Warp Speed? Are we really heading to the final frontier, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before…? Maybe 🙂 Warp Speed is the culmination of a few months work and collaboration between Andy Poad and myself, following the growing discovery that this simple little circular loom that we designed and developed really contains all kinds of hidden depths, ones which we hadn’t originally anticipated! But upon exploration these depths have been slowly revealing themselves, in the form of a big variety of warping possibilities and potential patterns for creating a huge range of different kinds of weaves and shapes and forms. Once we put our thinking together we found that between us we could dream up all kinds of possibilities, and really wanted to find a way to share those with other people who are also discovering circular weaving. Having already started the Circle Weaving facebook group, and seeing how willing everyone was to share idea and techniques, we were very inspired to make Warp Speed into something that not only would offer patterns and designs for people to use, but also become a way for other people to create and share their own patterns too. So what is Warp Speed? Its not really a command from the bridge… Its more a suggestion 🙂 It contains a way of writing and reading a pattern designed specifically for circular weavings. Andy is very good at creating logical progressions of constructions and then also explaining them in a clear and simple way. We applied this to Warp Speed and came up with a neat way to explain different kinds of warps in a really consistent way, and it can be applied to any kind of circular loom (not only the Majacraft ones) as we wanted it to be as universal (see what I did there?) as possible. So it has the pattern key, it has a bunch of patterns for warps that Andy and I dreamed up and trialled, it also has some fabulous photos of some very inspirational weavings done by members of the Circle Weaving group, AND it has a template in it that can be printed and used for you to develop your own patterns! So here is the next cool bit! Majacraft is GIVING AWAY four of their new Mini Looms! And these are the coolest wee things, mine is now permanently in my bag with a project on the go, and they are super cute too 🙂  To be in the draw what you need to do is this:  if you havent already, join the Circle Weaving Facebook group (you will...

This week I am excited to finally be able to bring you the woven Neckwear Tutorial for use on the Majacraft Circular loom! I have been working on this for months, and just shared it with the wonderful participants at the SWAY art yarn guild Festival in Florida, where some really amazing pieces were created using this technique. The secret? Is in the warping! This is a method that was prompted way back when we had just made the very first prototype of this loom at the Majacraft mothership in Tauranga. We were sitting on the porch and putting  warp on it and Andy suggested making a hole in the middle by using a loop. So of course I had to try this out 🙂 My first one was quite simple, and I embellished it with some Dr Who Gallafreyen text.. I found out that this was a fun way to warp the loom, and I tried a few variations on it until I found the one that I have used in the tutorial, which to me seems the simplest and it also creates some nice weaving possibilities for both thick yarns and finer threads. Making the ‘hole’ in the middle of the circle weave was the key. Its just a short hop from there, to making something you can wear around your neck, simply by not continuing to weave around and around but making an opening by turning the weaving and going back in the other direction! These can be made lacey and delicate, with beads, shells, pearls.. Or they can be made thicker and more wooly and warm for a really bold statement! I am really really excited about being finally able to make the tutorial available! I had been saving it as a special treat for the SWAY weekend participants, with the plan for releasing it here on by website at the same time. I cant wait to see what people start making with this pattern, and yes it IS a pattern, but it is one that leaves it very open for you to make what you will of it, your choice of materials, your embellishments, the kind of edging you make on it, please feel free to add or change anything you like to make this work in whatever unique and ‘you’ ways you can find. In the tutorial I have included sections on design, warping, weaving, and embellishments, all suggestions and creative starting points rather than something to be followed exactly. I think this is an idea that together we can all grow and develop and I really hope you will share your creations and discoveries with me and others! Please feel free to...

In the last few days I’ve been surrounded by circles, warped and wefted, beaded and braided cut and pasted, and clipped and edited. Really! This week has been a busy one, preparing some stuff to take and present at the SWAY Art Yarn Guild Festival in Sarasota Florida, coming up in just a few weeks. And there are so many reasons why I am excited about attending this festival! Firstly, it is my absolute honour to be there as the ‘headliner’ for the weekend, two days to teach and share and meet everyone, and finally to be able to put real faces to names, as I know there will be many coming along who I know only through Facebook. What a wonderful opportunity, and I am really looking forward to sharing  this weekend with some incredibly creative people. It is also the first ‘outing’ for Arlene Thayer and myself as ‘FiberyGoodness’. We have the Friday evening planned as a Golden Fleece Course get together, along with a special activity we have imagined up for the event. We will also be releasing one of our new courses over the weekend! Both online AND at the festival itself. All I can tell you is it DOES have a fiber kit with it 😉 We will have some goodies and SWAY Swag there on sale, not only the new Course but also some pretty things to decorate your fiber space with that I hope everyone will really love. Is that cagey enough? I know I know! Its all surprises! And another reason I am really excited about this weekend is that I have been waiting to share something especially at SWAY for the very first time. It involves circular looms and the neckwear I have been developing. This past week I have been creating a tutorial for it, I just exported the PDF, and made a video to go along with it! I will have a few copies of the tutorial to use at the workshops and will give all participants the download link so they can download their own copy  after the event too. I am hoping to have an ibook version available as well, for those with an ipad, and that will have the video embedded in it as well as a couple of other snazzy interactive features. I am really excited about this possibility and I hope to be able to offer more of these kinds of things via the ibook store in future too. (I will continue to make PDF versions of everything though!) So back I come to the weaving. I just posted the link to Majacrafts circular loom on my facebook page, because they have recently brought out the large...

Its 9.20am and I am sitting here at my computer feeling the icy bite of winter creeping in, that time of year when it feels like all my bones are frozen and there is always that annoying gap at the back of my neck that my scarf didn’t cover, and the ends of my sleeves not reaching down past my wrists far enough. My nose is cold and I am resorting to huddling over my coffee to warm up. Yes, the heating is on, somehow I dont seem to be feeling it though. You might be asking yourself about now, ‘is this post going to be one long complain time about the weather?’. And while I would like to say, ‘why no, no it’s not, because I have other actual important things to tell you’,  in fact, if I think about it honestly, it really is all about the weather. Sorry. Here is more : well it would be if my fingers werent frozen to the keys. Ok I am exaggerating. I have been weaving this week, perhaps an attempt to create warmth in wooly cloth 🙂  What I have done this week is completed two woven objects, one an experiment in double heddle weaving on my Majacraft loom, which turned out to be really interesting to do and with results I really like! I will be writing some more about this in a later post, because, theres quite a lot to say that goes beyond just ‘double heddle weaving rocks’.   and the other, a circle weaving. Partly it was to test out the tutorial I have written to accompany the Golden Fleece Fiber Creativity Course. There will be a task at the end of the course for using the yarns created in each module, and I am hoping that most people are going to choose to make that a circular woven item to the guidelines we will be suggesting.  So I have made a little tutorial showing how I use my circular loom. I have added lots of photos, so I hope its clear! Here is the piece I made this week, complete with shinys and yarn with lots of angelina combed into it 🙂 This one I am planning on adding onto a bag, I think it would suit a nice rich brown leather, so I just need to find one to suit! I am really enjoying my circular weaving, its meditative, simple (or more complicated if I want it to be), its easy to pick up and put down and even take out places with me, something I have missed since I am not a knitter able to take my hobby with me in a...