Sewing a Saori vest

Linda emailed me this photos of her "river " scarf

Less than  2 months ago a new student came to learn to weave and wind a warp. The second class she bought a saori SX60 loom, and since then ..... well  i will let you see.
 This is the grouping of all the fun scarves she has made, some were all ready given away as gifts before  she took this photo so there were even more..

I am truly amazed at the joy this has given Linda and now she is weaving yards of fabric for clothing. See her vest below.

This is the yaradage she wove on her saori loom for her vest.

Peaceful Weaving
Jill Nickolene Sanders
www.saorisantacruz.com

Classes on spinning yarn with a spinning wheel

Last fall I taught a  group drop spindle  spinning class, one of the students wanted to move from spinning on her drop spindle to a spinning wheel so she came for a private wheel class.
It was so much fun to see my student be  sucessful on a saxony scotch tension wheel, a castle irish  bobbin tension wheel, and a double treadle, double drive tensioned wheel. She learned to ply , and to use a niddy noddy to skein off her yarn from the bobbins as well.

peaceful spinning

jill nickolene sanders

www.saorisantacruz.com

A Saori loom and weaving presentation

My weavers group , santa cruz handweavers guild , asked me last year to give a presentation of Saori weaving and I presented it  few days ago to full house with  a very receptive enthusiastic guild members.

Thank you Yonat , the  guild program chair, for the invitation, and warm introduction

Thank you Linda, Maggie, Robin, Lisa, Jon for coming and sharing your saori experiences as well.

peaceful weaving

Jill Nickolene Sanders

www.saorisantacruz.com

Why should I weave?

Last week I had a new SAORI student . She is exploring new crafts she might be interested in. One of her questions was ,"after I weave a few pillows what else can I do with the hand woven cloth?"
This was an interesting queston, I explained that many artists are process oriented, not product driven. We do our art because have a need to express and the process is a need , rather than a choice.
She is coming back to weave a scarf . I  think working with ones hand is so very vital as a balance to Our mental activites. Saori weaving is meditative and rewarding in it's process alone and at first we may want to weave a gift, a textile for clothing as a goal, but then the loom calls us with no intention at all, just  an opportunity for a expressive voice.

PEACEFUL WEAVING

Jill Nickolene
www.saorisantacruz.com

Sewing a Saori flag/banner

Our  local mountain group/guild , Mavens Of The Fiber Forest (c) group in November , wove a collective  saori cloth using predominately hand spun weft yarn  spun by the group .

This week I got around to cutting and sewing the the flag. Next week we will embellish it and felt our name on . We meet for saint distaff's day, or also know as roc day. roc day info we always have a celebration doing something fibery .

I wanted to remember my mothers passing in 2010  around this time of year.
I inherited her singer featherweight sewing maching so instead of using any of  my other  sewing machines  I brought it  up  to the studio near the wood stove to sew the banner . She bought it in the 1960's I was with her when she did. She was a very good seamstress and made ends meet by sewing and doing alterations for others in our small rural town when I was a child.  When I recieved the box with the machine in it I pulled it out and the pice of cloth under the presser foot was the cloth of the last dress she sewed on it, a dress for me. It had been  untouched for more that 40 yrs. Memories flooded through me.
I had it serviced but they told me it was virtually like new, only a new belt and oiling etc. was needed and a bobbin winder repair.

The hum of the motor, the smell of the oil was very comforting.

 So untill we add beads ,ribbons  etc. and I add one more piece of pipe to plant the banner, this is how it looks so far. So thank you mom .Your legacy of sewing lives on.

HAPPY NEW 2012.
peaceful weaving

Jill Nickolene
saorisantacruz.com