Deb Reagen traveled all the way from Grand Forks to take her turn at the loom. She reported that she kept it easy by weaving a repeating design. The colors in this portion have a patriotic flavor–either American or Norwegian.
Sara Okern (andasmer.com) only wanted to take one day for her weaving, so she incorporated areas of plain weave to contrast with the monksbelt pattern. The two shades of linen look particularly elegant.
We are making steady progress!
Lisa Bauch spent two days composing a birthday runner for her sister, with colors based on Linnea flowers that grow in Sweden.
Note some small tails on the beautiful surface. Lisa likes to leave tails formed when changing color or a bobbin on the front, rather than the back, before she snips them off.
Judy Larson and I, on the first two pieces, wove a clean linen edge. Lisa Torvik and Lisa Bauch added looped fringe. That hadn’t even occurred to me when I sat down to weave, but it is beautiful. It has a special charm on Lisa Torvik’s piece because she used so many colors. You’ll have to wait to the end to see those loops, however; Lisa Torvik didn’t take a photo when she finished, and it is now hiding under the beam at the front of the loom.
By Robbie LaFleur
Our Scandinavian Weavers Study Group has a project underway, a group monkskbelt warp on the Glimåkra loom at the Weavers Guild of Minnesota. 15 yards of cottolin warp! Our pieces will be modest, only 24″ per weaver, 16.6″ wide. Interest was high; we have 17 people signed up. Jan Josifek offered to wind the enormous warp. I bought a kilo of 20/2 cottolin in a half-bleached color. She wound the warp and had almost NOTHING to spare. We chose a pattern from an old Väv magazine, #3, 1975. (I am not going to post the whole article for copyright reasons.)
It took us a while to make progress on warping and getting started–you may have heard about the winter weather from hell in Minnesota this year. Jan J. was so excited about the pattern that she interpreted the draft in 8 shaft turned twill blocks for towels at home. Beautiful! She definitely gets extra points.
Judy Larson was the first to weave, she took on the job of making sure that the weaving would go well for all the subsequent weavers. Happily, she reported, “It wove up beautifully with no issues!” Here is her beautiful green color; she used doubled Shetland yarn for her pattern weft.
I was second, and wove four large blocks in saturated colors.
The third weaving is underway; Lisa Torvik is using green linen for the background weft, and wonderful color bundles for her expert experimentation.
Keep tuned in for more colors and variations on the warp in the coming weeks.
Scandinavian Weavers Study Group 