Lots of learning going on

 Warning – long post. Read at your own risk.

Apparently lot has happened in the last week. As soon as I got that black & white shawl warp on the Macomber and saw that there was a loom problem, I dyed a tencel warp for a run of 3 scarves. I wanted the blue-violet and periwinkle I’d used before, s pulled out my formulas and set to work. The colors going on the tencel looked just as they should...that is, just like I thought the had last time. But as the dyes batched, soaked, rinsed, and dried, my brain was confused. Where was the blue violet? And where the periwinkle?

That is red-violet and turquoise/teal. So I went back to my sample that I’d dyed using this formula. Yep, they were the same colors as what I had here. While those colors are very nice, there is no blue-violet and no periwinkle. Perhaps those were the colors I was going for when I created the formula, but they’re not the colors I got. Yet I never re-named my notes or my samples DOH! Still I think the warp is beautiful, so it’s all okay.

While I was waiting for the Macomber parts to be ordered and shipped, as planned I got a towel warp on the counterbalance loom. I opted for a red-based bumberet. In the must-use-stash mode, I chose color combos outside my general comfort zone. Here it is on the loom, with the first towel I wove, using a red weft.

That was too much bright red for me. I used a white weft next and really liked the way it muted the colors, so wove 2 towels of that. Then I wanted to use that peach/coral color that was also prevalent, but didn’t have enough left for even one towel, so matched it the best I could. Next I used one of the dark blues in the towel, then a cranberry. Here’s the batch of them.

Interestingly, now I like the red. Not as well as the lighter colored wefts, but definitely better than the darker colored ones. The cranberry one is too short to be a towel – not enough warp on the loom – so I’ll hang onto that for generic kitchen use.

In between weaving the towels I also finished weaving the warp that I’d put on my rigid heddle loom for demonstrations at the July show. Since I generally weave with relatively fine yarns, I have a challenge finding yarns in my stash that work well on the rigid heddle loom. So this time I thought I’d try a thick-ish variegated sock yarn in the knitting stash.

Looked nice, but O.M.G., what a pain to weave! The yarn was loosely spun, and the movement of the heddle kept abrading it. After a few broken warp threads I got wise and used the heddle only to raise and lower the warp threads, packing the weft in wit a weaving sword that I’d fashioned a few years ago out of a paint stick.
Fancy, eh? But it was with me at the show, and it worked. Not a great demonstration of what the loom could really do, but this was another live and learn situation.

First I used an orange rayon chenille weft for a long scarf.

Then a red rayon chenille weft for a cowl.

Moving on...you know that saying that no good deed goes unpunished? This next segment is like that. I suggested an ice-dying activity for a winter evening meeting for my Guild. Would I teach it? Um...sure. However, since I’d never actually done it, I’d nee to practice and work out some kinks.

First I dyed two little Tshirts for my youngest grandson. This was a test of whether it was better to use the dyes in powder form o after they’d been mixed with liquid. I was hoping the liquid would be just as effective, since I didn’t want to have to deal with the powders with a group of people, as they’d all have to wear masks.

Here are the Ts after I’d sprinkled on the dyes. Red & orange were sprinkled on dry, blue & green after mixing with liquid.

The next morning, after the ice had all melted, they looked like this.

After that I rinsed till clear, then washed and dried with other laundry and a color catcher. The reds are quite nice, I think.

The blues & greens, not so much.

Ok, so we’ll use powered dyes. (Or maybe I mixed them with a bit too much liquid...that’s for the next experiment.)

Then I realized that I’d planned on using little silk scarves I’d purchased for this process. But uh oh, silk needs to be steamed for the colors to set. No way will everyone who takes home a scarf covered with ice and dye at the end of an evening meeting have a dye-dedicated steamer at home. So next up was a test to see if other heating methods worked as well. Three little scarves are under this ice and dye.

After the ice melted, I steamed one and let the other two dry on the line in the basement. Then I tossed one in my dryer for about 20 minutes, and pressed the other with my iron set on silk. After that I rinsed all three scarves – it didn’t appear that any color ran at all.

An apparently successful experiment. Here are all 3 scarves after pressing.

Personally, I prefer the top one, with the most variation in color, but that’s a function of how it was in the container when I put the dye on, nothing to do with the method used to set the color.

Next experiment, which I’ll be doing with a few friends, is to try koolaid and other food dyes, and also to use both some cottons and some silks. That won’t happen till September, so the learning will continue. Glad the evening meeting isn’t until winter!

August 9th, 2018 | 

What the heck???

Yesterday I took Jack out for his regular afternoon walk. It’s been very cold, so he usually chooses to walk only as long as absolutely necessary to accomplish his mission. The afternoon walk was once around the block, which was what this walk often is any time of the year. Fine.

We got back home and I sat down to do some computer work. Jack was sitting near me in the room, just like always. He was, I thought, chewing on his bone. Swell.

When I was done on the computer, about an hour, I stood up and saw this.

WHAT THE HECK?!?! Jack hadn’t been chewing on his bone, but pulling things out of the rug!

In 2 years he has pulled out a total of maybe 2 dozen, and I always thought they were done in error when he was grabbing for a toy. But this?!?! This is BAD!

To make it as bad as possible, this spot is dead center in the middle of the rug. It’s not like I can put a chair over it or something have no clue if I can put those parts back into the rug; I will try, but I’m betting it will either be near impossible or will look like he when I’m done, and that I’ll be looking for a new rug. I’ve thought about weaving one, but wasn’t really ready to do that. Especially since this rug is a 5′ x 8′. Quite a large rug for handwoven indeed. Your suggestions will be appreciated.

In another what-the-heck is a new problem with my Adobe Photoshop Elements Editor. I have used this program for years, ever since I’ve had a blog, for sure. It’s how I edit my photos and size them for the web. When I got my new laptop, I’m thinking abou 18 months ago, I had to change the version of the software and get used to it, but it works very similarly, so fine.

Except starting a few days ago, not fine. I open an image. Crop and adjust as needed. Go to Save for Web and resize. Hit Save I consistently get an error message: “Could not complete this operation. The specified volume could not be found.” It matters no what file location I choose.

I’ve figured out a work around, but come on – what the heck happened?!?! My work around is more steps: Go to Image Resize. In a few clicks I’ve gotten it to the size I want. Then go to Save as and rename the file so I now it’s the modified one. Then click Save, and it easily goes to exactly the same location as it couldn’t find a minute ago. Again – what the heck? I can’t find anythin in Preferences that would seem to have any impact. Again, your suggestions will be welcomed.

Ok, so here we are on December 31. A few days ago I had a minor freak out when I realized that I had only 4 days left in the month and had completed NOT A SINGLE THING for my inventory. YIKES!

So I put the black and white 8/2 tencel scarf warp on my counterbalance loom. I figured I could weave it off relatively quickly. An I did. I’m not in love with the huck weave structure I chose, but it’s okay.

This was an experiment, to see what I might like best for weft for the shawl warp I’d painted at the same time. First I did a gradient weft: 16.5′′ of a solid color, my standard 64-thread gradient to the next solid color, repeat. I had 4 solids I used: black, dark gray, silver gray, and white. It’s okay, but not my favorite. I do like those spots of black on one end of the fringe – reminds me of porcupine quills.

Next I used solid white for the weft. I like this one better. You can see that one of the fringes in the middle of the white end sort o came undone in the wet finishing. No idea why, but I’ll have to fix that.

I had enough warp left for one more scarf. What color would I choose? As I thought about it, I had a light bulb moment. My cowl have been selling pretty well, so instead of making one more long, fringed scarf, I’d weave two short cowls – it’ll be summer time and people like short cowls in the summer.

So I wove one with the dark gray weft and one with the silver weft. This got me 4 finished pieces instead of 3.

I don’t think either of these photos show the cowls to their best advantage, but frankly didn’t want to go through the challenge of the Adobe process again with the other shots I’d taken.

Then I realized I’d finished weaving another scarf on my rigid heddle loom a few weeks ago but never did the finishing. This is the counterpart to the one shown here, this time with a dark purple chenille weft.

This rayon boucle warp doesn’t look good when double twisted, so I tried to put some beads on it to dress up an otherwise plain fringe. Geez, it was one problem after another, until I finally gave up, cut the fringe short-ish and called it good. So I ended December with 5 pieces. But absolutely nothing is on the loom now to start January. I saw a scarf woven from this to-die-for dra on Facebook and grabbed the draft from Handweaving.net – this is why I stay a member!

Thank you to Tara Oftenorth for creating this modification. I think I’ll warp my Macomber for this next.

UPDATES:

Jack had dental surgery last month – 14 teeth removed! Yikes! I suddenly realized that since his mouth has healed he has been doing a lot of chewing, much more than previously. Those teeth must have hurt, poor baby. So yesterday I went to Petco and bought 3 different kinds of chew toys. He loves them all. Hopefully this will protect future problems.

I googled the problem with Photoshop Elements, and was far from the only person with this issue. I followed directions for fixing it, and it worked like a charm.

12 comments to What the heck???

December 31st, 2017 | 

Mac & me

I’ve become friends with my Mac. It took time — time checking out other looms, time buying and then selling what I thought would be my ideal loom, and time weaving on Mac. I believe we’re there now.

I told you about that sample placemat I wove on the Mac. Well, not surprisingly, it wasn’t what my customer had in mind. The barber pole of the warp yarn created unpleasant eyeball effects – reminded me of 1970s doodles.

Instead we’re going to use a solid natural cotton for both warp & weft.

I didn’t want to waste all the warp I’d put on so decided to weave some towels. First I used the same natural weft, figuring someone would like it. Then I used the same barber pole yarn for weft. Interestingly, using this same yarn for both warp & weft had a dramatic effect, and that disturbing waviness of pattern was gone. I liked it well enough that I wove a runner after the towel.

Then I tried a variegated weft in earth tones. I liked this, too, and changed up the treadling to show the variegated yarn more. I liked the treadling enough that I figured I’d try with another variegated weft, this time in muted pastels. It’s okay but too subtle fo me.

Next came a mercerized cotton (everything up to now was unmercerized) in a bold variegation. I modified the treadling to make a bit easier – no counting how many rows of pattern I’d done. I finished out the warp with a solid medium blue. Although I would have chosen more colorful yarns if I’d been planning on making towels, I think someone will like these and they’ll sell, and it was better than wasting warp. Plus I learned some things about color and pattern and got more Mac weaving time, so it’s all good.

Next I wanted to try an effect I’d seen on Weavolution – creating rayon snake skins. Now I’m not a snake lover, although I will admit some are very beautiful. But the concept appealed to me. I spent a looooong time working out the pattern, threaded heddles and reed, and quickly discovered that the 18 ends per inch I’d planned was too loose for this pattern. So I rethreaded th reed to 21 EPI and it was perfect. However now the scarves would be narrower than planned, and I would have modified the sides of the pattern slightly had I known I could add more threads.

I wanted to use a gold warp but didn’t have enough gold yarn for 4 scarves, so decided on black instead. First I used a relatively bright orange weft. Does it look a bit snakey to you?

I liked it, but it was brighter than I had in mind so went with that gold I’d wanted to use for warp. I think this one best displayed th effect I had in mind.

Next I chose a deep red weft – a bit shiny in this photo, and there’s not enough contrast in the black & red yarns to show the pattern well.

I rounded the set out with a white warp. Although I didn’t expect it, I think this one is my favorite of the four.

Now I’m playing grandma for a week, caring for my sweet, little grandson while mama & papa take a mid-winter vacation. We’ve finished day 2 just fine. Five more to go — I’m sure we’ll be good. And closer than ever – YAY!!!

January 21st, 2013 | 

8 shaft silk

 Although I don’t weave them all that often for my scarves & shawls, I do love a complex twill weaving pattern. I modified the gebrochene pattern I wove last year.

Except last year I wove it in 20/2 silk; this year I’m using 30/2 silk. My post from last year incorrectly said the 20/2 was about 8,000 yards per pound (ypp)- it’s really about 4,500 ypp. The 30/2 silk I’m using this year is 7,500 ypp.

I got the silk beamed, heddles & reed threaded, tied on to the front apron. I wove and hemmed the front edge – only 1 reed- threading error, so not bad to fix. Then I wove the first pattern with my weft – POO!! About 1/2 the warp was threaded wrong! I had to unweave the 4′′ and start again.

Rethreading was worse than threading. Why? My loom wasn’t all ‘unfolded’ the way it is when I’m threading. Unless I unthreade the correct half of the reed, I had to work around it. Next time I’ll unthread the reed – I’m sure it’d be both quicker and easier tha what I did.

Anyway, finally got it all back, threaded correctly, and started weaving again. Here it is after weaving a few patterns motifs. As always, I’m not happy with the color.

Now let me talk about the weft for a minute. A few years ago I bought some tram silk. I tried weaving with it...not overly successfully. Not an experience I was eager to repeat. Sandra Rude posted about working with tram last month, and I was encouraged to try again, this time using it only as weft.

I knew for my gebrochene to look right, I had to use a weft that’s roughly the same size as the warp. But I don’t own a McMorran balance – a tool that determines the ypp of yarns. I remembered seeing directions for making one online somewhere, and googled a bit till I found these instructions. I made one with a bamboo skewer and some yarn and it worked like a charm.

I found out that my ruby tram silk is roughly 30,000 ypp. It takes 4 feet of this to balance 1 foot of 30/2 silk. How would I cope wi this? I don’t spin, and had asked one of my guild-mates to spin some up for me, but he said it wasn’t worth it. I tried getting it machine spun at the Fiber Factory, but it was too fine for their equipment.

Still, Sandra inspired me.

So, using a modifier a friend made me, I wound some of the silk onto 4 of the cardboard cones from the 8/2 babywrap cotton. Then I stood all 4 cones up and wound a bobbin from them, careful to wind slowly and with even tension of all 4 threads. It isn’t ideal – a twist in it would be better – but it works. And I just love the sheen of the tram.

Here you can see both the top and bottom of the pattern.

I’m going to use another of the trams for the second scarf on this warp. When I have time, I’d like to weave some shawls out of this pattern. But maybe in 20/2. But then I can’t use my tram. Decisions, decisions.

June 3rd, 2014 | 

Handwoven silk shawls

 The cayenne baby wrap finished the warp on the loom, leaving the Macomber empty. As planned, I focused on weaving pieces for my upcoming jurying. I’m getting anxious because time is ticking away and I don’t have the pieces I think will serve me well.

So I spent some time creating a draft for an 8-shaft undulating twill.

Then I measured 528 ends of 20/2 undyed silk a bit over 6 yards long and warped up the loom at 24EPI. For weft I wanted to us some 20/2 silk I’d dyed with indigo last year at my guild‘s natural dye workshop. I hand hemmed the beginning edge and set of weaving. I loved the way the weaving looked, and got a bit over a foot woven when I took a whole bunch of measurements and realized that I would not have enough yarn to complete the piece. Damn, damn, double damn! I couldn’t bear to waste the silk, either the undyed or the indigo dyed, so I painstakingly unwove 12+”. What a drag!

Then I tried four different colors of silk and silk-blend yarn I had. I wasn’t excited about any of them. Must be time to walk away from the loom for the night.

Next day after playing around some more I decided to use some custom-dyed 20/2 silk I had in Twilight blue. I knew the colors would have more contrast than I wanted, but I wasn’t getting anywhere, so I went for it. I tried and tried to get the colors accurat but couldn’t really – it’s much more blue in real life.

I could tell even on the loom that the beat was not perfectly even, despite my best attempts, so I knew this wasn’t going to be a jury piece.

That meant I really needed the second shawl to be beautiful. I decided to use some 6/60 silk-linen yarn, since the color was similar to the natural-dyed indigo. This color is way off, too, showing much grayer than in real life.

I was happy with how it looked on the loom and hoped I would feel the same after wet finishing. I did, yay! This shawl will go to the jury.

I like both of the sides, where the cream makes the wavy lines and where the winter blue does. A bit closer to the real color, but still not right.

Then I got stalled on my next skyline and had to walk away from the loom on that, too. So while I was not weaving I decided to bead the ends of the shawl. I used pale blue seed beads and gray freshwater pearls. Here’s the entire width of the shawl.

I did notice as I was beading that about 1/4′′ of the width is pulled in a bit on the end, and I’m sure the jury will, too, but if that’s the only criticism on the piece, I’ll be okay with it.

Now for a closeup of the beading.

Back to the re-do of the skyline!

January 16th, 2014 | 

What's the diff?

 Diane & Ellie wonder what changed in my processes to save me 5 hours in beaming sample wrap #2. I should have taken more photos, but didn’t, so I’ll have to do my best to explain it with words.

I did take one picture mid-beaming, so let’s start there.

I used a warping valet both times — that’s the rod you see hanging from my ceiling with chains. Laura Fry made me a warping valet convert some time ago. Was it 12 months? 18? I don’t know, but I do know it was a change I should have made years earlier.

The red arrow points to the chains that hang from my Mac. These chains hold up the harnesses, and as you can see are substantially narrower than the harnesses themselves. This was what caused me to make the biggest mistake on sample wrap #1.

Here’s my process to warp my loom.

1. Hang the lease sticks from the castle behind the harnesses, using Texsolv so I can adjust the hanging height. Difference #1. (See below for explanations.)

2. Put the warp chains on the lease sticks, and insert a dowel rod in the loop end. Tie that dowel to the back apron rod.

3. Spread the warp in a raddle temporarily fixed to my back beam. Difference #2.

4. Slide the lease sticks to the front of the harnesses, then under the front beam and up to the warping valet.

5. Wind the thread on back beam, using packing paper, until the lease sticks are near the front beam. Then move to the fron

   of the loom and move the lease sticks back up to the valet. Deal with sticky threads throughout. Difference #3.

6. Repeat last step until all length is wound.

Difference #1:

For the first sample my warp went over the top of the harnesses, down under the front beam, then up & over the valet. (This is the path I’ve always previously used for my warps.) I used my wooden lease sticks in the first sample. They are shorter and if I tilted them just a bit they would fit between those chains on the Mac. As you can see, if they (almost) fit

between those chains, those lease sticks are definitely not as wide as the warp, which is the entire width of my harnesses So I had to make the warp narrower in the lease sticks than they would be in the reed. Also, I admit it, I’ve not taken the time to use really fine sandpaper and make my wooden lease sticks completely smooth – there are little ‘catches’ on them in places.

For the second sample wrap I used lease sticks I’d made from PVC pipe. These lease sticks are wider than the harnesses, so my warp could be spread as wide as it needed/wanted to be. In order to make the process work, I couldn’t narrow the warp to fit between those chains on the Mac. You can see in the photo (green arrow) that I moved all the heddles to the side and went through the center of the harnesses, not over the top. Also, the PVC is completely smooth – nothing to catch on ‘sticky’ threads, common to unmercerized cotton. You can see these PVC lease sticks in the photo by the purple arrow.

Difference #2:

In sample 1, because I used those short lease sticks, I needed to spread the warp in the raddle to the same width as it was in the lease sticks. This obviously crammed the warp closer than it needed to be. And since I was setting the warp at 30 EPI in the reed (40 EPI at the selvedges), it was close indeed in the reed.
For the second sample, with those longer lease sticks I could spread the warp to the width it would be in the reed. Plus, based on the feedback from my testing mamas, I was setting the threads farther apart to make the wrap thinner. I was using 26 EPI in the reed and 33 EPI at the selvedges.

Difference #3:

Dealing with sticky threads. Unpleasant. Unmercerized cotton tends to be sticky. When it’s sett as closely together as mine was, this compounds the problem. Actually, my problem may well have started before I got to the loom at all. When was at the warping mill I did not have my finger between the two threads, keeping them separate the whole time I was winding. But I’m sure that wasn’t the biggest problem. That was likely caused by me doing what I’ve always done, even though I know it is definitely not recommended by other weavers: I combed my warp in an attempt to ‘unstick’ threads. This is how I was taught, but I’ve subsequently read a preponderance of weavers who strongly recommend never combing the warp, instead ‘strumming’ any recalcitrant threads while under tension to get them back into the same order they were in at the mill.
For the second warp I did keep my finger between the two threads at the warping mill. Also, I did not comb the warp. Combining these two changes with the ones noted above, the warp beamed super easily.

Let me know if you want more explanations.

December 14th, 2013 | 

Handwoven silk scarves

I’ve been weaving for six years. In weaverly terms, that’s really nothing. I read articles, blogs, and posts on Weavolution by women and men who’ve been at this craft/art for half a century. Heck, my first weaving class was taught by a man in his 80’s wh learned to weave rag rugs as a boy during the Depression to bring money into the house and never stopped. So six years is a drop in the bucket...one or two strands in a warp, a few throws of a shuttle...insert your favorite metaphor.

On the other hand, one common statement about how to get good at something is to do it for 5,000 hours. Many weeks I spend 30-40 hours researching, planning projects, sitting at the loom, or fringing and wet finishing. Even when I factor in the fact that some weeks that drops down to about 20 hours, my calculator tells me that I’ve worked at weaving for well over 5,000 hours in those six years.

However, in addition to weaving for only six years, I live in the sticks two hours from everywhere, so most of my weaving is very solitary and predominantly learned from books and the old trial-and-error method. While I may have woven miles of a particular weave structure, I may not have a clue about the correct terminology for that structure.

A case in point – drall. I’d seen it in print, read it on the net, attempted to have people explain it to me in words (unsuccessfully, might add). It wasn’t until I was finally pointed to a draft for it and accompanying weaving resources that I understood. OOOOHHHH. Drall is a classic Swedish term for a particular arrangement of what others (me included) call a 3/1 vs. 1/3 twill. Took me a good two years to figure that out.

Similarly the term gebrochene. My reaction is gebro-what? What is that? How do I even pronounce it? How many harnesses does it take? Again, gebro-what?

Then not too long ago I purchased some magazines from a weaver who was downsizing her stash. One of them, Weaver’s from winter, 1997, had an article on gebrochene. Ahhhh....based on some historical weaving, gebrochene is a German term for a modification of what I (and others) call Ms & Ws. I’ve woven Ms & Ws plenty of times, and some modifications of it, to date always on my 4 shaft counterbalance loom. This article whet my whistle for an 8 shaft pattern on my Mac. So I sat down with my computer software, drew in a threading that pleased me, figured out that I’d need to use fine threads to get enough pattern repeats to make me happy, and then played with a variety of tie ups. I ended up using the following draft.

I wound a warp of 260 ends of 20/2 undyed silk (about 8,000 yards of thread to the pound) and got it on the Mac. Threading we smoothly, I was set to weave. For the first scarf I used a black weft. Although I’m not usually a black & white gal, this is my favorite of the three scarves. For each photo I’ve shown you the ‘front’ and the ‘back’ of the scarf. I can’t decide which side I like better.

For the second scarf I picked a Pacific blue silk that makes me drool. It’s so richly colored and has such a terrific sheen that I paid top dollar for it when I saw it in a store. Woven in this scarf, the mix of the white and blue really tones that color down more than I would personally choose. I’d probably like a scarf woven with all the blue.

Based on my experience with the blue, I picked a deep burgundy for the third scarf. This is lovely. (Not as red as it looks in the photo.)

I think the scarves may be a bit heavier than people will be buying in the summer, but I do expect lots of admiring lookers. Time will tell...

June 26th, 2013 | 

Huck patterned shawls

I know I’m really short on shawls for the coming show season. I also know that shawls take more than twice as long to wind the warp, twice as long to thread the heddles and reed, twice as long to do the hemming. Still, I felt like I needed to weave more shawls. So I went back to one of my standbys – 5/2 eggshell mercerized cotton and huck lace. As shawls go, they’re quick & easy.

Because I’ve made friends with my Macomber loom, I decided to do an 8 harness lace pattern instead of my usual 4 harness patterns. I spent a bit of time on the computer playing with different tie ups and came up with one that I really like.

Look how much texture this pattern has while it’s under tension on the loom.

And here’s how the finished cloth looks after wet finishing.

For 5/2 lace I sett the threads at 12 EPI – experience has shown me that’s what I like for the finished piece. The cotton drapes nicely, and although the floats are a bit long, I think it’s not too fussy to be fully functional.

I’d wound a warp for 3 shawls, knowing I have a lot of 5/2 eggshell cotton in my stash. As I was weaving the second shawl I was getting to the end of a cone of cotton so pulled out a new cone. Uh oh. Different manufacturer, very different look. Can’t mix

those yarns in one piece, at least not if I want to achieve the effect – classy – that I’m looking for. As it was, I ran out of yarn 7 rows before I wanted to – my second end has only 11 rows of plain weave, where the beginning has 18 rows. Due to the length of a pattern repeat, in order to unweave enough pattern to get me 18 rows of plain weave, the shawl would have been almost 6 inches shorter than I wanted. So one shawl has a shorter end. Probably very few people would ever notice, but I know.

For the third shawl, instead of using that different eggshell yarn, I opted for an 8/2 barber-pole yarn in eggshell & light tan. It’s fine, too. To my eye looks a bit less formal.

I decided to do some beading on that first shawl, the one with 18 rows of plain weave at both ends.

Instead of doing dangling beads all the way across – which struck me as a bit too much – I did little 3-bead groups near the hem across much of the shawl width. I think it gives a nicer overall look.

Now I really need to be done with shawls for a while and produce more scarves. I have a show next weekend. I didn’t even get t weaving more other things that I’d contemplated for this year – like pillows, or wall hangings, or.....

June 24th, 2013 |

Advancing squares

 I know I’m short of my stock of shawls so went for a warp of 3 rayon in a pattern I haven’t used before. I’m not positive I’ll use th pattern again, either. We’ll see how it goes. The pattern is an 8harness advancing squares pattern, so I wove it on my Mac. We’re friends now.

Here’s a shot of the first one I wove on my drying rack. It’s a seafoam green weft on a navy warp. This photo doesn’t show the shawl to its best advantage, nor does it show the color accurately, but does give you the best understanding of the weaving pattern.

Interestingly, while I was weaving I wasn’t happy with my choice of weft color, but didn’t make that decision till I was well into it. Decided to go ahead and make a better choice with the second shawl...which I wove with a baby blue weft. This shot doesn’t show the pattern as clearly, but gives you a better idea of how soft and drape-y the cloth is.

For the third scarf I used a red-purple weft. This shot lets you see the lightness of the shawl – you can see some of the white sheet through it.

On the loom this was absolutely my favorite. Off the loom it is absolutely my least favorite. Weird, huh? I’m not sure if I prefer th seafoam weft or the baby blue one, but it’s sure not this one.

As I was pressing these shawls I found several weaving errors on that baby blue one that required quite a bit of time needle- weaving to correct. It’s still not perfect, but the best I could do.

June 12th, 2013 | Tags: handwoven shawl, Macomber, tencel | Category: Weaving | Edit this post This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

11 more handwoven scarves

I’m doing a bit of playing catch up here. I’ve been weaving as fast as I can, and now that I don’t need to try out a new loom, mak decisions about which loom is staying, or do the work to sell the Varpa, I can get much more accomplished.

The first thing I did was warp for 2 rayon scarves on the Mac, to be sure that the hints the weavers on Weavolution had given m would work well. To start, I sanded the breast beam with increasingly fine grades of sandpaper, starting with 80 grit and working my way to 600. Then I finished it with Danish Oil. An interesting product – that. Before I bought it I assumed it was, as the name implies, an oil. Not so. It’s a product that has some plastic polymers in it, so dries hard – no residue to rub off on fabric.

Anyway, as I continued to read the hints I was given, I realized that one weaver had hit the nail on the head with my problem. I was advancing the cloth beam too far, so the bottom of the beater was hitting on the finished fabric and pulling that weft apart. Here are a few pictures so you can see what I mean.

In the first one the cloth beam is advanced correctly. You can see the space between the bottom of the beater bar and the wove fabric.

In the second (sorry for the quality), I advanced the warp too far, and the bottom of the beater bar hits that woven cloth. With a fine and/or loosely sett warp, this will be deadly.

Now that I know exactly what causes that problem on the Macomber loom, I can avoid it. I’ll probably try to come up with some type of ‘stop’ so that I can’t advance it too far. IMHO, while there are many great design features on the Mac, this is a design error. It was impossible to do this on the Varpa, and is also impossible to do on my counterbalance. I know there are very good reasons not to advance your warp too far at once, but this shouldn’t be one of them.

My test warp for this new attention/technique on the Mac was a lavender rayon threaded in an 8 harness Ms & Ws pattern. I used a red-violet weft in this first scarf.

The second weft was a navy rayon. I can’t show it to you because it’s one of the nine pieces I dropped off at a professional photographer’s today so he can shoot them for my show applications for next year. I wanted to get the weaving to him so he can take his great pictures & I can get them back to sell at my fall shows. I forgot to take a photo of this one before I took it to Tim Fuss.

Then, because I knew I could go faster, I went back to my trusty counterbalance loom for everything else you’ll see here.

First some of Tammy’s hand painted rayon chenille in Blue Violets. I put a stripe of some of her purple yarn in just for a bit of contrast.

Because rayon chenille is a slow fiber to beam, I moved to a lovely lilac silk-cotton blend, making some huck lace blocks. The second picture, the close up, is much more accurate in color.

Then, because I was on a lace blocks roll, I decided to weave with some of the lovely orange cashmere-silk I’ve used before. I’v been out of this color of scarves for months, and although I haven’t sold many cashmere-silk scarves this year, I thought people might like the orange.

Hmmmmm. Problemmatic. I like the lace pattern,

...but the yarn was much more challenging than it should have been. Especially along the selvedges. Absolutely none of the techniques I tried made smooth selvedges. They looked bad on the loom, they looked bad after wet finishing.

I’m sure I’ll be more critical than most of my customers, but needless to say I am really disappointed in these scarves. I had planned to take them to Tim for photos; obviously I didn’t do that. Sure don’t want a jury to think this is typical of my work!

I’ve woven a few other pieces I still need to finish, and I’m getting more on the loom tomorrow morning. Some more of Tammy’s hand painted lovelies. In 12 days I’ll be loading the van for the next show, and I still have to weave more bookmarks, warp the rigid heddle, and finish the magnets & cards I started last winter — specifically for this upcoming show. I have other ideas for things I think will sell, but there’s not enough time to make more new products. Better to have more ideas than time than the reverse.

The hillsides here are starting to be works of art. I love the beauty of autumn in western New York!

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September 23rd, 2012 | Tags: cashmere, cotton, counterbalance loom, handwoven lace, handwoven scarves, Macomber, rayon, rayon chenille, silk | Category: Weaving | Edit this post