CENTERING WITH FIBER

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Saori weaving classes on Fat Tuesday... Madri Gras

Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday a was fun day. i had three students and I laid out some feather boas for my weavers and encouraged wild abandonment with there yarns choices. After all it was Mardi Gras.

Elieen's colors just exploded onto her warp, I love it!

Dana weaves tapestry rugs, and beth had not woven in years. It was equally inspiring to both and they enjoyed each others pieces. Danna asked about looms, and models, and wonderful conversations over tea and biscuits ….. and boa's it was much enjoyed !

" This was a wonderful day,thank you , sooo much fun" " I love Saori weaving"

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Eileen is learning to spin. we started with hand cards to blend some of her sheared apricot standard poodle coat fur and welsh roving on the hand cards.

made little rolags….

Then she used a drop spindle to " park and draft ", a method of learning to spin yarn. Turkish spindles are great because when the spindle is full you slip the arms off the main shaft and then pull out the arms from the spindle's yarn and then you have a pre wound ball of hand spun yarn in your hands!
she will pratice this week at home and we will try a spinning wheel when she is comforatble and wants to learn more.

Peaceful , and Fun weaving and spinning in the redwoods

Jill Nickolene

www.saorisantacruz,com

www.Etsy.com

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Saori weaving classes

More student's Saori weaving and some sewing the last couple of days in the studio …..

Remember Eileen 's drop dead gorgeous warp? eileen"s warp in this blog She is back to weaving it and it is utterly fantastic don't you think? I adore those colors!

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Meet Debbie she was givin a 32" rigid heddle loom as a gift and needed help weaving on it. so she brought it up to the studio for some pointers.

It is really big! I had never seen a 32" rigid heddle loom ! I showed her some tricks to help control the heavy wide heddle.

some of her stick shuttles were a yard long, so I showed her how to wind a bobbin with a saori desk mount bobbin winder and bobbins and boat shuttle, now that was much eaiser to handle! so that is what she is going to do from now on , and bought a shuttle and bobbins and a winder to put to rest those LONG stick shuttles.

before she left i suggested she might want to try a saori loom for comparisom since she was a new weaver. Wow did she like it!

I suggested to Debbie to go home and pratice weaving on her rigid heddle loom and come back when she wanted to learn some new skills, which she will. She is way more confindent …

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Teaching a very WEE ones to sew, my heart is sooo full of joy!

My long time sewing student almost finished sewing her cute sewing machine cover and serger cover in class.

Here they are in her sewing studio, they are so cute. She chose great fabric!

it makes her studio so cheery, what a great idea! Cozies for her sewing machines!

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I finely found time to wind a warp ,thread and dressed my saori loom for a new etherial piece.

saori warping frames are so easy to use, and they fold up in a second flat!

Because of the thin nature of this warp yarn I wound the bout on to a skein winder instead of chaining it off.

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Eileen wove more today on her lovely warp.

Roberta arrived durning our class with her daughter. She came to pick up her saori loom and we had a delightful visit while as Eileen wove.

Whats this? it is a Saori Auto Bobbin Winding Guide very cool invention by Kenzo Jo, the creator of the saori looms.

Eileen loves creating her own unique yarns . Here she combines 4 colors of cones of yarns using the saori cone winder adapter
she choses yarns then creates her own unique custom yarn cone to use in her saori weaving. The wooden cone winder adapter slips on the saori bobbin winder that is mounted on every saori loom. Simply put on an empty cardbord cone and start winding your own one of a kind cone of yarn.