This Quilter Goes Back to Weaving School

Many of us quilters are serial crafters - myself included. Counted cross stitch was my "gateway" craft. I started stitching when I was pregnant with my first son who just had his 31st birthday. 
After years of cross stitching (which I still do occasionally by the way), I thought I would try weaving. Back about 16 years ago I bought a used Baby Wolf floor loom (Schacht) and took beginning weaving classes at Yarn Barn here in Lawrence.



It's been a while since I've had anything on my loom, but I was intrigued by a class offered recently by Yarn Barn on making crimp cloth. The samples were really cool - a cloth with pleats. The pictures of Dianne's (the teacher) garments were fantastic. So I signed up for the class, chose my yarn, and then worried about all the skills I'd lost over the years.

Dianne Totten is a great weaver, artist, and instructor. Her garments are gorgeous. Every day she wore a new vest. I was so wowed that I didn't get pictures of most of them. I did get this one of a couple of her vests from her slide show.

The crimped fabric has a wonderful drape and the garments were very flattering on all kinds of body shapes. OK, so I hear you . . . what the heck is crimped fabric?

Crimped fabric is woven like most other fabrics, but the yarns in either the warp or the weft need to be a synthetic and then you put in an additional thread that will be used to scrunch the fabric up and pulled out later.  I did a weft crimp - you can see my pull threads in this pic - they are the yellow ones.  After pulling the yellow threads tight and tying them, the fabric sits in a steam bath for 30 minutes, and Voila! Pleated fabric!



So I tried several different patterns with the pull threads. 4 by 4 offset (in the pic above), 6 by 3, poofy rows, and large poofy circles. I tried using weft threads in various colors - turquoise, green, dark blue, pink and red. I have a binder full of samples and some ideas to make some crimped scarves.



It felt good to be weaving again. I did have to ask basic questions to refresh my memory. But after a while, I was doing OK. I still have a bit of an issue keeping my edges (selvages) from drawing in. I've signed up for a beginning weaving class this summer so I'll be making some placemats and kitchen towels by summer's end! And maybe my loom won't feel neglected any more.
Curious about weaving? Check out Yarn Barn of Kansas!