Oops

 Weaving is all about threads. Which threads go through which heddles. Which harnesses are tied to which treadles. Which harnesses are up and which are down. Make one little change, purposely or not, and the differences can be dramatic.

That’s what happened when I was weaving some cotton shawls. The results are fine, but not what I’d intended. I’ll start with my finished products. First, a shawl of 10/2 unmercerized cotton in huck boxes.

The second shawl on the warp was woven with a half-lace treadling, what I called huckish for my sunset shawls, and a variegated thick-thin unmercerized cotton weft.

In the sunset shawl post I showed you the draft I used. Here it is again, since it’s the same draft I used for these brown shawls.

Looks fine. But that’s not what the first shawl turned out like, is it? I didn’t get that all over traditional huck pattern, but instead huck boxes. I’ve woven enough huck that I should have realized it immediately as I wove, but I wasn’t paying enough attention – at least not the right kind of attention. I was attending to having the same number of warp & weft threads per inch, not to what th pattern itself looked like.

After the shawl came off the loom and I wet finished & pressed it I set out to find out what I had done differently that gave me an entirely different effect than what I wanted. It took me far too long to figure it out. Why? Because it was so simple, so little.

Here’s the draft I actually used, instead of the one above I meant to use.

It’s easy enough to see how different the fabric will be, but where’s the difference that created it? Look at the red square in this draft.

I SHOULD have tied that fourth treadle to harnesses 2, 3, & 4, but I inadvertently tied it to only 2 & 4, leaving 3 out of the mix.

As I said, the end result is fine, just not what I had intended. Next time I might not be so lucky. Then again, sometimes ‘mistakes can produce wonderful new weavings.

June 21st, 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.

Pinwheels for May

 April and May are generally good months for wind. The weather is changing and with it comes, at the very least, breezes. It’s often time to take your kite to an open field, or go in your backyard with a pinwheel.

With that in mind (okay, not really, but it makes for good text) I decided to weave another warp of four 8-harness black & white pinwheels. They really are eye catching.

It’s pretty amazing how different the 8-harness vs. 4-harness pinwheels turned out.

Now, in addition to having more harnesses to do more twirls with the pattern, and having less contrast in the colors, I had sett th 4H scarves at 21 threads per inch. The 8H scarves are 18 threads per inch. I intended to sett them at 21, but when I pulled out my records from my prior 8H pinwheels I had sett them at 18 and they turned out fine (not too long floats, not too unstable cloth so I did that again this time. Again I’m happy with them, so if I decide to do 4H pinwheels again I will sett them at 18, too.

Back to my first show of the season for the second day in just a few minutes. Hopefully we’ll be busier today.

May 11th, 2013 | 

Half a dozen

 

Weaving Gems » « Make New Friends... Half A Dozen

I haven’t been blogging but I have been weaving. And doing some garden cleanup. And visiting my grandson. And working my increased schedule at Pfeiffer Nature Center. I’ve been busy, can you tell?

Weaving-wise, I stayed on my hand painted bamboo-cotton kick for a while longer. This time I was using a thinner yarn, an 8/2 cotton. This yarn has 3,360 yards per pound vs. the 1,680 yards per pound of the yarn I used earlier – twice as thin. (In fact, I’d never realized before I was writing this entry that the typical bamboo-cotton is a 4/2 weight.) It was also in a colorway I hadn’t used before, one that Tammy calls Blue Spruce. For the scarf on the left I used a weft Tammy dyed for me in solid Emerald; on the right is a solid yellow.

Personally I find the yellow far too bright. I could never wear that color – it would look really awful with my skin tone.

Then I wove with an alpine blue, on the bottom in the photo – lovely, at least to me. Finally I decided to weave a plaid-ish one. Because the warp is variegated I couldn’t do a true plaid, so I went with consistent blocks of color in the weft. As I was weaving I wasn’t at all sure I liked it, but once it was done I thought it was fine.

After weaving these four I decided to go back to weaving with Tencel and tried out a 4 harness pattern for pinwheels. They were both less of a pain to weave and less delightful as finished products than the 8 harness pinwheels. Then again, maybe they would have been more striking if I’d used black & white instead of dark coral & sienna.

April 14th, 2013 | 

Weaving lace

 

After Fire in the Hills I decided I’d go back and weave some single color scarves, adding more handwoven lace to my stock. I lik the lightness of lace, its symmetry, and the fact that it seems so complex when it’s complete. I like huck and I like Swedish lace, using them each to achieve a slightly different look.

I also like weaving lace. I’ve woven enough of it that at this point it goes pretty quickly for me. I use tie ups that make my little counterbalance loom happy – it would much prefer that I step on a treadle with 3 harnesses tied to it than with 1 harness.

This time I chose to weave different sizes of Swedish lace blocks, using tencel as my fiber. I’d just received some royal purple yarn I’d ordered, so on the loom it went, for a warp of 4 scarves. I know people will like the color – they always do.

I had such a good time weaving this rich, dark purple scarves I decided to do another run of four, this time in natural.

Same pattern, same fiber, but I’m betting these two colors will appeal to different people. Time will tell...my first (very small) sho of the season is this weekend – just in time for Mother’s Day. In case I don’t get back here before then, have a great one with and for all the important women in your life.

May 8th, 2013 | 

Finishing First

 I’m so proud of my son. He’s smart, he’s hard working, he’s as nice as they come, he’s humble, he’s funny...I could continue, bu I won’t. Last summer he decided he’d completely had his fill of working in the restaurant industry so took a huge leap, quit his jo & went to school. He graduated on Wednesday, top of his class.

He now proudly holds 54 different welding certifications (CORRECTION – He has 59 certifications. Clearly I can’t remember anything.) He so impressed the teachers and owner of the welding school, they’ve offered him a full-time job there. It’s wonderfu that more people appreciate how terrific he is.

Meanwhile, I did manage to get 13 placemats (1 extra, just in case) and a sample napkin woven. The auxiliary warp beam worked well, although I had to make some modifications from Sandra’s directions based on what I had on hand. I didn’t have a mailing tube, which weighs next to nothing, but I did have a tube from the end of a roll of newsprint from my local newspaper. The tube itself weighs at least 4 pounds, which was too heavy, putting too much tension on those extra 48 threads. I called my son to help me think through how to reduce the weight and we collectively came up with an idea – run a stiff piece of something through the tube (I had metal), tie strings to it, run those strings up over the beam and hang weights from the strings. The weights on those strings would take weight off the tube. I used 2 pounds, 1 on each end, and it worked for the entire 11.5 yard warp.

It sure looked pretty ugly, but fortunately I’m not judged on things like that, only on the final outcome. Now I’m working on the second warp for this project – no auxiliary beam needed – YAY! A dozen napkins & I’ll be done with the weaving itself for this order.

On a nature note, I don’t remember ever having as many deer in my yard as I have in the past few weeks. They’re hungry. This was such a bad year for tree fruits and nuts that there isn’t enough for deer, other mammals and turkey to eat. This afternoon I watched a deer eat my wintercreeper for over 1/2 hour. How many photos does it take before you can see her?

I don’t begrudge the deer the wintercreeper. It’s not a plant I much care for. I’d intended to do a severe trimming before winter, and now I’m glad I didn’t. I don’t know how much nutrition it has, but it is still green so hopefully can offer some food value.

Back to the loom!

February 8th, 2013 | 

Making presents - and progress

We had our first Christmas celebration yesterday. Included were my two kids, son-in-law, grandson, both sisters, brother-in-law, niece, nephew, my nephew’s new fiance. It was a wonderful afternoon. The only thing that could have made it better was severa more hours. I most certainly did not have enough time to visit with my niece, nephew, or to-be niece-in-law. And it will unfortunately be many months before we’re all together again.

Since we did Christmas yesterday, I can now show you my latest weaving efforts. I made everyone bookmarks, but not my ordinary bookmarks, which are woven using a 5/2 cotton warp and similar sized wefts, all woven on four shafts. I like them, but wanted something more special for Christmas gifts. So I went to Carol Strickler’s A Weaver’s Book of 8 Shaft Patterns and decided on several of the border patterns on pages 31-33. I made a few minor modifications to make sure that the back wouldn have floats more than 7 threads long, preferably 5, since the purpose was bookmarks. I needed to make 9 in all; 6 for yesterday and 3 for presents yet-to-be-given (to people who don’t read my blog, so no present-spoilers here), plus 1 extra just in case. Firs a shot of all 10.

I threaded the Mac in a simple rosepath design – 4 repeats – using 12/2 cotton sett at 36 ends per inch. Each of the designs used a different tie-up, so several trips under the loom.

Now for some close ups.
First I wove some snowflakes.

My oldest sister, who used to knit lots of mittens, often using a traditional snowflake design, got the dark blue one of these. Then I wove a design that looked to me like a Star of David while in draft form, but more like a flower in real life.

The new fiance got the light wedgewood blue bookmark. Next I wove some trees. I really like these lovely evergreens.

For obvious reasons, I made them both a nice rich green. My brother-in-law, who spends hours outdoors each day, got one of these.

Then I tried another tree. It’s okay, but in comparison to the first one, not a winner.

I’m using this as my extra.
So I moved onto a more warm-weather design, weaving some butterflies.

My niece, who lives in South Carolina and has more summer than the rest of us, got a butterfly. For my last design I made flowers.

My other sister got the flowers. She’s got a lovely flower garden.

While I was weaving the bookmarks my son stopped by for a few hours (his purpose is still a secret). Being ever helpful, he graciously assisted me in replacing the cords on my Missouri loom.

I am SO glad I had his help. It took the two of us about an hour and a half, and would have taken me more than twice that long alone.

Once all the cables were hooked to the levers, we tested it all out, and everything seems to work smoothly.

The next day I stopped at JoAnn Fabrics and bought some webbing to make the missing apron straps. Today I got them sewn to length and stapled in place on both the front & back beams.

Over the next few days I hope to have the time to put on a short warp and test it out. Will the reed, which my son sandblasted to remove the rust and I subsequently sprayed with clear rustoleum in an attempt to make smoother, be sufficient or will it abrade the threads? Have I sufficiently cleaned the heddles (not rusty) by blowing them with compressed air, or do I need to individually wipe each one? Will the brakes hold, the levers work smoothly, the shed be clean? Only time will tell.

I’m still working on needed modifications to be able to hook up the treadles. I need the loom to be functioning, at least as a table loom, by mid-January, when I’ll be away from home for a week.

Just a few more days & I’ll spend more time with family on Christmas Eve & Christmas day. Yippee!! Wishing you a wonderful Christmas, too!!

December 21st, 2012 | Tags: bookmarks, Christmas, Missouri loom | Category: Life - As I See It, Weaving | Edit this post 1 comment to Making presents – and progress

New Year Loom « Weaving A Gem Of A Life

January 1, 2013 at 10:27 am · Reply · Edit

[...] Macomber (above) still has leftover cotton on it from my special bookmarks woven as Christmas presents. Plus the back beam is a great place to hold many things, from my ball [...]

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