Saori from cloth to garment classes part 1, spinning, and other saori activities

Meet Roberta 

(with her hand woven mobius cowl she wove last month at the studio) 

                                         Sharlene showing us her computer multi shaft complex woven piece she wove on her computerized loom.


 Both are going to  be weaving in the saori way on Saori looms then constructing  and creating unique  garments.  This is part one.

 Deciding what  design of clothing to create  to then weaving  the yardage to create it . Figuring  out warp width and length choosing  yarns  and here they are winding there own warps.

Using saori warping frames you can warp 5 separate strands at one time  as opposed to hours of individually winding each warp end.

 sleying and threading the the heddles off the loom with Saori's unique  threading and cross holders.

 Beaming the warps on the saori wx60 looms on the deck and starting to weave.

On the third day Reirin ( Alheides) visited the studio. She has taken Buddhist monk vowels, but in her former life she started  The Golden Fleece , a  fiber arts shop in Santa Cruz,  which she latter sold in  2003. We met when I worked there for many years in the mid 90's till early 2000's.

 She really enjoyed her visit and  trying the  Saori looms

She wants to teach familes to weave on saori looms at some time in the future.

mean while shars lovely random warp is weaving up beautifully.

Taking it off the loom to twist fringes and to take it home to soak and dry.

 Roberta's weaving is so fun and creative and great, she tried to venture away from her favorite bright colors but I am very glad she did not try too hard. She came back to her " joy" shades.

 Oh Roberta this is amazing!

I will write anther blog, they will be  coming back to sew  in two days, so stay tuned for  part 2 the end results!

I visited Lisa this week  to see how she was progressing and to bring her more yarns, and bobbins .She is weaving  beautifully blooming with creativity. Using her saori  60 loom ( with adaptations  that are designerd for ease of use and  for any age and ability) Lisa has emerging hidden talent in abundance.

 she is trying tandum weaving.

And OMG what a fantastic section of colors and tecniques and yarns.

 Candace, another Saori Santa Cruz weaver , came by the studio for a" learn to spinn" class ( class list here) She has owned  a spinning wheel for years and she never  learned to spin with being a mom and a busy life  but she always wanted tolearn , I assembled  her wheel for her that she dropped off. First she learned  to spindle spinning and a few hours latter she is spinning on her wheel!

Her first ever mini skein. She is now spinning yarn  on her wheel.

 Summer has arrived .Ttime to weave a new pair of sandal straps !

my newly started  Saori woven straps for my Ssekos  sandals on my piccolo saori loom and we are having a weave-a-long going on till the end of august 20013 in my the Ravelry group come join in on the fun details here weaving in the saori way rav group  ( you know want to do this)
past links to blogs for my sandal straps all the way back to when I invented the concept and first pair :
2012 saori straps
2011 saori sandal straps
more sandal straps ( different sandals )

A lovely card made for me by a customer who bought two of my saori artisan design pieces of clothing.

she is also  a weaver and she dyed and plied the silk and wove a sample  tucked inside the card with the payment. The water color paint is actually the dye that dripped onto the paper from her warp. It is extremely validating to have other weavers purchase my saori clothing pieces to wear. It is so nice  that my art  is affirmed  by peers and others all over the country.

Thank you so much.

namaste'

peace, pace, pause, play

from the redwoods 

Jill Nickolene

my Etsy shop

www.saorisantacruz.com