WHAT? WHY?

Why, after almost 2 years, am I putting up a post now?  Because I spent 3 days moving 176 posts from my WP site to here, it got me in a head space that said I should do a current one.  So...

Here's my most recent weaving...

I've sent 2 of these lovely lace shawls to The Copper Shop, a gallery in East Aurora that usually has a few pieces of my work for sale, and put 2 up in my Etsy shop.  

 All warp is 10/2 mercerized cotton, sett at 20 ends per inch.  Both of the Peach Sorbet shawls are 50% cotton and 50% silk.  Lovely drape and feel.  As for the Lemon Sorbet, one is 100% cotton, the other is 50% cotton, 25% cashmere, and 25% silk.  That last is just so....sublime.

I had such a good time weaving the shawls, that I'm going to modify the weaving draft slightly and weave a few scarves with basically the same lace pattern.  Then I have more ideas, having been inspired by looking at 850 (!) old blog posts.  You'll have to watch and see if I decide to post more.

Honey Berries

That silk warp that I dyed, shown in the last post, was definitely much more pink than I intended. No idea what happened to the purple. Although I was inspired by the Honey Pie photo I showed, the pink in mine had me change the name to Honey & Berries Still I liked it well enough, so beamed it and started weaving. I used draft 22076 from Handweaving.net.

After auditioning a few different weft colors, I set off with a tan-ish color that I’m calling cafe latte. It worked well with all the warp colors, creating a more subtle overall look.

Next, in keeping with my ‘must-use-stash’ mantra, I went to the shelf where I had a few small cones of very fine cashmere-silk blend – roughly 9,000 yards per pound. I knew from experience that I couldn’t use this as warp, so weft it would be. I used double strands of this yarn, and at 4,500 yards per pound it was still thinner than the 20/2 silk. First I used a natural weft. Definitely toned everything down, but in a way I liked.

Back to that shelf of cashmere & silk, I chose black for the third scarf. As it always does, the black both popped the colors and darkened the overall look.

I usually have a definite favorite when I weave 3 pieces with different wefts. This time it’s a toss up for me between the natural and the black.

After I finished weaving with the black I had more warp left than I usually do, more than I wanted to just cut off and toss. So I used 2 strands of undyed 30/2 silk for the weft. This made the fabric a bit stiffer, and while I was weaving I could see this as a back yoke for a yet-to-be-planned garment. I’m not sure this will ever happen. Maybe it’ll turn into something else, maybe it will simply hang around and not get a ‘purpose.’

February 15th, 2020 | 

I love portable projects

Last week I had to spend 8 hours at the Weaving & Fiber Arts Center so that HVAC techs could fix a problem with our heating and cooling. I brought lots of things to do, some for the Center, some for me. As always, I didn’t get them all done — one of them was writing a blog post.

I did bring lots of clean pillowcases and my sewing machine to make bags for the upcoming season. Got them all cut, but only about half of them sewn. So when we had a stunningly beautiful day on Thursday, moderate temperatures, pleasant breeze, I brought my things outside and finished the sewing in the shade in my backyard.

I was wishing my looms were so easy to move. Only the rigid heddle and the tapestry loom are. I generally only use the rigid heddle to demo at shows, and the tapestry thing is new to me and will likely never be for sale, so I am tied to my floor looms in my studio. Gorgeous though it is, isn’t not outside.

Several days ago, while I had a warp on the loom, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to dye two warps that would be wove in June – probably my last before the show season starts. So I prepared and dyed one warp in tencel and one in silk. The last few times I’ve dyed I not only made careful notes about the formulas I used to mix my colors, but also saved actual samples of the dyed yarn. It assured that I got what I’d planned for in my blue and green tencel warp.

The silk? Not so much. I wanted blue-violet, red-violet, and periwinkle. Like the purple-blue half of the tencel in this photo (this is two chains wound together).

What I got is COMPLETELY different! Not. Even. Close.

It started in the basement. I’d made note that when I painted on the blue-violet and red-violet on the tencel that they both looked quite gray. Not so on the silk; they both looked bright. But then after they were batched, rinsed and dried, there wasn’t a bit of blue in the violets, only fuschia, and the supposed periwinkle was a pale blue. Sigh.

Honestly, I think it’s as straightforward as the difference in the fibers, but only future dyeing will confirm that or blow holes throug it. Double sigh.

So what did I have on the loom while I did the dyeing? A silk warp, transitioning from solid blue at one selvedge to solid green at the other. I threaded and tied up the loom for one of my favorite patterns, that I’ve called feathers. I also mix it up by treadling as zigs instead of feathers. That’s what I did for the first scarf, with a black warp.

When I started weaving this scarf, I thought I was using black silk, but after I got several inches woven I realized it was tencel on my bobbin. Rather than unweave those several inches, I shrugged my shoulders and continued with the tencel, which is a bit heavier than the silk warp.

Interesting how the colors play differently with the pattern on the two sides of this scarf, isn’t it?

For the second scarf I wove with a very fine purple cashmere-silk blend. This scarf is SOOOOO lightweight.

It is, as Mary Poppins would say, practically perfect in every way.

Finally I wove a long cowl with a medium blue silk in the same weight as the warp.

I’ve gotten 2 more silk scarves woven, but am still working on finishing, so you’ll see them next time.

June 9th, 2018 | 

Where does it go?

Time, that is. The days, weeks, and months just fly by. Two weeks from today I’ll be at my next show. YIKES!!! Do I feel prepared? Um, no. Will it be fine? I’m sure. I’ve not done the Clothesline Festival before, and have heard such wildly mixed reviews from others that I have no idea what to expect from it. But I know what I expected from myself, and that was to at least mostly replenish my stock with the number of scarves, shawls, and other items I’d sold in July. I had two whole months!

Well, I’m not too close and now I have just two weeks. My goal was 9 shawls, 21 scarves, and several little items. Plus I’m completely out of my packing bags, which I sew from pillowcases.

So far I have 6 shawls, 7 good scarves and 3 not-good ones, and no little items. I don’t think I’ve done great planning. Maybe I shouldn’t have spent so much time dyeing yarn. Or making pants. Or taking photos, or blogging or figuring out why the contact emails on my website weren’t getting to me, or....what are those other things that eat up my hours?

I’ve already made some other decisions that may not have been the best, too, decisions that I’m too far into to change. I just keep telling myself that it will be fine. Maybe I can start to believe it.

So the photos in this post, from the top down – all warps are hand painted 30/2 silk:

snowflakes with royal purple rayon weft, same weight as the silk so the motifs are square, unlike the next two snowflakes with 20/2 lavender silk weft
snowflakes with 20/2 red-violet silk weft
watery silk with 20/2 ice-blue silk weft

watery silk with very fine (same weight as the warp) slate blue cashmere silk weft

August 27th, 2016 | 

Dyed scarves, cotton & silk

Time gets away from me. I thought I’d show you the finished ombre-dyed scarves on the 2nd or 3rd, and here it is the 7th. No matter; it’s not like you were hanging by a thread (pun intended) waiting.

So even after ‘curing’ on the heating pad overnight, both the blue and the red scarf took LOTS of rinsing for the water to come clean. Online research tells me that RIT and similar dyes are not as colorfast as the more serious dyes that I use in the classes. Hope they wear well. Here’s the blue one.

I’m happy with it. The colors are fine, the ombre worked, and the undulating twill is stable. (I’ll have to remember this draft for future undulations.)

And the red scarf.

I’m not as happy with this one for two reasons. First there’s not as much difference between the lightest part and the darkest part as I’d like. Guess even my quick first dip was too long. Second – totally my fault and I should have known better. When I re- threaded for the huck lace, I again sett the threads at 10 EPI, same as for the undulating twill. As I started weaving I had to beat hard to get the look I wanted. I should have unwoven and rethreaded the reed at 9 or even 8 EPI, and thought about it, but I didn’t feel like it. 

So the lace is really only textural, not lace-like. That’d be okay, but scarf is much stiffer than I’d like as a result o too-close threads. Sigh. Why didn’t I listen to myself?!

Anyway, at the June show I sold 2 of the 3 handpainted silk in the gold/orange/red colorway. I had another warp in a similar colorway and wanted to weave it to bring to my show this weekend, if I could. (Yes, Virginia, I am obsessive-compulsive.)

So I beamed the warp and threaded for twill blocks. I wove the first scarf with a burgundy silk-cashmere blend.

I wasn’t as happy with the threading as I might have been, and it made getting good selvedges difficult, so I rethreaded. I liked this threading much better, and the weaving moved along well. I did the first scarf, which is by far my favorite so you’ll see it last and then struggled to find a weft I liked for the last. I ended up with a sort of smoky-slatey blue. (Color isn’t as bright as it looks i the photo.) It reminds me of a sunset with storm clouds moving in.

This last scarf – I just LOVE it! I am rarely called to name my woven pieces, but this one will get a name – summer sorbet. Woven with a medium orange weft, it brings out all of the hand painted colors beautifully. Wish I’d had enough of it to do more.

I’ll be really surprised if this scarf doesn’t sell this weekend. Now I’m off to pick up the rental van.
July 7th, 2016 | 

Some I love, some I hate

 Among my indoor accomplishments yesterday I finished measuring all the yarn for CT & TS’s baby wraps. Isn’t this section to di for? I just love these colors, especially when they’re together.

I also took photos of the six finished scarves made from my painted warps. Once again I took well over 45 pictures to get six tha worked. I tried them on the mannequin, on the loom, and hanging. The only thing that worked well was on the floor of the weaving studio.

So first the bad ones. These are the scarves with the rayon warp. I loved the warp in the dye studio, and wound as a chain, but didn’t work on the loom. I’d made the transitions between colors too far apart and the colors too similar. Then I used the undulating twill threading. First up is the first one I wove, with a rayon weft, sett at 21 ends per inch. That purple section looks lik a bruise. And I don’t think the weave structure is stable enough to function well, even after wet finishing.

Then I tried a lighter weft. REALLY bad!

As I planned to, I resleyed for 24 ends per inch for the last scarf, and used a cotton weft. I think this scarf is stable enough, but I really hate it.

Now for the good news. I love, love, LOVE the silk hand painted warp! I used shorter transitions and more change in the colors. This was actually the last warp I dyed, using colors left over from other dyers. Not my usual colors at all, but I’m so happy with them. This is a 30/2 silk sett at 36 ends per inch, threaded in a simple 3/1 vs. 1/3 twill. For the first scarf I used a rust 20/2 silk. I really like the treadling pattern in this scarf the best.

Next I used a 30/2 lilac cashmere-silk blend. (Actually, it’s 20/2 on the ends and 30/2 for the rest of the scarf.) The weight and hand is scrumptious. This is absolutely my favorite color combination. I have to say I don’t think I would have even considered using a lilac weft if I hadn’t taken the color workshop.

Last up is another 30/2 cashmere silk blend, this time in burgundy. Again I love the way it feels, and like the looks, too.

Now that I know more about how to achieve the results I want, I am definitely planning to take the dye workshop when it’s offere again in April. I’m trying to get my sister the quilter to take it with me.

February 14th, 2016 | 

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

Loom issues #1

When I was weaving those eggshell cashmere silk lace scarves, I noted a problem that I thought might have been caused by an old reed, and decided to order a new stainless steel reed. That reed still hasn’t arrived, but I haven’t stopped weaving to wait for it.

After the eggshell scarf problems I decided to use my (rather disliked) 6 dent reed while I awaited the new 12 dent SS reed (like a few weeks). A customer had ordered a black lace cashmere & silk, and I didn’t want to make her wait that long.

So I put in the 6 dent, warped and threaded my wonderful, little counterbalance loom, and set off.

It all went great. I had a total of 3 broken warp threads for the entire 9 yard warp – not uncommon with fibers this fine. This confirmed for me that my old reed really was a problem.

After the black, I wove three 100% silk scarves in a lovely pale mint green. This was an 8/60 silk — I sure do wish I had a MUCH better handle on what these numbers mean. What I THOUGHT, incorrectly, was that I’d multiply the 60 x 1000 and divide that by 8 to get the yards per pound (ypp). Hah! That math would give me 7,500 ypp; in fact, it’s about 2,400 ypp. As is some 12/60 silk & linen blend I bought. WHAT??!! How can this be? Maybe I should just give up trying to understand that and be sure I get the ypp from the yarn seller.

Anyway, the mint silk has a beautiful sheen to it. It’s thicker than the cashmere silk, and way more expensive. So I didn’t want to screw it up. I set it at 16.5 ends per inch (epi), (2-3-3 on my 6 dent reed) as opposed to the 18 epi I normally use for the cashmere silk. It’s nice, but a bit stiffer than I’d like. Next time I’m going to try it looser – maybe 14 epi.

On a completely different note, here’s an odd tidbit. Flies that die upside down on your stove retain their iridescent blue color for days. This one died right by my burner a few days ago.

I didn’t see it at first, and then when I did, I was amazed that the color was still there. He’s been there long enough now that I don’t need to wait any longer to clean him up. Goodbye, fly.

Your turn: do you understand yarn counts and yardage?

January 30th, 2012 

Weaving for the Holidays

While certainly not exclusively for the holidays by any means, these handwoven cashmere & silk scarves are such a lovely, rich color, they make me think of the mid-winter holiday season. Hopefully people who come to either the Roycroft Winter Festival and my local Holiday Show think so, too.

I again tried a new huck lace pattern – the one at the bottom of the picture. And again, I much prefer the old standby of Swedish Lace, at the top. The lace diamonds don’t show up in the bottom until you view it at just the right angle, and it doesn’t do the lacy thing anywhere near as well as the Swedish Lace blocks. But I’d never have known that without trying it.

So I wound a warp for three scarves, threaded up for the new huck lace diamonds, and wove the first scarf. Even while I was weaving I knew it wouldn’t be one of my favorites, so I cut it off and totally re-threaded heddles and reed, and wove the last two in the Swedish Lace blocks.

November 22nd, 2011 

Lacy Handwoven Silk Scarves

Being an early riser, I have a few minutes before I have to leave for the show this morning, so will sneak this post in.

I knew I only had two handwoven silk scarves left after Elmwood, so wanted to give my customers at least one more option. I had enough dusty rose silk left to weave two more, and chose alternating blocks of Swedish Lace. I sett this 20/2 yarn at 18 end per inch, and was off and running.

They worked up quickly. As usual, I made these handwoven lace scarves on my counterbalance loom.
I was pleased with the results, and quite surprised when I saw how clear and lovely the color was in comparison to the last/first

time I’d used this yarn in the gray twill blocks – it really muddied the color more than I realized.

I thought that would be all I’d have time for before the show, but had a whole day left (woo hoo!), so decided to weave a few more cashmere silk scarves, too. I intended to weave two, but my habit got the better of me in measuring the warp – when I finished winding the last bit, I realized I’d measured for three. No problem. Put three on the loom, and if I can only get two done, that’s fine; I’ll just cut them off and weave the third when I return home.

OCD me of course got all three woven.

Two of them are an all-over huck lace pattern, one is a woven with huck spots. I’m less thrilled with the look of that one. Spot Bronson would be a much better choice for spots, but of course my loom was already threaded for huck. The lavender color is much nicer in person than in this picture, which makes them look more gray.

Ok, now you’ve seen them all, and I have to get ready to leave the house.

Your turn: is the weather as gorgeous where you are as it is here this September weekend? Sunny and warm – great!

September 11th, 2011 

Where does the time go?

 How is it possible that another 10 days have passed without a blog post? Answer: I’ve been really busy.

Last weekend I had another great show in Buffalo. People were particularly interested in my scarves on Sunday, when the weather was cooler.

And next weekend I have another big show – Clothesline in Rochester.. So now I have to weave, weave, WEAVE! I’ve gotten six scarves done in the last 4 days, and will put a warp for 3 more on my loom today. I’ve taken a few days off my paycheck job to give me more time. The new scarves are in the drying process, so haven’t been photo’d yet, but I can show you a few more things I finished before the Elmwood Ave. show last weekend.

First I finished the two purple & silver mohair scarves I’d put on the rigid heddle loom for the Chautauqua show. I do love how these scarves look, and am getting better at wet finishing them in soft-as-a-cloud delights. Many other people agreed, so I simp re-created the one I’d woven in May.

I knew I needed to stock up on some cashmere silk blend scarves, so I started with the light blue. I would have made 3 of them, as is my usual fashion, but I only had enough of the blue yarn to warp for 2.

I put a cream stripe down the center, and wove lace along both edges. I think they’re lovely. Interestingly, although I did sell four handwoven cashmere silk scarves last weekend, these were not among them. That’s not a problem, just a comment.

I also had some black cashmere silk yarn that I hadn’t used yet, so I could definitely warp for 3 of those. And did. (Warning to non-weavers: weaving terminology follows. Simply skip down to below the picture if you don’t want to read this part.)

I decided this was a great opportunity to try something I’d been wanting to do since the MAFA workshop in July – name drafting in overshot. Since I was only making a scarf and wanted to have a reasonable number of repeats, I didn’t want to use my entire business name – second wind weaving – so just used the first two words. I played with star fashion vs. rose fashion and an assortment of assignment strategies, ultimately choosing a standard arrangement in rose fashion. I really like the visual.

I used a gray silk for the pattern on the black cashmere, making a border that’s about 4′′ wide. The rest of the scarf is plain weave. I enjoyed weaving the border.

It is funny to me how I forget things. When I wove the first border on the first scarf, I was being very careful to follow the pattern correctly, and used a very light beat. After I got my border done I thought my beat was too light — the fibers weren’t packed in tightly enough — and the pattern was therefore more vertically oval than round. I had to make the other end of this scarf the same, so used the same light beat.

For the second scarf, I beat the pattern in more firmly, making the pattern more rounded. Looked great to me. Until, of course, I took them off the loom and wet finished. DUH!! Of course those vertical ovals on the loom reverted to circles when they were released from the tension of the loom, and circles on the loom became horizontal ovals. I think only a weaver would notice these details, it just made me chuckle.

So here are the two scarves.

I really like them, both on the loom and off, but can’t decide if they’re classy scarves or grandma scarves.

I had planned to make the 3rd scarf different – no border and a lace treadling. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do it. I found the black yarn to be problematic from the beginning. Lots of broken warp threads, something that hasn’t happened with any of the other colors I’ve used. However, I did have the same experience with black rayon chenille last year, and did some online research tha told me that black yarn can be troublesome. A solid black can be a challenging color to achieve in dyes, and as a result, it can sometimes weaken the fiber.

I was clearly having that problem. By the time I’d gotten to the end of the second scarf, I was fixing lots of warp threads. That was enough of a pain, but the yarn along the selvedges was become really troublesome. As a result my selvedges were thick and uneven. I tried several strategies to try to correct it, all unsuccessful. I ultimately decided it was better to cut off the 2 scarve and waste the rest of this lovely fiber than waste my time weaving a scarf I was not going to be happy with that was not going to be saleable.

After this frustration, I needed to weave something quick and easy. So I put on a narrow warp (42 ends) of cotton and wove 25 bookmarks. I used a periwinkle overshot threading, an assortment of weft yarns, and an array of treadling patterns.

September 2nd, 2011