April 2020 Newsletter

Peachy Keen makes the list!

Last year we created a few runs of special colour ways and Peachy Keen was a hit. We’ve had so many requests for this colour that I’ve made it a regular part of our palette….sweet and juicy, just like my favourite summer fruit.
Available in 30/2 Bombyx, 20/2 Bombyx and 20/2 Tussah 🙂

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Rustic Elegance Tea Towel Kit

I’ve wanted to get this pattern written up for quite awhile and finally….it’s done. I originally created this pattern  years ago for our Deluxe Weavers Retreats and this warp was coveted by everyone in those workshops. This time I’ve created Rustic Elegance Tea Towels using Venne 16/2 Organic Linen so they will last a life time and become modern heirlooms. It is a lovely study in subtle ‘colour and weave’ techniques on Huck Weft Spots. Every towel uses a different combination of colour sequencing on the same treadling. The patterns are amazing. The towels have a rustic yet modern elegance, perfect for a minimalist decor. You could weave this warp as 2 runners or 4 towels, or 1 runner and 2 towels….get the drift :).

Natty Sherlock Scarf

Just letting you know that we only have 5 Natty Sherlock Scarf Kits left in stock. This soft delicious scarf is woven with 1 skein of a wonderful 30/2 Tussar Tweed silk that is no longer available and one skein of our hand dyed 30/2 Bombyx in Chocolate Cherry. Natty Sherlock was designed by Salt Spring Island weaver Mavis MacMillan and is based on a striping sequence using the Fibonacci numerical series….there is always so much information in our patterns. When washed there is the slightest hint of collapse 🙂

It’s The Little Things

We are so lucky to have a wee post from Sandra Crompton. Sandra is the keeper of the Knowledge Base on our website and is one of the wonderful gals cheerleading and responding to your questions on the JST Forum and Ravelry. Just in case you didn’t know about the Knowledge Base…formerly known as JST’s helpline….. you can find it here. Sandra has been managing 100’s of posts each year since I first started saving all my responses to weavers questions AND, Sandra wants you to know how to STASH BUST….it’s great!

Meet My Enablers – the Cone Family!

My little tale goes like this ……. I’ve made a promise to myself that my stash can no longer continue to expand, so – before I can give myself permission to order the linen that I crave from JST, I have to use up some stash. I found part cones of several cottolin coloursthat have been aging in place for years, and decided it was time to do something with them. After playing with different graphics and – thanks to the Cone Family – I was able to calculate how much yarn was left on each cone. In order to do that, I needed to know how much each empty cone or tube weighed, which I found in the above photos. In Canada, we are fickle to our systems of measurement and flit back and forth between them. In this case, I weighed each colour and deducted the Imperial weight of the cone from the total. I checked the JST Cottolin webpage, and confirmed that there were 3,000 yards in one lb. I divided 3,000 by 16 to get the resulting number of yards per ounce – 187.5. Math is my nemesis but for some reason I really had fun getting down to the point where I knew how much yarn I had to work with.  

The green was the colour I was concerned about most, so …… these are the steps I took:

My green cottolin weighed                3.10 oz
Minus the tube which weighed            .40 oz
Weight of yarn only                           2.70 oz

At that point I could convert my green into yardage –

2.70 oz X 187.5 yds. per oz = 506.25 yards of green available for my project.

I did that with all the colours and then adapted my graphic to the results.  

After winding my warp to include a few tea towels plus a shawl (which will help use up bobbins of silk) I still have enough of the cottolin to mix with cotton in the tea towels. Now can I go online shopping??????

While supplies last

I’ve done a little house cleaning and put a few odds and ends in the sale bin.
Hope you find something you might need 🙂

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Here to help

You can always find us on the Jane Stafford Online Guild Forum or on Weave with Jane Stafford at Ravelry.