Once A Daisey Snack, Now a Scarf

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

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

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

What did I learn?

1. The curling selvedges do come out with a hard press.
2. When your feet are trained to treadle four shafts in a row, switching to five shafts takes some re-training (and un-weaving).
3. Much harder to see treadling errors in satin than in twill.
4. Using a mirror to watch the warp side helps catch errors.
5. 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.
6. 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

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

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

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...

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.