Tag Archives: Saori weaving

April 18, 2014 · 2:02 pm

Weaving with recycled & upcycled fabrics for Green Window City

For the last 6 weeks or so, I have been weaving up a storm, working on an installation for the Green Window City project in Edmonton Alberta. Link to Green Window City

I wove 7 banners ( each 5 yards long) from cut up clothing and t shirts cut into t shirt yarn (tarn and ‘Farn’- fabric strip yarn) on my Saori loom.

I rescued a warp chain that an angry weaver had cut from the loom and tossed in a box at the Reuse center:

It wove up beautifully:

I figured out how to weave stars for the ends of the banners:

I built a mannequin, a cat,

a dog,

a stool, a loom and a stand. LINK

I made gigantic balls of yarn…. I wove a tapestry of the earth, using cut up fabric strips- whew… so many new things to figure out! LINK

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay www.crone-findlay.com

And, then, yesterday, I installed it all in the window of a beautiful little boutique in Edmonton, ‘C’est Sera:

And, today… I clean the studio and work on new projects.

4 Comments

Filed under eco crafts & green projects, Loom & looms & small loom weaving, tapestry, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as #rethinkjunk, #YEG, Earth Day, Earth Month, eco project, fabric yarn, farn, green project, Green Window City project, hand weaving, hand woven, how to build a loom, how to build a loom stand, Noreen Crone-Findlay, recycling, saori banners, Saori weaving, t shirt yarn, Tarn, textiles, upcycling

February 5, 2014 · 2:55 pm

New woven vests February 2014

Vests are one of my most favorite garments to design, weave and wear.

I have just finished two new vests that both have something that I believe to be essential: Pockets 🙂

I didn’t use a pattern to make the vests, but I was inspired by design #51 for a jacket, in the Saori weaving book that has a black cover.

I don’t know the actual name of the book, as it’s all in Japanese, but if you contact your local Saori dealer, I am sure that they will be able to sell you the book. The Saori books are all fabulous beyond words, and are all treasures!

I wove the fabric for the red vest on my Saori Piccolo loom, which is a joy to weave on. The fabric for the turquoise vest was woven on my 4 harness table loom.

The warp for the red vest was 10 inches wide and the warp for the turquoise vest was 17 inches wide.

They were both woven at 10 epi.

They both work well worn open, or pinned shut with a brooch, or tied with a belt or sash.

When I was weaving the fabric for this vest, I was playing with the fibonacci sequence, and also playing with numbers in other ways… in a way, I was coding messages of love, good health, happiness and abundance into the fabric as I wove it!

Weaving is so meditative, and it’s fun to deliberately figure out ways of ‘weaving happiness’ into my fabric 🙂

I love shawl collars, as they make me feel so cozy:

And those oh so important pockets! I wove the fabric for the pockets on my 4 harness loom.

I used a wool cotton blend for the weft when I wove the band at the top of the pocket so it would shrink and pull in to shape the pocket.

There are so many neat ways to shape garments, and using threads that you know will shrink is a ‘secret tip’ that works well for getting sections of your weaving to pull in and gather after the fabric is washed.

I’m trying very hard to not get too attached to these vests, as I am going to be offering them for sale at the maker’s faire that I am participating in this weekend… (On the Spot Maker’s Faire at the Boyle St Plaza in Edmonton AB on Feb 8 & 9).

8 Comments

Filed under craft shows and makers faires, Loom & looms & small loom weaving, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as hand weaving, hand woven, hand woven garment, hand woven vest, Noreen Crone-Findlay, Saori, Saori Piccolo, Saori weaving, textiles, vests, woven clothing, woven vests

September 20, 2013 · 7:25 pm

New woven vest with hood

Several months ago, a young woman looked at my woven vests, and then asked if I could weave a vest with a hood on it.

I’d never thought of that… but decided that it was a very good idea indeed!

I’ve been mulling it over, and wove up some fabric for it.

I wanted to add a narrow band that would go up the fronts and around the opening of the hood.

On the Saori group on Ravelry, there is an ongoing conversation about weaving with 7 warp strands.

Well, why not?

So…. I choose 7 different yarns/threads for my warp:

Because I love weaving little square motifs, I combined sock yarns, embroidery floss and various yarns and threads while weaving clasped weft technique.

I wove the band on my Saori loom.

When I finished, the narrow band was just slightly short of 9 yards long.

Golden retrievers are so gracious about modelling!

I didn’t use a pattern.

I just draped the fabric on myself and on ‘Patient Zillah’, the mannequin I made from cardboard and wood:

When the hood is down, it gives a lovely shawl collar.

I decided against stitching a button on, and just pin it closed.

Wow… I look so cross-eyed! (My husband thinks I should have let him take the pictures LOL)

The navy blue edging is spool knitted cord.

There is a problem with this new vest. 😦

I was planning on selling it, but I have fallen in love with it, so, I am clutching it to my heart, and it stays with me 🙂

19 Comments

Filed under Dewberry Ridge looms, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as hand weaving, hand woven, hooded vest, Saori weaving, weaving garnments, woven garments, woven vest

March 29, 2013 · 10:12 am

A new woven shirt to celebrate springtime

Springtime has been hopelessly late here in Alberta, so I decided to go ahead and celebrate it anyhow, by making myself a new shirt.

I wove the fabric last year:

I wove the fabric on my Saori loom:

This became a sleeve:

I used my ‘standard’ shirt pattern, Simplicity 2741 LINK

And shortened the sleeves, as I have short arms.

BUT… I blythely cut it out and sewed it up in, ahem, my husband’s size, oops…. so it is too big for me.

Ah well, I guess that’s better than being too small, isn’t it? 🙂

I did all kinds of clasped weft and inlay on body of the shirt.

These are techniques that are used a lot in Saori weaving.

Saori is weaving based on the philosophy of creative self discovery through free form weaving.

See Saori Japan LINK

At times, when I was weaving the little squares, I had up to 8 extra shuttles in the row.

Doing inlaid sections slows down the weaving process, but it is really worth it.

Here’s the other sleeve:

I used inkle woven bands for the collar and cuffs.

I am not going to put buttons on it, as I don’t think that I would ever wear it buttoned up.

So, this is my celebration of Spring…. hope you are celebrating merrily, too!

Happy Springtime! 🙂

8 Comments

Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as clasped weft, handwoven shirt, inlay weaving, Noreen Crone-Findlay, Saori weaving, weaving techniques, woven garments, woven shirt

January 25, 2013 · 12:07 pm

Woven Women- Out of the Mist

My mother passed away recently, and one of the ways that I have been processing my grief is to take it to my looms and weave about it.

Because I am deeply focused on weaving tapestries and woven pieces for my solo show, ‘Woven Women’, it was natural that this weaving would take the form of a Woven Woman.

My mother suffered from a form of dementia, I have been feeling is how sweet it is for her to be released from that dreadful fog of confusion……..

And, so, I have woven a piece on my Saori loom with supplemental embellishment with my stick weaving loom, that I call:

“Out of the Mist”. She’s approximately 30 inches tall by about 10 inches wide at the widest point:

‘Out of the Mist’ by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c)

One of my close friends gave me a seashell instead of a card, and it felt natural to have it become part of this piece.

I made a Kumihimo cord and tied a Celtic everlasting knot, which is stitched to her forehead, but barely visible under her cowl.

Weaving this tribute brought me great peace and comfort, and I think that my Mom would like it a lot.

Yes, I think that she does…

62 Comments

Filed under Peg and Stick Loom weaving, peg looms and weaving sticks, weaving & handwoven, Woven Women tapestries and woven works

Tagged as 'Woven Women' by Noreen Crone-Findlay, death, grief, grieving, hand weaving, hand woven, healing, healing through weaving, Noreen Crone-Findlay, Saori weaving, weaving, weaving loom

December 7, 2012 · 11:45 am

Dreaming of color and weaving the vest

Last Sunday morning, I had an inspiring dream.

I dreamt that I was invited to visit the workroom of a friend who passed on awhile ago.

She and I had written back and forth for several years before her death.

I still hold her dear in my heart, even though we never got to meet, face to face, in this world.

Anyhow, in the dream, I was invited into 2 gorgeous little rooms that were full, floor to ceiling, with antique drawers and shelves, full of exquisite handmade lace and yarn, and thread and weaving and embroidery.

It gave me a whole new view of heaven! 😀

I was particularly moved by the colors of one jacket and 2 bags that were woven with a range of reds and blues and then embroidered with yellow silk thread.

For the rest of this week, I have been glued to my loom, and then my sewing machine, weaving a vest that was inspired by the dream.

It has been such an interesting voyage of discovery, as it took me places that I didn’t expect to go, and it had it’s own rules and requirements.

Here it is:

I wove it on my Saori loom, blending the yarns on the bobbin, and adding and picking up strands of weft as I wove.

I knew that I was going to be shaping the vest by pulling on warp strands to add the curves that would build the vest, so I worked at making the shapes of the clasped weft be conducive to the warp pulling process.

I had thought that I would use the narrow band to add another ruffle to the outside edge, but I decided instead, to use it to weave the back of the vest.

This is one of the things I love about Saori weaving- being able to do freeform work that takes off in a different direction than I had originally planned!

I like to shape the garment after I have woven it, so I do my warp pulling after the weaving is off the loom, and don’t do any shaping on the loom.

The butterfly was woven while it was still on the loom.

I had thought that I would embroider lots of dragonflies onto the vest.

I didn’t embroider the dragonflies while it was on the loom, as I wasn’t sure where I would be placing the pulled warp sections, and didn’t want the embroidery to be distorted or to interfere with the pulling process.

I had woven the butterfly a couple of weeks ago, and set it aside, as the piece that it had originally been part of felt like it was a ‘fail’.

How wrong I was! The butterfly and another section of the ‘fail’, fitted into the back of the vest just perfectly.

I thought that I would tat some dragonflies and stitch them on, but they just didn’t work.

It’s a wonderfully comfortable vest, and every time I wear it, I will think of a dear friend, and how she still inspires me!

So, my friends, here’s to life, to color, to love, and to the creative process!

May you weave sweet, colorful dreams! 😀

And, here is a video on how to shape fabric by pulling warp strands:

15 Comments

Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as butterfly motifs, clothing, color in weaving, creativity, dream, dreams, Noreen Crone-Findlay, Saori weaving, style, woven vest

February 27, 2012 · 3:56 pm

Saori freeform woven shrug shaped by pulling warp strands

About a year or so ago, I wove up quite a few yards of very playful fabric.

I love the gentle Saori philosophy of creative freeform weaving that is an expression of creativity and an exploration of imagination.

My plan was to use this fuzzy Saori inspired fabric to make a soft, cozy wrappie jacketie sort of a thing to keep me warm in the studio when winter wails away outside.

BUT- I just couldn’t settle on how to use the fabric.

After much teeth gnashing, I thought: ‘Aha! I am going to make it into one of my most favorite things: A shrug!’

So, I laid out the fabric on my cutting table, cut it in half (it was about 3 yards long and only about 14 inches wide).

I sewed the 2 halves together lengthwise to make a wider, shorter piece of fabric.

Then, I cut a slight curve at the top for the neck, and curves under the arms.

And then, I folded the shrug in half, and pinned the living daylights out of it.

Looked at it and groaned…. I had pinned it together the wrong way.

Sigh….this is why I pin pin pin pin pin…. pins have saved my bacon more times than I care to remember!

Okay, unpinned, flipped, re-folded, and pin pin pin pin pin pin pin pin….. and stitched the under arm seams.

Then, I pulled up the selvedge strands of a long narrow piece (about 6 inches wide by about 3 yards long) to gather it into a gentle ruffle. This length of fabric was one that I had woven on my Cricket rigid heddle loom – originally for another vest (but I saw how perfect it would be for the ruffle, so I ‘re-purposed’ it for the shrug 😀 )

I stitched the ruffle around the outside edges of the shrug, forming a collar, front facing and lower back edging.

I sewed the short edges together at the lower back edge.