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November 8, 2022 newsletter

It’s the little things that make our weaving lives easier and the weaving fun!

It’s that time of year when you can start dropping hints for the items that will make your weaving life a tad easier. We now have the Harrisville Cone Holder in stock – it can hold up to 4 cones while you are winding your warp or bobbins -making winding easy peasy. Wishing for an extra Schacht shuttle so you don’t have to keep changing your bobbins while you weave?? We have them in stock! Or…do you really want to make your bobbin winding faster and more efficient (including being able to wind those luscious silk skeins onto Leclerc’s large Styrene Spools) – using your brand new double-ended bobbin winder? We’ve got all these items and more….even lots of my handy-dandy JST pointer, which is actually the Harrisville Brass Heddle/Reed Hook, that is often found in my hand in the videos 😉

Jane

Shuttles


Bobbins


Fringe Twiters


Double Ended Bobbin Winder


Dr. Beckmann Colour & Dirt Collector


Harrisvillle Cone Holder – NEW PRODUCT!


Harrisville Brass Heddle/Reed Hook


JST Hand dyed Silk

Add some colour to your Christmas wish list – nothing is more wonderful that receiving beautiful silk that you will have a delightful time designing and weaving into your own unique cloth.


Wish List

Since we’ve mentioned Christmas gifts – and I know Christmas is still a way off, but ….. have you been dreaming about that particular tool, some fabulous yarn – or dreaming really big, maybe about a new loom? Set up a Wish List on the JST Shop Store and just in passing mention that your list can be found there 😉 You can manage your list under your account which gives you different options on how you might want to share it. Your close circle can get a chance to look at your list, find something perfect for you OR possibly give you a JST Gift Certificate towards something that you are really wishing for.


Get these lucious “one-off” colours while they last!

At the moment we have some “Limited Edition” silk skeins that are available at a reduced price – lovely 20/2 Blue Mist or Dusty Rose. Get them while you can! The cones of yarn are sold out – sorry 🙁


JST Pattern Page

After having a lot of requests – we have decided to create a Pattern page where our wonderful weavers could purchase a selection of our most loved patterns. There are 11 patterns available to download and add to your weaving wish list for $10.00 each. And – listen for the drum roll ……

Autumn Orchard Wrap

Burgoyne Berry Wrap

Ruckle Beach Wrap

Cornucopia Towels

Harvest Splendour Towels

Heavenly Check Scarf

Jane’s Favourite Towels

Undulating Towels

Spring Stripes Mohair Blanket

Three Stripe Mohair Blanket 

Whole Lotta Huggin Blanket


Merino & Silk Scarves – Chocolate & Vanilla

This supremely beautiful scarf ticks all the boxes! Since it is made with silk on merino, it is super soft and warm with silky drape, and has that magic sheen we all love. The design is simple and classic with two stripes on the warp and design options for the weft. This is one of those life-time scarves. It just won’t go out of fashion or favour. The cosy colours you will use in this scarf are Suede and Vanilla merino in the warp with silk in Violet Ice and Double Chocolate for weft. Delicious!


From Our Inbox

PK Maracin has reached out to us from Cromwell, OT on the beautiful South Island of New Zealand – about as far south as you can get on our planet before reaching Antarctica! PK – your adventure in weaving was a delight to read and I can’t get the smile off my face after reading your saga with your Fanny loom. How wonderful to know that we are reaching out to weavers everywhere through our School of Weaving – it makes it all worthwhile.
 
Hi team Jane!

Weaving toddler here. I just finished Sample 1 – Season 2: Asymmetry.

From my local weaving guild I was able to purchase a 1950s Fanny loom in very good condition some months ago. Hardly used from the dear old lady. But, of course, zero directions on how to use (though LeClerc sent me some). You can imagine how happy I was when Jane used her Fanny to show some warping techniques!

So off I went learning to use my warping board, chaining up and then putting the warp on the Fanny. I am quite proud that I was able to change out the zinger mid stride. Well not really mid, but after 1 napkin and 4 tea towels. Then came the tea towel and napkin sans red.

Then I thought I would try the resleying at 12epi. Even though I didn’t really want to, I am in Weaving School for a reason = to learn. You never know when it may come in handy. I admit that was quite difficult. I think I left the process too late in the piece. My back beam would not hold any tension, I guess it was too short. I resleyed with no tension and then tried to wind the warp back on the back beam to get things tight. Therefore I lost warp length as my tie on was too long. And my “new” zinger grey threads all fell back on the floor because I forgot about them! So I had to rethread those. I persevered over hours, determined not to give up. All that for a dinky winky boucle wash rag! It could have been wider but I ran out of boucle. I only dyed so much. Really don’t see why I would do this in the future, but I did it here.

The 12 dent reed that came with the loom is very narrow (probably for a table loom). Only 2 1/2″. So it was sometimes difficult for wee me to get a nice shed. And I only had 2 narrow boat shuttles to fit through the shed! I have since ordered a new 12 dent reed from LeClerc and am waiting for that to arrive.

Anywho… I learned heaps from this first section of the course. Your teaching style is very similar to how I teach sewing. So an obvious big like!

I cannot continue right now as I am waiting for your yarns to arrive. Here in NZ there is a limited amount of cotton yarns, and if they do sell Brassard half of the colours are out of stock (hence no white). And Ashford, for some odd reason, sells 10/2 and not 8/2. I decided to purchase the rest of the Season 2 kits from you as 1) I like your colours and 2) I know I will have enough of what I need.

Cheers and thanks for the journey
PK

School of Weaving

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June Newsletter

Big Exciting News!
Cashmere!

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!

 

A Good Graphic Goes a Long Way

For all you weavers that have taken Jane’s Colour & Design Workshop, you will be familiar with the way she teaches you to interpret the same graphic design in different colour combinations and yarns. Here is an excellent example of this idea. Linda Knowles from Vancouver took a pattern from a scarf woven by Kate McKibbon (that was on display in the studio). Linda changed the block pattern just a smidge and interpreted it with 2 different yarns. Linda’s scarf is woven with a 12 gauge Bambu warp and a Zephyr weft. She then took the same block profile and interpreted it in 2/8 cotton and boucle for her tea towel.

By overlaying different colour and texture onto the block profile, you would never know it was the same pattern. So beautifully done Linda and thank you for sharing your designs with us.

There are also 32 more patterns in our online store. You’ll find Tea Towels, Scarves, Blankets and Placemats made from 2/8 Cotton, Cotton Boucle, Mercerized Cotton, Bambu and Chenille. They are an excellent source of inspiration and learning!

Retreats at JST

Our second Pushing the Boundaries of Plainweave workshop for the year has finished. We had such a fun and exuberant group. We added warping, winding on and threading demonstrations and used many exciting plainweave techniques including cramming and denting, weft and warp faced structure, tufted weft, clasped weft and cording. They were challenged to work with linen (it’s not as scary as you think!), as well as 8/8 cotton, cottolin, mercerized cotton and 2/8 cotton. The weather was beautiful, the food was delicious and the conversation fascinating. We were sad to see everyone go!

We’re proud to report that we had our first guy at a retreat and he survived beautifully. Here is what he said about his experience:

“Hello Jane,

You are awesome as a teacher, weaver, hostess, etc., etc.,etc., as the King of Siam would have said! I have to tell you that I really enjoyed the recent workshop, and many many thanks to you for it. You have inspired me to go and explore the possibilities of my four shaft loom, and to look for awesome colour and fibre combinations.

The first day after the workshop, I went to the Buchart Gardens with my daughter-in-law, and we were blown away, not only with the flowers but with the colours and colour combinations offered by the flowers, trees and the layouts of the different sections of the gardens. Now I can see a cloth called “Buchart Quarry Greens” or “Buchart Pinks”, and so on. I got carried away with photographing everything, often in close-up, to look for the colours including the zingers! And Janet Phillips’ book; what possibilities! I now need to live well past 100!

Please thank Charlotte for her lovely lunches and presence and Grant for the wonderful dinners. I enjoyed also the relaxing though sometimes invigorating discussions over too much wine! So, again very many thanks for a great time, I am now one of your fans/supporters/admirers!

I wish you a wonderful summer, and all success with your courses,

Cheers, Ian”

Coming Up!

The warps are made for our June 27 – July 1  Twills on Four workshop. We’ll be weaving a large Twill Gamp, Shadow Weave, Colour and Weave techniques like Pin-Wheel, Boundweave, and combining Twills with other structures like Bastketweave. It’s full for this year, but if you really want to learn about how fascinating twills can be, look for the next Twills workshop in our 2012 schedule that will be ready in October this year.

We have had one opening in the July 18 – 22  Double Weave workshop. If you’re interested in learning how to weave horizontal joins, double width, staggered triple layers, double faced twills, interlocking double weave and two-block double weave, give us a call!

Check out our Retreat Schedule for the two remaining openings in our Collapsible Fabrics workshop. The last remaining spots for the year!

Jane is working on the 2012 schedule and she plans to have guest instructors come to offer a wider range of workshops. Coming soon to a weaving studio near you!

Nature by Numbers

We are constantly sent fabulous information from our weavers. This one came from Diane McAuliffe in Seattle and we just had to pass it on.

It is a wonderful link (click on the title) to a fascinating visual of the correlation between mathematics and nature. As weavers, we are always using many of these formulas to help us design beautiful graphics in our textiles. It really is worth watching. Thanks Diane!

Changing Prices

We’re sorry to report that our prices on a number of items will be going up.

We’ve tried hard to keep our prices as low as possible for years, but rising fuel costs and flood damaged cotton crops in Pakistan are just two reasons why we must increase our prices on several of our yarns.

 

As well, prices on Louet looms will increase 10% on July 1 so if you are thinking of purchasing a loom, now would be a great time.

 

Because weavers put such a great deal of effort into their work we feel that high quality yarns are the best way to go. We will continue to offer and search for the best.

We will always share Jane’s extensive design knowledge through our patterns, keep the wealth of information on our helpline free and continue to offer the excellent support to all of our friends and customers that we are known for.

We thank all of you for your support and friendship.

Remember, we are always here to help :^)

Our Helpline is an excellent resource for all your weaving questions. You can ask your questions directly on the Helpline or in a regular old email to Jane. We will post all answers on the helpline anonymously for everyone to see and benefit from. It may take a day or two to answer your questions, we thank you for your patience!

Maybe someone you know would like to be on our mailing list. Please consider forwarding this newsletter.

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March Newsletter

SPRING!

Today as we are working on this newsletter, the sun is shining outside our windows. The leaves are beginning to work on their Spring glow.

Soon my kids will begin to tease me, apparently, I never stop talking about the magnificent vibrancy found in the greens of Spring. I’m not talking about salad, I’m talking about the leaves on trees. The crocuses and daffodils are all up. It is so wonderful to see the earth’s rebirth again.

The start to this year has been spectacular. As many of you know I went to India in January with Charllotte Kwon of Maiwa and some of her staff, Sophena Kwon, Danielle Bush and Tim McLaughlin. We were joined by Gale Anderson-Palm from Rimby, Alberta and Catharine Ellis of Woven Shibori fame. When Charllotte invited me to accompany them, it was a dream becoming reality and as anyone who has ever been to India will tell you ~ you are changed for life. I loved it and I hope to return someday. I went for the textiles but my favourite thing about India turned out to be her people. India’s people, are what I still think about everyday. Their immense generosity and kindness, even though most of them have so little is simply staggering. I have so many stories to tell but I am still processing and in time I hope to share most of them. I know that I am not good at keeping up with the blog, but little by little the stories will appear, I promise.

Field Trips

I brought back 2 suitcases of stunning fabrics and I took over 2000 photos which I’m trying to put into a few slideshows. I would love to share some of this with you. If you’d like to organize a group visit (minimum of 6 people) to hear a few stories, see a few pictures and touch some fabrics, please give us a call and book a date.

When I got back I hit the ground running. On my 1st weekend back I taught Twills on 4 for the Denman Island Weavers Guild. They were very considerate and patient with my jet lag. The next week we prepared the studio for the first retreat of the year, Colour & Design. It was awesome ~ 8 weavers … retreating for 5 days … lots of weaving … food, wine and laughter.

Up Next!

JST will be at Fibres West in Abbotsford this Friday and Saturday, March 18 & 19. We will be taking a good sized booth, but every year we are missing things that some of you want. If you have specific requests, drop us a line before Wed. @ 4:00 and we’ll put it in the van for you!

April 1 & 2, JST will also be at the Vancouver Island Spinner’s and Weaver’s Retreat being held at the Grand Hotel in Nanaimo. The Vendors are open to the public so, even if you’re not participating in the retreat, come for a visit!

Our second Colour & Design retreat here at JST starts April 11. There is still one spot left for that lucky someone. Just give us a shout at 250-537-9468 if you’d like to sign up.

Check out our Retreat Schedule for openings in our other workshops throughout the year. There are just a few spots left, so be sure to let us know if you’re interested.

March is Mohair Month! ~ 10% Off

All of our brilliant Mohair is on sale this month. Here are just four of our 34 stunning colours.

Online Patterns

After years and years of production weaving Jane has decided to put all her designs into patterns and make them available to everyone. We are trying to put a few patterns up each month. We have just added 3 Chenille Scarves to our online store. Our patterns give you all of the information that you need to get weaving right away. Every pattern Jane writes exemplifies all the design theory she teaches in her workshops. Not only will you make a beautiful piece, you will also learn great design technique.

Jane Stafford’s Helpline

Every week Jane gets email from her students and customers asking questions. We have decided to make her answers available to everyone. There is now a new button on the homepage called Jane’s Helpline. You can ask your questions anyway you want, on Ravelry, in an email or on the Help Line. We will publish the answer on the Helpline so that everyone can see it. Your questions will 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 :^)

Maybe someone you know would like to be on our mailing list. Please consider forwarding this newsletter.

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Fall is a Festival of Colour

 

Well, the Equinox has come and gone. The days are getting shorter and colder and the studio driveway is strewn with the burnt orange of fallen leaves. We are surrounded by the yellows, reds, greens and browns of the changing season.

So much material for inspiration!

One of our dear friends, Rita John sent us this beautiful photo of seaweed that had washed up after a storm. It was amazing because I had just been putting together a similar colour combo.

 

Our Honing Your Basic Weaving Skills class was a lovely day of warping, bobbin winding, shuttle throwing, selvedge control, beating and tie-up. Oh, and delicious food too. We had home made onion soup and fresh vegetable sandwiches compliments of Jane’s garden. Yum! It makes me excited for the two Lacey Places workshops that we have planned in November.

 

Our October Newsletter will be coming out shortly – look for new patterns and the 2011 class schedule!

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Weaving Community

Well, Jane’s back from the Peace. She had a wonderful time teaching her Pushing the Boundaries of Plain Weave workshop in Fort St. John. Twice a year weavers and fibre enthusiasts from all over Northern B.C. and Alberta gather to meet somewhere in The Peace. They gather in the spring and the fall, some driving for up to 4 and 5 hours to have their mini-conference. Jane really felt honoured to have so many women coming from such distances to study with her.

At the end of the workshop the ladies presented Jane with a beautiful book of stunning photography showing The Peace in it’s four seasons.

All the warps for the Weaving in the Maiwa Tradition in October are wound and sent out. They should arriving on doorsteps soon.

That’s all for now, happy weaving!