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When the Venne Eco Jeans yarn arrived in stock, we all got quite excited about the possibilities that this 100% recycled, environmentally friendly yarn would add to our selection of yarns. Did you know that Eco Jeans yarn is made from recycled jeans and used plastic bottles? Worn jeans, jackets and other articles of denim fabric get a new life through this yarn 🙂
We thought there wasn’t a better way to understand the possibilities of this special yarn than by creating a kit where it takes centre stage. These scarves, designed and woven by Lorelie Lenaour, use the cramming and denting technique and are so much fun to weave and wear. I hope you have as much fun playing with our new yarn as Lorelie has. What a stunning design!
We thought you would enjoy seeing what Lydia in Santa Rosa, California created for her dining table, using the skills and understanding that has already learned from the School of Weaving. It is so beautiful that we knew that you would love to see the photos as well! We look forward to discovering messages in our Inbox from our School of Weaving subscribers who are learning to fly off on their very own creative journey. Well done, Lydia!
Hi Jane,
I’m enjoying my subscription to the Stafford sessions/classes very much. I love your understated designs, good humor, and ability to make everything seem doable! I’m on season 3. I will not be tangling with mohair just yet. I am a member of the Redwood Guild of Fiber Arts, down here in Santa Rosa, CA. You’ve given me the ability to go back to certain classes for inspiration and think of new ways to put together weaves and colors.
This table runner is for my dining table. I used a 4 harness Birdseye pattern with occasional basketweave pattern. I used blue and gold 8/2 cottolin for the warp and mercerized 5/2 cotton for the weft with a few accent colors at the 1/3 mark. I was surprised how much heavier the mercerized cotton made the final product. The weight seems just right for the long table.
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.
Our fabulous Dream Team member, Sharon Broadley designed these beautiful blankets as a way to send some love and coziness to friends and family. Besides being cozy – they are also stunning, bright, cheery and affordable – what else can I say to describe them? As soon as this current heat wave passes and you start feeling that fall is in the air – this kit, with a warp long enough to weave 3 blankets, could be waiting to jump onto your 45″ loom. They are woven with Quebecoise 100% wool yarn which makes each one an affordable gift to have ready and waiting for some special occasion.
We are lucky to have some more of our fabulous Semi Bleached Tussah silk in stock. It’s a lovely soft beige colour that looks stunning woven the way it is or – if you are a fan of dyeing your own colours – it takes dye beautifully. This silk will create a fabulous range of slightly muted, soft colours to make your weaving uniquely yours.
Each Simple Collapse Weave Pucker Up kit comes with instructions, pattern and all the yarn which includes 18/2 Merino Wool & JST’s hand-dyed 30/2 Bombyx silk you need to weave up 2 scarves. You’ll need a 4 shaft loom with a width of 18 inches.
We were happy to see the photo below from School of Weaving member – France – when it popped into our Inbox! Below, in her words, France describes her very impressive project and shares with us a wee bit about herself.
Here’s my latest work. A rug in Rep Weave and is 160″ long by 26″ wide. I started this project in April after the maple sugar season. I have just finished it. The warp is 8/2 cotton at 48 ends per inch. The weft is 16/8 twice (2 strands of 16/8) cotton with tabby 8/2 cotton. Since I am not a fast weaver, it took me a long time to weave.
I take time to watch all of your videos and I adore what you do and how you teach. I am also a weaving teacher in a town near where I live. I take one student at a time and teach him or her, the basics of making a simple draft and how to put the threads on the loom. Our looms are all sectional.
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.
You know how much I love weaving with Zephyr – Jaggerspun’s beautiful 18/2 – 50% Merino/50% Tussah Silk yarn! The softness of the Merino and silk blend, the extra glint that the silk gives to our cloth, and the beautiful way the Merino fulls, make this yarn magic to weave with. And…it’s dyed in a stunning range of colours. Just when I thought this line of Zephyr couldn’t get any better… Jaggerspun introduced 6 more beautiful colours! Check below to see them – Rust, Espresso, Rapture Rose, Mythical Pink, Chartreuse and Seaweed. With this addition to our Zephyr line, we now have almost 30 colours to play with!
Early in 2021, Jane spent time talking to Nicole Burgess – host and inspiration behind her Podcast series – Soulfilled Sisterhood Podcast. You can find out more about Nicole and focus as “Soul-Led Leadership Coach to Women in Midlife” through her website.
We thought you might be interested in learning more about Jane’s journey through weaving as she is interviewed by Nicole. Below, you’ll find an overview of what these two amazing women talked about during the interview and click on the button to listen to Jane’s story.
Jane Stafford has been sitting behind a loom since 1978. In the early years, Jane was a production weaver and sought-after workshop instructor, introducing countless weavers to the possibilities of color and design in cloth, while at the same time consulting closely in the design of the Louet Jane Loom (there’s a reason Louet’s table loom is named “Jane”), and helping thousands of weavers learn to use Louet looms on instructional DVDs.
For many years Jane taught exclusively in her studio on beautiful Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. Weavers came from all over the continent to attend JST’s famous weaving retreats, which contributed to Jane’s being named Teacher of the Year by Handwoven magazine in 2014.
In 2016 Jane created the JST Online Guild, a streamable weaving resource viewed by thousands of weavers around the world. The online guild is a resource that allows anyone, anywhere access to Jane’s workshops from the comfort of their own home.
In this episode: Business Lessons
Jane shares her journey of becoming a weaver and business owner
Nicole reflects Jane’s passion and joy coming through in her teaching videos
Encouraging her students to “play” and being curious in weaving (Business Lessons #1)
Making mistakes and how making this decision shifted her thinking
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.
The natural world is my inspiration. No matter where you look, there is something to guide your colour choices. Flowers, as they spring up in my garden, often send me directly to my wall of yarn to start pulling colours together, with thoughts of “what if” racing through my brain. The apple blossoms not only helped me to create a soft, light palate but my mind also started “seeing” what these beautiful wee flowers would become when they grew up! Before I knew it, off the shelf came the colours that remind me of apples 😉 When I looked at the beautiful bunch of daffodils – yarn colours immediately popped into my mind and away I went again! Nature provides us with inspiration everywhere we look – rocks, trees, birds, ocean, sunsets… The next time you head out for a walk – open your eyes and imagine what an amazing cloth you could create from the colours you see in your world.
We were happy to see these photos arrive in our inbox! A perfect example of inspiration that David from California pulled from a photo into his woven cloth. He’s created such a beautiful fabric out of that one image! David’s taken what he’s learned so far and run with it to weave his own original cloth – including making “just” plain stripes sing and pushing Turned Twill into grids that can be used for a game 🙂 We are looking forward to seeing where he heads next!
This is the note that David added to his email along with his photos:
A few things I have been working on. Have the linen and silk on the loom currently.
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.
Season 5 gave us more magic to weave into our cloth as we learned about Laces in its many different forms. There is something truly elegant about laces and should you want to learn to weave one or more of them, their kits are waiting for you in the JST Shop 😉
All of our School of Weaving Kits include the yarns and the pattern needed to follow along while you watch videos.
Scroll down this newsletter to find an interview that Maiwa did with me in 2010 as I was about to teach another workshop through their annual Symposium. Those were wonderful times as I immersed myself in bringing textile weaving to students from all over North America into the world of Maiwa and Charllotte Kwon. They were amazing, exhilarating days when we both taught in person workshops. COVID-19 changed our world and both Charlotte and I have developed ways of taking our knowledge, of our particular fields, into the digital world of online classes.
Canvas Weave is a great place to start this study of Laces. You’ll be amazed at how many different effects are possible. The sampler is woven in beautiful Venne 16/2 organic linen and we play with different treadling and colour and weave sequences. In total, there are 21 different variations on the warp in your PDF. So much fun!
Canvas Weave Kit includes 1 x 250g cones of 16/2 Venne Organic Linen Linen White and 1 x 100g cone of 16/2 Venne Organic Linen Light Stone Grey.
Huck grows beautifully from Canvas Weave. We work with 2 units and learn the 3 main ways to tie up and get weft floats, warp floats and Lace. With those 3 elements, you’ll be able to create all kind of other patterns. We also learn how to read our cloth and you’ll be able to understand Huck patterns when you look at them.
Huck Kit is available in two colourways, Periwinkle or Crocus. It includes 1 400g cone of Bambu 7 in your chosen colour.
Huck Colour & Weave is jam-packed with inspiration to last your entire weaving journey! We learn that we can warp with 3 end and 5 end units in one piece and even 7 if we want. We look at all 3 tie-ups to get different effects with weft spots, warp spots and lace. You can also treadle using 3 end and 5 end units all in the same piece. So much to design using colour and weave effect!
Everything we’ve learned so far with Huck brings us to Swedish Lace. The units are the same as Huck but with Swedish Lace, it allows us to repeat those units as many times as we want. We learn that our A units and our B units can be repeated in our threading and in our treadling with the addition of an extra tabby pick. We use our Mother-of-all-tie-ups and weave weft spots, warp spots and Lace.
Swedish Lace Kit comes with 2 cones of 8/4 cotton Nile and 1 cone of 8/4 cotton Denim.
Bronson Spot has so much design potential for the 4 shaft weaver! It is the only Lace structure on 4 shafts where you can have 3 units, which means we can use twill profiles to inspire our shapes. It can also have 4 or 6 thread units, perfect for finer yarns and we can have diagonal lines & blocks all in the same piece. How cool is that!
Bronson Spot Kit includes 2 skeins of silk, 1 x 30/2 Bombyx Rainy Day and 1 x 20/2 Bombyx Blue Rinse and 5 cones of 8/2 cotton, 2 Light Plum, 1 Plum, 1 Charcoal, 1 light Grey.
Our first look at Bronson Lace we learn that we can have 2 blocks on 4 shafts and you can repeat the units as many times as you want. You can also weave A & B blocks independently and together. You can have warp floats and weft floats on one surface if you add to your tie-up. With Bronson Lace, you can have Plain Weave as another design element to add to your cloth!
Bronson Lace Kit includes 4 x 250g cones of 8/2 Venne Organic cotton Linen White and 1 x 100g cone of 8/2 Venne Organic cotton Steel Blue.
In Blended Lace, we put everything we’ve learned about Laces together in one piece. We combine Huck, Swedish Lace, Bronson Spot and Bronson Lace. We also learn to have diagonal lines of Laces inspired by Twill shapes and that we can thread selvedges as half units to avoid long floats at the edges. What we can do with only 4 shafts is truly mind blowing!
Blended Lace Kit includes 1 skein of 20/2 Bombyx Natural, 1 skein of 20/2 Bombyx Jam Jar, 2 cones of 8/2 cotton Natural and 1 cone of 8/2 cotton Charcoal.
Huck and Twills
Huck and Twills takes what we’ve learned with Laces and combine Plain Weave and Twill in placemats that highlight the inter-connectivity of these structures. We learn to weave PW, Twill, Huck, Waffle Weave and Monk’s Belt on a Point Twill threading. We weave wider hems that makes the placemats reversible and we consider using different wefts in the hems as design elements. You can have 9 to 10 unique placemats!
Huck and Twills Kit includes 3 cones of 8/4 cotton Ivory, 1 cone of 8/4 cotton Black and 1 cone of 8/3 cotton Raspberry.
If you have an 8 shaft loom, we take a look at Turned Twill and weave 12 unique towels! Turned Twill is based on 4 shafts with weft and warp predominant tie-ups. We learned how to have 2 blocks on 8 shafts and change our twill direction with the blocks. We use a broken treadling that gives us False Damask and learn the importance of clean cut lines.
Turned Twill Kit includes 7 cones of 8/2 cotton, 3 Taupe, 2 Gold, 1 Bleached and 1 Red. This is a stash blasting pattern. Jane wove the first few towels with the warp colours and then used up random colours from her stash. Some of the colours used, but which are not included with the kit are: Fuchsia, Pale Limette, Pale Orange, Apricot, Magenta, Peacock, Turmeric, Ivory, Chocolate in 8/2 cotton Green turquoise & Curry in Venne Organic Cotton
If you’d like to check out the video lessons for each of the weave structures above, head over to the School of Weaving Season 5 page!
An interview with Maiwa from 2010 on how it all started!
Weaver Profile: Jane Stafford
by Maiwa – Saturday, September 04, 2010 (Please note, the event is now past.)
We are on the eve of our 2010 workshop series. For the weaver’s among us that means we get to welcome back Jane Stafford from Jane Stafford Textiles on Salt Spring Island. Jane is one of the most sought after instructors in weaving today. It is one of the high points of the workshop series when she arrives and we unload a number of looms from her van into the Maiwa Loft. It is wonderful to have textiles being created next to all the items from the Maiwa Textile Collection.
Jane Stafford’s weaving studio on Salt Spring Island.
In preparation for her workshop (please note, the event is now past) and to share her perspective with a wider audience we’ve interviewed Jane about her start in weaving and how it has formed the centre of her life.
M. – What is your weaving history? How did you get started?
J.S. – I grew up being taught the “gentle arts,” learning to sew, embroider, mend, repair, make useful again and reuse all things ‘textile’. I saw my first loom when I was 19 and became fascinated with the idea that I could make my own cloth. It only took me a few weeks to find a way into that world – once I had a shuttle in my hand I knew that weaving would be my life. I know that sounds corny but it is true.
At 19 when everyone was asking what my future plans were, I started saying “Well, I’m going to be a weaver”. I wanted a loom so I got a chattel mortgage on my little car and bought my Leclerc Fanny. We still use that loom today to weave all the mohair blankets. I went to university, took a few basic design courses and started to weave some of the worst cloth you have ever seen in your life! However, I have to say that every piece of bad cloth was an opportunity to learn how to make things better.
In 1981 I left Thunder Bay for Banff, Alberta to study weaving. The Banff School of Fine Arts had just changed their textile programme to a more artistic vein, one which I had not even been aware of. Art textiles were just coming into their own and I was offered a one year residency with full scholarship.
It was pretty daunting being a kid from Thunder Bay with little awareness of what was happening in the bigger world. I think I had a little angel on my shoulder because I spent the next seven years at that school. I was weaving large sculptural pieces and installations; doing collaborative work with dancers and theatre folk.
During this whole period I was torn between the artistic, large-scale work I was doing, and my desire to weave functional cloth. Mildred Constantine was a frequent lecturer at the centre during that time (she was the curator of decorative arts at MOMA) and as we spoke of my confusion she emphatically said “Well, you know Jane, there was a time when cloth was worth it’s weight in gold”.
For me, this statement was a validation that simple cloth could have great value in our lives. For most people, cloth in this day and age means almost nothing. We ask little more of it than to be able to throw it in the washer and the dryer. We get new clothes every season and we fill thrift shops with our clothes from last season – or worse, we just throw them all away. I knew that cloth needed to have a much more special purpose in my life.
Around that time, Jack Larsen came to the centre and taught a workshop called “The Consummate Cloth” and I got to be his studio assistant. This was a pivotal event for me on many levels, but the most interesting thing for me was to be in a position where I just had to listen and to assist.
When you are in the ‘student position’ you have to perform, you have all the psychological issues around performing for your teacher and other students in your class and I never learn well in those situations. However, when you are simply assisting, you get to watch how the teacher imparts their knowledge and you can be a sponge. I didn’t touch a shuttle during the entire 3 weeks but I learned more about aspiring to create a perfect piece of cloth than I had in all previous years of study. “The consummate cloth” – has a perfect sett, is designed to function and endure, has exquisite drape and hand, is simple and beautiful to the eye. To me, a bolt of plain white cloth, exquisitely woven is like the perfect loaf of bread. It is life!
M. How has weaving become the vital part of your life?
J.S. – I moved to Salt Spring Island in 1988. I started a family and I started teaching what I knew. My little business JST is the result of the last 22 years. Those years have been very organic. I have walked down roads that have failed, I have taken little paths that have opened to whole new fields. I have woven thousands of yards of fabric, taught hundreds of weavers, raised 3 beautiful boys and grown lots of vegetables. Weaving, family and farm, are my life.
M. What is your “take” on weaving? Why do you think people start?
J.S. – I think that all North Americans start weaving because of a general interest in textiles. Some are drawn to the technical end of it, and some to the design end of it. Some use it as a type of therapy. I’m fine with whatever reason they have – because we all need things in our lives for different reasons.
M. In which directions do you encourage your students ?
J.S. – The one thing I encourage all my students to do, is to, ‘do it as well as you can’. I know for a fact that everyone can learn the skills necessary to create good cloth. Design and theory can be taught. Good technique can be taught. And with good technique and good design you are able to realize your dreams. These things are concrete.
I encourage my students to start with a small box. To learn about what is in that box, for example; Plain Weave. Plain Weave has got to be one of the most diverse and exciting weave structures that I can think of. The ability to transform itself into different, unique, amazing fabrics is infinite. We can create simple canvases on which to paint with a billion colours; in stripes, wide and narrow, then crossed with themselves, or other colours to create checks and plaids. We can use our reeds to change the density of the cloth; to create warp faced or weft faced fabrics. We can use our reeds to create crammed, dented and corded fabrics. We can weave multiple layers of plain weave simultaneously to create double cloth and triple cloth. We can throw different yarns into the mix, some that shrink and some that don’t – to create 3 dimensional cloth. It is endless.
Once you have explored your plain weave box, then try exploring your twill box. When you stay in one box for awhile, you begin to know it. Once you know it, it is yours.
Weaving is a metaphor for life. The warp threads are what we have been given through our ancestry, they lengthen through our experience and as we weave our weft through them. Sometimes the structures we weave are complex and difficult and sometimes they are simple and elegant – just like life.
M. What is it about Bengal weaving that intrigues you?
J.S. – I am so drawn to the Bengal weaves because they are simple and elegant, multi layered, architectural and every time I look at them I am reminded of how much I have to learn. : ) They are ‘consummate cloth’.
M. How is it you have a loom named after you? J.S. – I have worked for Louet North America for many many years. I have done training for them, designed fabrics with their yarns, and co-created the DVD on all their looms. Every 2 years I used to go to the Convergence Conference with them to demonstrate their looms and at one of these conferences Jan Louet and I were talking about table looms. I told him all the things I liked about their looms and all the things I didn’t like about their table loom. Jan asked me for a wish list, which I gladly provided.
A year later, I received a box in the mail with the first prototype for a new table loom. Everything that had been on my wish list was on the new loom. Jan made several more prototypes and in the end we have … The Jane.
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After the interview we chatted a bit about production weaving and teaching. Jane told us that she found there was such a demand for the patterns and designs of her weaving that she changed her emphasis to teaching. Being liberated from the repetition of production work has enabled her to put more energy into the creative aspects of weaving. “And I love sharing the skills and techniques in a teaching environment.”
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.
