Lace Weave Workshop in September

After the success of the Block Weave workshop in June, the lovely Fibre East team have booked me for another workshop, this time Lace Weaves, in September.  This workshop explores up to five lace weaves in either cotton or wool (yes, wool!), so if you're interested in the beautiful Scandinavian textiles that use these structures then why not book on this course?

Yes, wool!  Most lace weave fabrics are woven in linen, cotton or a mix of them both, but it's equally beautiful in wool for soft draped scarves, striking cushions, blankets, etc.  Don't let your pre-conceived ideas prevent you from having a go at weaving them in wool, the UK's most versatile fibres.  The course is designed so that every student will pre-warp their own loom in one of the structures and in the workshop will share their looms with each other, in a "round robin", so that everyone goes home with swatches in each structure, some in cotton and some in wool.

Below are two shawls I was commissioned to make a few years ago, in Huck Lace.  Both are hand woven in silk and cashmere.

Huck Lace

I finished the huck lace shawls last Sunday and have been frantically trying to find black sewing thread to sew on my labels, so while I searched I took the opportunity to photograph them.

This is the detail of the undulating pattern with dots! Sorry it's not to clear because of the black silk and cashmere. Not my choice, but what I was asked to weave for Shades of Cashmere.

Here is the finished shawl, it's very light.

This is the "Heart" shawl. I don't weave lace very often, as I said before, so am really pleased with the shawls.




This is the detail of the "Heart" shawl. I developed the designs myself, but found I was quite restricted by the fact that I only had 40 dobby bars. I had to reduce the size of the hearts quite a lot. I have made spread sheet to help prevent this happening again, though, which I'm very pleased with!




The yarn is machine washable, apparently, but being 90% silk it does crease, although they do drop out quite quickly. All in all a very pleasing project!