Weaver to Weaver

Happy New Year everyone. One of my resolutions this year is to use this blog so here goes!

Last November Meg suggested a weavers exchange.  The idea was to share with other weavers some of our 'weaverly feelings or thinking'. We were to send an envelope cotaining small free or inexpensive items that inspire us as weavers to another weaver.  A kind of weavers' hello'. We could send up to three envelopes and would receive the same number in return.  I decided to send three envelopes as I love these sort of exchanges and contacting weavers from around the world.  I sent to Meg in New Zealand, Jane in England and Helen in Australia and in return I received envelopes from Meg , Kaz  from Australia and Helen.

This was a great idea.  Sending something to another weaver was harder than I first thought, especially when you are sending to someone you have never met. It took me quite a while to decide what to send and eventually I sent similar, but not the same, items to each of my recipients.  I sent photographs, threads, art stuff, pieces of weaving and photo copies of things which inspire me.  I received equally thought provoking things in return.

Now three envelopes containing interesting things sit on my table. Once I have photographed the contents I will share my thoughts with you.

P2P2 Reveal Day

Today is Reveal Day for the Pics to Picks 2 a Worldwide Weaving Challenge organised by Meg. When I joined this challenge I believed I had plenty of time to weave something fabulous but I hadn't bargained on this little lady, our newest grand-daughter arriving five weeks early. Her arrival put us in a total whirl and certainly changed my plans, but I have forgiven her as she is so lovely and cute!


 I decided to get as much out of the challenge as I could in the time that I had left.  So I did the following.



 I chose the Bullfrog picture sent to me by Cindy and had already selected a part of the image to work on.  I most often weave with silk so thought I would use a different type of yarn and settled on some fine cottons. I wound a warp intending to weave several samples and with enough left over to weave a light cotton scarf.

The warp was threaded on my Mighty Wolf loom which I must confess I haven't used for several years. Recently I installed a new combby serial interface with the help of John Acord of  Flatwater Farm Electronics  which has resurrected it and I can now run it with a modern laptop using Fiberworks. For the first time I warped my loom from front to back. Years ago I was taught the back to front method and had stuck with it. I decided to challenge myself to do something different - and it worked!

Below is a picture of my first sample. The shapes looked too large and round.  I was trying to indicate the shape of the weed surrounding the bullfrog. So I designed some more weave plans.

This one looked promising.

The sample looks like this.

The lime green weft didn't really work. I tried several more colours trying to keep true to the colours in the photograph.  I wanted to get an overall green look without sacrificing the shapes.

The design shows more from a distance.

I played with the drawdown again, and got this.

Then I used the same threading with  new peg plans.  I designed several peg plans in Photoshop then pasted them into Fiberworks. Here are the results so far.

I have several more designs to weave and about a yard of warp left.

So what have I gained from this challenge?  Most importantly new friendships. Also I have made use on a redundant loom, warped front to back and allowed myself the luxury of seeing where my ideas will take me instead of weaving with an end result in mind.  I have also started blogging which is something that I have been meaning to do for ages.  I have really enjoyed taking part in this challenge. Thank you  Meg for organising everything and for all your support and help. Now I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else has done.  You can to by clicking here.

P2P2 - In Progress

I made several yarn wraps yesterday and have decided on making a warp similar to the wrapping below.  I may reduce the width of the turquoise to get the proportion a little better.

Bullfrog with yarn wraping

This section is my focus as the whole image has such a lot of green.

My initial thought was to weave a double cloth but I have changed my mind.  My multi-shaft loom is occupied with another warp so I have decided to scale down to just eight shafts. 

This seems to be the best draft so far. I am trying to imitate the shape of the pond weed.  I am not sure if I am quite there yet!

Pics to Picks 2 - Yarn choices

Normally the next stage in my design process would be to transfer my ideas to my sketchbook but as I am short of time for this project I have decided to choose yarns directly from the photograph.  These cotton  yarns are from Handweavers Studio .

 There are many greens in the photograph. To make things easier I have limited my choice to four. I have selected a turquoise, cream, two golds,and a dark brown to represent the eye area and a blue, slate and plum colour to represent the water.

P2P2 - Making decisions

Okay, so I have decided on the Bullfrog and have selected a portion of the picture to work on.  My main reason was to cut down on the green and also to concentrate on the frog's beady eye.

I then loaded the resulting crop into Photoshop and played with a few colour swatches.

I think I prefer the first swatch although the gold stripe doesn't look so definite in the swatch as it does in the picture.  The bull frog's eye is very dark. I will need a black or maybe a very dark brown yarn for that.  I have ordered some 2/16  cottons from Handweaver's Studio in London and my next stage is to make some yarn wraps.

A New Blog - Welcome - P2P2

Hello and welcome to my blog.  I have considered blogging for a while now and have finally decided to take the plunge. Please bear with me as I get to grips with blogging!


At present I am taking part in the Pics 2 Picks  weaving challenge organised by Meg who lives in New Zealand. Nineteen weavers around the world are taking part in the challenge. Each participant has to send six images or photos to a fellow participant to inspire them. From these images we produce a woven design. How far we take the challenge is left to our own choice.


I have sent six images to Shirley in Australia, she in turn has sent her images to Cindy in the American Mid-West. Cindy sent me six wonderful photographs taken by her friend Derrald-Farnsworth-Livingston


All the images inspire me in different ways.  It is so difficult to select just one to work from.

Here they are;

This picture of a bullfrog is my favourite image at the moment. Words that come to my mind are; wet, green, sinister, glinting gold, purples, weed, shiny, vivid.  I am thinking fine silks or cottons. Perhaps even a double weave as the frog appears and disappears from the surface.

This image is so rich and I love how the water drops magnify the veins. Autumn obviously springs to mind as does decay, time passing, richness and seasons.

There is so much more than a sunset to this picture.  Look at the land, reflections, textures and the isolation. I think this is my second favourite so far.

This swan is so fluffy and soft. The feathers almost look lime green behind it's beak.  I also like how the light shimmers through the feathers. I'm not sure how I would translate this into a weaving though.

This image is full of textures, shapes, darks and lights. I am not so keen on this picture though as I don't find browns very interesting.

Another watery image.  I love how the colour graduates from a bright yellow/orange through to pinks purples and rich blue/blacks.

My next task is to work with these images to see which appeals to me most and which I think will make the most interesting woven design. I will report my findings in my next post.