Good Fibrations Saint John

I'm currently working at Good Fibrations in Uptown Saint John, NB.


We are expanding to a new location across the street from our current location. The new address will be 90 Germain St, Saint John, NB.


You can find us on facebook at the following link.


www.facebook.com/GoodFibrationsSJ


Look forward to seeing you there!

ITMA design competition results

I was informed on Friday that I received an honourable mention for the ITMA competition! Essentially I won third place! My dear friend Anna Haines won first! And last year was the first time that anyone has entered anything woven in the competition from my school! And two people from my school won! Quite an achievement if I do say so myself!

Update on the month of March

It's been a busy month of March. I just realized I've been neglecting my blog. Opps!

Here's what I've been up to...

Tapestry sampler starting to take shape

Close up of the tapestry sampler

Lace sampler - using wool and sett too closely, but you can really see the lace bits

More lace samples

Weaving lace yardage - a view from beneath. I'm wound on the beam at least 6 times and still have 30" to go

ITMA competition

As a project in my weaving class, we were tasked with following the design brief of the Virginia Jackson deign competition for upholstered prints and, should it meet the qualifications, actually submit our woven work in the competition.

This has been an interesting challenge. First, we had to research current upholstery trends and present to the class our findings. We then had to make a sample warp to test whether what we designed was a good idea and iron out any problems (example, I had to change the sett - how many yarns in an inch - to ensure it was a more sturdy cloth). 

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Then we had to wash our sample and calculate how much shrinkage because the submitted sample needs to be exactly 27" x 27". I had about a 15% shrinkage rate, so instead of weaving 27", I'm weaving 31". It's been a learning process, but with 780 ends, it's been a lot of work. In class today, I didn't make quite as much progress as I would have liked, however...

I did finish threading! 4 hours later... But better late then never!

Double weave wool bag

I made the mistake of trying a new loom - not a mistake so much as being overly ambitious. I wanted to try the Oxaback that was donated to the school by Nel Oudemans. Basically I've decided I want to try as many looms as I can so that if I come across a loom I think is a good deal, I will know if I want it or not. I don't want to settle for equipment anymore. It has to be the right equipment or nothing at all.

So I had a really difficult time setting up this loom - or I should say tieing up the treadles. I ended up having to redo my entire plan because of the time involved in the tie up. It's a countermarche loom, meaning it kind of is a double the set up.

I finally got the tie up right after doing it twice. Then I was able to weave my sample. Friday I stayed at school longer than I wanted to because I was determined to get this project off the loom. And I did! Such a relief. And the expression on my teacher's face was priceless when she saw it in my hand and no longer on the loom. I don't think she expected it off for a while yet (I was given a bit of an extension after I had all of my problems). I'm happy to say I will be handing it in at the same time as everyone else.

Lesson learned: when considering a multi-harness loom, don't buy an Oxaback - unless their tie-up configuration has changed or it is attached to a computer. 

Atlantic Craft Trade Show - Day one

I've made it to ACTS in Halifax. I've had my first shift working the booth. It's not exactly what I was expecting, but I think yesterday was a decent day, so today and tomorrow should be the same or better. I talked to a few buyers as well as a few sellers and am looking forward to doing more of that.

I have noticed that there are not a lot of textiles in this trade show - specifically woven items. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Maybe woven items aren't viable in the Atlantic provinces' market? I think my classmates and I will have to work toward remedying this.

Please check out my Facebook page if you have a few minutes. I've gotten better at posting pictures on there than here. 

Atlantic Craft Trade Show

This coming weekend, my wholesale class is heading to Halifax to display products at ACTS. We've known about this almost the entire school year, but that didn't stop me from selling as much as I can and knowing I would have to make more items before heading to ACTS. So I decided to weave a scarf. It's a structure called Huck lace. I've experimented with it a little when making tea towels, but I don't know how it will feel in scarf form.

One thing I know about myself is that I like symmetrical things. I purposefully made this scarf slightly assymetrical as a challenge to myself. I like how it's turning out!

Doubleweave

Our focus in my weaving class currently is to learn about double weave.

Threading

We put on a warp that was two colours - light and dark- so we could really see how the weave structure works.

So at first we wove dark on top, light on bottom and then alternated. The other great thing is that you can create two separate cloths, a tube, a double width cloth, multiple tubes. The possibilities are endless really.

Another part of learning doubleweave is working with different fibres. In the above example, we used cotton (coloured part) and wool (white yarn). Once this is washed, it will shrink incredibly (and intentionally). Think of the beautiful intentional draping you could make with this technique!

Christmas break

The last couple of months have been crazy! With the craft sale and all the prep work, I haven't had a chance to work on anything other than school work. And tomorrow was my last day of class for the semester, so I am officially off for Christmas! 

I'm already busy working away on some tea towels for my sister-in-law's sister. I stayed with her this summer and gave her two as a thank you for feeding up and letting us sleep there. She liked the. So much, she wanted a few more! My first order!!! They're a simple design but I really like them.

Scarves

I'm weaving scarves for the craft sale. I'm using the same fibre as I used for my yardage, (50/50 wool/silk blend), but it's set slightly farther apart, so I don't have quite as many ends per inch. That's great, but is decided to make each scarf 72" long. So it's taken me longer than I anticipated. Dressing the loom was a breeze compared to the yardage, so that's a positive. Plus instead of doing a set of three, I'm doing four. Because why the hell not? After talking with a very interesting and inspiring lady, Christine (who has made a living weaving for 40 years) a few weeks ago, I decided to make my scarves into infinity scarves. Which means no fringe, but I will have to seam the ends together.

I think they will turn out great!

E

Coin Purses

From the yardage I wove last week, I am going to be making coin purses. I found some clasps online  and bought 20. I wasn't sure how they were going to turn out, so I didn't want to over buy and end up with a bunch of coin purse clasps I couldn't sell. But now that I've cut up my yardage (surprisingly a lot easier to do than I thought), I have one fully completed coin purse and by the end of today I hope to have 10 made. Production at its finest!

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Stuffed animals

Another product I'm making for the craft sale are some stuffed animals. These are made of boiled wool. This basically means that I take something that is knit with 100% wool, stick it in the washing machine in a super hot cycle and shrink the bejesus out of it. Something probably everyone's mothers told them never to do. I've been shrinking sweaters and cutting them up and making a variety of animals - elephants, alligators, giraffe/llama/brachiosaurus (depending on your own specific wants), whales, lions and rhinos. They're coming together quite nicely.

Yardage

One of my classes is organizing a craft sale. This will help us to learn about the benefits of productions lines and not just making one of a kind items. Originally, I wanted to just do woven items, because that's what I enjoy the most. But we are supposed to focus on different price points, and woven items tend to be on the higher end of the spectrum. 

But I'm still weaving of course! My first production line on the loom in class was to weave yardage, and hopefully make coin purses out of them. I'm using a 50/50 wool/silk blend. It's quite luscious. I might have gone a bit overboard with the type of yarn I used, but they will be wonderful. I also overestimated the size of the pieces I would need, so instead of the 20 coin purses I plan to make, I could actually make closer to 80 if I so choose. But I only have 20 clasps, so at least that will limit me.

Blankets

I started making a warp for blankets this summer. I'm planning to make 3 and have hen approximately 60" x 90". 

This morning, instead of working on school work, I decided that I needed to make some progress on the blankets. So I spent about 6 hours finishing the threading, sleighing the reed and tying on. Then I was able to start weaving!

I probably completely about double this amount. But I need to start thinking about whether I have enough of my weft yarn or if I have to alternate the brown with something else.

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Weaving with tencel

 I'm about one month in to school. Already finished a few weaving projects. The latest one is my first 8 harness weaving ever. I did a gamp (a type of sampler) made with tencel. It's off the loom now, but not quite finished. So here's a picture of it in progress.

This gamp has a variety of twill structures. There are so many more options when you have 8 harnesses. Worst part was having to change the treadle tie up. I don't think the loom had even cleaned in awhile. My dust allergies were out in full force.

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In full swing

School is definitely in full swing now. I'm finally settling in to the routine. I think I am anyway.

I'm really enjoying my weaving class. I feel that from the first moment I sat at a loom, it was like a choir of angels were singing "Ahhhhhh" in four part harmony. It's definitely something my brain understands and is meant to do.

Right now we are still doing 4 harness weaving, which is what we did last year. Really it's so we refresh ourselves after being away all summer and we're learning how to use a CAD program for weaving, so it easier to learn with something we already know.

Today I started planning for my first big production project. We are having a Christmas Craft Sale the last week of November and have to produce things for it. So I was trying to plan what my colours would be and if I could get more than one thing in one warp. I think it's going to work, but I need to do some mock ups first. We shall see.

I will try to take some pictures of my work to date and post them here soon.

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School's in!

School started yesterday, which also means back to more frequent blogging! (Hopefully anyway).

I have a decent schedule this semester. Sewing/Pattern Drafting, CAD for Weaving, Preparing for the Retail market, Weaving on more than four harnesses, 3D construction as well as a history about myths and magic. I haven't actually had all of my classes yet, so I don't know if I like all of them or not :)

In weaving today, we warped and started dressing the loom. I'm using a Louet David loom, which is new. It's a much smaller and lighter loom than I'm used to. I felt like I was manhandling it all afternoon. But I got all of my homework done in class, so cheers to that!

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Alberta

I'm still in Alberta. We has a wonderful time hiking through the Rockies and made it 2,300m above see level. 

We then went to Calgary and I was able to make it to two places I wanted to go. I weaving/spinning/yarn store and a woollen mill!

Shuttleworks - here, I bought two louet spinning bobbins and a longer weaving shuttle. 

Custom Woolen Mills - on the way to Edmonton, you can take a tour around their industrial revolution era mill. They had some reallyneatprocessing equipment! I did end up buying one pound of raw Cotswold fleece too!

Now that we are in Edmonton, I wonder where else fibrey we can visit??

http://www.shuttleworks.com/ 

http://www.customwoolenmills.com/index.htm

End of summer

I finished work yesterday, which means that another school year is nearing. But first I am going to my brother's wedding in Alberta. A long day of traveling and I am sitting in a cabin at a hostel while the rest of my family sleeps. How kind of them to leave me with piece and quiet for a bit!

What is on my loom now? Well, I decided to make 3 LARGE blankets on the 60" loom.

This was taken before much was wound on. I left it in a ready-to-thread state so when I get back from my travels, I hope to be able to work on that. Fingers crossed.

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New machine!

Summer is quickly coming to an end. How depressing. I feel like I barely had a summer at all.

But on the plus side, I have acquired a new piece of machinery - not another loom though (3 is probably enough for now).

One of the volunteers who helps a lot at work and who I've spend a decent amount of time with got a new sewing machine. I guess when her husband agreed to the purchase of the sewing machine, he told her that she needed to get rid of one of the five sewing machines she already had. Guess who was in the right place at the right time?! Me!

It has a beautiful cabinet with large fold out extensions, so there will be a lot of space for the fabric to sit and not weigh down. It needs a bit of a tune up since it hadn't been used regularly in awhile, but it's very exciting! It's a Singer Model 774.

Model 774

Lots of table space!

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