Introducing! ... 80/20 Towels

Cariboo Handwoven towels, all the hundreds of them so far, have been 100% cotton. I regularly hear nice comments that they are the best - they dry hands and dishes well, they dry out quickly for the next use, and they last for ages. All of that very positive feedback has certainly inspired me and given me the comfort that my towels are worth their price. As well, I have more than a bit of fun with the patterns and colours.

I've had a supply for quite awhile of cottolin from Sweden, which is a lovely blend of 60% cotton and 40% linen. Linen is renowned for being absorbent and adding a little more body to a fabric. The colours I bought long ago are rich and harmonious. I decided to pull out all this cottolin and weave it on a cotton warp for towels.

Do the math: 60/40 cotton/linen weft woven on a 100% cotton warp gives an 80/20 blend overall, roughly speaking. I've always liked the 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, which is that 80% of results come from 20% of the causes or inputs. This is thought-provoking in many ways - in our personal lives and our work, for starters.

But back to 80/20 towels - here are some samples:

80/20 towels have life and energy, and they should perform even better than pure cotton ones. I'm featuring them at $38 each, or three for $110, from my studio or at a craft fair. I was pleased to witness one studio visitor in early September spy the first ones stacked far away and be immediately attracted to them. My supply was soon reduced by two ... and then by two more this morning!

"Coco" Blanket

I first introduced Coco with Nancy and Carmen in an earlier blog.  To add to the "Coming Home" and "Beetle Kill" blankets in this year's Artwalk, the Coco blanket is the third blanket I am presenting.

Coco's fleece was produced locally, just up on Fox Mountain north of Williams Lake. The producer is a friend, and we have a good relationship through my fleece purchases and what I spin and weave.

SH233 | 100% wool | 180 cm x 135 cm (71" x 53") | Sold

Detail of Coco blanket

Artwalk finishes on Saturday and has been very successful again this year. Thank you to Arty the Artwalker who did all the organization and to my hosts at the Raymond James office on 3rd Avenue.

"Beetle Kill" Blanket #2

Further to my last blog about the "Coming Home" blanket in this year's Artwalk, here is a second blanket I have on display at Raymond James in Williams Lake.  Artwalk is going really well again this year, and the different displays are very good.  Enjoy it if you are here!

OK, here's my second Beetle Kill blanket and its story:

*****************************************************************

Lodgepole pine forests in the Cariboo were hard hit by the mountain pine beetle over a decade ago. Bark beetles burrow beneath the tree’s bark and mine through the underlying phloem layer while also introducing a fungus that additionally kills the tree and stains the outer sapwood blue.  Vast areas of the Chilcotin now have many dead pine trees that have decayed and fallen over.  This is all part of the natural cycle.

From the bottom of this blanket, the design depicts the lush greens of the lodgepole pine forest with some scattered darker spruce.  One pine is attacked by the mountain pine beetle and shows red needles, then more trees turn red, and within a year the entire stand is a bright reddish shade. The needles fall to the ground and the forest looks grey.

The trees become standing skeletons that rot and fall over, but the forest responds with the increased light to the forest floor.  New plants pop up and thrive in their brighter environment: lush green shoots of pinegrass, bright golden flowers of heart-leaved arnica and goatsbeard, mauve showy aster with its golden centres, and splashes of bright purple vetch.  As the dead lodgepole pine fall over and their cones release seeds that germinate, the entire stand is renewed to a healthy forest, as shown at the blanket’s opposite end.  

SH244 | Beetle Kill Blanket | 100% wool | 178 cm x 126 cm (70" x 49.5") 

Detail of beetle attack in lodgepole pine

Detail of attacked stand showing new growth of pinegrass and wildflowers

This blanket sold at the UNBC Artisans of the North craft fair in October - thanks!

"Coming Home" Blanket

I set up my Artwalk display this morning and joined the start of the tour to view some of the artists' work in their venues. Artwalk is a month-long exhibit of mostly local artists in various businesses and offices in Williams Lake. My location is Raymond James again this year on 3rd Ave. between the Cariboo Regional District and the Bean Counter (open Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 4:30 pm).  Thank you for having me back!

I have three blankets in this year's Artwalk and I'll present them in three blogs.  The first is my "Coming Home" blanket:

SH242 | "Coming Home" | 100% wool | 178 cm x 126 cm (70" x 49.5") | Sold

Here's the story that goes with this blanket:

********************************************************************************

I grew up in Ontario and my family is still there.  So, in my almost four decades living in Williams Lake, I’ve made many trips east and back west, all by plane.  And once I’m on the plane in Toronto to fly west, I can’t get home fast enough.

I’ve always liked maps, and I can get a bit transfixed with the plane’s route over western Canada.  Prairies and grasslands in Alberta transform to the front ranges of the Rocky Mountains past Calgary.  Mountain ranges are crossed in BC before landing in Vancouver on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.  

This blanket was designed to represent that sequence through western Canada: the soft shades of the prairies and grasslands, over snow-capped mountain ranges separated by wide river valleys, and west to the deep blue Pacific.

No matter how special the family visit was, this scene while in my plane seat comforts me that I’m returning home, home to western Canada and the Cariboo.

**********************************************

If you get a chance to see this year's Artwalk, I highly recommend it. Take your time and enjoy all the great work.

Meet Nancy, Coco and Carmen

Nancy, Coco and Carmen are three ewes (female sheep) from the Cariboo whose fleece I've spun and woven into beautiful blankets. I'm proud to present these on behalf of both the wool producers and the weaver. All three of these blankets are a little heavier in weight than my usual wool blankets. They're woven in simple diamond twill patterns and expected to last for decades of use.

Nancy and Coco are both Icelandic sheep from Fox Mountain, just north of Williams Lake. Long-time blog readers may remember Nancy from an earlier post with her rich, very dark brown fleece. The pattern I wove is a series of large and small diamonds from one end to the other.

SH232 | Nancy 2 | 100% wool | 180 cm x 143 cm (71" x 56") 

Coco's fleece is what I call butterscotch pudding, which is a warm, creamy brown that blends well with the black, greys and white in my first blanket with her handspun wool.

SH233 | Coco 1 | 100% wool | 180 cm x 135 cm (71" x 53") 

SH 233 | Coco 1 | Detail

And Carmen is from Tyee Lake, a little further north of town. I believe she has some Friesian blood but I can't recall the details. What I do remember is her incredibly long and silky fleece. After some quick carding of the raw fleece, it was a dream to spin. This is another very beautiful blanket.

SH234 | Carmen 1 | 100% wool | 178 cm x 127 cm (70" x 50") 

SH234 | Carmen 1 | Detail

All three of these blankets have sold to very enthusiastic buyers.  The Coco blanket was the first to go - at the Williams Lake Farmers Market in September.  Then the Nancy and Carmen blankets sold on the first day of the UNBC Artisans of the North craft fair.  Thanks, everyone!

"It's Exactly What I Want"

One of the spinners at our spin-in two months ago mentioned to me that she really wanted one of my Georgian Bay blankets. She visited my studio in early June and we went over the colours for the rows of water, rock, trees and sky. I wanted to ensure there were no shades that she really didn't want, and that her blanket reflected her own memories of Georgian Bay.

She added some sandy light brown for beach and wanted a touch of light green for deciduous trees and reds for maples in the tree layer. And grey around the cloud edges at the top to show an approaching storm. At the bottom, we agreed that I'd add a little wool/mohair I had left to make the whitecaps stand out a bit - they actually look a little frothy and very authentic.

Here's the finished blanket with, I think, fifteen colours in total.

I always say to anyone who's ordered something that there's no obligation and they have to love it before they buy it. I like to have the item ready for presentation and on display on a special rack for the person's arrival and viewing. After a short silence as she admired it, I heard:

"It's exactly what I want."

Nothing more needed, I was thrilled (and a tad relieved). We had fun looking over the blanket together and talking about it.

Even though we'd chosen colours and discussed the blanket design, I was still winging it a bit and drawing on my own memories. So to hear that this blanket will be enjoyed and appreciated by someone else with special Georgian Bay memories is wonderful for me.

Studio Visits

Studio visits are one of my favourite ways to show off my work. (Craft fairs have become a close second.)  As well, visitors sometimes bring something for me to see that I find interesting and artistically expanding. Most often I will receive a request from a friend or new person about a certain item, or just to see what I do with all this weaving stuff I talk about.

Earlier this week I had a memorable studio visit by a woman from the Arctic doing a short-term work stint in my community. My first question when she arrived was what brought her to Williams Lake, and my second question was how did she hear about me?

She said she'd searched online for weaving stores, so calling me that was a nice start.  She wanted to look at travel shawls and I had them all out for her to see (a huge advantage when there's a visiting plan, as I have out what's requested and the studio is reasonably tidy).  Once she'd seen them, she meandered over to the blankets and I returned to what I'd been doing before she arrived. But almost immediately she started gushing over the Resilience blanket, which I wove last fall and blogged about in December.

She loved the colours, texture and everything about it, and knew it would be far more useful for her than a smaller travel shawl. Then I told her the Resilience story and she loved it even more. It was a very quick and definite selection.

On the way out to her car, she met the Resilience image photographer and told us more about her life in the Arctic. As she drove out the driveway, he and I were already looking at the map.

The Resilience blanket story was really important to her, which is important for me to remember - the story part. It was so gratifying for me to see someone fall in love with my work right in front of me. Business is always secondary when that happens.

Enjoy and stay warm!