Month: July 2022

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July 26, 2022 newsletter

Complete Tussah Line Now On Our Shelves!

Finally, all our fabulous line of JST Hand-dyed 20/2 Tussah silk has been reinvented and is ready for you to weave your magic with!

We’ve switched the Tussah line over to a bleached Tussah. This produces colours that are brighter and clearer than they were on the natural Tussah, more like the sparkle of the 20/2 Bombyx and 30/2 Bombyx. Our dyer has been working hard to get our full line of colours ready for you to explore and create with. All of JST’s silks are hand-dyed right here on Salt Spring Island!

For optimum drape we sett it at 20 epi for Plain Weave and 24 for Twill. Check out Jane’s Master Sett Chart for ideas and setts for combining silk with other fibres.

100% Silk spun in Switzerland – 20/2 Tussah 5000 yds/lb.
Available in 100 g skeins with 110 yds/skein.

JST Hand-dyed Tussah Silks

Styrene Spools

One JST 100 g skein of silk will fit perfectly on a styrene spool! You can see how I make that happen below 😉

Buying one of our silk skeins?
We’d be happy to wind it onto a styrene spool for you. The Winding Fee includes the Leclerc styrene spool which becomes yours to put away to reuse.

Ask Jane

Moving silk on a skein to a large spool for warping.

I’ve just bought some silk from JST and I don’t want to mess it up! Do you recommend winding silk onto spools in the same way she winds bobbins? 

All our silks are in skeins. To get your silk to be easy to wind into a warp, the first thing you need to do is to “open” up your skein. That’s done by putting your hands inside the skein and quickly force the skein out a number of times, as you move the skein around your wrists. This helps the silk to stop clinging to it’s neighbours and get ready to unwind happily from the swift. Once on the swift, find where the 2 ends of the skein are tied together and take the outside one and get it started by winding a bit around a spool to secure it. Put your spool into your bobbin winder and away you go! A large Leclerc “storage” spool will hold 100 g of silk if you wind the spool firmly enough. See the photos below to see what I mean.


School of Weaving subscriber? Watch Season 1 Episode 1 – Making a Good Warp for more great tips which includes winding a bobbin, how to use a warping board, table top and floor model warping mills as well as how to hold multiple ends in your hand to help winding your warp much faster!

School of Weaving

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Don’t be shy – share your creative designs with us 🙂

We’d love to see how you’ve taken what you’ve learned through the School of Weaving using JST Kits and/or our yarns and made it your own. Send us your photos, including the story behind your cloth. Click here to share your information, photos and adventure with us. With your permission, you might see your work featured in a future newsletter!

We offer FREE shipping on all Louet looms within Continental North America. We also offer the option to pay a $1000.00 CAD deposit on your loom with the balance due when the loom ships out to you. This gives you the flexibility to make smaller payments towards your balance, at your convenience.

Here to help

Have a weaving question? Find us on the Jane Stafford School of Weaving Forum and on

Weave with Jane Stafford on Ravelry.

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July 19, 2022 newsletter

Season 4 Kits!

Twills on 4!

As we discovered in Season 4 – Twills are one of the most magical weave structures that give us the base for sooooo much creativity. Even if you have woven these before, we thought you might enjoy revisiting some of these kits, now that you have a bit more weaving under your belt. If you haven’t woven the samples – well, try one or more and see if you get as “hooked” on Twill, as I am 😉 – as you explore what YOU can create with these warps, threadings and treadlings. Take a structure and make it yours. Just imagine the wonderful fabric you could create – with all that Twill knowledge under your belt.

Browse all Season 4 kits

Introduction to Simple Two Stripe Twill

Here’s your chance to overlay many of our Colour & Design principles onto 2/2 Twill, 3/1-1/3 Twill and Basket Weave. You can use this kit as a blank canvas to create samples, a narrow scarf, OR you could open up your sett to 12, grab some Bouclé yarn from your stash and weave yourself a wonderful bunch of tea towels.

This Simple Two Stripe Twill Kit includes 4 cones of 8/2 cotton (2 each in Natural and Charcoal) including the pattern to use as your starting point for exploring Twill. 

Small Threadings Twill Gamp

This kit uses 8/4 cotton and gives you so many options! With the 6 yard warp you would put on your loom you can weave the samples described in the included pattern or ….. you could play with the sett. Sett at 12 epi – you could weave a great blankie, 15 epi gives a firmer sample, 16 epi would give you a nice, firm placemat 😉 Just have fun with these Twill variations and combinations!

This Small Threadings Gamp Kit comes with 5 cones of 8/4 cotton – 2 Black, 2 Bleached and 1 Cherry as well as the pattern draft.

Point Twill Gamp

The perfect kit to explore Point Twill gamps or…. with the width and length of this warp – you can weave a bunch of baby blankets playing with Point Twill all the way! You will need to thread this warp to 34″ in the reed to end up with a BBB – (Beautiful Baby Blankie) 😏 You can play with Colour and Weave, Basket Weave, and use Fibonacci to help you create treadling sequences. So much fun!

The Point Twill Gamp Kit includes 7 cones of 8/4 cotton, 3 cones Nile, 1 cone Plum and 3 cones of whatever weft you have chosen, as well as the pattern to get you on the loom and weaving.

Large Threadings Twill Gamp

When Twill threadings are repeated, they create stunning results. You will have a 6 yard warp to play with that will be 17″ in your reed. You can use those shapes to overlay your cloth with other threading concepts…. it really is simple once you break it all down and then build it up again. Just imagine the unique placemats you could create! So much fun. So many possibilities.

The Large Threading Gamp Kit includes 5 cones of 8/4 cotton, 2 cones Black, 2 cones Bleached, and 1 cone Cherry, as well as the pattern draft.

Shadow Weave Meets Twill

You’ll have a wee chance to play with Atwater Shadow Weave applied to 4 harness Twill shapes in this kit. Your warp is 6 yards and the width in your reed is 17″ so you’ll have a large enough canvas to create your own unique scarf, or …..

The Shadow Weave Meets Twill Kit includes 6 cones of 8/2 cotton: 2 cones Black and 1 each Fuchsia, Pale Orange, Apricot and Peacock plus your pattern draft.  If you have some 8/2 cotton in your stash – or some 20/2 silk for a bit of additional softness – you are well on your way to weaving something special.

From Our Inbox!

We thought you would enjoy seeing the fabulous tea towels that Berly (Kimberley) has been creating with fresh insight from what she’s learned on the School of Weaving …..

I picked up weaving about 5 years ago and found JST during the beginning of the pandemic. Before that, I’d learned to weave and purchased my own loom from the Chattahoochee Handweavers Guild in Atlanta. There are a few things I picked up from the JST classes that I think have made all the difference for me. The first one is that you should beat on an open shed. I gave it a try, what a difference it made to my selvedges (seriously!!). The second is when I tried out the color and weave – hot pink – kit. It really opened my eyes when it comes to color, and color in the warp. I’ve now turned my weaving into a side hustle with really fun, and colorful boucle tea towels. 

Below are photos of a few towels I’ve made since then. 

Give Berly a follow on IG @berl_textiles

School of Weaving
Watch anywhere, anytime!

iPhone   Apple TV   Android   Android TV  Fire TV  Roku ®

Sign Up for your 7-day FREE Trial

Don’t be shy – share your creative designs with us 🙂

We’d love to see how you’ve taken what you’ve learned through the School of Weaving using JST Kits and/or our yarns and made it your own. Send us your photos, including the story behind your cloth. Click here to share your information, photos and adventure with us. With your permission, you might see your work featured in a future newsletter!

We offer FREE shipping on all Louet looms within Continental North America. We also offer the option to pay a $1000.00 CAD deposit on your loom with the balance due when the loom ships out to you. This gives you the flexibility to make smaller payments towards your balance, at your convenience.

Here to help

Have a weaving question? Find us on the Jane Stafford School of Weaving Forum and on

Weave with Jane Stafford at Ravelry.

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July 13, 2022 newsletter

Rustic Elegance Tea Towels Now Available in Cotton!

We’ve added a new version of our favourite Rustic Elegance Tea Towel kit to the shop. You can now get it in cotton or linen – your choice! Ginette took the Rustic Elegance pattern and wove the towels in cotton – they were so gorgeous that we thought we would create a kit in the cotton as well, so you could have 2 options for your loom. The same beautiful contemporary design using the magic of Huck, along with working with Colour and Weave in the weft, combine to create the same fabulous cloth – but in cotton!

I hope you are getting a chance to enjoy summer – we’re finally starting to see our garden exploding with colour and the promise of the fruit and vegetables to come.

Level of Difficulty: Advanced Beginner 
Weave structure: Huck lace
Material: 8/2 cotton
Each kit makes: 8 towels

Loom requirements:
Shafts: 4
Width in reed: 26½”
Reed: 12 dent

Each kit includes:

Weaving instructions (including draft)

2 cones of 8/2 cotton in Natural

1 cone each of 8/2 cotton in Charcoal, Dark Grey & Light Grey

Check Out Rustic Elegance Kit

Huck Lace Cotton Tea Towel – Mountain View

These bright, beautiful tea towels are so much fun to weave with all the delightful colours you get to play with. The Huck Lace also gives so many pops of colour where different colours of lace floats play together. With the warp giving you 8 towels to weave, you’ll be able to hide a few from the family so you have gifts ready and waiting should you have an unexpected event that requires one 😉

Level of Difficulty: Advanced Beginner
Weave structure: Plain Weave & Huck Lace
Material: 8/2 Cotton
Each kit makes: 8 Tea Towels

Loom requirements:
Shafts: 4
Reed: 12 dent
Weaving width: 25½”

Each kit includes:
Weaving instructions (including draft)
1 cone each of 8/2 Cotton in Dusty Blue, Lime, Plum, Taupe, Turmeric & Teal

Check Out Huck Lace Cotton

Ask Jane – from our Knowledge Base Files

The detailed “how-to” of doing the tie-up on a Counter-Marche loom…

A counter-marche loom is like a jack loom and a sinking shed loom combined into one loom. That is why you have 2 setts of lamms. Your upper lamms act like a sinking shed loom and your lower lamms act as your rising shed loom or jack loom. That is why you have to tie-up both parts on a counter-marche. It is twice the tie-up as the other types of looms because you have to tie-up the lower lamms like a jack loom and the upper lamms as a counter-balance loom…..

Here is an example..

Let’s take the Huck tie-up from Season 5 Episode 3 pattern from the School of Weaving as an example. On page 4, I give you the mother of all tie-ups for Huck Treadling Rising Shed.

Treadle 1 is tied up to 1 and 3…so you tie those up to your lower lamms…that leaves 2 and 4 left over so you tie those to your upper lamms.

Treadle 2 is tied up to 2 and 4….so you tie those up to your lower lamms…that leaves 1 and 3 left over so you tie those to your upper lamms.

Treadle 3 is tied up to 1 and 2…so you tie those up to your lower lamms…that leaves 3 and 4 left over so you tie those to your upper lamms.

Treadle 4 is tied up to 3 and 4…so you tie those up to your lower lamms…that leaves 1 and 2 left over so you tie those to your upper lamms.

Treadle 5 is tied up to 1,2 and 3…so you tie those up to your lower lamms…that leaves 4 left over so you tie it to your upper lamms.

Treadle 6 is tied up to 2,3 and 4…so you tie those up to your lower lamms…that leaves 1 left over so you tie it to your upper lamms.

Treadle 7 is tied up to 1…so you tie it up to your lower lamm…that leaves 2,3 and 4 left over so you tie them to your upper lamms.

Treadle 8 is tied up to 4…so you tie it up to your lower lamm…that leaves 1,2 and 3 left over so you tie those to your upper lamms.

Does that make sense 🙂

Don’t be shy – share your creative designs with us 🙂

We’d love to see what you’ve recently woven using JST Kits and/or our yarns or if you are a subscriber to School of Weaving, show us how you’ve taken what you’ve learned and made it your own. Send us your photos, including the story behind your cloth. Click here to share your information, photos and adventure with us. With your permission, you might see your work featured in a future newsletter!
We offer FREE shipping on all Louet looms within Continental North America. We also offer the option to pay a $1000.00 CAD deposit on your loom with the balance due when the loom ships out to you. This gives you the flexibility to make smaller payments towards your balance, at your convenience.

School of Weaving ~ Learn Online at Your Own Pace

Watch anywhere, anytime!

iPhone   Apple TV   Android   Android TV  Fire TV  Roku ®

Sign Up for your 7-day FREE trial

Here to help

Have a weaving question? Find us on the Jane Stafford School of Weaving Forum and on

Weave with Jane Stafford at Ravelry.

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July 5, 2022 newsletter

They’re Back! Thread Count Magnifiers

Have you ever come across a beautiful piece of cloth and wondered what structure and sett created it? Keep one of these magnifiers close at hand and you can take a closer look 😉  

This one-piece folding thread count magnifier can be used to count the number of threads per inch or per half-inch. Designed to fold flat and slip into your pocket, this solid one is metal rather than plastic.

Check them out on our website!

Just Monk’ing Around Tea Towel Kit

I am so delighted to share Arlene Kohut’s Monk’s Belt towel pattern as a JST Kit. It is absolutely fantastic and you will have so much fun playing with your own designs once you get it all warped up. I’m sure you’ll make this pattern over and over again in whatever colours strike your fancy.

We offer 3 different colour scheme kits to choose from, Berry Bowl, Kiwi and Surf’s Up.

Level of Difficulty: Intermediate 
Weave structure: Monk’s Belt with Plain Weave
Material: 8/2 cotton
Each kit makes: 8 Tea Towels

Loom requirements:

Shafts: 4

Reed: 10 dent

Weaving width: 22.7″

Just Monk’ing Around Tea Towel Kits include weaving instructions (including draft) and 5 cones of 8/2 cotton.

Ganges Sunrise Scarf Kit

These lovely scarves are perfect for spring and summer! Woven with silk on linen in alternating bands of 1/3 and 3/1 Twill. They have a gorgeous sheen and drape with a slightly crisp texture that will only get softer and more shimmery with wear. 

This pattern requires only 4 harnesses, but there are 8 different tie-ups required for weaving.  If you have an 8 shaft loom, you’re stylin’, but if you have a 6 treadle loom, we’ve provided a tie-up system to ensure your success!

Level of Difficulty: Advanced Beginner

Weave structure: 1/3, 3/1 Twill Weave
Material: 30/2 Bombyx Silk, 40/2 linen
Each kit makes: 2 Scarves

Loom requirements:

Shafts: 4
Reed: 12 dent

Ganges Sunrise Scarf Kit includes weaving instructions (including draft), one cone each of Linen in Teal & Olive, and 1 skein each of 30/2 Bombyx Silk – Coral Flame and Dragon Fruit.

Ganges Sunrise Scarf Kit with Additional Silks

We always have spools of 30/2 silk kicking around, so – we did another version adding 2 more colours… Favourite Wine and Buddha Berry. Please NOTE that if you want to get these colours you must select the “Ganges Sunrise Scarf Kit with Additional Silks” from the drop-down menu when ordering.

Level of Difficulty: Advanced Beginner

Weave structure: 1/3, 3/1 Twill Weave
Material: 30/2 Bombyx Silk, 40/2 linen
Each kit makes: 2 Scarves

Loom requirements:

Shafts: 4
Reed: 12 dent

Ganges Sunrise Scarf Kit with Additional Silks includes weaving instructions (including draft), one cone each of Linen in Teal and Olive and 1 skein each of 30/2 Bombyx Silk in Coral Flame, Dragon Fruit, Buddha Berry and Favourite Wine.

Don’t be shy – share your creative designs with us 🙂

We’d love to see how you’ve taken what you’ve learned through the School of Weaving using JST Kits and/or our yarns and then created your own unique cloth/project. Send us your photos, including the story behind your cloth. Click here to share your information, photos and adventure with us. With your permission, you might see your work featured in a future newsletter!

We offer FREE shipping on all Louet looms within Continental North America. We also offer the option to pay a $1000.00 CAD deposit on your loom with the balance due when the loom ships out to you. This gives you the flexibility to make smaller payments towards your balance, at your convenience.

Here to help

Have a weaving question? Find us on the Jane Stafford School of Weaving Forum and on Weave with Jane Stafford at Ravelry.