Honeysuckle Loom

2012-02-03T17:57:00.001-08:00

Warp Rep Weaving Class...

Last weekend I took a 3-day class from Rosalie Neilson on weaving warp rep on an 8-harness table loom. Today I wove off the last little bit of the warp and my sampler is done! Doing this type of weaving on my baby table loom was a little challenging since I can't beat the weft into place very hard. Ralph got some steel rods to insert in the handle of the reed which did help. Next time I do warp rep weaving, it's going to be on my big floor loom and I can really wack the weft threads into place. And now for some photos...

A Day in the Life of Looms 2012

2012-01-01T10:49:00.000-08:00

The Day in the Life of Looms is something started by Meg in New Zealand. Each New Year's Day weavers post what is on their looms.

LeClerc Fanny is ready for a new scarf warp to get tie-on.

Zooey the Fireside loom has a warp using leftover knitting yarns. About 30 inches done.

Cherry Pie, the Norwood Loom, has a small scarve on it. About 8 inches done.

A doubleweave project on my table loom -- all the action is on the other side of the warp. However, it isn't turning out the way I expected so I am going to do a different double weave with the rest of the warp.

The start of a project on my Navajo loom...but it has been at this level for 6 months!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

P2P2: The Big Reveal

2011-08-31T14:22:00.000-07:00

Here are my P2P2 photos from Esmae, who lives in Australia.

I did 2 P2P2 projects...the first one I was naturally drawn to by the colors and the blue and white transferware in the photo (I love blue and white china). I used some hand dyed red boucle from Just Our Yarns and boucle from Weaving Works in Seattle. I really love how it turned out.

Here's a close up:

But this project was pretty "safe" colorwise. So I decided to do one more P2P2 project that would move me out of my comfort color zone (and use up some stash cottons that had been gifted to me). Orange is not a color I like. Back in my marketing manager days, my team knew if they showed me any creative with orange in it, it was likely not to get approved. :-)

I divided the photo selected into three components -- using waffle weave on the two ends to imitate the little circles and bumberette in the center, 'cause I just love to weave it. These are kitchen towels.

Here are the componets:

Here's the close up:

Thanks to Meg for taking the time to organize this challenge and to keep us moving toward our big reveals! And thanks to Esmae for the wonderful photos.

And now the sewing...

2011-07-27T11:54:00.000-07:00

Finished with section 2 and 3 of the P2P2 project this morning. Left is the middle part (section 2) of the art work. I used nearly all the orange I had left for the weft and the pattern was Bumberet. This kitchen towel has odd dimensions because it followed waffle weave towels with have a lot of take up to created the little waffles. Off the loom it is nearly square.

For the top part of the art work, I used waffle weave again, with lots of orange, yellows and a little blue for the weft. (Shown on the right).

So here they are before washing -- and remember, as Laura Fry says "the magic is in the water."

This is all I'm going to show of these towels before the "reveal" in Sept. I'm thinking of doing one more P2P2 color study, if time allows -- or maybe even later in the fall.

Another P2P2 Weaving Project...

2011-07-22T10:18:00.000-07:00

After I finished my first P2P2 project I realized that it was very much like a scarf I wove a few years ago...so I hadn't stepped out of my comfort zone. Now I'm working on second project, based on the photo on the left. Note it has a lot of orange. I'm not a fan of orange...no orange clothing, no orange in my home. Not an orange person. Actually I must be an orange purist -- I think orange should be left in nature (flowers, fruit and sunsets). And I only have one cone of a muted orange cotton that was given to me with a whole much of other cones.

First I looked at the texture of the fabric at the photo. All the little circles remind me of waffle weave. So I warped my loom for 3 dish towels and divided the photo into thirds and rotated the bottom third. Now the dots rather line up as warp threads and the reds, blues and other colors can be weft threads. I didn't include an orange in the warp. When I do the middle towel I want to use what orange cotton that I do have. And I haven't decided if the middle towel will be a waffle weave or something else. Here you will find photos of the warp and what I have woven so far. More to come.

P2P2 on the Loom...

2011-07-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

The warp and the weft are both rayon boucle...maybe the red/pink/orange weft was too much? 50 inches done, 20 to go.

Finished...Glacier Bay Scarf (5/2 and 8/2 tencel) and Cashmere lap blanket. (Cashmere 8-ply Lhasa from Lisa Souza, colorway Mother-of-Pearl.)

Flowers and Glaciers

2011-06-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

The Pics to Picks photo that I have selected for my inspiration has blue and white china (which I love) and flowers much like those in DH's garden...so here is the photo.

I played with it just a little in Photoshop and really like the tiled effect. Then I used an online web design color tool to help me see all the colors. The tiling seem to lighten the colors a little. So I used the same color tool with the original photo. You can see the differences below.

Meanwhile, back in the studio, I finished weaving a laprug using a cashmere weft (hand dyed yarn from Lisa Souza) and started a tencel scarf using the colors in the glaciers at Mendendall Glacier and at Glacier Bay. Here are a couple of photos from our Alaska cruise that I used in my color selection for the scarf:

You can see more photos from our cruise here.

Pics 2 Picks -- Second Pic

2011-06-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

Esame’s second pic has opened a whole new area for me -- Aboriginal artists from South Australia. Take a look at the photo I have linked here on the right. The large orangey-blue painting between the two women is the one that started me down this path. Esmae sent me an exhibit sheet from the Desert Mob 2006 guide that shows the center portion of the painting. (Desert Mob is an annual art event held in Alice Springs.) From there I followed a Google path leading to paintings with really fabulous use of color.

I found a really great PDF about an exhibit entitled, Desert Country and from there explored the work of various artists. I’ve listed some of the links I followed below. Tunbridge Gallery
Marshall Arts -- this link is really good because it lists the geographic areas and the artists -- describing what the area is know for.

I could look at these paintings all day -- but I had better save it for later and go wind a warp!

Pics 2 Picks...First Pic

2011-06-05T19:37:00.000-07:00

Esmae's packet of photos arrive (from Australia)...a very diverse and thought provoking group of photos. The first one, linked here, is from an exhibit of the works of Shumei Kobayashi, entitled "Weaving The Future". From the other photos on the Facebook page of the Lesley Kehoe Galleries, Melbourne, his work is really amazing. If you are on Facebook, take a look at the gallery's page -- they have 28 photos from the current exhibit. Then Google "Shumei Kobayashi" and look at his other work. You will be blown away by how fabulous it is. Thanks to Esmae for introducing me to the work of his awesome artist!

Stay tuned for more pics and for details of the weaving conference I just returned home from.

To the Glaciers and Back...

2011-05-30T16:43:00.000-07:00

Just finished a 7 day cruise to Alaska…lots of amazing colors, especially the blues in the glaciers. We travel north with friends, eating way too much the whole time. DH has a theory that the cruise ships feed us extra carbs to keep us in calm while we cruise between each excursion location. We left Seattle about 4 pm, cruised north all night, all the next day (a little bumpy) and the next morning, arriving in Juneau about noon. Our excursion there was to the Mendenhall Glacier. What Amazing Colors! Lots of blues in the ice and rich greens in the landscape. It was a gray day, but not cold. I think the gray sky helped make the blues pop out. After the glacier, we toured around Juneau and back to the ship.

The next day was Skagway. We went on the (very) narrow gauge train to the top of White Pass. And since we were the first train of the day, we went on to Fraser, BC to turn around. We spend the afternoon with our friends, shopping.

The next day was Glacier Bay National Park…really an amazing place…worth the calorie intake on the ship to get there. We saw several ice calvings (big chunks of ice breaking off the glaciers). I’m still working through my photos. But here’s a peek -- if you look closely you will see a calving.

We spent a lot of time cruising around looking at the different glaciers with Park Service naturalists on board giving us lots of info. Early afternoon the naturalists left and we headed for Ketchikan, arriving there early the next morning. We left the ship at 7am and took a cruise (on a much, much smaller boat) to the Misty Fjords – which were really misty (think rain). This was the only day we had rain…just lots of gray days. Once again, amazing scenery.

We left Ketchikan at noon, cruising toward Victoria, BC and arriving there about 6 pm the following day. The next morning we were back in Seattle, waddling off the ship about 9am.

Now why am I writing about a cruise to Alaska in a weaving blog – because the colors were so inspiring! I’m really looking forward to see where all the color combination ideas take me. Stay tuned!

It's Back! The P2P2 Challenge

2011-05-17T14:33:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Meg at Unravelling we are doing another Pics to Picks Challenge. A total of 19 weavers signed up this year. We are each randomly assigned to send pictures that inspire us to another weaver. This year mine are going to a weaver in California and last year they went to a weaver down under. So I'm looking forward to getting my pics from a weaver in Australia.

It's been months since I blogged about my weaving but, yes I have been weaving. When I last posted I promised to post a photo of the satin scarf using the leftover weft from Daisey's snacking. So here it is:

I've been on a laprug weaving binge. I've woven 4-5 (lost count) since Christmas, using a Lisa Souza's BFL yarn in the warp and her Silky boucle in the weft. Take a look at three of them. The one on the left hasn't been washed yet.

And now for a couple of scarves, woven on my table loom using Lisa Souza's Big Wool.

And finally a scarf made with some of Lisa Souza's yarn in the warp and Just Our Yarn 5/2 tencel in the weft. I'm really excited about how this scarf turned out. When I was winding the warp, I listened in my headto the words of Randy Darwall - "why use 5 colors when you can use 50 colors."

I have several other completed projects, but they will have to wait until next time. However, I would like to share that our beloved Crazey Dasiey (see my avatar photo) went on to the Rainbow Bridge in December. We know she is in doggie heaven, chasing bugs and butterflies and dreaming of cashmere yarn to snack on! We miss her everyday.

Once A Daisey Snack, Now a Scarf

2010-10-26T17:22:00.000-07:00

About 5 years ago, I bought a lovely skein of cashmere while traveling up in British Columbia. Once I arrived home, I placed the yarn in a basket in the family room so I could look at it and admire its lovely blue, pink and purple colors. Not long have after that, I heard DH say "Should Daisey be eating that yarn?" And that's how Daisey, the Psycho Crocker, began her love affair with cashmere yarn snacks. (Yes, I mean that wasn't the last time she has rooted out some cashmere to snack on -- she loves living on the edge. A skein, a sweater, she's not picky.)

I saved all the bits of cashmere and luckily I snatched the yarn away from her before chewed through the whole skein. I ended up with lots of little pieces about 3-4 feet long and then a small ball and I've been thinking about what to do with it for the past 5 years. Not enough for knitting, but maybe something else.

In September, I put a long warp of different variegated tencel yarns on the loom and have been weaving away -- first was a mobius. As I finished the mobius I started wondering how that cashmere would look (the structure is satin) with the warp - lots of blues, green, and some reds. It's awesome! You will have to wait until the weather gets better here for photos -- my natural light is just "grey" today. The satin warp side is smooth and soft with lots of flicks of color. The weft side feels like your oldest, softest flannel PJs. Yum. However, this doesn't let Daisey off the hook. :-)

So I'll leave you with another photo from Santa Fe.

Don't forget, the Seattle Weavers Guild Sale starts Thursday, if you are in the Seattle Area.

Seattle Weavers Guild Annual Show and Sale

2010-10-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

If you are in the Seattle area, I'd like to invite you to Seattle Weavers Guild Annual Show and Sale.

Hours vary by Day:
Thursday, October 28, 2010 5pm - 8pm
Friday, October 29, 2010 10am - 8pm
Saturday, October 30 , 2010 10am - 5pm
Bloedel Hall (lower level) at St. Marks Cathedral, Seattle
1245 10th Ave E Seattle, WA 98102-4323

The sale will showcase one-of-a-kind hand-crafted items, including towels, rugs, blankets, tapestries, exquisite jewelry, accessories for pets, children’s items, handmade cards, woven paper art, household goods, hats, bags, wall art, jackets, scarves, wraps, batik and shibori decorative items, sculptural basketry, handspun hand-dyed yarns along with weaving and spinning tools.

There will be daily demonstrations of weaving and spinning. Proceeds from the sale are used to fund the guild’s volunteer outreach program and to bring talented practicing artists to Seattle Weavers Guild to educate both its members and the public in their art. Parking is free.

For more info visit http://www.swg-sale.com/. Please share this information with your friends.

I just got back from a trip to Northern New Mexico...you can see my weaving related photos here.

Here's my favorite two photos from the trip.

2 Sunset Satin Mobius

2010-06-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

First experiment with weaving 5-shaft satin (and using tencel) nearly done. I love the results! Oh, so soft!

What did I learn?

The curling selvedges do come out with a hard press.
When your feet are trained to treadle four shafts in a row, switching to five shafts takes some re-training (and un-weaving).
Much harder to see treadling errors in satin than in twill.
Using a mirror to watch the warp side helps catch errors.
Got a nicer drape and fabric feel with 8/2 tencel warp, combined with 10/2 tencel than with 8/2 tencel as both the warp and weft -- but both are really nice.
The take-up and shrinkage of tencel -- not much.

Both have the same 8/2 tencel warp. The mobius on the left has an 10/2 tencel weft with tencel in pinks and reds from Just Our Yarn. The one on the left has an 8/2 tencel weft in reds, pinks and black. The undertones in the left mobius warp are more muted and pinky while the other one leans more toward reds and orange. Both seem to be inspired by the sunset photo below, however, the blacks and grays stand out more in the one with the red/black weft. I had hoped the pink weft would have a stronger pink cast on the warp.

I still have to twist the ends together to create each mobius. The red/black weft one is 39" so I may sew it together with a flat fell seam. The pink weft one is 36" -- exactly the length I like, so I will twist it together with the fringe. Both are 6 5/8" wide -- I little wider than I usually like.

Right now my next satin experiment will be with a 7-shaft satin. I'm going to use JOY 10/2 tencel in blues and greens as the warp and maybe some Red Fish 20/2 silk in the weft. And the width will be less. But right now I'm going to hang out in the yard with Daisey the Dog so she can bark at the sunshine -- something we haven't seen much of lately in the Pacific Northwest.

My Pics 2 Picks Project

2010-06-04T13:20:00.000-07:00

The Pics 2 Picks Project is the brainchild of Meg in Nelson, NZ. Here were the basic rules:

1) Collect 3-6 photographs/clipping/drawing to inspire a weaver.

2) Put all three in an envelope, and a personal message and send it to your weaver recipient.

3) Plan a project based on one of the images.

4) Photograph it, sketch it, write about it, or blog about it. And weave it.
5) Share your progress the first week of June. Completed project not required.

I recieved a little packet from Desiree with a photo, a clipping and some postcards illustrating the wrok of a famous Swedish weaver. I picked the photo -- it is of a lovely leather jacket by a Swedish clothing designer. To me it has many of the wonderful colors we see in the American Southwest.

In my stash I had strips of Pendleton Wool fabric and turoquise worms from Pendleton Blankets. The fabric picks up the colors of the leather and the worms pick up the color in the center (maybe part of the lining). I also had some hand painted cotton yarn from Lisa Souza that has all the colors.

So I started weaving. I wasn't sure what the end product would be, but in the back of my mind of was thinking it would be a bag. You can see in the photo on the left what it looked like on the loom. I alternated randomly between the worms and the fabric, using a pick of Lisa's cotton in between each. I have seen garments made using the worms and the worms had been beat hard and made to curl. I didn't want that -- I wanted flat worms so I beat very lightly -- just kinda sliding them into place.

When I was done I had a piece of fabric that didn't have a lot of stability since the worms were flat. So my next step was to get a friend (Hi JoAn) to machine quilt it for me.

If you look closely you have see the machine quilting. That made a huge difference in the stability of the fabric. Next I washed and dryed it. There was very little fulling since the worms are the edges of felted blankets. Then I gave it a hard press and applied fusible interfacing to one side. From there it is was just sewing -- have I mentioned my sewing skills haven't progressed much since the 7th grade? And my poor sewing machine was not always happy with me or the thickness of the fabric. I had the perfect lining fabic in my stash (photo below on right) and thankfully I had a lot of the fabric since I had to do the lining twice -- the first was a 1/2" too small and I had already trimmed the seam when I discovered that fact.

I experimented and fussed a lot over the handles. I tried knitting the worms into an I-Cord handle -- nope. I tried various plastic and bamboo handles in my stash -- nope. Finally I went to JoAnns Fabric and found two drapery trims that worked and I sewed them together....

And here's the bag!

Satin/Sateen Reading List

2010-06-02T19:56:00.000-07:00

Here is the reading list I put together for my study of Satin and Sateen:

Books:
More Than Four, by Mary Elizabeth Laughlin, Chapter 13, “Satin…or Sateen”
Mastering Weave Structures, by Sharon Alderman, Chapter 3, “Satin”
The Weaver’s Book of Fabric Design, by Janet Phillips, Chapter 9, “Satin and Sateen Weaves”
A Handbook of Weaves by G.H. Oelsner, Chapter “The Satin Weave”

Magazines:
Handwoven Mar/April 2004, “Satin and Tencel for a shimmering scarf,” Patricia Townsend, pg 52
Weaver’s #15 “Step up to Satins” by Donna Sullivan, pg 15 and “Satin and Silk on four or five shafts” by Donna Sullivan, pg 21
Weaver’s #28, “Vibrato” pg 38
Weaver’s #30, “For 8-Shaft Weavers,” by Alice Schlein, pg 47, describes drafting a satin weave.
Weavers #40, “Get Sett for Satin Simulation,” by Doramay Keasbey, pg 6

Online references:
Satin Weave and Damask, Swatch Page http://www.handweaving.net/DAItemDetail.aspx?ItemID=7709
Handweavers Net http://www.handweaving.net/Home.aspx search on “satin” lots of articles come up plus many, many drafts

Future Reads:
The Structure of Weaving, by Ann Sutter, pgs 120-128
The Complete Book of Drafting for Handweavers, by Marilyn van der Hoogt
Contemporary Satins - Shuttle Craft Monograph Seven by Harriet Tidball

Satin/Sateen Experiments

2010-06-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

I've started my own one-weaver study group of satin/sateen weave structure. I like the fact that the fabric is reversible and very different on both side; the satin side is warp-faced and the sateen side is weft faced. I've been digging through all the books and magazine in my library and found about a 1/2 dozen chapters and articles on satin.

I put on a warp of 8/2 Tencel in multiple colors -- think sunset on a rainy day colors on the warp side and a sunset at Monument Valley, NM on the weft side. The warp side is a little brighter with more colors but color is good!

Here's the warp:

And here's how it looks so far -- first photo is from the right side and the second photo is from the left. You can see that I am having problems with the edges curling. I read ahead of time that this could happen with a satin weave and the suggestion was to packed the dents at the edge (before the floating selvedge) with extra threads. So I did that, but apparently not enough. Hopefully the edges with flatten out when I wet finish and hard press it. I also read that the sett should a little closer to get good coverage on the warp side so I used a sett of 30 EPI, but next time I think will try a set of 32 or 34 with 8/2 tencel. I started this as a scarf but now I'm considering making a mobius so that both sides will show. And I put on a long warp and will have enough two do a second mobius with a different weft thread and to do some sampling.

And now, it back to the loom!

Rain, Rain and More Rain...

2010-05-31T12:07:00.000-07:00

At the end of April we went off to the sunny East Coast to visit family, friends and the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. The festival was first on the list of stops. This was our third time at the festival and each year it just gets bigger and bigger. The first time we went was in the late 90s, then again 2006 (I think).

We left the hotel early and arrived just 2 miles for the fairgrounds at 9am -- that's when we hit the traffic backup. The next 2 miles took 40 minutes and the regular parking lot (huge, huge grassy field) was nearly full when we pulled in. The crowds were massive. I headed to the big barn first, hoping the crowds would be slow in getting there...oh, how wrong I was. There was just no getting away from the crowds. Lots and lots of wonderful vendors but many of the booths were too crowded to get into and had long check out lines. And that pretty much describes my whole experience at the festival.

I did have an awesome lamb burger and I bought one book and two skeins of yarn from Dancing Leaf Farm...didn't need that extra bag I had packed. I talked to vendors that I know from other shows and nobody drove their baby stroller of my feet. Did I mention it was hot? By 2 I was ready to quite and my pack pony (Ralph) was ready to. The traffic back up to get into the parking lot was even longer...I heard that it was 6 miles long out on the Interstate and I believe it.

My advice if you are thinking about going -- plan to get to the fairgrounds by 8:30. Even though it isn't suppose to start until 10, the vendors were already selling. One vendor told me he sold the most between 8 and 10am on Saturday morning (actually almost sold out). Take your own water. We picked up a cheap cooler at Costco the day before and had plenty of cold water at the car (which required a hike back to the car). Take a pack pony, errr...husband, who can stand in line to pay while you shop on. Be prepared for massive crowds, print the vendor list off ahead of time and map out your shopping plan. Be patient!

From there we headed east to Ohio to visit dear friends and see a new baby. We spent lots of time admiring the baby, visiting the Clevelanad Art Museum (nice) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Went to a flea market and found a big box of double pointed knitting needles for $4. Oh, did I mention the chocolate facotry? Yum!

After 4 days in Ohio, we went south to Southwest Virginia to visit Ralph family. I arrived with strep throat...got meds and spent most of the VA stay eating ice cream, hanging out in the motel room and knitting three baby hats. Ralph had a great visit with his brothers and old friends, unencumbered by a wife. We stayed in Abingdon, which is a nice small town, lots and lots of antique shops and a good yarn shop (I had to drag myself over there every few days for more baby hat yarn).

Back home, it's been raining. In fact I think it has rained just about everyday since we got home! Right now its coming down in buckets. I know we live in the PNW -- but enough already! Even this morning Daisey had second thought about leaving the covered part of the patio -- she just sat there looking at the wet grass. I know she was thinking "Really -- you want me to go out in this?"

I have gotten some weaving done -- two scarves and have new warps on both Fanny and Zooey. Ripped off a warp on Zooey that just wasn't working out. I finish my Pics to Picks project and will posted the photos and process later this week. The scarves I finished both used knitting yarns from my stash. The warp on Fanny now is random yarns from knitting projects in the '90s. The warp on Zooey is an experiment with Satin weaves -- more on that later.

And now some photos. In the wee stack are three car seat/stroller blankets for that new baby in Ohio and the other photos are the two scarves. The little blankets have a cotton warp and washable wool wefts. They are about 20-18" wide and 28" long.

In April I took a really great class on weaving back to front, so I will have to blog about that later. It was taught by Sue Willingham, a Vashon Island, WA weaver/teacher. She is an amazing instructor.

Book: Textile Arts from Southern Appalachia

2010-04-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I ordered "Textile Arts from Southern Appalachia," by Kathleen Curtis Wilson from InterLibrary loan. It's a wonderful book about women who wove overshot coverlets and lived in the Southwest Virgina, East Tennessee and North Carolina area in the 1800s.

Today I picked the book up at the library and was flipping through it when I discovered a coverlet woven by one of any ancestors! Plus there was a little history about the weaving tradition in my family -- news to me. The coverlet from my family was woven by Eliza Kimball Greever, around 1830, near Tazewell, VA. You can see a closeup photo of her coverlet here. Each coverlet in the book has a brief history about the person who wove it and even some genealogy information. The book is a wonderful addition to any weaver's library.

Got Tree Photos...

2010-04-09T22:12:00.000-07:00

I like trees. I always say the two main reasons we moved to the Pacific Northwest are 1) Nordstroms and 2) trees. I took my first tree photo when I was about 12 and won a blue ribbon for the photo at the county fair. I've been hooked on tree photos ever since.

I don't have any weaving photos to share even tho I have finished a few things. Next time. Meanwhile here are some tree photos from the Grand Canyon. If you want to see more you can find my collection of tree photos from Northern Arizona here.

Rhodie Season In Our Yard Begins

2010-04-05T09:51:00.001-07:00

How to decide....

2010-04-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

that a scarf is long enough. That's always a question I struggle with. It has nothing to do with the actual length of the scarf, but rather with my boredom. When I hit 60 inches I am really ready to be done. Today I was at 65+ inches and ready to stop. But I thought, I'll take a short break and come back and do a few more inches. And off to check email I went...moments later I heard that all so familar sound that all cat owners know -- the hair ball coming out sound. So I zip back to the dining room, where I park my table loom, to find Alice depositing her hair ball on the back beam of the table loom. Okay, that scarf is done!

No damage to the loom, her deposit was held in place by the warp and I have covered the table with heavy plastic. And no damage to Alice, who gave me "well, get busy and clean it up" look and then went on her way. She's only yawning here but I thought it was an appropriate photo of the little devil.

Messing With Worms

2010-03-28T13:10:00.000-07:00

I'm back at my Pics to Picks project -- messing with my Pendleton Wool worms and millend pieces of their fabric. The turquoise wool is the Pendleton worms you saw in my last post. I had some lovely cotton hand dyed by Lisa Souza, back in the day when she dyed cotton that has some of the same colors so I am using that as an anchor between each pick of worms and fabric.

It's actually going slowly because the worms are uneven and I'm not about to try to trim them, so I've been using a Navajo beating fork after each beat to get every pick in as tight as I can. The fabric strips are about 20 inches long so I just lay them into the shed by taping them to a stick. The worms are about 66 inches long and I have discovered that I can roll them around a bobbin and send them through the shed with a boat shuttle.

The selvedges are a total mess, but I'm not worrying about it because going to use the resulting fabric for some type of handbag.

Here's my inspiration from the Pics to Picks photo and a close-up of the fabric I'm weaving. I'm focusing on the little bit of turquoise in the middle -- that must be the lining of the jacket. I plan to finish this project in the next few days. I'm all recovered from my drive-by day surgery (with no negative news!) so I'll be back at the loom.

Wide Awake! Ready for a Challenge

2010-03-17T05:26:00.000-07:00

Woke at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep. What better time to blog about Meg's Pics to Picks challenge. With this challenge, photos are exchanged and we use them as inspiration.

Mine came from Desiree, a wonderful weaver in Sweden, -- a photo, postcard and article about Marta Maas-Fjetterstrom, a master Swedish weaver. The article was in Swedish, however, there was a recent article about her in VAV and lots of information on the web. The photo Desiree sent, shown here, is an amazing coat by a Swedish designer. The coat really popped out at me because, Swedish design or not, it says to me "American Southwest" and reminds me of two recent springtime trips we have taken to Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

That sent me right down to the stash and I burrowed into my box of worms from the Pantaloon Woolen Mills. Last spring we made a trip down to their outlet store in Portland and I, with help from my friend Susan, spent some time sorting through a giant box of their worms while our husbands napped in their comfy chairs. (Worms are long felted strips cut from the edges of their blankets.) We sorted out lots of long strips of turquoise and then some small pieces of fabric. Take a look at the photo on the left and see what you think. I've already got a small warp on my counterbalance loom, picking up on the turquoise and rust colors. Just enough to experiment with. Most people use worms for rugs but I'm not really wanting to do that. Maybe some type of accessory?

Also in my stash is a huge skein of yarn from Lisa Souza in her Bird of Paradise colorway that also picks up some of the colors in the coat. There is more than enough in the skein for the weft of a laprug or shawl. Here's what the skein looks like.

So tomorrow morning we are off at the crack of dawn for a little drive by day surgery and I won't be able to weave for a few days following the procedure. But I will be able to knit and have lots of knitting projects going on, especially baby sweaters for a little boy that arrived yesterday in Ohio.

Thanks Meg for the great challenge and thanks Desiree for the photos (and the stamps on your envelope were awesome too!).

More Leafpile Scarf and March Plum Blossoms

2010-03-09T15:20:00.000-08:00

Blogging two days running! What am I thinking!

Here's how the warp looks and how the first 7-8 inches look. You can't really see the pattern right now unless you stand off at the side. I've included the draft so that you can see where I'm heading. The red wine colors aren't coming out as much as I had hoped but the texture of the handspun is adding lots of dimension to it. Its looking more like the trees along the VA/NC border than the ones in our yard.

I also photographed the most recent scarf I finished on my table loom. The warp is left over knitting yarns as is the weft...a cashmere merino blend from one of the big name yarn distributors. It is lovely and soft. The photo looks more blue than purple but the weft is a deep purple. I still have quite lot of the purple weft yarn left so I may knit a hat to go along with it.

And finally for everyone who wants to see a little springtime...a photo of our plum tree in bloom and a close up. The temperatures did get into the upper 20s last night so who knows what kind of crop we will have. But if the blossoms weren't harmed lasted night and the Mason bees did their job, we will be having a bumper crop of plums this year. All the neighbors will be happy! I've never seen trees so loaded with blossoms.

Leafpile Scarf

2010-03-08T15:19:00.000-08:00

Seems a rather odd time of year to be working on a project with fall colors but that’s what I’m doing. I got this most fabulous skein of handspun hand dyed yarn from Lisa Souza last fall. She calls it “Leafpile” and it’s perfect for a couple of fall color studies I have been thinking about. The first fall color study is a photo from our front yard…our Japanese Maple tree and a white snowball type shrub with it’s dried flowers. The second color study is a photo I took in November of 2008 – we were driving across the North Carolina border into Southwest Virginia when I made DH pull over so I could take photos.

I've been slowly collecting yarns over the winter to use as the warp and two are in the photo with the Leafpile skein. I've also added a dark brown and a gold. Over these I have added a random threading of a deep wine red kid silk/mohair yarn -- to give it a Japanese Maple tree cast...we will see how it turns out. The handspun skein is also part of my "secret stash" so I'll be working on that stash reduction with this project (never mind how much yarn I bought to create the warp).

I'll be doing these color studies on my little table loom. I finished the scarf that's been on my table loom for most of the winter...photos to follow as it is currently drying.

I feel I must apologize to our Mason bees. I've been going out to their little houses and telling them to wake up and get busy in our plum trees. So this weekend they came out in force...but today the weather turned on them. So far today we have had rain, sleet, snow, sun, and sun with snow at the same time. So where ever you little bees are - I'm sorry that you woke up too soon! And I hope you are somewhere warm (just not under our house).

Thank you Donatella! She awarded me a Kreative Blogger Award, and you find her lovely blog here. If you don't follow her blog, you should. She has the most wonderful photos on her blog and her weaving is truely as inspiration.

Here are the rules of the Kreative Blogger Award -- but don't as if you have to comply:
1. Thank the person who gave this to you.
2. Copy the logo and place it in your blog.
3. Link the person who nominated you.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that no one would really know.
5. Nominate seven 'Kreativ Bloggers'
6. Post links to the seven blogs you nominate
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know you nominated them.

There are only about 20 people that read my blog. Most of them know me well and know just about everything there is to know about me...so I won't bore you with more details about me.

Here are my nominees -- they were selected mostly because I love the photos on their blogs so some of them are weavers and some aren't.

Twist of Fate
Fensismensi
Victoria Souza
Buy A Thread
Shinning Egg
Hemvävt
David Lebovitz

Busy Here…

2010-03-03T15:39:00.001-08:00

I've been silent on the blog but busy all the same. I've used up all the boucle yarn in my stash and I'm trying to resist buying more. Right now I'm putting a warp for a crib blanket on my Fireside loom and facing some challenges with the tension on the front beam. I tried lashing the warp to the front beam but that just didn't work out. I had about 4-5 smiley faces across the warp even after repeatedly making adjustments. So I unwove and went back to my regular shoe string method. The warp is about 36 inches wide, and for some reason I have more problems with the tension on a wide warp than say 25 inches. So not much weaving has been getting done here.

Here are the boucle scarves…already gone out the door and a better photo of the boucle laprug.

Boucle Shawls - Done

2010-01-24T15:05:00.000-08:00

I'm making progress working through my secret and not so secret stash. Using lots of different odds and ends of knitting yarns for the warps, I finished two shawls/laprugs this month. The wefts were handpainted Kid Mohair boucle yarns from Claudia Hand Painted Yarns. I wanted to get rid of the various small balls of knitting yarns and use the boucle as it was taking up a lot of space. Each shawl took exactly one skein of boucle for the weft (I wove until it was gone). After I did the first shawl (red), I just tied a new warp on the the old. I wet finished each of them by washing (in my front loader) on the pre wash cycle, warm/cold water, for the 12 minute then I dried them on "delicate" for about 15 minutes and hung them over a heat vent to finish drying. They are very soft and fuzzy. They are about 21 inches wide and 72 inches long.

I like the interplay of the colors especially in the teal/green/brown one but you can't see much of that in the photo. The fuzzy boucle makes the photo look slightly out of focus. Plus this very gray sky day isn't the best for a photo shoot. The red boucle had a lot of purples it in (kinda of "Red Hat-ish") so I used red, blacks and purples in the warp, including some red ribbon yarn. The other boucle was teals, browns, greens and grays so I used those colors in the warp.

This morning I put on a warp of Lisa Souza's Timaru -- a merino/bamboo blend -- and am using the last two skeins of (that I remember) boucle that are in my stash for the weft. The warp is in Lisa's Pacific colorway. I really liked how this knitting yarn is working as warp. It has enough bamboo (35%) to reduce the stretching problems I usually have when I use knitting yarns as warp on my Fireside loom. The plan is for two scarves as I have about 140 yards in each of the two Colinette boucle skeins. If I can resist beating hard, I should have enough for two scarves about 60-65 inches long.

Almost every time I warp my Fireside loom using knitting yarns I tell myself I'm going to put up a big sign by the loom that says "don't use knitting yarns on this loom or you'll be sorry" -- that's why it was such a relief today to find a knitting yarn that didn't stretch and stretch when tension was applied.

Tonight I plan to wind a warp for a baby crib blanket. Lisa Souza has a new colorway called Breath of Spring and I think it will make a lovely crib blanket. I'm using that colorway in her washable merino sock yarn as the weft and cotton as warp. I've got to get busy and get it on my other loom as I want to finish it before my friend's baby arrives. Here's a color swatch of Breath of Spring.

How's everyone else coming along on using their secret stash instead of saving it for the estate sale?

Use it Now! Project and Weaving

2010-01-03T16:36:00.000-08:00

Here's my "Use it Now" for the day...a very old hand woven dish towel as a small cloth for the tool table beside my Fireside loom. This towel is one of several given to me by a dear, but now departed to join the great majority, friend who grew up and lived her life in a small German village. She was born in 1914, just at the beginning of the First World War. The date with initials on the towel is 1912. I'm guessing this was made by her mother. I believe it was handwoven as the edges are a little uneven in places. When she gave me the towels, she also gave me a scrap of her Mother's wedding dressing. We have it in a frame with photos of our friend and her family. Our friend truly enjoyed life. Her favorite phase was "make it empty" -- the plate of potato pancakes, the bottle of wine -- she was always wanting us to "make it empty." Our visits to her home were always quite an adventure and usually resulted in me gaining a pound a day for everyday we spent with them.

In my efforts to reduce the stash (ie - make it empty), I wove 80 inches of yardage over the past two days...not sure if it will be a lap rug/shaw or if it will turn into yardage for some future sewing project. I have a little warp left so I will probably weave something with a different weft as I completely ran out of the weft yarn. Meg at Unravelling did a New Year's Day "Day in the Life of a Loom" and asked for photos of our looms. I couldn't send her a photo of a half naked loom so I finally finish warping my Fireside and the weaving was quick. The warp is a just a mix of left over knitting yarns and the weft is Claudia Hand Painted Yarn Baby Boucle in shades of red and purple. It's in plain weave. Everytime I use knitting yarn as warp on the Fireside I am reminded that knitting yarn as warp on this loom is not a good idea. I need to post a note about it by my warping board so that I don't forget.

The little pink and yellow stripe scarf is something I finished weaving last week on my LeClerc Fanny loom. I've spent more time trying to determine the best fringe than weaving the thing. A twisted the fringe was too skinny and other versions of a twisted fringe weren't right either. So now I've decided just to knot the fringe and that means I have to un-tie all the tiny knots from the earlier fringe versions. This scarf is short as I had originally planned a mobius, but decided after weaving a few inches that the self striping effect would be better in a scarf than a mobius. Since I had tied on to an old warp I was able to eek out about 55 inches and hopefully when washed it won't shrink a bunch. The warp is tencel and silk and the weft is baby alpaca and silk.

I'm trying to decide what to weave next on my Fireside. I could tie on to the existing warp and weave another yarbage/laprug/shaw piece or I could start with a fresh warp and weave a baby blanket that needs to be done soon. And I need to find something else to use that I have been saving!

Remember -- Use It Now! Don't save it for your estate sale!

2010 - The Year To Use Your Secret Yarn Stash

2010-01-01T20:03:00.000-08:00

I'm not one for New Year's resolutions but this year I have one -- I'm going to stop saving stuff to use sometime in the future. If you are like me you have a special little stash of yarns you are saving for that special project, you have special ingredients in your kitchen cabinet you are saving for a special recipe or you have something in you closet you are saving to wear on a special occasion.

My challenge to you is -- use it now! What are we waiting for? So this year I going to weave and knit with the cashmere I have been collecting, I'm going to use the lovely handspun I have from Lisa Souza, I going to cook with the flavored olive oils I carryed home from Florence, Italy and I'm going to wear the stuff in my closet or give it away.

Life is way to short to horde this stuff. If you think you aren't ready to dip into you secret yarn stash -- think about this -- do you want to use it or leave for someone to buy someday at your yarn stash sale (the one you have prior to going into assisted living).

On the weaving front, I finished a silk, tencel, baby alpaca scarf last week and finally after about 6 month of a half naked Fireside loom, I got it warped using various stash busting yarns. I've got 30 inches of a scarf finished on my table loom and I'm half way through a secret baby gift (size 1 needles -- never again!). Fanny doesn't have a warp on her right now so I thinking about putting a rug warp on so I can use up some of my Pendleton worms. The worms take up mega amount of space in my studio. I did finish all my Christmas present and got them into the mail by mid December...greatly reducing my stress.

The top photo from taken on New Year's Eve, 2007, in Sorrento where they really know how to welcome in the new year!

Wishing all of you a TOTALLY TERRIFIC Secret Stash Busting New Year.

Brrr....

2009-12-05T18:26:00.000-08:00

We've had a few days with a hard frost...not really the norm for us. This morning while walking Daisey out in our frosty yard while she looked for rabbit do-do (don't ask) I came across one of Ralph's Spirea shrubs with its leaves edged in frost. I love the play of colors and light.

Here it is.

Knitters Needed...

2009-12-02T16:39:00.000-08:00

The folks at Knot Just Yarn in Burlington, WA came up with an idea of knitting an afghan to raise funds for the families of the 4 slain Lakewood, WA police officers. They have spoken to the Lakewood Police Department and gotten their blessing. Apparently sometime in the near future there will be auction to raise funds. If you wish to participate in creating squares for the afghan, here's the info...

The yarn needs to be Cascade 220 Superwash ecro #817, dye lot #8249.4.5 stitches per inch on #7 0r #8 needles.Cast on 54 stitches. Knit 8 rows (4 garter ridges), then with RS facing Row 1 - Knit Row 2 - K4, purl to last 4 stitches, K4
Repeat rows 1 and 2 until piece measures 11” from cast on edge, then K 8 rows (4 garter ridges) and bind off loosely. Square should measure 12”

Mail or bring to
Knot Just Yarn 113
East Fairhaven Avenue
Burlington WA 98233
360)755-7086(888)477-KNIT
knotjustyarn.com

They have the yarn available for pick up in the shop (if you traveling near Burlington) at no charge. They would like to get these squares back right away so they can block and put afghan together and present to Lakewood PD next week. If they get lots of squares they will also put them together for additional afghans to be auctioned. For more information contact Becky at Knot Just Yarn.

Please help spread the word to anyone you think would be interested in knitting a square.

I'm Glad...

2009-11-30T18:19:00.000-08:00

That I finished my Thanksgiving Costco Pumpkin Pie before I checked to see how many calories it has (Costco Nutrition Factor -- look only if you dare!)
That I have finished my Christmas shopping (if only the wrapping was done!)

That I have 10 inches of another scarf completed on my table loom

That I have warps ready for my counterbalance loom

and that I can play Christmas music anytime I want.

I have no photos of finished scarves to show you today because it's just been to gray to take good photos without a flash and I hate the way my flash washes out the colors. So instead I'm going to share some fibery/textile photos I took in Paris (FYI -- DH took me to Paris for my birthday. Whadda Guy! Little did he know that there were many, many, many fabric stores within 5 minutes of our apartment.) You can see more of my Paris Textile Photos here. The first two are from the fabric stores...blocks and blocks of stores. All of them have a sampling of their fabrics on the sidewalk for shoppers to admire. Many of the stores are multi-stories. I went three times (maybe more) and the shops were always busy. I only bought some buttons and three pieces of fabric...it was sensory overload for sure! I went to the famous yarn shop, La Droguerie, and did not buy anything. They had lots of yarn in lovely colors but I didn't see anything that I would not find at home. However, had I been looking for feathers this shop and several in the fabric district would have been the place to shop! And if you look at the whole photo gallery you will see photos from a shop with rows and rows of shelves with ribbons. Amazing!

Now its off to the treadmill for a short walk to nowhere so that I can leave those pumpkin pie calories behind (no pun intended!).

The Stash...

2009-11-20T11:47:00.000-08:00

My stash busting weaving projects are progressing nicely, however, it hasn't stopped me from adding to the stash. The fall colors here have been extraordinary this year so when Lisa Souza spun up some of her fabulous LeafPile colorway I snagged a skein. Yesterday I made a trip to Weaving Works in Seattle and found some warp to go with it. I have enough of the handspun for at least 2 scarves plus a mobius.

I have another mobius on my table loom -- the colors were inspired by the Maple trees in our yard. The warp is some mystery alpaca in greens, browns and blues and the weft is Lisa Souza Big Wool in Mars Quake. Right now I'm calling it a mobius, but since I tied on to an old warp there may be enough for a shorter scarf. I'm just going to weave until I reach 43 inches and see how much I have left of the warp and weft and maybe keep going.

Now for some finished projects...Last spring I put a warp for a scarf on my table loom...a really lovely soft turquiosey blue and paired it with Lisa Souza Baby Alpaca Silk in South Pacific. But for some reason I just wasn't motivated to work on it so it just sat there until I hauled the loom to my annual knitting retreat. I nearly finished it there and finished shortly after I got home. The colors are wonderful, the yarn is wonderful and it feels so good. So today it's going into the mail, heading to its new home in Kansas with a very deserving person. It will be a great barrier against that nasty Kansas wind. I wish you could feel how soft and warm it is.

The past year I've been haunting local thrift shops and snatching up cheap cashmere sweaters. Then I pick them apart and reclaim the yarn. The next Mobius here is using some of the reclaimed cashmere for the weft. The yarn was really fine so I paired it with a strand of kid silk and a strand of merino. I actually S-plied them on my spinning wheel before weaving with them. For the warp I used some Merino wool in black and burgundy colors. I've been wearing it alot this fall as I try it get my 10,000 steps a day in. Instead of tying the fringe together I got brave, hauled out the sewing machine and joined the ends with a flat fell seam and it turned out great. I wet finished it by hand but it still came out more fulled than I thought it would -- it's toasty warm. I did this mobius on my Fireside. I had actually intended it to be a scarf, but I had lots and lots and lots of problems with one of the warp threads breaking. It wasn't along the edge so I think there may have been a rough spot on the heddle. I know the threads weren't twisted because I had to rethread to heddle and reed some many times.

On my Fanny loom I put on a cotton warp and used a Cashmere and silk blend for the weft to make yet another Mobius. (I really like to make them because I have a short attention span, and after weaving a while I'm ready to move on.) I just love this Mobius, the colors dance and its lovely to wear. I also joined it with a flat fell seam.

Just one more Mobius for you to see -- this is a stash buster. The warp is a called Little Devil (yep, its from Lisa Souza but the yarn discontinued) and the weft was something I picked up in my travels.

I joined it with by tying the fringe together, but I'm thinking about taking the fringe off and joining it with a flat fell seam. What do you think?

Wishing you a totally terrific Thanksgiving holiday!

Weaving From Stash

2009-11-04T14:33:00.000-08:00

Every year I and a bunch of my friends go on a five day knitting retreat at an undisclosed location -- we shop, hike, eat, shop, hike, eat and do a little knitting -- some of which will have to be ripped out when we get home because we were laughing and not paying attention. The last couple of years I have taken my table loom along and since last year actually converted a knitter to a weaver (I think she has 3 looms now).

Some of my friends are also weavers and one was telling me that she has been weaving a lot using her knitting yarn stash. I've done some of that in the past and I have a lot of knitting yarns, err, maybe even more than that. My friend has inspired me to do more weaving from stash and maybe I will be able to empty a few bins and actually find one wall of my studio again.

So yesterday and today I have been pulling warps using my knitting yarns and I finished the scarf on my table loom. I have quite a large stash of yarns from Lisa Souza, so I pulled a warp with some of Lisa's Merino sport weight yarn (not available anymore) in Little Devil and two other warps in mystery yarns. I've been really inspired by the fall colors and spent some time this morning going through the stash to pull out fall colors. I want to get all three of my looms warped this week. Hopefully I will soon have some weaving eye candy to post here.

SWG Annual Sale PR or How I Spent My Summer

2009-10-09T13:11:00.000-07:00

So how did I spend my summer?
I went to the ANWG weaving conference in Spokane. Fabulous classes, awesome and inspiring weaving and crunchy beds
We went to Hawaii with dear friends, walked on the beach every morning and relaxed.
We had family visit and it did the rainforest and Forks thing.
We celebrated my birthday with three weeks in Paris. That was totally terrific!
However, I spent much of my free time working on the publicity/marketing campaign for the Seattle Weavers Guild annual show and sale.

When you look at this list - what's missing? Weaving. The same warp that was on my Louet W-30 in April is on it now, my Fireside has the reed sleyed but the heddles are bare and Fanny has about 1/2 scarve finished on it.

Soon the Seattle Weavers Guild Sale will be in the past and I will be back at my looms. Meanwhile, if you live in the Seattle area (or not, any excuse to travel!) come to the sale. And if you have friends in the Seattle area, please email them about the sale. I've sent so many emails out about it this week, I'm afraid I may get classified as a spammer! So help me out and I'll be back at my loom soon and blogging about my tour of Les Gobelins in Paris.

Seattle Weavers Guild Annual Show and Sale

St. Mark’s Cathedral, Lower Level Bloedel Hall

1245 – 10th Ave., E., Seattle

Thursday, October 22nd 5 pm – 8 pm

Friday, October 23rd 10 am – 8 pm

Saturday, October 24th 10 am – 5 pm

www.swg-sale.com

So...whatsup?

2009-05-15T21:23:00.000-07:00

I've been weaving but I've also been:

on long weekend knitting retreat -- took my table loom,
down to Portland to visit friends (and hits some sales and outlet stores),
entertained said friends here at home,
blown my nose a million times due to a cold,
worked on a volunteer marketing project and other volunteer projects
waiting for Spring to arrive (not here yet! well, maybe today!)
and spent time preparing 45+ scarves for a booth at ANWG.

The scarves are amazing -- all woven by the expert weavers of the Seattle Weaver's Guild. Just getting them photographed and labeled was a learning experience because I got closely examine them. There are all types of weave structures and fibers and all beautiful! It was like going to my own personal structures school.

The ANWG conference is in two weeks in Spokane -- if you are going, be sure check out the Seattle Weaver's Guild booth and pet our lovely scarves.

So I finished another double weave scarf -- it turned out great except for a little problem when I had too much Sangria at the retreat. But the little problem hardly shows!

I have two looms warped with 10 inches woven on one and 23 inches on the other...and I'm tying on a warp on my 8-shaft loom. I found a whole bunch of cheap cashmere sweaters in the various Portland thrift stores so I have been picking them apart.

That's what I've been doing...what have you been doing?

Bad Weather = Weaving Time!

2009-04-05T17:24:00.000-07:00

Lots of weaving related stuff going on this past month.

First, I created a website to help advertise the weaving and fiber guilds in my local area. If you are in the Pac NW and want to add a link on your blog or website -- go for it. All of these guilds have great program and activities -- and they welcome new members. Or if you know of a PNW guild that would like its own page on the site, just let me know.

Then I went to a free workshop, sponsored by the Seattle Weavers' Guild, on using a warping paddle. It was a great class. The excellent instructor first demostrated her technique and then paired us up to try it out. I pretty much got the hang of it and have done it a couple times since -- with the help of my husband! So far, it works best for me with two people!

Shortly after that I took a 2 day workshop at Weaving Works in Seattle on making chenille scarves. The main take away was (for me) whack the beater like the dickens to really pack in the chenille weft. There were 6 of us in the class. Mostly on the first day we spent time winding warps and warping three looms. Late on Saturday I started my scarf and didn't beat hard enough in the beginning. I went back on Sunday, started visualizing those folks that have made such an economic mess and whacked the heck out of the weft...packing it quite nicely. The women in the class were a great group and we were quickly able to decide on the colors for our warps. Great class!

In between the workshop and the class, I spent a great day visiting with JoAn and helping her get a scarf warp on her JMade loom so that she could get some practice warping prior to the chenille class. JoAn also wove a red scarf at the chenille class and was able to get back to Weaving Works later in the week to do another one.

Winter weather has been loath to depart the PNW, providing lots of weaving time. I've finished a couple of scarves, a mobius (all shown here) and some yardage on my Fireside loom. I don't know what the yardage will be...I had a warping mess on the loom and finally got it sorted out. By then I just wanted the warp off the loom and just wove yardage without a plan in mind. The scarves and mobius were done on Fanny. The green-yellow scarf incorporates some Fizz yarn -- I'm calling it "Dandelions Gone to Seed."

I've also found time to knit a hat, some slippers for felting and unravel a thrift store cashmere sweater so that I could use the yarn as weft in a scarf.

The garden and trees are starting to flower, adding lots of color outside my studio windows. Our Mason bees finally woke up and started hanging out with the plum trees so hopefully we will have lots of plums this year. They were very slow to wake up -- I was afraid I would look out the backdoor and see DH trying to warm and wake them up with the blow dryer!

Right now on my looms I have another double weave going on my table loom -- slowly as I am using a heavier, sticky yarn. Lesson learned -- don't use sticky yarns in double weave! I have a scarf almost warped on Fanny and a few more inches of yardage to weave on the Fireside (aka Zooey). I want to do another chenille scarf soon -- a great way to work through crankiness!

Snow in the Forecast!

2009-03-07T20:19:00.000-08:00

The wind is howling and there is snow in the forecast! That certainly isn’t the usual March weather forecast in the Pacific Northwest – at least not down here in the lowlands. We have some spring flowers blooming and I’m sure they are not happy campers tonight. But a snow forecast provides plenty time for weaving and knitting.

I’ve finished 4 woven scarves and a mobius since I posted last but only have two of them wet finished. So you will have to check back to see the others. And I still haven’t taken photos of my stash enrichment purchases at the recent Madrona market.

I started the red scarf while I was deep into my February funk. I had been in my weaving studio and getting ready to leave when, I just as I turned, a ball of variegated red ribbon yarn caught my eye and beside it, in another clear plastic box. was some of Lisa Souza’s yarn in her Joseph Coat colorway. I pulled them out of their boxes and realized I could combine them with some red yarn I got a few years ago at the Madrona market. I usually ponder these things for awhile, but in this case, I had the warp on my table loom before lunch. I tied on the previous warp so I used my word draft for “heal” for the scarf. I just love it. The colors really cheered me up. It’s about 60 inches long and 6 inches wide. It’s soft and drapes nicely. You can find a swatch close up in the slideshow on the right.

The other scarf, shown here, was the scarf that I was weaving on Fanny and wrote about in my last post. The warp is a lovely cotton yarn, dyed by Lisa Souza a few years ago and she recently gifted it to me (whadda pal!). The weft is yarn that is part of my odd ball reduction plan. I have lots of onesy-twosey balls of yarn – mostly impulse buys with plans to “mix it with something else”. Since my fingers rebel at a lot of knitting, I need to find other uses for these odd balls and they usually make great weft yarns.

My inspiration for the scarf was a painting by Van Gogh -- Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night. It has lots of the gold and blue colors found in Lisa’s colorway.

I’ve had two recent weaving guild meetings. First I went to the Seattle Weavers Guild to hear Patsy Zawistoski. She gave a interesting and in-depth presentation of high-tech fibers. She passed around lots of man-made fiber samples so we could all touch them. I don’t think I want to spin any of them…I’ll stick to wool.

This past Thursday was the Arachne Guild meeting and Robyn Spady was our guest speaker. She showed us lots of ways to turn our thrums into jewelry.

Happy Weaving and I hope it isn't snowing where you are!

Got Shed!

2009-02-23T13:45:00.001-08:00

Wove my first scarf on Fanny and it was a dream to weave. I had a nice, lovely shed opening. I think I need to replace the brake coil but it still holds the tension pretty well. Any of you LeClerc loom experts -- please let me know what you think.

Tension is my question of day -- how much is right? On my Fireside loom I've always assumed that I needed a really tight tension (like you could bounce a coin on the warp). But Fanny's tension in tight -- but not that tight. So have I been putting too much tension on the Fireside (which could be one of the reasons the shed on the Fireside is less than lovely)?

Here are some photos of Fanny, all cleaned up and my re-arranged weaving studio.

I'm not sure how much more I can get in here! I really like the new arrangement. I can get to the back of both loom without tripping! Have have two finished scarves -- I'll post more photos soon. Happy Weaving!

February Funk!

2009-02-18T11:18:00.000-08:00

I’ve been in a February funk for various reasons and when I’m in a funk I mostly whine, knit and rearrange my yarn! So I’ve been knitting hats and slippers. But I have done some weaving.

The laprug on my Fireside is going nowhere fast. I started with ulta alpaca yarn for the warp and when I was tying it on, it stretched and stretched. With some encouragement from DH and my weaving mentor, I opted to switch to cotton. So I tied on 480 threads and in the process I got my warp ends in a tangle. I'm using multiple colors of cotton and as I was tying on to the old warp, I decided to change the order that I had the thread in -- in retrospect -- not a smart idea. I’m slowly getting the mess under control -- one thread at a time.

I did completely re-arrange my weaving studio, complete with moving nearly all the furniture, giving away furniture and consolidating my yarn and roving. Now I have more room in front and back of my looms and can get to the back of my Fireside without trying to break a leg. DH finished the cleanup/refurbishing of my Fanny loom and I have started to sley the reed. All the rust is gone. She had quite a severe addiction to rust and various parts of her had to spend considerable time in rehab.

I finished this scarf on my table loom. I created another word draft. The warp is Cascade 220 from my stash and the weft is a multi-color(orange, yellow and pink) mystery single also from the stash. Not at all my colors but I needed to do something in these colors for a guild project. I like how it turned out and as DH said “did you ever expect it to turn out this good?” He's not an orange person either. I have another skein of the multi-single so I'm going to get some yellow/color Cascade 220 and make another one. Eventually these scarves will end up at a local hospital, so the word draft I created was "heal".

I got involved in a knitting bet with a 10-year-old -- we were both knitting hats at our weekly knitting group get-together. The bet was that the first one to complete their hat had to bake cookies for the other person. I thought this was a sure thing because she was averaging a row a week and had been working on it for months with little progress. I had visions of oatmeal cookies in my future! The cookie bet fired that girl up and within a week the hat was complete. (Mine still had inches to go on No. 2 needles.) She had definite ideas about the cookies -- decorated cut out cookies and did I have any bear cookie cutters and oh, by the way, could she come over and bake them. So that's what we did. I felt a little like Tom Sawyer and his fence as she did all the work! However, she did get to wear my brand new (got it for xmas -- thanks Sandy) apron from Paris.

This past weekend was the Madrona Fiber event in Tacoma, lots of classes and a great market. My buddy JoAn came down and we made it a day at the market. I was thrilled that Just Our Yarns was there and I added to my stash :-). I'll post stash enrichment photos when this funk passes! My other favorite vendors were: Toots LeBlanc -- their angora blend is awesome -- and Sheila Ernst buttons.

I have a bright, bright red scarf on my table loom now -- hoping the bright colors help pop me out of my February funk (but I think a trip to someplace sunny would work better!).

Happy Weaving!

Fibonacci Sequence Scarf

2009-01-24T17:04:00.000-08:00

The past couple of weeks I have been playing with message drafts and Fibonacci sequences. The scarf here is the result. If you aren’t familiar with the Fibonacci Sequence there is an excellent description on Leigh’s Fiber Journal.

I wanted to used different shades of the same yarn and happened to have a bag of yarn that I picked up our annual knitting retreat garage sale (thanks Katie). The bag had several greens, yellows and burgundies yarns. These colors were perfect for this project as I was also looking for a project that would remind me of the fabulous fall colors we saw in North Carolina last fall. The texture of the yarn wasn’t as soft as I usually use for my scarves so I washed a sample to see if it would bleed and soften. It didn’t bleed and it did get softer. I’m mostly happy with how it turned out. I did have a boo-boo in the home stretch, but as my DH points out – only I know it’s a boo-boo and not a design feature.

I’ve always been interested in name and message drafts but found getting a good sequence with the word or message I wanted was a little challenging. I tend to want to use just short 4-letter words (no, not that kind of 4-letter word!) which could be my problem. I did get a workable pattern using some of Ralph Griswold’s sequences and used one of those in the scarf shown here. This is the one I used for Fibonacci scarf.

But for the next scarf that I want to do, using Mr. Griswold’s sequences just didn’t work very well. So I decided to strike out on my own using an online sequence generator. I had the generator give me a list of numbers between 1 and 26 in a random order and with no repeats. In Excel, with the alphabet in column one, I pasted the numbers from the sequence generator in the next column and then in the third column I assigned shafts. The results were:
# 1 x l k u d r c
# 2 y o w e s q
#3 m h b a z i
#4 j v p f t n g

I added a point twill threading (I think) in between the word as I repeated it across. The draft I ended up with is very similar to other drafts that I have seen but I didn’t expect anything no one else had ever thought. I just wanted something to reflect the word I had in mind and for me to be the only one who knows :-).

Right now I am slowly putting the warp for a laprug on my floor loom, have the warp for the above scarf ready to slap on my 8 harness table loom, am winding the warp for a summer and winter project to go on my 4 harness table loom and am patiently waiting for DH to finished getting the rust of the reeds for my other floor loom. And it has lots of other work that needs to be done on it!

Happy Weaving!

Fore and Aft Scarf -- Off the Loom

2009-01-03T13:57:00.000-08:00

My double weave scarf (Fore and Aft Scarf, Handwoven, J/F 1998, page 59) is off the loom and finished. The weaving went along without any problems so I really regret not using yarns that have more personality and zing.

The only tricky part is cutting the warp and using it as the weft. The bottom warp becomes the top weft and the top warp becomes the bottom weft and that connects the two layers along one side.

The tension on the warp gets a little wonky the closer you get to the end as you can see from the photo. You just have to trust that it works. I was actually fretting about it a lot ahead of time and had a dream about it -- in the dream it worked and I saw how it worked. So my subconscious was way ahead of me on this project.

Here are some photos of it finished and hanging on Headless Harriet. I did overdye it with some blue dye in my stash of dyes and I like the colors a lot better now. The back does lay flat, it's just the two different colors on each side that makes it seem like it isn't flat. If I do it again, I would like to nuke the fringe along the back.

I used my Louet W30 table loom for this project so that I raised the harnesses independently and could really get an understanding of how double weave works. The beater in my little Louet can be very wobbly and I've heard others have this same problem. I fixed it, mostly, by jamming long knitting needles on both sides of the reed housing. The photos are below.

My looms are naked again but I have some warp really to slap on them; I just have to decide on a pattern. I'm also doing an online summer and winter weave along on Ravelry so I will be experimenting with that.

Happy New Year and Happy Weaving!

Adventures in Double Weave

2008-12-27T15:45:00.000-08:00

When I took my beginning weaving class in the ‘90s we did a week on double weave. At the time, I thought it was quite interesting so one of my goals for 2009 is to do some double weave projects.

Finding my looms all naked this week, I decided to start one before the new year. After cruising through piles of back issues of Handwoven, I picked the “Fore-And-Aft Scarf,” Handwoven, J/F 1998, page 59. (Photo on right.)

The pattern calls for silks and cotton but since this was my first real double weave project, I decided to use some Berroco Ultra Alpaca from my stash – some blue for the bottom layer and gray for the top layer, then use blue for the weft with the gray and vice versa. This yarn is easily replaced so if I messed up I wouldn’t be really upset.

I had some trouble figuring out how to position the shuttles as I changed between layers so that I wouldn’t connect the layers on the side…but once I had the treadling correct (I was reading it wrong) that fell into place. Taking the advice of some of the articles I read, I’m doing this project on my Louet w-30 table loom with direct tie up since direct tie does make it easier to understand what’s going on.

So far, it slow and rather boring since I don’t really have any interplay of color and design to entertain me as I shuttle along. The pattern has you weave along in plain weave for 36 inches. Then the fun begins – weaving the point. The instructions call for cutting two warp threads at the back of the loom and then you bring them forward, pulling them from the reed and using them as your weft threads. You weave the warp end from the top layer across the bottom and warp end from the bottom layer across the top layer. You continue cutting the warp threads and weaving until all the warp is cut. I’m assuming that this creates a join along the side so that when you are done and open it up – magic occurs and you have the point.

I’m at 25 inches so I’m just 11 inches away from the fun part. So far I’ve been trying to entertain myself by visualizing what colors I can overdye with scarf with! If I like the end product I will probably do it again in some silk from my stash. It could make a good gift for my still working buddies who live in warm climates.

And for a little eye candy from our trip to Italy. This is only my favorite photos of the Ponte Vecchio bridge in Florence because I took it from the balconey of a yarn store -- Beatrice Yarn Shop. Unfortunately she is retiring and closing the shop in March.

What! Home for the Holidays!

2008-12-21T15:35:00.000-08:00

Home for the holidays --- what’s that about! When the holidays arrive, my feet get itchy and I’m ready to travel. Last year we spent all of December and then some in Italy and the year before we went to the Christmas markets in Austria and Germany. Maybe this desire to see the world in December comes from living overseas for awhile – or maybe it is just a way to avoid our US holiday madness.
So when we decided to stay home this year, I thought “Okay, that’s probably a good thing.” NOT! Instead of getting my Christmas cards done in Sept, packages mailed in November and avoiding all candy making…I put it all off until the last possible moment. (I’m still avoiding the candy making – DH did it.) Then I felt rushed and very, very cranky (think the b-word). Then the weather turned nasty and all white. We don’t usually have a white Christmas here – a green Christmas is the norm! Temps have been in the teens and we have almost 10 inches of snow on the ground. So why am I not in Sorrento, that’s what I wanna know!

I have spent time at my looms…getting more presents completed and thinking to myself “I have until Christmas Eve!” Well, I’m all done now and have a few things to show you. I have still been caught up in Mobius Mania and sent a few off before photos were taken. Plus I did a few more scarves.

I’m been thinking about my weaving goals for the beginning of the New Year. First I want to get my LeClerc Fanny loom up and weaving, then I want to explore double weaving and just maybe sort through all the stuff in my studio (or not!)

And now for those of you who like snow and dog in the snow pictures:

Wishing you a totally terrific holiday -- where ever you are!

Storytime Rugs...

2008-12-03T15:54:00.000-08:00

Coming up with a woven gift for toddlers living in south Texas has been a challenge for me.

This fall we made an unexpected road trip to Utah and stopped at the Pendleton Mill on the way home. I loaded up on Pendleton selvages! I have a friend that has woven some lovely rugs with these selvages and I also saw some beautiful ones for sale in Taos last spring.

Probably a crazy thing to do since I had never woven with them (which is true of most fibers since I'm a beginner). I bought two large bags full -- about 25 pounds. I now realize that I have enough selvages to weave a floor runner that could stretch for blocks around my neighborhood!

After staring at these big bags for a while, I realized that I could make small rugs for the boys and learn about using the selvages at the same time. First I did some research on the internet and got some good advice from the RugTalk archives and I got advice from several friends who have made these rugs.

The sett I used was 12 ends per inch, sleyed double for 6 ends per inch (per RugTalk advice).

I looked at the various small rugs around the house and picked one that I liked for a size guide -- 33 inches by 22 inches. My estimated on the loom length was 38 inches with a reed width of 25 inches.

I had a small amount of a blue/red/orange/brown selvage and was able to weave one rug with it. The second rug (using a red/blue/black/gray selvage) turned out to be a little longer because I still had some warp left when I reached 38 inches, so I kept going. On the loom it was 44 inches by 25 inches and off loom it was 41 inches by 25 inches. I washed the longer one this morning and it came out at 39 1/2 inches by 25 inches.

I'm calling these little rugs Storytime Rugs and I'm going to send them to the boys with some storybooks.

The laprug that was suffering from negative karma is all done and ready to go out the door. I had one threading error that still showed after I washed it -- but otherwise all the negative karma is gone. I really love the texture of the Merino Angora weft...so much so that I asked Lisa Souza to dig through her bins of yarn and find any skeins that she had left (the yarn is discontinued). I was able to get another half a dozen skeins which I will use for more laprugs -- xmas presents for 2010.

On this day last year, we were here:

Happy weaving!

No More Looking At Craigslist!

2008-11-29T10:16:00.000-08:00

For several months now I've been haunting the local Craigslist, looking for a counter balance loom that I would mainly do rugs on. I'm lucky to live in an area with lots of weavers and wanna be weavers so there are about 5-10 looms posted on Criagslist every week. Most are jack looms and many of been sitting in basements and garages for a long time.

My criteria for the counter balance loom was it that had be assembled, 36-45 wide and only needed TLC -- not a major investment -- to get it going again and it had to fit into the back of my Explorer. I found and lusted over a Glimakra, but it required a drive to Canada to get it (however with the Canadian dollar down against our dollar it was almost worth) and then explain to the Customs guys what I had in the back of my Explorer. I found a super cheapie for a $150, but missed it.

Then this week a LeClerc Fanny popped up on Craigslist. After exchanging a bunch of emails, staring at the photos, we went down to Olympia and picked it up. Very nice knitter decided that between knitting and remodeling their house, weaving wasn't going to happen. She had had the loom about ten years, getting it after a weaving class. But she had only woven about three inches on the warp it came with. Included were: a very nice LeClerc bench, 3 rusting reeds, 2 warping boards, Glimakra stretcher, 2 boat shuttles, more flat stick shuttles, a book, and more that I have forgotted.

I'm going to have to get the rust off the reeds and make new aprons. Then I and DH will have to crawl all over it with a screw driver making ajustments. The photos were taken at it's old home and it was all prepped for transporting. I got most of the dirt off last night and pitched the old warp immediately in case there were any travelling critters in it.

Any tips on getting Fanny into great shape would be greatly appreciated.

Mobius Mania...

2008-11-25T20:32:00.000-08:00

Years ago I started knitting a Mobius (aka Moebius) scarf, following Elizabeth Zimmerman's excellent instructions...but somewhere along the way I lost interest plus Mobius instructions always make my brain swirl. I'm sure this Mobius still lurks somewhere in my stash of yarn and UFO's.

Now my Mobius interest is BACK! For the past month, between my annual knitting retreat and a visit to family on the east coast, I have been caught up in Mobius mania...really faux Mobius, because the twist is created once I take the flat piece off the loom. That what I love about them -- weave, twist, then twist the fringe together and there it is!

I was inspired by the photos posted by WovenSpun and SaoriWeaver on Ravelry. The purple mobius above was my first, using left over yarns. In fact all these are from left over yarns. The brown one uses some of Lisa Souza's Queenstown yarn in the warp and a mystery yarn in the weft. I like these because they are quick and if I keep tying the warp on, I only need about a 130 yards of warp (on my little Louet table loom). Great stash busters!

I also did a really quick neck warmer for a 91-year-old cousin. She really admired my purple Mobius and since she was wearing four layers of clothes on a warm day, I figure she will get a lot of use out of it. I had intended for it to be another Mobius, but the takeup was significantly more than I had estimated so it became a neckwarmer. Shown below...light blue handspun Merino in the warp and handspun Alpaca in the weft.

I took my little travel loom along on my knitting retreat and started a scarf using some of Lisa's new baby Alpaca sport...talk about soft! Think melting butter. It's finished now and really to go out the door as a Christmas present. I had enough of both the warp (Twisted Sisters Jazz) and the baby Alpaca to do a Mobius, which is on the little loom now.

On my big loom I am threading the heddles so that I can weave a couple of small rugs using Pendleton selvages...but all this will have to wait while I do prep kitchen stuff for Thanksgiving dinner and then cook, cook, cook on Thursday.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

This Project Needs a Time Out!

2008-10-26T16:57:00.000-07:00

Murphy must be sitting on my shoulder! For every 10 rows that I've woven on this lap rug, I think I have "unwoven" 3. Sometimes I don't get a good shed and other times I have a treadling error. I tried stepping away from the loom for a day to see if that helps...not! Back in my days as a "working at a paying job person" (aka not retired), I had a theory that sometimes projects just take on bad karma - for no apparent reason. And once the bad karma hits it, no matter what you do, the project is going to be problems, problems, problems. That's the way this lap rug has been. First I didn't have enough warp and had to order more, then I had many, many problems when I was tying on the warp (and I was just trying on to the old warp, for goodness sake!). And now I have the treadling and not a clear shed issues. Details: the warp is cotton and the weft is a merino angora.

Back on my table loom, I have finished the silk merino scarf (using Lisa Souza's Silk Merino in her Mardi Gras colorway). It's very soft and the photo doesn't do it justice. Then I did a really quick project -- a Mobius. With some advice from Woven~n~Spun, I used a silk warp with some everyday worsted yarn. I wove about 38 inches, 7 inches wide. What I learned is: 1) use a soft yarn as the weft and 2) make it a little longer. I was locked in on the warp length because I was using some silk that Daisey, the yarn eating-dog, had had a little snack on. (Below is the yarn eating dog trying to look like she's sorry [not].) She likes silk almost as much as she likes cashmere.

I'm getting ready to warp my table loom again to make a scarf using some of Lisa's new Baby Alpaca Sport, in the petroglyph colorway. The warp is some black/dark brown yarn that I got in Utah at Unraveled in Sandy.

Step Away from the Political Blogs and WEAVE!

2008-10-10T16:24:00.000-07:00

My looms have been quiet until this week – travel, family emergencies, more travel and then the flu – all slowed down my goal of weaving one thing every week. But now I’m back at the loom. I’m trying to spend more time weaving and less reading the political blogs and financial news! (Step away from the computer!) Weaving is much better for the soul and mistakes can be fixed without a Congressional bailout!

Our travels included a brief trip to Salt Lake City and I convinced DH that one morning should be devoted to yarn store shopping. For weavers and spinners, Three Wishes Fiber in West Jordon is the place to visit. Lots of lovely weaving yarns and fibers. I snagged a cone of red Tencel and resisted walking out with a spinning wheel. Another great yarn shop in Sandy is Unraveled. I couldn’t find a website for them, but they are on 700 East and about 9300 South. The folks at both shops were really friendly and expecting me! as I had asked on Ravelry for shop recommendations. (The power of Ravelry!)

On the trip home we cruised off the interstate at Pendleton and checked out the Pendleton Mill Outlet. WOW! Has that shop changed. In the early 70s I use to shop there as I lived nearby. The shop was in a large closet (at least it seemed that way) and mostly had fabric for sale. Now it’s quite large and packed with clothes, blankets and fabric. I wasn’t interested in the clothes – I was looking for mill end cones and selvages. They were out of cones, but expecting some (call ahead) and they did have selvages. I bought about 25 pounds for rugs.

People have told me recently that I can’t weave rugs on my Fireside, however, I have done them in the past, so I’m planning to weave these selvages on it. I’m not sure why I shouldn’t do rugs on it – it’s heavy and didn’t walk when I wove the rugs in the past.

Here’s a little swatch from a scarf that is almost complete. I’m weaving it on my small Louet table loom. The warp is cotton from my stash and the weft is a Silk Merino blend from Lisa Souza. The colorway is Mardi Gras. The pattern is a section of the Bamboo Scarf pattern in the Issue 22 of Weaver’s Craft.

On my Fireside loom, I am warping another laprug. I’m about 60% complete with the warping…a slow process for me. The warp is a light and dark teal cotton and the weft will be a variegated Merino Angora yarn in shades of teal and green.

In honor of a dear friend of mine who joined the great majority in September, I am donating all October proceeds from my line of felted bag patterns to the Obama campaign. She was an avid Obama supporter and I know that she and Tim Russert are having some great conversations about now on the election. So if you are of the Obama persuasion, pop over to my website and buy a pattern.

Now, back to the loom and no blog reading first!

Coast Salish Weaving Exhibit

2008-08-25T13:21:00.000-07:00

An exhibit of Coast Salish Weaving opened last week at our local museum. The exhibit is small but quite lovely. It traces the history of Coast Salish weaving from traditional blankets to contemporary weavings. Photos were allowed (with no flash) so I snapped some photos of the exhibit and they are posted here for you to enjoy. If you live in the Western Washington area, the exhibit will continue through Nov. 9, 2008 at the White River Museum in Auburn.

I also finished another little lap rug. This one is for a very young lady who loves PINK! The warp is cotton and the weft is Sock! yarn from Lisa Souza. The colorways are Baby Pink and Violet's Pink Ribbon. I started to do a zig-zag twill pattern, but decided the floats would be too long for the life this blanket may have. So I just did the zig-zag at the beginning and end of the blanket. The rest of it is the same twill pattern that I used for my Lake Superior lag rug.

I have a pinkish cotton/silk scarf finished also -- I did it on my new little 8-harness Louet table loom, but more about that later!

Now it's back to the loom!

Lake Superior Lap Rug Finished!

2008-08-02T12:34:00.000-07:00

I re-tied the fringe knots this morning and declared the lap rug DONE. It is amazingly soft and will be perfect this winter. I wet finished it by washing it for 4 minutes on the pre-wash cycle (front loading machine), spun in on the hand wash cycle and then tossed it into the dyer on the knit cycle.

As I said in my last post, I used merino sock yarn from Lisa Souza for this project and I stretched it too much when I was winding the warp. I didn't measure the length when I had it on the loom (next time, maybe!). And even through it was superwash yarn I lost a little in size when the yarn fluffed up in the washer and dryer. I found some good tips for future take up calculations here.

Here are my calculations for take-up and shrinkage:
Width on the loom: 33"
Warp Length: 80" (includes 30" of loom waste and fringes from waste)
Width off the loom: 28"
Length off the loom: 37"
Width take-up: 15% (and I used a temple)
Length take-up: 26%
Width after finishing: 26"
Length after finishing: 36"
Width shrinkage: 7%
Length shrinkage: 3%

I would have liked to final lap rup to be a smidge larger, but overall I've quite happy. The person who is going to receive this as gift is not a large person so it should be just right for her. And I learned that next time I need to order more yarn and wind the warp with less tension!

For my next lap rug, I tied a new warp to the old. Instead of tying on in front of the reed, I tied on in back, following Peggy Osterkamp's instructions in her book "Warping Your Loom and Tying on New Warps". It went faster going from the back and using lease sticks so I will probably use this method again. Peggy writes the best books!

This next lap rug is from a 6 year old who likes all things pink! I'm using a pink cotton warp and some more of Lisa's sock yarn in the weft. The weft colors are Violet's Pink Ribbon and Pink. I'm a little uneasy about combining cotton and sock yarn! But I love how the colors all look together.

Back to the loom!

Lake Superior Lap Rug

2008-07-23T14:30:00.000-07:00

The weaving for my Lake Superior lap rug is complete and I love how it looks. I’m really looking forward to getting it off the loom and doing the wet finishing.

The inspiration for this project came from our trip to Upper Michigan last summer. We visited Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Mackinac Island, Traverse City and Sault Ste. Marie. We did two lighthouse cruises and while out on Lake Superior I took some beautiful photos of the water.

Those water photos were my inspiration. Since my abilities to dye yarn pretty much suck, I sent my favorite Lake Superior water photo to Lisa Souza and said “what do you think?” A few weeks later, she sent me this close up photo. The colorway that she created was just perfect for the look I wanted to create. The woman is just amazing! She told me that in her experimenting she also created two skeins that had some darker blue colors in them. So for the warp, I used those two skeins. The three skeins I used are pictured on the left. My favorite Lake Superior colorway is the one on her website. I want to use it again -- maybe scarves -- I have lots of friends who love blues!

For my weave structure I picked a regular 3:2:1:2 twill because I wanted to capture some of ripple movement of the water. The warp was 416 ends at 12 epi. I divided the warp skeins into 4 balls of yarn and wound the warp four threads at a time so that I could get a shimmery feel to the warp yarn colors. The warp length was 78 inches, with a planned final length of the lap rug at 48 inches. I used a floating selvage with two threads on each side.

This sock yarn doesn’t have any nylon in it, but it was still a little stretchy. I wasn’t as careful as I should have been when I was winding the warp and I think I stretched it somewhat on the warping board. Because of this, my shoestring problems described below and the fact it was sock yarn, it was a little tricky getting the tension on the front apron correct.

I have been tying on with shoestrings lately and I had to buy more for this project. My local dollar store was out and after going to a half dozen stores looking for flat shoestrings, I ended up at Wal-Mart. The shoestrings I got from there turned out to be very stretchy. So between the stretchiness of the sock yarn and the shoestrings, many bad words were heard in my studio!

But once I got the tension squared away, the weaving went quickly (most of the time). There was one morning when I had to “step away from the loom”! I just wasn’t getting a clean shed and the shuttle kept catching. However, after a nap, I went back the loom and didn’t have any problems.

I kept a copy of the photo by the loom and used it as a guide. I had some of the slightly darker warp yarn leftover (that should have been a clue about the winding of the warp as my calculations said I should have very little left). So in sections of the blanket I used two shuttles, alternating the colors on each pick. This let me have shots of dark blue colors – just like in the photo.

This was the first time that I used my temple. It was great! I liked it so much, I am thinking about getting a smaller one for my scarves.

So what did I learn from this project:
1) Think about what I’m doing when I wind the warp,
2) How to use a temple
3) And I improved my shuttle throwing!

Now I just need to finish winding the next warp so that I can tie it on. I’m going to tie on from the back of the loom this time (first time for this) so I can’t cut the lap rug off the loom until I finish tying on the new warp.

National Flax Museum in Kortrijk, Belgium

2008-07-12T20:52:00.000-07:00

While spending the past several days sleying the reed on my loom and threading heddles to make a small blanket, I’ve been listening to Syne Mitchell’s Weavecast. Today I listened to an old episode about Tapestry weaving – which reminded me of Belgium – which reminded of my favorite place to buy Belgium chocolate -- Kortrijk. (One way or another, my travels include chocolate and fiber destinations!)

But Kortrijk is also the home of the National Flax Museum for Belgium. We visited there for the first time in 2001. It’s a small museum located a few kilometers from the town centre and train station. We took the train to Kortrijk and once we arrived we just asked around the train station until we found someone who pointed us to the correct bus. It was a very short bus ride to the museum. We were using a Belgium railpass that also included buses so we didn't have to worry about tickets or the fare. The day we visited was in May, the grass was a bold, bright green and the fruit trees were in bloom.

The museum is housed at a 19th century farmstead that was once used for flax production. For centuries Kortrijk was an important center for the production of linen as the waters of the River Lys were apparently well suited for retting and bleaching flax. The museum walks you through the entire process, from growing the flax to flax preparation and spinning flax and then weaving linen. Part of the museum is set up to show the spinning of flax and the weaving of linen as it was when it was a cottage industry. You can see how the wheels and looms were included in their everyday lives.

If you are a spinner, you will be thrilled to see the collection of antique spinning wheels, reels, warping mills and more. In one area of the museum, there is a loft completely filled with antique wheels. I tried to take photos in the loft but there was a tour going on and the guide didn’t want photos taken at the same time. You can follow this link to see the photos I took. These were taken before I had a good digital and not my best work!

Also as part of the facility is the Linen Museum, complete with a gift shop (my favorite part of any museum). There were beautiful linen products for sale and I did buy some lovely linen kitchen towels. There was a lot to select from and it was hard to decide. Linen towels are wonderful for drying good glassware as they don't leave any lint.

You can arrange for a guided tour of the museum, but that's not necessary as the museum is very well done with excellent signage on all the displays. There is a museum guide booklet that you can buy -- it walks you through every aspect of the museum and the flax to linen process.

If you decide to include the museum in a future visit to the area, please call ahead to make sure it is open. I believe it closes during the winter months plus I wasn’t able to find a working website for it.

Flax and Linen Museum
Etienne Sabbelaan, Kortrijk 8500 - Belgium
Phone: +32 (0)5 621 0138

Once we left the museum, we headed into Kortrijk's town centre to find some lunch and instead we found the BEST EVER chocolate shop -- Kortrijks Chocoladehuis at Leiestraat 35 8500 Kortrijk. This is a family owned business and the chocolate is better than any chocolate I have ever eaten (and I’ve eaten a lot of chocolate). We had been staying in Brussels previously and pigging out on Neuhaus Chocolate. The chocolate at Kortrijks Chocoladehuis was significantly better and more affordable! You can buy many different types of filled chocolates plus bars of rich, dark chocolate. We have been back to Kortrijk since our trip in 2001 – to buy chocolate.

Right next to the chocolate shop is a fabulous shop selling linens (tablecloths, napkins, etc.). It was a wonderful place to visit – but I saved my money for chocolate. Both the owners of this shop and the chocolate shop speak excellent English.

So if your travels take you to Belgium -- go to Kortrijk for the chocolate and the linen! You won't be disappointed. PS Flat Stanley likes chocolate too!

Four Scarves Finished

2008-07-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

All four scarves for the family of redheads are finished! And I still have enough yarn to complete one or two more. I'm really happy with the way they turned out -- very soft. The scarves for the redheaded parents turned out to be extra long since I was just tying on to the old warp and didn't adjust the loom waste in my calculation when I put the new warps on the loom. As I said before, the wefts are all the same yarn and the warps in three of them with Harrisville Shetland and in the scarf on the top right, the weft and the warp is the same yarn from Lisa Souza.

I found an auto reed hook on the Yahoo's WeavingList Sales and it arrived yesterday. Using an instruction video on Linda's Fiber Weblog, it was easy to get the hang of it. For me, it works better on my newer reed that has thinner teeth because it catches easier on the reed's tooth as it moves. Of course, the reed I am using right now is the one with heavier teeth. I like it because you can grip is like a wooden spoon and there is less stress on my hands and fingers. The other thing I like about it is that it automatically (with a little help) moves from dent to dent so that I don't miss a dent.

Four Scarf Project

2008-07-03T22:04:00.000-07:00

I’m on the downhill side of a four scarf weaving project. Three are completed and one is on the loom with about 30% finished. These hadnwoven scarves for Christmas presents for a family of redheads. I used Lisa Souza’s Joseph’s Coat colorway for the weft in all of them and in one I used it for both the warp and the weft. For the other three, I used Harrisville Shetland in the warp – in red and navy blue.

The first scarf nearly turned me off forever of Harrisville Shetland because as the yarn came off the cone it wanted to twist, twist, twist onto itself and in the cross it twisted. I didn’t mind the stickiness of it, but twisting was so bad I nearly pitched the stuff. In desperation I call my local weaving shop and asked them about it. They told me that if the cone had been sitting on the shelf in a warehouse for a while that it would twist like that and that washing it would help.

For the next in this series I used another color of Harrisville Shetland and had no problems – no twisting. Then for the final scarf I used both Harrisville colors in the warp and once again, no twisting from either cone. I think I must have gotten through the section that wanted to twist and twist some more. And I didn’t have to wash it before warping.

One thing that I’ve really loved about this project was that I only had to do the full warp on process for the first scarf (did I mention that yarn also twisted in the heddles?). After the first scarf I just tied-on to the previous warp and pulled the new warp through. When I cut off the warp, I like to use little alligator clips to hold the warp end in front of the reed. The clips hold well and are faster than tying the warp ends into groups (and untying the knots later).

The other challenge I had was with the scarf using Lisa Souza’s yarn in both the warp and weft. The yarn is one that she doesn’t sell anymore, but I’ve used in the past for felting projects. (It felts wonderfully.) I had some other colorways of in my stash and used them earlier in the year for other scarf projects and the sacrves were soft and cushy so I asked if she had any left and if she would dye some for me – which she did. But when I washed my finished scarf, I forgot how wonderfully this yarn felts and how fast it felts. Even though I washed in cold water for just 4 minutes (on the pre-wash cycle), the fringe felted to itself. So I spent quite a bit of time and used a lot of “No More Tangles” picking the fringe apart. I’ve had problems with the fringe felting in the past – but never to this degree. I wish I knew what the trick was to keep this from happening.

I'm looking forward to finishing these scarves because I'm really excited to start the project that's on my warping board!