Flying by

Time is flying, and so were my fingers! How did it get to be time for the Weavers’ Guild Holiday Sale already?!?!

It really snuck up on me. It’s always the first weekend in November, but that often is later in the month than this year. And since Thanksgiving is so late this year, that made the Sale seem doubly early.

So I wove and finished and wove and finished and wove and finished.

First I wove 2 mobis in red stripes, all rayon chenille, using up ends of colors in the warp. I can never get reds really right with m camera and computer, but did the best I could. For the first one I used a solid red weft. I LOVE it!

I didn’t have enough solid red for weft for the second, so used some handpainted rayon chenille. (I didn’t paint it; I’ve had it for a while.) I always prefer hand painted skeins in warp, but since I didn’t have enough reds to do another warp, I chose to use it for weft. It’s okay. (I did get rid of that rolling edge at the front of the scarf.)

Then I immediately put on another rayon chenille warp, this time using a bunch of handpainted skeins (again, not my dye job) in the warp, going from dark purple through shale to silver.

I wove half the length with silver weft and half with shale. I thought they’d meet in the middle where the twist is. Hah! Apparently the middle of the length isn’t where the twist is. I guess I’ll have to figure that out for another time.

Anyway, I wove the rest of that warp with a dark purple weft. It looks great, and will be turned into a long vest, I think. Or maybe an open front cardigan. Whatever it will be, at the moment it’s just a length of fabric, as I ran out of time.

I ran out of time because I decided I HAD to weave more towels for the sale! So I put on a warp for 8 towels and went to town, weaving off the 9+ yards of fabric in one day. My middle back was sore by the end of that day, and I treated myself to an adult beverage. And an ibuprophen.

I used a threading and treadling from the Strickler book of weaving designs for 8 shafts. I’d seen others use it beautifully, and although it’s definitely not my usual look, I just had to try it. First, here’s a close up so you can appreciate the colors and weave pattern.

I’m calling this series Dreams of India. Seems appropriate to me. I wove two towels with a black weft. Makes those colors pop.

After the first towel I had a treadle hook pop off. And when I put it back on, I put it on the wrong shaft! So I wove 20′′ that produced a far-too-long float on the back before I noticed it. Grrr! I think I’ll be able to use it for a pillow or a bag or something. Some day.

After black I went with a pinkish red weft. I really liked this, one, too, so made 2 of these as well. I finished them with a different side up on each. Both sides are good.

Then I thought I’d try a light weft. Wow! Very different look, and also very appealing. Here you see light blue on the left and lilac on the right.

I only had enough warp for 2 more towels. I chose a light and a dark, melon the left and royal blue on the right.

Because I’d messed up those 20′′ with the wrong tie up, I had to really eke out the last towel. MUCH closer than I like to be, or than is easy to weave.

Whew! Then of course, they had to be washed, dried, pressed, and hemmed. Then these plus everything else I was bringing to the Holiday Sale had to be tagged with both my labels and WGR Holiday Sale labels. That always takes WAY longer than I think it will.

This morning I got 50 items – shibori-dyed socks, towels from my last 3 batches plus a few older ones, 3 recent mobi wraps, plu some scarves and cowls – to the Sale for screening. All passed, so they’ll be available for sale this weekend. If you’re in the area, do stop by! In addition to my work, weaving, dyeing, knitting, spinning, felting, and more by 54 more WGR members will also be there. Something for everyone on your list!

October 31st, 2019 | 

Working on towels

I know that I can sell a bunch of towels at the Weavers’ Guild Holiday Sale, so decided that’s what I’d work on next. I warped up the loom with that handpainted cotton shown in my last post and set about weaving. I was hoping that my dye planning worked so that each towel would have all of the colors, ideally only once.

Jack decided to photobomb my first pics, these of the two towels with dark wefts – purple on the left and marine on the right.

Here they are without Jack so you can better see the colors. The warp colors worked out well on these two.

I wove two towels with blue-ish wefts in two different shades; actually teal on the left and baby blue on the right. Again the handpainting worked out pretty well.

I wove another two towels with different yellows for wefts. Again the painting worked fine.

And I wove two towels with natural wefts, one with the 5/2 I’d used for warp, the other with 8/2. These 2, which would have been my favorites, didn’t have the handpainting land quite as well.

Still, I like the overall look of the stripes blending from one color to the next and am likely to do this again in the future.

But not right now. I went for another run of polka dots. Here’s the first towel on the loom. You can see a threading error in the 5th red circle from the right. This wasn’t the only threading error that I had, and when I found this one about 8′′ in, I fixed it and then decided it was time to walk away for the day. You can also see that the use of the yellows, especially the light yellow, wasn’t a great choice. C’est la vie.

Parting shot – my kousa dogwood displaying its lovely red fruits for the fall. In the spring I was wishing I’d chosen a Florida dogwood, but now I’m glad I didn’t; they don’t fruit like this.

September 29th, 2019 |

From start to not-quite-done

After the Elmwood show, at which I had a great time and swell sales, I went on a dyeing jag. I had intended to show you the process from dyeing to completion, but time’s passing by, so I decided to show you what I’ve accomplished so far. With just the first yarn I dyed. (I dyed yarn for 2 additional projects as well.)

The first thing I dyed was some 8/2 tencel. I wound warp lengths for 3 handpainted bouts of 132 ends each, then I wound skeins for 2 more similar-sized bouts, planning to return to my warp vs. skein concept. Here’s what the finished warp chains and skeins looked like. I’m definitely happy with the dyeing, even though they weren’t the colors I had initially envisioned.

Then I measured out those skeins and beamed the yarn, with some black tencel to divide the sections.

Once beamed I sat down at my computer to determine what weave structure and pattern I wanted to use for these two lengths, both planned to be mobi shawls. I decided on an extended Ms and Ws threading and treadling, and used black tencel as weft fo the first piece.

I wanted to change it up a bit for the second length, and after trying a few blues for weft, settled on a royal purple. I only had 20/ in this color, so doubled it for the weft.

At this point I really like both the black and the purple. We’ll see if I have a favorite when they are all done.

I may have some time tomorrow to sew the straight lines to secure the edges before wet finishing these two pieces. I doubt I’ll get much further than that in the process.

Oh yeah, I also made some yummy pear jam with some free pears, thanks to a generous person in my neighborhood. Never made pear jam before, and it is DELICIOUS! I brought a little half-pint jar to the person with the pear trees.

And I gave Jack a haircut with a pair of scissors. Some trimming/cleaning up has happened since this photo, but it’s still definite done with scissors, not a hair trimmer thingy.

September 12th, 2019 | 

Finished, changed, and started

Shortly after my last post I finished the two mobius wraps. Here’s the one with the purple weft.

I was surprised that I preferred the one with the black weft.

Then I quickly converted two rayon chenille shawls, which hadn’t attracted lots of attention at my shows, into mobis. I wove thes shawls 12-18 months ago, so it was time to do the conversion. Here’s I’ve Got The Blues.

And then I did Caribbean.

You can see that I didn’t spend much time getting the wraps to lay correctly on Dolly. I have to get outside at the right time to have any shade in my yard and bright sun is way too bright. Then I have to deal with the the uneven-ness of my lawn and the breeze/wind, so I just snapped rather quickly. Since I’m not putting any of these up for sale on the web, it’s all okay with me.

I packaged up these two rayon chenille wraps, the purple Brilliant Gemtones, an open front cardigan, four cowls, and a scarf an mailed them off to the Copper Shop on the Roycroft Campus. The Campus attracts a lot of visitors between now and the end o the year and my work has sold reasonably well there. Plus my inventory there was low and I won’t have any other solo shows ti next summer, so this made lots of sense.

Meanwhile, I know that towels sell well at the Weavers’ Guild Holiday Sale, so last month I hand painted some cotton in preparation. I started with some nondescript pinky-taupey yarn that’s been hanging around unused for a few years, and was happy with the way it turned out. Although there are several colors, they’re all somehow subdued, almost earthy, and I like them

My plan was to hand paint in approximately 6′′ sections of color so that each towel would have one length each color. We’ll see how well that works out.

I decided on a braided twill. I didn’t have any natural or white cotton in 8/2, so I used what I had on hand – 5/2. I sett the 8/2 han painted cotton at 24 EPI and the natural 5/2 cotton at 16 EPI. It’s working out okay. Here’s the first towel on the loom, showing the progression of the colors.

I’m now on towel #5, each with a different weft color, and so far the dyeing is working out pretty well. Here’s a close up of the weave structure. This one has a baby blue weft.

Enough time spent in front of my computer for now – back to the loom!

September 23rd, 2019 | 

Last new pieces

This is a test. This is only a test. If this were a real emergency I’d have links to purchasing this wrap immediately. Seriously, I’d never taken a video of one of my pieces before, and I had no idea how this would work in my blog. My preview shows me that it works fine, although you can tell I need more practice moving the camera.

Anyway, this is one of two of the last pieces to come off my loom before my show this weekend. All yarn is 8/2 tencel. The warp is a gradient from solid black to solid white. For this mobi wrap, the weft is a very pale silver-gray. The weave structure is a lace pattern I designed.

The second piece is a long vest. Because of the gradient in the warp, this isn’t my favorite piece...I’d prefer that both front pieces were the same. I do think that difference will really appeal to someone, though.

Because of the gradient, I had to do a few things differently than my previous long vest. I had to split the width for the front, of course, but couldn’t use the selvedges for the opening. In order to match the back, the selvedges had to be ‘wasted’ by sewing them into the side seams. That meant I had to find another way to finish the front.

After much pondering, I decided on double-fold bias tape. I chose a tape that’s 1/2′′ wide, thinking it would look better than the tiny 1/4′′ tape. I used a stitch in the ditch technique to avoid as much visible machine work as possible. Of course, despite my extensive pinning and slow stitching, there were some spots where the machine didn’t catch the back tape and I had to do some tiny hand stitches to secure it.

This vest actually required LOTS of hand work. After the shoulder and side seams were machine stitched, I hand hemmed all seam allowances down for a nice smooth finish. Then the stitching around the bias tape. Then the hand hemming. And all this came AFTER I had done the necessary needle weaving after the fabric came off the loom. I spent more time on this piece than will be able to recoup in sale price. Sigh.

I’m off to pick up the rental van so I can load it up. Wish me luck this weekend!

August 23rd, 2019 | 

A few more pieces

I only have a few more days before my first show, so I’m finishing my last few items. I wove them on a warp I hand painted.

Here’s the thing...I obviously can’t reliably predict how the color will look from wet to dry yarn. My inspiration was Design Seeds sugared tones.

Nice summery pastels, right? HAH! Here’s what I ended up with.

We can all agree – Not. Even. Close.
So, how would I proceed? Well, if I wanted to tone it all down, I’d use a white weft. That’s what I did for the first scarf.

Much closer to the intent. And I like the random switching of the treadling pattern.
However, since I’d dyed some weft yarn to coordinate, I wanted to use it. I’m calling this one sugar & grapes.

Then, because I was clearly barely sufficient with the number of my cowls, I wove the last two into short-ish cowls instead of one fringed scarf. First I used a gold weft. Also reminiscent of the original intent.

Finally I used a grayed-blue yarn, giving the cowl a denim-like appearance.

On to the many off-loom and/or administrative tasks that need to be done before the show.

July 7th, 2019 | 

4 + 79 = ??

Of course we know that 4+79=83, but not in my world. Nope. 4 finished pieces + 79 bags = um...you can’t add those things together. But I did sew and string 79 bags in a few different sizes for packaging at my shows this year. Used about 60 yards of ribbon. Yes, 60 yards of ribbon.

I got four more pieces woven and finished so far this month. All on the last handpainted warp I had. Again, this is living coral and turquoise in 8/2 tencel, but this time the yarn was all painted in skeins, not warps. This type of dyeing has its own beauty, although I think I prefer painted warps over painted skeins.

That being said, I’m happy with all four pieces. First up is a jacket woven with an 8/2 black tencel weft. I threaded the loom with point twill, and used an M & W treadling. The weather has been so beautiful that I brought Lady Jane and Dolly both out in the evening for photos.

Then I used some 16/2 (or maybe even 20/2) rayon in a lovely peacock color. I tried tripling the weft but that was too much, so used it doubled. I also decided I needed more just plain shawls, no sewing involved.

I decided to weave 2 shortish and wideish cowls with the remainder of the warp. I changed the tie up and treadling, and used th doubled peacock yarn for the first piece.

Then back to the black tencel for the last piece. I also decided for a closer shot so you can see more detail in this piece.

So I have a total of 7 finished pieces, and 3 more off the loom awaiting my finishing. That’s why I decided to follow my wishes and put a warp for 8 more polka dot towels on the loom. This time in various blues. No sneak peeks!

June 23rd, 2019 | 

Starting May strong

It’s May 7th and I have 6 scarves woven, wet finished, and complete! First up, I started with some hand painted 20/2 silk. I dyed this yarn in late April, using a photo I found online from Blue Brick Dyeworks, as inspiration. They called it Prairie Storm, which works for me.

Here’s the yarn I ended up with from that inspiration image.

I chose a weave structure I’ve used many times and really like, and wove the first scarf with a 20/2 gold weft. Looks like that storm at dawn.

Then I used 2 strands of a textured green & white silk singles I’ve had for a long time. I also changed the treadling, turning the pattern into leaves. So different! The colors are more spring-like, and the texture adds a strong element.

Here’s a close up so you can see both weave structure and texture.

For the last scarf I wanted a strong color, so used 2 strands of 60/2 chocolate silk. Now that prairie storm is really threatening.

I went back to the treadling of the gold scarf, which you can’t really see there, but you can in this close up.

Then, sticking with my must-use-stash mantra, I pulled out a rayon seed yarn, something I’ve never used before. Sett at only 15 ends per inch, I had to remove my go-to 12-dent reed and go up to the attic to get my 6-dent to accommodate this ‘lumpy’ yarn. wasn’t at all sure how I’d like it. Turns out I love it! I used a different supplemental weft for each of the 3 scarves.

First is a wide ribbon with a gold metallic center. This one, like the other 2, has a regular old 8/2 rayon weft.

You can’t really appreciate that ribbon or the texture at that distance, so here’s a close up.

That wide ribbon didn’t look at all good on the loom, and I wasn’t at all sure how the whole thing would wet finish, so I cut it off and wet finished scarf number 1 before proceeding. Decided I didn’t want to use such a wide supplement, so re-threaded the reed for the next 2 scarves.

This one is uses a soy silk flat ribbon-like yarn in purples and pinks.

And the last one has a hand painted rayon yarn in greens and blues.

The only downside to these scarves is that there was no way I could twist that fringe, nor did I think they would make a nice hem So I tried a few different simple knotting techniques, but neither is as neat a look as I prefer.

Today I got the next scarf warp on the loom. This one is dominated by this interested rayon boucle yarn that has metallic interest Looking forward to seeing this one weave.

May 7th, 2019 |