More braided twill

Since I had the Macomber treadles tied up for braided twill and my feet knew the treadling pattern after the baby blanket, I decided to prepare a warp for some braided twill scarves.

I chose an 8/2 black rayon for the warp, intending on weaving three different colors of weft.

First was a red purple 8/2 tencel from WEBS. (The color in the photo below is correct, not the one above on the loom.) Lovely sheen, great drape, nice color purple. But the purple and black don’t have enough contrast to show that braided twill pattern off clearly.

So for the second scarf I chose an 8/2 tencel azure, again from WEBS. I particularly like this one.

I’ve done some studies in black & white before, and thought it was time again, so I picked a 6/2 off-white bamboo.

I didn’t think the difference between 8/2 and 6/2 would be noticeable. Ditto the difference between rayon and bamboo.

In this particular case, I was wrong. You can’t really tell from the photos, but the black & white scarf is substantially thicker and has both less drape and sheen than the rayon ones. If you only feel the bamboo, it’s fine; it’s only in comparison to the rayon ones that the difference is obvious.

I’ve successfully interchanged rayon and bamboo before, and different sizes of yarn, so it must be this particular bamboo and this particular rayon. The WEBS yarn is really lovely, and I don’t remember where I got the bamboo, but I remember it was on sale–maybe there was a good reason for that?

Regardless, these three scarves were successful, but I’m tired of braided twill, and the Macomber, for now. Moving on....

June 14th, 2012 | 

Braided baby blanket

 My niece is having a baby. Her first. It’s a girl. Sure I could have gone to Babies R Us and bought something off her registry, but didn’t want to do that.

I’m a weaver. I wanted to weave her something. No not something, I wanted to weave her a baby blanket.

I do have a small supply of baby blankets in my inventory, but none of them were what I wanted to send her. I wanted to make a new one.

And I wanted to make a cotton one. Now, I’ve made other handwoven baby blankets from cotton, and I’ve not been overly happ with the results. I like the way they look, but I haven’t liked their softness and drape. Actually, their lack of both.

It was time to try again. I figured what the heck? Since it wasn’t expected, if I wove it and hated it, I could throw it away — the materials wouldn’t be too costly — and go to Babies R Us as a default. Safe enough.

So I warped the Macomber loom for an 8 harness braided twill in 5/2 cotton. White warp, pink weft, what could be simpler?

I liked the way it looked on the loom. But then again, I almost always do, so that wasn’t really meaningful.

While I was weaving, I decided on a different course of action than my usual. Usually I weave, sew on the binding, and wet finis with a hand wash. This time I’d try another way. After all, that old saying that is if you do what you’ve always done you’ll get wha you’ve always gotten. Plus, I still had that throw-it-away-Babies-R-Us default option.

So I took it off the loom, went upstairs to the sewing machine, sewed not one, not two, but three rows of machine stitching on each end, went down to the basement and tossed it in the washing machine. Then without looking at it I tossed it in the dryer.

My thinking is that the cotton would shrink however much it was going to, and if the blanket was still alive when I took it out of th dryer, that was the time to sew on the polyester satin binding.

Well, I took it out of the dryer and LOVED it! It was soft and sweet, not a bit of stiffness left in it!

Went back upstairs to the sewing machine, sewed on the binding, shot a few pix, and sent it off to baby.

I will definitely do this again. And will probably use the washer to wet finish all my cottons from now on. I’ll still hand wash all my rayons and bamboos, though.

I have so much to learn. That’s one of the things I love about weaving. As soon as I have one thing mastered, there are a dozen others waiting for me.

Back to the loom!

June 10th, 2012 | 

Twofer

Since I haven’t posted in a week, today will be a twofer. And you may get more tomorrow, too.

When I received my latest batch of hand painted bamboo-cotton yarn, I got to see some of Tammy’s new colorways that I’d ordered. Some I thought were stunning, some verged on being too bright for my tastes.

I decided to start with one of the latter, a colorway Tammy calls Carnations. It’s the bright pink & orange in the center of this photo.

Because I was concerned about it being a bit too much color, I decided to tone it down some with a stripe of burgundy cotton along one edge.

I measured the warp for three scarves, beamed the loom, threaded the heddles and set to weaving.

The first scarf I wove was the one on the top in the photo. I used that same burgundy cotton for weft. I like the way it shows the stripes, but I knew even on the loom that it would be a bit stiffer than I prefer in my scarves.

So next I used a solid orange bamboo-cotton weft Tammy’d dyed up for me. I find it interesting that with that orange weft, the burgundy stripe appears to be brown, not burgundy at all. Interesting what colors do when they play together, isn’t it?

Anyway, I really like it the orange scarf; in fact, I’ve worn it a few times. (It’s not as vibrant, in a good way, as it appears in the photo.) However, although I love them, my orange scarves haven’t been big sellers, so I didn’t want to weave the third with that weft also.

Instead I chose a bright raspberry bamboo-cotton. I was hoping it would be bright without knocking your eyes out of their sockets. I think it is. I also like the way the many other colors in that variegated warp show up.

All three scarves were threaded in a simple point twill, and treadled simply, too. I’m trying to remember that “simple pictures ar best” saying, to make it my new motto.

After all that 1-2-3-4 threading & treadling, I wanted to weave something with more creativity in the weaving pattern, less in the color choices. You know I love to weave lace, so decided I’d try some larger blocks of huck, with alternating warp and weft floats I call it a huck checkerboard.

I picked a lovely off-white bamboo and threaded up the loom. I wish I’d taken pictures of this while it was on the loom — to my eye, the monochrome warp and weft floats showed up better then than they have since. C’est la vie.

Anyway, after I wove one in solid off-white, I thought it would be fun to try one with a contrasting weft, and picked a medium- bright red rayon. Although the floats do show up much better, I’ll stick with the solid color, myself.

Before I even began weaving the red scarf, I decided I’d give it an added feature of an off-white border with ladder hemstitching In the past when the weft color differed greatly from the warp color, I’ve found the fringe a bit unsettling – the color difference jarring to my eyes. So I thought the edging would not only make the scarf a little dressier, it would make a nice end transition from the off-white fringe to the red weaving.

Do you agree?

Your turn: Are you having any celebrations this Memorial Day weekend, or is it a somber time for you?

May 27th, 2012 | 

Rigid Heddle pick up weaving

Remember way back in January when I showed you a little bit of what I had on my rigid heddle loom? Well, I finally finished weaving the entire warp. I had to cut it off before it was completely done because my cloth beam was full.

I made lots of little pick up designs. Some are small enough to fit into little magnetized photo frames, others are large enough to fit into window cards. I bought the frames & cards to have small items available in my booth at a particular fall show. I thought th weaving would be quick so I could sell the finished products inexpensively. HAH! Pick up designs are not quick, particularly when, like me, you don’t want a lot of the same thing so you have to keep coming up with new designs.

Everything I’m showing you now still has to be machine stitched on all 4 sides to make sure it doesn’t unravel, pressed, and the put into its finished format. More time.

Next time I try this concept (and there will be a next time) I’m not doing pick up! I’ll make lace, or little overshot designs, or something I can do on one of my multi-shaft looms.

I’m not commenting on each of the designs – they’ll have to speak for themselves. Some worked much better than others; you’r not seeing the complete flops here, so just imagine what they look like!

I made more designs as well, but Blogger stopped me from uploading them all...file too big, I guess.

I decided I wanted to try a clasped weft. This small format seemed the perfect time to give it a shot.

I like it!

I read the weaving blogs in my blogroll for inspiration. All these weavers stretch my mind and imagination. Others do too, of course, but I find them in places other than the blogosphere. Two years ago Ngaire, over at Dust Bunnies, made this AMAZING full-size piano keyboard scarf in rayon chenille. No way I was going to attempt that, but thought I’d try a small bit. Too much white showing, but other than that, I’m pretty happy with it.

I haven’t yet figured out what I have to sell either the magnets or the cards for. Hope it’s something reasonably affordable. If not I’ll try another concept.

May 3rd, 2012 | 

Opposites attract

 I’ve been on a quest, and I still am. I want to find a silk, already dyed, in roughly a 30/2 size with a great sheen. I can occasionally find a 30/2 undyed, and can always buy undyed silk both larger and smaller sizes – sometimes with sheen, and ca usually buy silk that has more texture than sheen. Combining all the qualities I’m looking for seem to elude me. In the meantime I try a variety of silks to see what has the greatest appeal to me and my customers.

When I think of silk, the words sheen, softness, and drape come to mind. Conversely, when I think of linen, crisp and matte predominate my thoughts. So when I found yarn that combined silk & linen I was intrigued. What would this fiber look like on the cone? (I bought it from colourmart in the UK, so couldn’t see it in person prior to purchase.) How would it work up into a fiber? Which properties would predominate?

I’ve had the yarn for a few months while it was waiting for me to choose the right project. I decided on a shawl. I’d wanted to try snowflake pattern, and decided this was the perfect opportunity to develop an 8-shaft pattern and show it off in the silk-linen fibe

So I went to my computer to play with my Fiberworks software, and came up with this draft.

I measured out 480 threads of white silk-linen yarn long enough to weave two shawls, and set up the Macomber loom at 24 end per inch.

I had a blue in the same fiber that I thought was too bold for my purpose, and a lilac that I thought was too subtle. I decided to start with the blue, and was really amazed at how tame it became with the white in this pattern. (Sorry this picture is so yucky. I only shot two on the loom, and this is the better one. I tried fixing it in Photoshop, but the uneven lighting made it a real challenge.)

It was clear to me that the ‘snowflakes’ themselves – the Xs, didn’t predominate. Instead the diamonds between them did. While this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, I thought the pattern pleasing enough that I wasn’t going to re-design and re-thread. Particularly since I still had no idea how the finished fabric would feel and drape.

I wove both of pieces, took them off the loom, wet finished and pressed, and was happy to see that these handwoven shawls seemed to marry the qualities of the silk and the linen beautifully.

They have a nice drape while still maintaining body. The pattern is much more subtle with the silver lilac, but it’s still a lovely shawl. At least I think so.

I’ve worked on making some changes in the draft so that the X of the snowflake is more predominant (I now have 7 versions saved on my computer), and I’ll try the new draft with another fiber, another day.

April 8th, 2012 

Watery lace

This time of year, I just keep weaving, and weaving, and weaving to build up my inventory for the coming show season. It’s nice to weave light, lacy fabrics when it’s cold out – it makes spring seem right around the corner.

Of course this year, we had a week of summer before winter was even over. Despite my weather concerns, I’m still enjoying weaving scarves for spring and summer. I’m using up that hand painted yarn I ordered. And yeah, I’ve subsequently ordered two more batches of Tammy’s yummy yarn.

It’s no surprise that I like saturated colors, and gemtones, so it’s completely fitting that one of my personal favorites is Tammy’s Ocean Waves colorway. I’ve used it in rayon chenille, bamboo, bamboo-cotton, and tencel. It’s always successful, and always popular. So I ordered a bunch more. This time in a blend of bamboo & tencel.

I worked out a new lace design for my little 4-harness counterbalance loom, and warped for four scarves. I could vary the treadling and create two somewhat different lace designs – either an open cross of four lace squares or a mini checkerboard of five.

The two scarves on the right look the same color in real life – no idea why they look so different in this picture. For the first three scarves, I used the same variegated yarn for both warp and weft. For the fourth, on the left in the photo, I used a solid, bright turquoise bamboo. It really lightens those scarves up a lot. I wasn’t positive if I’d like it, but I do. I like them all.

After I twisted the fringes and wet finished these scarves, I wasn’t ready to be done with the watery-colored yarn. So I measured out another warp of three scarves, this time in a log cabin pattern with black bamboo.

Although weaving with two shuttles takes me more than twice the time of weaving with one, the end result in a log cabin weave makes the time investment worthwhile. It turns a plain weave into something that thrills the eye. At least it does for me. I will definitely have to weave some more log cabin for this season.

I have so many more things I want to weave, so many ideas. There’s no way I can build in time to weave everything I want to. A least not if I want to sleep. And I do love to sleep. Still, despite my long stretch of unproductive time due to the nasty virus, I’ve completed 67 handwoven scarves, plus the 10 towels and 3 baby blankets since the first of the year. 30 scarves in March alone. I’m threading a loom for a warp of 2 shawls right now, and I’m hoping I can add them to my list of March completions.

Can you tell I’m a bit obsessive-compulsive? But you knew that already, didn’t you.

March 29th, 2012 | 

Not my cup of tea

I’ve long admired the finished product of soft, flowing curves in woven items. Particularly with only 4 shafts, this isn’t always eas to produce. So when I saw Bonnie Inouye’s article on Weavezine, I decided I had to give it a shot. I had several other projects that had to take priority, though, so while I waited my desire just increased.

This week I was finally at a point where I could check it out. I used Bonnie’s draft and set up my loom. Trust me when I tell you i took LOTS of attention to thread the heddles correctly – 72 threads in one pattern repeat!

I used a deep, rich purple 8/2 rayon for the warp, sett at 18 ends per inch. I’ve used this sett with this yarn for a variety of patterns, and always liked the result. To show the curves off well, I picked a medium green rayon for weft. I figured it would be a lovely as the amethyst & peridot jewelry I’ve made.

Hah! Wrong again!

I started with a few rows of plain weave, as I usually do for stability. Then I wove one repeat of the 70-row treadling pattern. This was clearly too loose to make a stable fabric, plus I didn’t like how it looked.

Next I tried another repeat of the 70-row treadling, this time beating much more firmly. Much more stable, but not much better looking, to my eye at least.

I waited overnight to see if I’d like it better the next day. That sometimes works. I can see the beauty of things after a time away, or their flaws, or get an idea on how to improve things.

I didn’t like it any better, but did have an idea. Maybe my weft needed to be much thicker than the warp for it to work well. So I made two shots of each row, doubling the weft thickness, for a third 70-row pattern. Yes, the pattern shows up better, but I still don’t like it.

I’m going to unweave all this, unthread reed & heddles, and re-thread in another pattern. Not sure exactly what yet, but I’ll use a tried & true, I think. I want to weave something I’m pretty certain to like!

March 14th, 2012 |