Something different...for me

I'm strongly attracted to pattern and love looking through books like The Weaver's Book of 8 Shaft Patterns by Carol Strickler, and seeing something in there I just have to try.  For quite awhile I would have given anything to have the money and space for a 16 shaft computerized loom.  To be honest, I would still love to have one but in the meantime, I certainly have many, many options and room to experiment with 8 shafts!

A few months ago I found saoriworcester.com and read about Saori founder Misao Jo and was excited to find out all I could about her improvisational weaving technique and ordered her book. It's a wonderful read with a good bit of info about Misao Jo's life and how and why she developed this technique.  I felt immediately connected to her.

I think it will take me a bit to get the hang of just letting go after spending years weaving traditional patterns, but I thought I'd give it a try:

Attempt #1 in Cotton:

Attempt #2 in wool/silk:

I probably should have waited until the wool/silk was off the loom to post photos of this project but then this blog is about what's happening in the studio!  The second photo is shot from under the loom. I'll post more when I'm further along.  I have a bit of warp left on the loom...for experimenting!

 

A great way to use up little bits of yarn and colors that you don't have enough of for a complete project!

Back at it...

My loom sat empty for many months as my so called part time job took over this spring and summer.  But when autumn arrived, so did the need to weave.  Not wanting to spend lots of money on new yarn (although I would LOVE to do so and when does any fiber person have enough fiber/yarn?), I dressed the loom with a warp that I wound several years ago.

I had wound about 108 ends each of green and black originally intending the scarves (2) to be black on one half of the warp and green on the other half and then alternate the same colors in the weft every 3" or so to make color blocks.  Instead I decided to just alternate the green and black and wove one using green weft and the second using black .  And this is the result:

While weaving the scarves, both in plain weave, I was reminded of the many wonderful combinations of color and pattern that can be created using this simple woven structure.  More later on this subject!