February Tritik and Shibori stitching

Tritik Shibori Sample

Here is what you have been waiting for ! Our February Guild meeting was well attended and another great show and tell was delivered. I have to thank Karen for taking pictures and notes from this meeting then sending it all to me so I could post this blog. All this and she was flying out in a few days for another workshop.

lovely gift from a friend

inkle loom samples for Phyllis's Workshop

 Phyllis brought her new inkle loom woven examples for her class at the FAHC in March. The workshop is March 11, 18 and 25 th 6:30 to 8:00 pm call 906 487 7302 for more information.
Also, a British friend of hers made her this sweet embroidery needle case! We all drooled!

Fiberrama which takes place this Saturday from 10 to 3 at the Community Arts Center at 126 Quincy St. in Hancock. I think that the sale will stay up for the week, if you can't make it.

 Lynn brought two Inkle looms she has for sale, her friend made them and could make more to sell if there’s an interest. $40.00 small and $85.00 for the large one

Lois brought her woven rag rug from Phyllis’s class. She used her purple bed spread from college. It’s 8 ft. Long.

Anita beautiful skein of blue yarn that she spun on her electric spinning wheel. She also found a fabric cutter she found at Keweenaw Consignment for 20.00! They retail for about 4-5 hundred!

Antita's handspun yarn

 

Marilyn has been spinning yarn for a sweater she’s knitting for her husband. She spun from roving and dyed with Rit dye. Her results were beautiful!

Marilyn's handspun yarn

 













Jon is making more beautiful cutting boards and had great ones with him. Karen put in an order for the wavy one! They are walnut and maple.


Dawn is expanding her love fibers by taking Finlandia's Spring Fiber class. She brought in some work from Phyllis’s class. She had some block printing and Shibori samples to show us.

Melissa's rug and place mat

Melissa L just wove her first project now, 25 years after her first weaving class with Mary Sue Fenner at Siever’s School on Washington Island. It’s a rag rug with some double shuttle techniques as well as a place mat that’s she wove with knit material strips. She used her Union loom.








Carol Kreher surprised us with a visit. She’s still moving, but made time to join us. She reported that she now has an electric spinner, and she’s been crocheting baskets. She’ll hopefully send some photos.
She also donated a spinning wheel to our guild! Thanks so much Carol I think it might be a great resource for our guild.

 
Karen is a busy teacher and shared two new baskets she’s been working on for new class proposals. She’s also trying to figure out how to weave the bias woven birch bark hearts correctly.

Look for Karen, Dawn and Poppy's classes at Porkies.org they all will be teaching workshops at the Porcupine Mountain Folk School this summer 2020. As well as a beading class with Cynthia Cote in July. Donna Kallner will teach a Yarn Dyed with Bark class in August and a September 2 day Nailbinding workshop. Debra Jircik and Mary Burns will have a collaborated Eco dye class as well. Friends of the Porkies Folk School is trying to include some great Fiber classes this summer. The prices are good and lets try to support their effort.

Debra did some weaving samples for the Mary Sue Fenner class. She ordered her yarn on cones for ease of warping, but the yarn looks very different from the original skein. She’s also battling the yarn over spinning into itself as she puts it on the warping board..... Any suggestions?

cone yarn on left knitting yarn on right

Debra's sample look quite different.

 

















Mary missed the meeting due to a cold, but has been doing some weaving, she sent pictures of her woven fabric for the MS Fenner workshop in May.
After reading Tom Kinsey's article about his stash of special yarn in Handwoven Magazine. She decided to use her North Ronaldsay  yarn that she had been hoarding since 2012. It is perfect for the project and decided now was the time to put it on the loom. She said it is the softest wool she has ever worked with and while weaving on this warp she could even smell the ocean of Scotland and a faint whiff of the breed. The warp was a mixture of 3 shades of the wool and two thicknesses. Also some colored wool and a bit of silk was included.

 

Our Presentation this month was Tritik stitching presented by Phyllis.

Tritik stitching is a small running line of stitching that is gathered up tightly. It is often used in African textiles and the designs are much bolder than in most other forms of stitching.

Phyllis started us on a Shibori
Project which we will dye with Dawn at the March meeting. The technique is called Tritik which is hand stitching pulled tight to resist the dye.
She demonstrated many different styles.
Mokume - a wood grain look with parallel-stitches offsetting the rows.
Ori-nui - Horse teeth - an undulating line
maki-nui - chevron stripes - where the running stitch wraps around the fabric.

Memory Cloth - Yashiko Wada

kumo Spider  web -  A circular effect- folding the fabric in half and running the stitches in tight 1/2 circles.

The fabric we used was Greige ready to dye not bleached or coated fabric.

strong threads like upholstery thread

Our next meeting will be March 16 at Finlandia's Fiber studio, Dawn will be doing a dye presentation where we will dye our stitched fabric from this meeting.
we will meet at noon on the lower level of the Juttila Center or Phyllis's Fiber class.



For our April meeting Phyllis knows a spinner who would be willing to come a teach us a combination plying/spinning technique.