Tag: placemat

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October 25, 2022 newsletter

Garlic or …..

Now, do I have your attention??? 😉  We love growing our own garlic and enjoy having it handy in the kitchen. IMHO – there is no better place to store it than in a basket I’ve woven after being coached by Salt Spring’s basket weaver extraordinaire – Joan Carrigan. But … these baskets can also be made in different shapes and hold other things – use your imagination to create a basket that will hold almost anything. The kit makes 3 baskets,  so – you could weave 3 for yourself or … IF you can part with them, you could have 1 or 2 made and waiting to be gifts 🙂 They are so much fun to make and I loved weaving something that has a human history that is as old as our time on this planet.
Jane

Shop Now!

Learn how to weave a basket with Joan and Jane

There are two ways that you can learn

-as a subscriber (and for free) of Vimeo’s Joan’s site (she has some very informative videos)

-or…if you are a member of the School of Weaving – by watching Season 2 – Episode 9 on the School of Weaving. You can download the PDF there.

Christmas Crackle Placemats & Runner

Everything moves in a circle here at JST. I was doodling around with Crackle and was inspired by the colours that Arlene Kohut had used in the Just Monk’ing Around Tea Towel Kit Berry Bowl version that I had to try them on the Crackle. Then I asked Rebecca Logan to bring her wonderful graphic sense to the pattern and weave them up the way she wanted to. I love this type of collaboration. The patterns are always the result of many weavers joining minds. How cool is that! I hope you enjoy weaving these wonderful placemats.

Loom requirements:

Shafts: 4

Reed: 10 dent

Weaving width: 16.2″

Each kit includes:

Weaving instructions (including draft)

3 cones of 8/4 cotton – Merlot

2 cones of 8/4 cotton – Dark Brown

3 cones of 8/2 cotton – Cherry

Shop Christmas Crackle Placemats!

Are you planning to get seasonal tea towels woven for your kitchen or as gifts? Then, now is the time to get that warp up and ready to weave those festive towels. And…have we got a choice of kits for you! You can have fun weaving with solid red with Just Monk’ing Around in Berry Bowl or choose either green or red for the Holly & Berry Kit now available in regular cotton!

Just a head’s up, the Postal Service is a bit slow at the moment, so order NOW to get your kits and yarns to weave before the holidays!

Holly & Berry Towels now in regular cotton!
Green or Red

Just Monk’ing Around Berry Bowl Towels
also in Kiwi or Surf’s Up

School of Weaving Episode 9 live this Thursday!
Block Analysis 8 Shaft Kit

Want to be ready?
Buy the whole kit here!

Level of Difficulty: Intermediate
Weave structure: 8 Shaft Bronson Lace
Each kit makes 3 scarves

Kit includes: Weaving instructions (including draft), 3 skeins of 20/2 Bleached Tussah and 2 cones of 8/2 Bleached cotton.

You will need approximately 200 yards of Dark Grey 8/2 cotton for your motif isolation threads. They can be any darker colour you want. Choose from your stash!

From Our Inbox

As well as being a productive weaver – Karyn Davis of New Zealand is a gifted photographer of her world travels and backyard. I’ve had a peek at the blog link that Karyn has listed at the bottom of her email to us. We love hearing from our “kids” from near and far. I also love hearing how someone like Karyn – who is isolated from a local weaving community – has been able to learn and grow while belonging to our School of Weaving.  She has methodically worked from Season 1 and learned her new skill, one step at a time. She is paving a good solid foundation in weaving while reaping the rewards as she masters her new David loom. 

Jane
I have been working my way through Jane’s videos for a couple of years now – I started at the beginning and am currently part way through Season 6. I haven’t made all of the things, but I have loved those that I have made. When I began learning from the videos I had been weaving for a couple of years on an old Ashford 60cm 4-shaft table loom that I bought used for $50. The videos are perfect for me as I live in a rural area with no weavers nearby.

A year ago I decided that it was time to change to a floor loom, but which one??? After a lot of research (Jane, thanks for your wonderful loom videos in Season 1) I decided to go with a Louet 110cm David III. It finally arrived at the end of June and I put it all together. I had seen the Season 5, Episode 1 video on Turned twill, so decided that this was the place for me to begin learning to use my beautiful new loom! I decided to play with the full loom width and all 8-shafts – I used 5/2 mercerised cotton sett at 15epi to make a baby blanket for the brand new granddaughter of a friend. She chose the colours, I sent her some design ideas created on my computer and off I went! The dimensions of the finished piece are 97x126cm (108cm in the reed). I am REALLY pleased with this piece – the colours are gorgeous, the patterns are great, it was fun to weave and the finished fabric is SO soft. And as always, the magic is in the water!!

Thanks for your fantastic videos, Jane. I look forward to continuing learning from them,
Karyn Davis

My weaving adventures
https://weavingfromparadise.guildford.nz
Warp 30 – 1st piece
Warp 30 – 1st piece completed
Warp 30 – 1st piece completed

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 toward 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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June 7, 2022 newsletter

New yarn on our shelves!

Venne Eco Jeans banner

We’re excited to share the news that we are now carrying Venne’s Eco Jeans recycled yarn! It’s a beautiful yarn that is amazingly spun from items that would have been headed for a landfill somewhere in the world. Given a new life on your loom – this yarn would create a wonderfully soft wrap or scarf for anyone in your life – including you 😉

Venne Eco Jeans Recycled Yarn Nm 12/2
50g cones – 328 yards per cone (2971 yards/ lb)

100% recycled. The Eco Jeans yarn is made from recycled jeans and used plastic bottles. Worn jeans, jackets and other articles of jeans fabric will get a new life. Made of 48% cotton and 47% polyester and 5% other material. This super soft yarn is slightly thicker than 8/2 cotton and is a bit textured.

Sett

  • plain weave 14 epi
  • twill 16 epi
Slate Blue
Cloud
Platinum
Deep Navy
Anthracite
Check out Eco Jeans Recycled Yarns

From Our Staff!

Elizabeth has woven Twill & Grace Placemats in Dusty Blue and Pale Limette on an Ivory warp. Just think of the different colours you could use to weave these placemats. Choose colours from your kitchen/dining room or your china to weave with and make this kit your own. They would make a wonderful, useful gift for someone in your life who is setting up a new home – or would appreciate a new spark of colour to a well-used one.

We can create your kit in any colour you’d like!

Simply, put the Twill & Grace kit into your cart, on the checkout screen and in the “notes” section let us know what colours you would like your kit in. Take a peek at our 8/4 cotton page to see the colour range and availability. Be sure to let us know what colour you want for the 8/2 cotton hem (it should match the main warp colour).

Shop Twill & Grace Kit

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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April 12, 2022 newsletter

Twill & Grace

New Placemat Kit in Stock!

You’ll have fun playing with this gorgeous idea. It is a threading from one my workshop gamps in Season 4 of the School of Weaving. One threading and oodles of options for treadling. Rebecca Logan wove these up for me and had a blast playing with options. You can have 8 or possibly 10 placemats depending on your loom loss allotment. Some folks use more than others 🙂

We can make this kit in any colour you’d like. Take a peek at our 8/4 cotton page to see the colour range and check availability. While you are in the cotton section of our yarn list – also choose the 8/2 colour you want for your cotton hems (it should match your main warp colour). Then, simply put the Twill & Grace Kit into your cart, go to the note section of the checkout screen and let us know what colours you have chosen for your version of this fabulous kit.

Shop Twill & Grace Kit!

Back in Stock

Traditional 11 inch Brass Scissors

Scissors don’t come much meatier than these 11″ bad boys. They have quality hand-forged brass handles which provide the perfect grip and are ideal for efficiently cutting through your handwoven cloth as it comes off the loom or on the cutting table. These heavyweight blades give you excellent control as you cut your cloth. Hand-forged in India.

Shop Scissors

Ask Jane

Do you need a floating selvedge?

From the JST Knowledge Base Files

In answer to a question raised on the JST Online Guild Forum ……..

I hope I didn’t actually say….”avoid floating selvedges”. I personally don’t like floating selvedges because they slow me down so I only use them when I have to. Sometimes we do need them in our lives to keep our selvedges on the straight and narrow…haha! SO I probably wasn’t thinking about all the different weave structures that need selvedge treatment when I blurted that out. I think the point I was trying to make was that you absolutely don’t need a floating selvedge on Plain Weave and there were some beginner weavers in my life who were doing that. I want to encourage all new weavers to develop control over their selvedges and, if we can ace this on Plain Weave, we are well set for further adventures. So Plain Weave doesn’t need it, but Twills on 4 shafts do. Other weave structures that pop into my mind are Basket Weave and Canvas Weave where you have 2 picks in the same shed. Sometimes we start a Plain Weave project and we decide to throw in a little bit of twill for a border or something like that….then you will need a floating selvedge, especially if you are reversing your Twill directions a lot. In this case, I just cut off my first and last heddle and I have an instant floating selvedge. I weight those ends with an S hook and whatever thingme I have hanging around that I have 2 of…., so they are equal on both sides.

Some 4 shaft weave structures allow us to thread vertical Plain Weave sections into our warp….like the lace weaves. With those, we don’t need a floating selvedge if we’ve got Plain Weave threaded at the selvedge. Even pure M’s & O’s can have Plain Weave threaded into the warp which really cleans up the scallops on that structure.

Supplementary weft structures like Monk’s Belt, Overshot, Crackle and Summer and Winter have alternating picks of Plain Weave between each pattern pick. But, with those, I do use a floating selvedge just because you could then have longer pattern floats at the selvedge and the floating selvedge helps clean the edge up.

I think the best way to look at this topic is simply this….. there are a million different weave structures out there and they all have different requirements in regards to many things. We can’t treat the selvedge the same way with every weave structure. Sometimes you need em, sometimes you don’t. . Hope this helps. Jane
If you are a subscriber to School of Weaving and want to learn more about floating selvedges watch Season 4 – Twill on 4. You’ll also learn about Twill & Simple Two Stripe, Small Threadings, Point Twill, Large Threadings, Colour & Weave Meets Twill, Twill & Basket Weave, Shadow Weave AND Weft Faced Twills which includes 7 gamps to weave for your own weaving library!
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.