let the scarf drip dry. Then I steam press it with a thin cloth over it. Same thing with any fine yarn, like bamboo.

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October 12th, 2021 newsletter

Inspiration from a Sari Tea Towel Kit

The colours of this warp Inspiration from a Sari come straight out of the muted colour gamp from my Colour and Design workshop.  When I presented that project to the School of Weaving, I wove the bright saturated colours from a sample called Parrot on top and it took me straight to India. When I was there, I had noticed that muted warps, with brilliant wefts, were extremely successful and if you threw in peacock you got iridescence. The first towels on this warp follow the concept of weaving a gamp, working the colours across the warp from one side to the other. After the first 3 towels were done, I broke out those Parrot colours and that is when I really started to have fun. They are my favourites, bright happy and intended to make you smile.

The colours of India will inspire my weaving forever and I hope they inspire you too!

Level of Difficulty: Beginner
Weave structure: Plain Weave
Material: 8/2 Cotton
Each kit makes: 12 Towels and a bit of playtime

Buy the Inspiration from a Sari Kit!

Inspiration Taken Down Another Rabbit Hole 🙂

Anita Salmon is a fabulous weaver living in Victoria, British Columbia. She fell into the weaving “rabbit hole” after retiring from a very busy life in the field of health care. She has been inspired by Jane and was able to take a number of her in-house workshops on Salt Spring. These workshops gave her the tools to gain comfort to explore different structures on her loom. The following is a wonderful example of her journey. In this case, Anita has used the colour palate from a JST kit, layered a totally different structure on top of her own graphic, and shared her eye-popping results with us.

When I first saw the post about the “Inspiration from a Sari” Tea Towel Kit I knew I wanted to weave those colours. They are simply so glorious. However, I wanted to do something other than plain weave (as much as I love plain weave). Turned Taqueté is a structure I had seen in different publications and woven before. The start of my journey into Turned Taqueté was adapted from this older issue of Handwoven that can still be purchased as a digital version. (Long Thread Media’s Handwoven September/October, 2015 issue)

What is Taqueté? Little is written about it in current weaving texts. It is an ancient weft-faced weave structure used in finely woven textiles found from 200 CE China to Coptic Egypt. Over the years the technique found its way to Scandinavia where it persists today, most commonly used for rug weaving. In structure it is known as “polychrome summer and winter” or in other words, summer and winter woven without a tabby which gives a weft dominant fabric. Turning the draft 90 degrees – et Voilà – Turned Taqueté, a straightforward single shuttle warp dominant weave.

I liked the way this weave structure made the warp and weft colours interact with the irregular wavy warp lines.

In 8/2 cotton, with a sett of 20 epi, the cloth has a lovely squishy hand. It is a 4 shaft, 4 treadle structure that is easy to thread and easy to treadle. Winding the warp goes quickly because you are winding two colours at a time.

For my tea towels, I wanted irregular stripes. I paired up all my warp colours in a sequence that I found pleasing, deciding which would be A and which B.  These alternate on the surface of the cloth much like in warp rep. I added a few additional colours to those in the kit. Because each threading and treadling unit is four threads, I designed my stripes in multiples of 4, the smallest stripe being 12 threads and the widest 40.

From the photos, you can see that I played with weaving blocks and stripes and changing the weft colour.

You’ll find the threading sequence below!

Turned Taqueté  Edition, Threading Draft

Hot pink/Cayenne 24 threads
Gold/Pale Orange 36
Pale Limette/Peacock 12
Raspberry/Pink 40
Pale Orange/Pale Limette 20
Peacock/Limette 20
Purple/Gold 32
Hot Pink/Magenta 16
Raspberry/Cayenne 32
Gold/Pink 20
Pale Orange/Fuchsia 32
Raspberry/Purple 24
Purple/Peacock 32
Pale Limette/Limette 20
Gold/Pale Limette 32
Magenta/Purple 40
Peacock/Limette 12
Pink/Magenta 36
Cayenne/Hot pink 24

Total 504 threads

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October 6th, 2021 newsletter

Tea Towel Time with Jane New English Garden Kit

One of the wonderful things about designing kits is that sometimes a customer asks if we can do it in their favourite colours….. English Garden is one of the outcomes.  Roslyn Wallace is a weaver here on Salt Spring and she had woven the original colourway of Tea Towel Time with Jane, had a blast but then wanted to recreate it in colours from her rose garden. We played with a few colour variations and Voila….. it is stunning. These collaborations always leave me with a big smile on my face.  Thanks Ros 🙂
Level of Difficulty: Beginner
Weave structure: Plain weave, 2/2 Twill, Basket Weave, Turned Twill, Broken Twill, 1/3 or 3/1 Twill
Each kit weaves: 12 towels. Finished dimensions: 21″x 27″ hemmed.
Loom requirements: Shafts: 4 or 8
Reed: 12 dent
Weaving Width: 26″

Each kit includes:
Weaving instructions (including draft)
2 cones of 8/2 cotton- Nile
2 cones of 8/2 cotton- Hot Pink
2 cones of 8/2 cotton- Magenta
1 cone of 8/2 cotton- Navy
Shop the Tea Towel Time with Jane – English Garden Kit

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Ask Jane

Hemstitching Tea towels (from the JST Knowledge Base)

Do you hemstitch tea towels even when they are going to have turned hems? Or, do you just machine stitch the ends after removing them from the loom? I’ve always machine stitched the ends but am wondering if I could skip this step if I hemstitched on the loom…will hemstitching encased in a seam hold up to lots of machine washing?

I don’t hemstitch for a towel with a turned hem. I do just what you do….machine stitch the edge and then I double fold and pin. Sometimes I hand stitch, sometimes I machine stitch, it depends on my patience level on the day. I even have a few towels that I have never gotten around to hemming, but I still use them. When those are in use I loudly proclaim that hemming of any kind is highly overrated. :^)

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September 21, 2021 newsletter

Need Help with Warping?

This week, we are including the PDF link to a basic document that will help you with a multitude of warping questions. Warping Jane’s Way is a document that was a handout at a workshop that I used to teach in person, called “Honing Your Basic Weaving Skills“. It walks you through the process of making a warp, and warping your loom. We hope that the step by step instructions and photo essay will help guide you on your journey.

Download Warping Jane’s Way PDF

This document is now 10 years old but the information in it is timeless, and we thought that having this with you as you practice warping your loom, might be useful for those of you who aren’t members of the School of Weaving. After many years of experience I have settled on certain weaving tools that help make my warping and weaving experience a lot easier. 

Here are a few of my favourite things (put the list to the music if you can hear it in your head 🙂

Leclerc Warping Mill – Table Top

Leclerc Single-Ended ElectricBobbin Winder

Schacht 11″ Open Bottom Shuttle

Schacht Bobbins

ASK JANE!

Help … I’m getting skips in my cloth!

I’m a fairly new weaver with a Leclerc Nilus 4 shaft.  I wove a tea towel kit from Jane’s store using cotton boucle and it went well. Now I’m weaving tea towels from a kit using organic cotton. Every inch or two I’m getting small skips over just one extra thread. We adjusted the treadles so they rose more uniformly, then I cleaned up a few heddles that had lint in them, but the problem persists. Have you any idea what I can have done/am doing wrong?

There are several possible reasons. I would try increasing your tension a titch. If they are only on one side then you should watch how you are putting the shuttle inside the shed. You might be diving a little as you throw. Make sure your shuttle is flat (horizontal) as it goes into the shed. I would also check to see if your warp is sitting on the shuttle race or if it is riding high on it (that is assuming you have a shuttle race). On some looms you can raise or lower your beater so that the shuttle race is in the proper position. If you have a shuttle race on your beater it should be sitting right under your warp when the shed is open. The shuttle race should support the bottom of your warp which helps prevent skips. Sometimes floats can be caused by not getting a clean exchange of warp threads which is why I always leave the beater against the fell of the cloth until after I change my shed. Once I’ve changed my shed I return the beater to the castle so I can throw my next shot. By bringing the beater back at this point it can clear up anything that might be sticking.

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