Monksbelt Unveiling and a Fun Discussion

The monksbelt pieces from our Scandinavian Weavers group warp project came off the loom, and Mary Skoy was nice enough to sew seams on her machine in order to cut them apart without fraying. She brought the roll of pieces to my home.  A bag of treasures! You can see that some were woven with looped edges, some with plain selvedges.

A few members were able to make it to an afternoon celebration of cutting them apart and talking about our experiences. This marks the culmination of another successful collaboration on a Weavers Guild loom. Hopefully, everyone is happy with the learning experience.  Perfection was not the goal, but it’s hard to set that aside, isn’t it? It’s marvelous to see the work of the other weavers, but sometimes a bit frustrating. I know I looked at the beautiful pastels of several pieces and wished I had gone for a brighter palette. We were short a few threads and had to adjust the selvedge size during threading, so it was quite difficult to get a neat and clean selvedge.  Darn, I wish I had chosen loops, was my feeling after weaving.

Note to viewers! These photos show pieces in process or just off the loom, with all of the stray threads, lumpiness, and imperfections that will be transformed as we bring them to their finished states.

It was interesting to see the variation in wefts used for the background.  Lisa Bauch used pink, which shows up more in the photo than it does in person. She also used two shades of green–one more olive in cast–but that hardly shows up in the finished piece.

Lisa Bauch

Lisa Torvik used green linen background weft. “I have so much of it,” she explained. We all agreed that the greenish cast was particularly effective with her piece made with shades of pink linen in the pattern weft.

Lisa Torvik

The pink piece was Lisa’s second piece, woven when one of the weavers was not able to use her time/warp. Lisa’s first piece was complex, a depiction of her flower garden, with a nod to tulips, prairie smoke, bee balm, and star gazer lilies.

Some weavers included a looped fringe at each edge, and others wove a clean selvedge.  In a discussion about adding loops, someone mentioned adding another warp yarn at each edge, a little ways out, to get nice even loops.  Lisa uses her fingers to estimate each turn, noting, “I have two index fingers and the last time I checked, they’re roughly the same size.”

Lisa Torvik

Lisa Torvik should get a special documentation prize for this one, too, since she added the year and her initials on her header.

Susan Mancini switched in a deep pink background weft in a few bands of her piece, sure that it would be very dramatic.  Barely noticeable!  Susan plans to make a bag with the piece so she wove the two halves to match. Here, Lisa Torvik is measuring Susan’s piece on cut-off day.

Susan Mancini

Melba Granlund did a wonderful job of incorporating thick and thin lines with color variation.

Melba Granlund

Marilyn Moore used beautiful spring-like colors in her linen pattern weft. I know that flowers are on her mind these days, but if she wanted to weave her flower garden, she would have to weave yards of fabric.

Marilyn Moore

Mary Skoy plans to use her piece to make a pouch or bag.  It should work great, with her modern graphic design.  Also, the crisp hand of the fabric will work well in a pouch.

Mary Skoy

Of any of these monks belt experiments, Claire Most’s piece will undergo the biggest transformation during the finishing process.  Claire wove the pattern in a silk boucle yarn, but just for a short distance.  The rest of the piece is woven in a waste yarn that will be taken out; the warp will become part of a deep fringe treatment.  Claire said she wasn’t quite sure how it will end up–but we all can’t wait to see!

Claire Most

One of the benefits of weaving on a group project is trying out techniques and weave structures that are new to you.  Sarah Okern weaves beautiful rag rugs for her business, Andasmer, so she rarely ventures to finer thread weave structures. Her incorporation of larger areas of plain weave was partly to save time; she said she could only take one day to devote to the project. Interestingly, her spare design relates to the graphic rugs that are her trademark.

Sarah Okern

Deb Reagan gets a prize for driving the farthest to participate, all the way from Grand Forks. She used red, too, and with her addition of blue, wouldn’t this make the perfect runner to put on the table for Syttende Mai?

Deb Reagan

Brenda Gauvin-Chadwick used red, also.  She said she wasn’t so happy with the colors–too Christmas-y.  I ‘m not sure that’s true, but maybe seems so compared to the pastels she saw in some other pieces.

Brenda Gauvin-Chadwick

Jan Josifek’s pink, neutral, and black color palette is striking.  Someone noted that the bands resemble those you often find in much larger rag rugs.

Jan Josifek

I learned a great deal from my piece (Robbie LaFleur).  I’m eager to put on a long warp of my own and continue playing with color and pattern, and I know how I will change my threading.  I’ll vow to count better, too; I’m a bit annoyed with the first and last bands, which should be the same size.

Robbie LaFleur

Our group projects only get done due to the wonderful collaboration of our members.  It takes time to wind the warp, get it on the loom, and test it out.  On this project Judy Larson was the first to weave, and  in that role she wanted to make sure that everything was in order–the threading, the reed sleying, the sett, the tension, etc.  Was it in shape for the next weavers?  Yes!

Judy Larson

When the pieces were cut off this week, the first one was Judy’s, with pattern weft on one color, a deep green wool, and the last piece was Karen Weiberg’s, in a lighter linen green.  It was almost like the change of seasons that happened during the time the warp was up. Winter dragged out in Minnesota with a snowstorm disrupting our schedule, but spring may finally be here now.

Karen Weiberg

Thanks to all of the weavers and helpers who helped to make our group project rewarding.