Bryony Studio

Well, I finished the project. Turned out to be a shirt, and not a dress, however. Oh well. Lessons learned, right? Front of shirt Here's a shot of the front of the shirt. This was woven with 8/2 cotton at 12.5 epi (ends per inch) on my 12" loom. Actual weaving width on loom is around 11.5". Once washed, the material shrank to 10" wide. Overall, I had around one yard of the lighter colored material (that on top) and two yards of the darker material (that on the bottom). I use a mixture of peach, teaberry and rust colors to create the warp, but I only used peach and teaberry to weave. Coral was the lighter color and teaberry the medium pink in the shirt. Back of shirt What I discovered while creating the shirt surprised me. First of all, I it's surprising what you can make out of three yards of 10" material. As you can tell, I ran out of fabric for my sleeves. Second, it proved interesting putting the items together. It's definitely one o...

As part of the December challenge I made for myself, I finally finished weaving the fabric. Yeah! Now, it's waiting to go into the laundry. The next phase, of course, is designing the dress. Once the fabric is washed, I'll be able to see how much material I have. Currently, it's almost three yards, maybe a little more, but it will shrink once it is washed. No, the cones above are not the finished colors for the dress, but they are the next project. Each year I make the majority of my Christmas presents. My sister wants a throw blanket for her apartment, and the cones are the colors she chose. Honestly, the warp is beautiful, even if I did have to add an olive color to the mixture since I ran out of the 8/2 cotton yarn (the one on the right). Still, since the yarn I bought for her is a shade greener than the computer shows, it's turned out well. Do you make anything for Christmas, or do you purchase handcrafted items for friends and family?

This month, a group called Dessember (check out the website here ) focus their attention on ending human trafficking. The point of Dessember is to raise awareness and money specifically for International Justice Mission. Personally, I think it's a brilliant way to do something besides raise awareness. Often times, myself included, all we're able to do is talk about human trafficking, but this is one way to do something tangible. After all, few of us will go on trips to rescue slaves or spot someone being trafficked in our community. Awareness, however, is important, and if that's all we can do, then proceed. Yet, I wanted to try something in honor of Dessember. For someone who hasn't worn dresses often since college, I don't have a lot of dresses neither do I have money to buy dresses. What I do have is material, some handwoven, and some store bought. This month, my goal is to make one dress from handwoven material. Not the material in the poncho above, bu...