Bloomington Fiber Arts Sale

Bloomington Spinners & Weavers Guild 2013

Fiber Arts Sale

Friday, Nov. 8  5pm - 9pm

Saturday, Nov. 9  10am - 5pm

Bloomington, IN at the 1st United Church

Corner of 3rd St. and Woodscrest, 

Behind IU Credit Union and IU Health

It's that time of year again!   We hope to see you at this year's Fiber Arts Sale, put on by the Bloomington, Indiana Spinners and Weavers Guild.   You'll find beautiful hand woven clothing, scarves, shawls, rugs, towels and blankets.   There are gorgeous hand-knit sweaters and hats, crocheted items, felted gifts, handmade dolls, and luscious hand dyed fibers and yarns for you to create your own masterpieces with.  

This is a fantastic chance to see the best fiber art in the region, all in one place - just in time for holiday shopping. 

We'll have a lot of hand dyed yarns of all kinds, plus our famous handwoven washcloth and handmade soap sets, plus our hand painted silks, plus our hand-dyed and handwoven scarves and shawls. 

I hope you stop in and say hello!

The Aurora Scarf Project

I belong to the Weaving Indiana guild.   Every other year, we do something related to the theme  for the Midwest Weavers Conference.  This year, the conference theme is 'Northern Wefts'.    Our challenge was to choose a photo of the aurora borealis and weave a scarf to go with it.    The night sky meets weaving.

I have never done a weaving challenge before.   So, my challenge was to actually do the challenge. 

I did it.  Before the deadline, too.   Yes, I'm patting myself on the back.

Photo: geology.com © iStockphoto / Shawn Waite

Here's my first inspiration photo.

Photo: absenceofblackandwhite.blogspot.com

And here's my second one.   I wanted one with blue, too.   

Warp:  8/2 tencel, dyed.
Weft: 8/2 tencel, black.

Threading:  8 harness, straight draw
Weave structure:  Undulating twill

This weave structure was a challenge for me because I wanted to learn 'how it worked', not just repeat the same treadling over and over [and over and over and over....] 


The aurora in the sky isn't perfectly regular, it varies. 

I did a small sample to get the rhythm of the treadling, then I took off and syncopated it.    As Randy Darwall told me once, "The pattern repeats, except when it doesn't repeat."

Jazz meets weaving.