March 2023 Newsletter

​​Applesies and Fox Noses and colors, oh my!

The Band Weavers Study Group enjoyed a lively meeting in February. We watched Annie McHale’s Video instructions for using the Seizen Inkle Pattern Editor. The Pattern Editor lets the user experiment with color and design before committing to thread and shows what the band will look like in a drawdown. We plugged approximations of the ANWG Conference colors into the pattern editor and saw what a difference color order can make in the design of a woven band. For PDF of instructions on the use of the tool, go here.

​Gail shared a sample band made with Omega Sinfonia, Annie McHale’s go-to yarn for bands. Good colors, sheen, strength, and hand. It makes a lovely band. (Not all by itself – you still have to weave it). Heidi shared Show and Tell from the Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat, and her beautiful Tea Towels, a first big project for her, supported by the Rigid Heddle Group (see photo below, under Rigid Heddle Study Group). Heidi’s selvedges and even beat are enviable, color and design are lovely and thought out. Woven on a Rigid Heddle Loom! Mae, Gail, and Leslie Ann plotted and planned projects for themselves (i.e. leash for a new puppy!) and for Guild Booth Displays for the ANWG conference and Evergreen Quilt and Fiber Events coming up. Lynn got her inkle warped and we shared some new “weaving words” over tangled string. We all oohed and ahhed over Peg Templeton’s lovely hand-drawn and colored card weaving designs, carefully catalogued, and shared by our hostess, Sharon Allen.
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Fortified by the group energy and inspired by the Book “Applesies and Fox Noses, Finnish Table Woven Bands”, I attempted my first unsupervised card weaving project the next day. Well, thank goodness nobody was watching me. “Weaving Words” indeed! Of course, I modified the “simple pattern” from the book, to use all five of the ANWG colors. This changed the design a lot more than expected. Of course, I didn’t actually READ the instructions in the intro chapter. (The pictures are great!) 16 cards, that’s not a lot. People have been doing this for millennia. How hard can it be? I copied the pattern out on graph paper and cut threads to length. Clamped my pegs to the kitchen counter, and threaded the cards. Lesson one – a toast rack or napkin holder might have helped for holding the cards. Note to self – work on a table next time. Lesson two – tension is essential. I transferred the warp and cards to my band loom. Tension better, but now the design on the back is what shows on top! How is this possible? Lesson Three – have a system for tracking each turn of the cards. Counting eight turns and then reversing for eight turns sounds a lot easier than it actually is…

The pattern from the book is called “Little Chicken Toes and Birds Eyes.” So far no two repeats have come out looking the same, and the most recognizable motifs might be called “Little Turtle with a Broken Foot” and “One-eyed Alien” but I think it’s getting better!

Hoping you and all your projects are well and happy,

Carol Berry
2022-2023 President, Whatcom Weavers Guild 
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