From baby to mobi & the warp from hell

August has been crazy busy for me, in a good way. Another night of silent disco with friends. A trip to Longwood Gardens, meeting my BFF from West Virginia there, and watching a wonderful, uplifting concert by Ladysmith Black Mambazo. They sang this beautiful song, among others. Shopping with my son for his first home. (He’s putting in an offer today for one he’s really hoping for, so send all your positive thoughts this way.) So far less weaving than usual for me.

I did, however, come across a custom baby wrap that a mom had ordered and subsequently didn’t buy. (Just one of several reasons I stopped weaving baby wraps.) I decided to turn it into a mobius wrap. Based on comments I received at my last show decided not to cut the length, instead making it into a large size wrap. We’ll see how it goes. I can always shorten it later if needed.

I also squeezed in time to weave that red-violet and teal warp I’d hand painted. Decided to use a huck lace pattern. Wove the first one with a red-violet warp that was almost identical to the color I’d dyed. I was surprised that I didn’t like it better. Even as I was weaving it, it was too dark, too much red-violet for me.

For the second scarf I used an azure weft that was almost identical to the blue I’d dyed. I also modified the treadling slightly to weave what I’ve called huck-ish...only half of the weft pattern as above. Love it!

I’d planned to weave 1 long cowl, but based on my sales in July, modified that to 2 short cowls. Wove the first, again with that huck-ish treadling, using that green that I’ve-had-hanging-around-forever-and-hated-but-loved-when-I-used-it. Love it here, too.

For the next cowl I went back to that red-violet weft, this time using the huck-ish treadling. Meh.

Then my loom magician and the parts from Macomber lined up with my schedule and my Macomber was fixed! I knew I didn’t have time to weave all 3 shawls I’d warped it for, but believed I could do 1. I did, but it wasn’t fun. This warp is turning into the warp from hell. Although I completely re-tensioned it after the loom repair, my shed was consistently full of threads hanging low, so the weaving was slow with plenty of unweaving as I spotted a skipped thread some picks back, and there are still some treadling errors. Nothing that will impact the usefulness of the shawl, but it annoyed the heck out of me. Just like my weaving wi rayon chenille, it’s a good thing I like it so much when it’s complete or I would have cut it off and thrown it all away.

I’m hoping that when I return to it, again re-tensioning it, that I can eliminate the frustration. Keep your fingers crossed.

Now, if you’re anywhere near Buffalo this weekend, do come to the Elmwood Avenue Festival of the Arts. I’ll be there with all my wares. Gotta run now – time to drop Jackie off at my daughter’s for the weekend.

August 24th, 2018 | 

Lots of progress

Like anyone in business, I have to prioritize. What has the closest deadline? Do those things first. So here’s what I’ve accomplished since my last post...4 days ago. (You know that saying, if you want something done, give it to a busy person? Yep.)

Wash & dry a bunch of pillowcases and other fabric, then cut them into appropriate sizes, sew 31 bags, print and cut my bag tags, then thread the bags with ribbon and tie a bag tag on them. (no pix)
Do both the machine and hand sewing on those 8 bumberet towels, then wash and dry them. They still need the hard press, but that won’t take long. (no pix)

Thanks to my son, get the 2nd heddle kit installed on my rigid heddle loom.

Get the heddles and reed threaded, and the treadles tied up, for that custom baby wrap order.

Get a warp prepped, dyed, and threaded on that RH loom. This is a story in and of itself. Here’s another saying, this time a bit modified: If at first you don’t succeed, dye, dye again.

After measuring out a 10/2 tencel warp, I went down to my basement and hand painted it in cool blue and 2 greens, thinking the were perfect colors for summer at the lake, where my show will be next weekend.

I was happy with it. Until after it batched and was rinsed. The greens were ok, but the blue was WAY too pale. So after consultin with a great dyer I know, I laid the wet warp back out on the table, mixed some more concentrated dye with the soda ash so I could skip the pre-soak step, and painted over the blue. I also decided to eliminate the unpainted/white areas, since the colors were pale. Here it is in process.

Meanwhile, I wanted to dye the wefts to coordinate. So I measured out 2 small skeins, just under 2 ounces each, 1 for the weft for each scarf. I immersion dyed these wefts before I knew how the warp would turn out. Since the skeins were so small, the dishpans I usually use as vessels were too big to be practical. I searched around the house for smaller containers that I wouldn’ need again, and ended up at my neighbors, too. The end result? I was dyeing al Fresca. (Get it?)

After all the yarn was dry, I didn’t think the wefts were right for the warp, so I wound and dyed a third skein. Here’s how things proceeded...

I’m still not sure if I have the 2nd weft color yet, but won’t dye any more. I’ll have to use one of those colors or find something else in my stash.

Here’s what’s left to do by Wednesday evening:

Make a cake for my son’s birthday on Monday, and enjoy a family dinner tomorrow night;
Make something nice to bring to a dinner with friends on Tuesday to celebrate the 4th;
Tie on that RH warp so I can test out wefts and decide what to bring to the show;
Warp up my little tapestry loom, also to bring to the show, with a variety of yarns for people to do a bit of community weaving while I’m there – anything to bring people into my booth;

Hard press and label those towels;
Begin weaving that baby wrap – I made a time commitment to those women.

Think I can do it? I’m sure I can. It’s all about time management.

July 2nd, 2017 | 

Two terrific days

I have had 2 really terrific days in a row. Life is so good, it’s incredible. Let’s go chronologically.

Yesterday morning I managed to get about half of ZN’s second wrap — a short one for a ring sling — woven. Here’s where I went from a black Egyptian cotton weft in my common hearts weave to a navy tencel weft in what I call my flowers weave.

The tencel is a much lighter ‘hand’ – finer, softer, more drape – but the majority of the difference in look is the weave pattern itself. The structures are much different.

Although changing the tie up for this weave pattern was no fun at all, the weaving went smoothly and proceeded well.

Shortly before noon I left for Rochester and the engineer’s inspection on my new home. Both my son and my daughter joined us providing more eyes, more helpful hands, more listening ears, and more support. I really do have wonderful kids!

Son & I had taken some rough measurements, and while the inspector was doing his thing and we were following him around, my daughter was carefully drawing the layout, including placement of doors & windows. She obviously couldn’t do it to scale, bu it was really helpful. This morning I spent time with graph paper and did my best to translate the combination of her drawing and my rough measurements into a scale drawing. We didn’t measure windows & doors, just room sizes, so some things are approximations, but here’s the layout of my sweet, new house.

I know some bloggers have figured out how to post a relatively small image so that when you click on the picture it gets bigger. One of these days I’ll have to figure that out; you can’t get great info with it at its current size. But you’ve probably guessed that the 2 room I didn’t label are the kitchen & living room. Didn’t notice that till just now.

The inspector was quite happy with what he saw. (And with my kids.) The house has been well taken care of since its 1948 creation. It will need some attention, as does every house, but it’s solid and sound, and he didn’t find anything that I didn’t already know about.

Just one more little house detail. Most of the interior doors, including closet doors — I think 9 all told — have those great old glass door knobs. I think they’re beautiful, and have loved them since I was a kid. My sweet hubby made me a hall tree many years ago with these door knobs as the ‘holders’ for your jackets.

Back to yesterday...I had only been in the house for about 20 minutes the day I saw it and made my offer. I had some real stomach butterflies, I can assure you! Did I make the right decision? Was this the right house for me? Did I act too quickly? Would I really like it?

With the inspector I got to spend about an hour and a half in the house, and the answer to all of those questions is a resounding YES! I am SOOOOO happy with my decision! It’s definitely downsizing from my current space, but that was what I had in mind. And it’s so bright, and cute, and has the best weaving studio ever!

Needless to say, after the 2 hour drive home, I had a hard time sleeping last night. Too much happy excitement!

This morning the inspector from the County Health Department came to inspect my septic system – a requirement when selling house. Remember I told you what a bear the digging was? Here’s a view of the yard so you can get some concept of what it too to get the tank ready for the inspector.

For the past 18 months I knew this inspection was coming. We installed our system in 1978, so I was prepared having some problems arise and having to spend some real money. Like potentially several thousand dollars if it was real bad news.

But it wasn’t! I have to do a few small things, and I have someone coming tomorrow morning to look at the situation and give me pricing, but I’m sure it will be more like several hundred than several thousand. And part of what I’ll pay him to do is to re-cover that tank so I won’t have to do any more digging! YAY!!

Then I had to take my car to my mechanic this afternoon so he could replace a gasket on the exhaust system of my 2007 Yaris. He got it up on the lift and said, “It won’t take long...if these old bolts don’t break.” With complete confidence I replied, “They won’t.” And they didn’t. I was done in about 1/2 hour with a total bill of $47.

Does a day get any better than these two? I don’t think so!

It did end well. I got several boxes packed, which means more bags of garbage created as I continue to weed out. I also finishe weaving the flower wrap for Z. Here’s a shot of the ‘other side’ as it passes over the cloth beam — navy tencel weft.

Just for kicks, here’s the hearts weave with black cotton weft.

Tomorrow I’ll change the tie up back to hearts and start on NZ’s black tencel wrap.

July 7th, 2015 |

Tickling the keys

Y S-B jumped on the opportunity to buy the wrap with the royal, chambray, & navy weft. So I got both wraps hemmed, washed, dried, pressed, & labelled. Today I mailed out Y’s wrap to Germany and HF’s wrap to New Zealand.

Mailing things out of the U.S. costs SOOO much more than mailing within the States.

Before I start the next baby wrap warp I went back to the rayon chenille warp I have on my counterbalance loom. Instead of weaving another cityscape, I decided to weave a piano scarf. I’ve been wanting to do this for a few years.

I’d love to tell you that this was my idea, but it wasn’t. The talented weavers over at Dust Bunnies Under My Loom did it way back in 2011. It took me a few years to have time to figure out the weaving technique, and then I did my cityscape scarves. They were my own design, & I’ve never seen anything like them. But I couldn’t get that piano out of my mind. And since I’m not lookin for this to be a juried piece, I’m not overly concerned that I borrowed (ok, stole) the idea. I did have to figure out all the measurements and layout myself, but still....not my original idea.

I’ll have to decide if I’ll do another cityscape or a piano for the third scarf on this warp.

February 13th, 2015 | 

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 |