Sky Loom Weavers was founded in 2006 by Peggy Barnette and me, Penny Nelson, in the small town of Cat Spring, Texas located 75 miles west of Houston, Texas.  Our 20 year friendship and interest in the fiber arts was the foundation of Sky Loom Weavers.  Both Peggy and I create hand spun yarns and hand woven shawls and other products from a variety of natural fibers. 

I learned to weave from my grandmother when I was about 13 years old but drifted away from it over the years of college, getting married and having babies.  When knitting was no longer a challenge I took up spinning, something I had always wanted to learn.  The spinning brought me back to weaving.  Peggy crocheted for as many years as I knitted and was totally entranced by spinning and weaving.  Sky Loom Weavers is the happy result of our shared passions and our lack of relatives (who wants to hear “oh, great… another shawl” on Christmas morning?).

Much of our weaving uses the yarn we spin, although we also use some really wonderful commercial yarn.  We mostly spin wool but also include silk, alpaca, camel, mohair, ramie and other exotic fibers.  Our fiber comes from many sources and in many forms – directly from fiber animals in the form of raw fleeces still smelling of the barnyard or in the form of prepared fiber which has been washed, carded and dyed by talented artisans or anything in between. My three Angora goats, Amos, Andy and Bernadette, who are out in their pasture right now growing mohair, make their own contribution. 

Peggy and I dye both washed fiber and hand spun yarn using a variety of natural and commercial dyes to create many of the bright colorful yarns you see in our weavings and for sale here on the website.  We are sure to include a description of the natural dyes used in our yarn for those of you particularly interested.  Our hand dyed fiber is either vat dyed or hand painted.  Vat dyeing involves putting the fiber in a large kettle along with the commercial or natural dye and letting it sit for a while.  Some of the dyes work best in hot water so we have a propane cooking element for heating.  Other dyes work best at ambient temperature and those are allowed to sit out in the shed for as long as it takes for the dye to adhere to the fiber.  Vat dyeing, particularly in hot water produces a variety of color depths on the yarn.  Parts are deeply colored and others are paler.  We don’t want to agitate the fiber in the hot water and end up with beautifully colored felt, but we also like the variation of color.  Hand painted fiber is laid out on a strip of plastic to be painted using brushes, small cups or plastic syringes to apply the dye.  It’s then steamed to set the dye.  Both processes are fun, messy and magical.

Sheep

Different breeds of sheep make very different types of wool.  While this may be no surprise to you, I was not aware of how variable wool could be until I started to spin.  For example, Merino wool is very soft, fairly short hair and is classified as“fine wool” while Navajo Churro sheep produce very course, almost bristly wool.  Merino makes lovely sweaters, scarves and items worn next to the skin while Churro is perfect for long wearing rugs.  All types of wool have a place and usefulness.  We spin a variety of types of wool and when we know the breed it is listed.  Sometimes we even know the name of the sheep or goat that produced the fiber and will list that also.

"A weaver who has to direct and to interweave a great many little threads has no time to philosophize about it, rather, he is so absorbed in his work that he doesn't think, he acts: and it's nothing he can explain, he just feels how things should go." Vincent van Gogh

Spinning

Between us, Peggy and I have several spinning wheels and lots of drop spindles we use to spin our yarn.  We each have a Schacht Matchless spinning wheel.  You can see it on the front page of this website.  They’re great workhorse wheels, comfortable to spin on for long periods of time and take up very little room.  They’re fairly heavy, however, so we also have a couple of travel wheels.  They have carrying cases and while not exactly light, neither requires an entire seat in our car or truck.  Both Peggy and I also spin on drop spindles.  Drop spindles can be large or small, heavy or light but all are infinitely more portable than a spinning wheel.  We can be seen happily spinning while waiting in line at the bank or sitting in a doctor’s office or waiting for our meal to be served at a restaurant.  We get lots of strange looks.

Pro 31:13 She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.

The description for each hank of hand spun yarn for sale includes the number of yards, the weight and the “wpi” or wraps per inch along with the color and fiber.  Here is a guide to translate “wpi” into commonly accepted knitting yarn weights:

Yarn Weight	WPI	Stitches/inch	Needle Size
Lace weight	22+	8+	00, 1, 2
Fingering	19-22	6-8	2, 3, 4
Sport weight	15-18	5-6	4, 5, 6
DK	12-14	5	4, 5, 6
Worsted	9-11	4 ½-5	7, 8, 9
Heavy Worsted	9	4-4 ½	8, 9
Bulky	7-8	3 ½-4	10, 10 ½, 11
Super Bulky	up to 6	2-3	13, 15, 16

Weaving

Most of the shawls on this website have been woven on a triangle loom.  These lovely looms are light weight, portable and adjustable from 3.5 feet to 7 feet at the largest dimension so we can produce a hand woven triangle shaped fabric in several sizes.  The triangle shape allows a shawl to drape beautifully.  The 6’ and 7’ triangles make lovely shawls all by themselves while the smaller triangles can be pieced together to make a variety of shapes.  We also weave the occasional rectangular shawl or square throw on our adjustable rectangular looms.  The most common weave structures produced on these looms are plain weave and twill.

Twill	Plain Weave
"Modern invention has banished the spinning wheel, and the same law of progress makes the woman of today a different woman from her grandmother."   Susan B. Anthony

I still have the four harness floor loom that I learned to weave on so many years ago.  It's perfect for weaving rugs, placemats, table runners and light weight fabric for fun rectangular shawls.  We hope to have some of those products here from time to time.  For now, the triangle loom is so much fun it continues to call to me.

Our Other Products 

We offer several other handmade products that we really love.  Our handmade Hearthside soaps come from Cheryl Blazek in Ohio and the handmade soap from The Soap Nut comes from Laticia Mullins in New York.  Our lovely copper and sterling silver shawl pins and shawl sticks are handmade by Rosemary Hill in California and our hand carved wooden shawl sticks are from Jeshua Forrest here in Texas.  The only product we offer that’s not handmade is our wonderful Merino Hand Cream.  This is produced in New Zealand and we both love it.  It really is a spinner’s and weaver’s friend.