It’s June! And here’s what we’ve been up to. And what’s coming this month. Happy Weaving!
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It’s June! And here’s what we’ve been up to. And what’s coming this month. Happy Weaving!
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The picture above is what we’re so excited about. It’s our newly launched website. We have been working on a very special project for some time now and we are happy to say that the web face of JST has received a facelift.
Although we loved our old site, time isn’t kind to websites, and technology just keeps marching on. We thought it was important to stay with the times and provide our customers and friends with a mobile device optimized website since so many of us are using these types of devices now. You will notice that the website will look different depending on whether you are using a smart-phone, tablet, or computer. This is completely normal and is why we redesigned our site in the first place.
We would love to hear what you like about our new site, and if you find any errors or omissions, do let us know.
Now on to the next thing – our online store! If you experience any troubles ordering, please just let us know and we’ll be happy to take your order either via email or over the phone.
Just a little note for all of you silk weavers and lovers out there about our 2/20 Bombyx. This silk produces a lusciously soft fabric. We recommend that when winding your warp that you wind it with two ends in your hand at a time. This will reduce the number of interlacements going through your lease sticks, and make winding on much easier. If you can’t buy two skeins – no problem! Just wind your single skein into two balls. Easy peasy.
Have you worked with this new linen? We would love to see a picture of your project. Drop us a line at jane@janestaffordtextiles.com or find us and share with us on Facebook.
A few months ago we decided to bring in some new linen to the shop to mix it up a bit and offer an even smaller gauge of linen for those finer projects. Overwhelmingly, people seem to love this new line. We have just finished making up our new linen sample cards as well. You can get to the this new line in our shop by clicking here, and sample cards can be purchased by clicking here.
We have a small quantity of our hand-dyed Cuddles Alpaca blend on sale and we just wanted to let those of you who would like to try this yarn, or those of you who love this yarn. Why? Because we are not going to be dying any further batches of Cuddles. Cuddles is a wool/alpaca bulky, cushy yarn and we even have a knitting pattern for a cute little hat that we’ll throw in for you when you pick up a skein or two. The pattern uses only one Skein. It’s also lovely for the odd shot of texture in your weaving. Here’s the link to the store….
One of the first things that burst forth in the spring is the old fashioned staple Rhubarb. As at home in many homestead gardens as in our kitchen, Rosemary has given us her delicious recipe for Rhubarb Muffins.
2.5 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups chopped rhubarb
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup vegetable oil
Topping (set aside)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp melted butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and prepare your muffin tins.
Mix all the wet ingredients, including the sugar together in a bowl. Next, mix the dry ingredients together so they are well distributed. Incorporate the wet ingredients.
Add chopped rhubarb to mixture. In a separate bowl, mix your melted butter and sugar for the topping. Add batter to your tins, sprinkle with topping and bake for about 20 minutes. Then grab your butter, sit back, and enjoy!
We’ve been playing with a pattern lately here at the shop and we’ve seen a few student interpretations of the pattern. Here is Claudia Cocco’s version of our Alpaca shawl. It’s a pattern that uses denting to produce some really stunning results. This shawl is made with the Alpaca Tweed and our hand-dyed bouclé. Thanks Claudia for allowing us to show this lovely shawl off!
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WORKSHOP AND RETREAT SCHEDULE for 2012!
Some of these pieces are the result of a retreat here at JST. Below is Linda Knowles’ Double Weave scarf in Zephyr that she made after taking our Double Weave workshop in August.
Jeanette Newton used Zephyr for her dented stole in sage and teal after taking our Pushing the Boundaries of Awesome Weave aka Plain Weave workshop in May:
(Thanks to Ingrid Servold for sending us the link!)
We also wanted to share news about a new DVD called Blue Alchemy, Stories of Indigo produced by Mary Lance. It can be purchased through Maiwa in Vancouver.
I am off to Vancouver next week to teach my new workshop, the Delectable Sari for the Maiwa Symposium. I’ll be back with more stories for the next newsletter in a couple of weeks. Until then, happy weaving,
Jane
You just have to feel this to believe it! Softer than a cloud.
I love working with finer yarns more than any yarn and I have always wanted to stock Cashmere ~ so I have finally taken the plunge. After all – that’s what my line of credit is for, isn’t it :^) We have done all the sett testing, made our colour selection, decided on cone size and have just unpacked the boxes today. It is very easy to weave between 18 and 24 EPI depending on plain weave or twill.
It will sell for $32.00/50gr cone with 715 yds on a cone. You can make one 8″x72″ scarf with a cone. All we have to do now is photograph every colour and get it up on the store. If you can’t wait till next week, tell us which row and colour you are interested in and we’ll get it off to you.
Patterns will be coming soon!
Inspiring Weavers
You met these two beautiful, brilliant women over 2 years ago on our blog in September 2008. Jane and Susan have been weaving with Pam and Josie since forever and they always bring their latest projects to show us.
They’ll both turn 91 this year! Every once in a while they arrive at the same time and we all marvel at their continued liveliness. Both are still weaving prolifically. Josie, on the left is wearing her latest turned twill spring scarf (with her sample still attached) in 7 gauge bamboo. Pam, on the right, has been exploring collapse weave using Colcolastic and various reds, pinks and oranges also in 7 gauge bambu. As you can see, both scarves are as lovely as their creators.
Pam’s scarf has 109 threads of 7 gauge bamboo and is threaded to a point twill. The majority of her scarf is woven in plainweave using 7 gauge bambu but every 2 inches she weaves 2 repeats of waffle weave using Colcolastic. When the scarf comes off the loom and is washed, the Colcolastic assisted by the waffle weave structure draws in, collapsing the scarf.
Josie’s scarf as well as a variation woven by Michelle Moore in our wool/silk blend Zephyr are now up on our store site. Check them out! We’ve offered beautiful spring colourways for them, but you can always substitute your own colours!
Stay tuned for more wonderful weaving to come from these two Grande Dames!
We had just finished up this Newsletter when who walks in the door? GP (Granny Pam)! GP was here to show us her latest rendition of a collapsed scarf done in Snow Pea, Apache Blue and Chagall Blue 7 gauge bambu. While she was here, she told me that she had wished she had started weaving earlier in life and I laughed and told her she had said that to me when she was 70 and first learning to weave. She said “Well if I had, I would have been where I’m at now, then!” GP told us she could hardly wait to finish weaving this scarf and get it into the water. She loves weaving at this stage in her life because she doesn’t have to stop and make dinner for anybody, she can do whatever she wants and weave whatever she wants. Her best quote today was “Tell all your 70 year olds to keep weaving!” If you were to say that last statement with a strong Jersey accent (as in Channel Islands) you would get the picture.
Every year in the spring before show season we order tons of books ….
everything we think you might want to see at our shows. At the end of show season we come back to the studio and start to listen to our little books whining. They whisper things like – ‘why does amazon do this to us?’ and we say – ‘there there pet, someone will look at you one day’. So … to help our books out, we are offering a 20% sale hoping that our little books will go to good homes. You can think of them as rescue books if that will help.
Retreats at JST
Our first Pushing the Boundaries of Plainweave course is already over. The gals explored cramming and denting, cording, clasped weft, they discovered that warp and weft faced fabrics don’t have to be hard if you don’t want them to be. They looked at supplementary warps, tufted wefts and more! Jane used many of the beautiful fabrics she brought back from India as examples of just how far you can push the boundaries of plainweave. They are phenomenal.
Up Next!
We have another Plainweave workshop at the end of May which is full. Then it’s Twills on Four June 27 – July 1 that has openings for 2 lucky people. Let us know if you’d like to join us for a fascinating exploration of Twills. We weave a large Twill Gamp, Shadow Weave, Colour and Weave techniques like Pin-Wheel, Boundweave, and combining Twills with other structures like Basketweave.
Jane will be teaching at the Hand Weavers, Spinners & Dyers Conference in Calgary, June 7, 8, 9 & 10. We are not taking a booth this year because Jane’s youngest son Daniel graduates from grade 12 on that weekend.
Check out our Retreat Schedule for openings in our other workshops throughout the year. There are very few spots left, so be sure to let us know if you’re interested.
Helpline
Our Helpline content is growing, but it needs your questions to really grow. You can ask your questions on the Helpline or in a regular old email to Jane. We will however, post all answers on the helpline. Your questions can be anonymous so don’t be shy. Sometimes it takes a few days to answer your questions so please be patient.
Remember, we are always here to help :^)
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