MonkeyBoots IronMan Jim

I’m going to start this post with the good news. My grandson had told his mom on several occasions that he wished he had a sock monkey. As it so happened, I had 1 pair of sock monkey socks in my craft trunk so made it for him. For the record, I don’t like making sock monkeys. The sock fabric is too stretchy to be fun to work with, and heaven help you if you need to take a seam out. That being said, Jack thought he was the nuts (a little monkey humor there). It was all I could do to keep Jack away from the monkey while I was sewing and then while we waited for the little boy to come and get him.

Well, the almost-five-year-old boy LOVED the monkey! Way more than I could have hoped for. So much that he gave him 3 names, just like the boy has 3 names. The monkey’s name is MonkeyBoots IronMan Jim. Quite the monkier for a little simian, don’t you think? I liked the humor in making this monkey a vest with another monkey (Julius Junior) on it.

On to other sewing adventures....
I took both my courage and my scissors in hand and cut out the pattern pieces for my pants.

I spent several hours yesterday sewing. Lessons learned or remembered quickly:

The handwoven definitely frays more than commercial fabric, so needed some type of seam treatment.
French seams are tedious and time consuming, not something I was willing to do on these pants.
Zigzag stitching was ok, but looked pretty ugly.
Overlock stitch looked better than zigzag, but was better still when I sewed both raw edges together rather than doing them individually.

I will not sew for money. Just like I won’t knit for money. I’ll do it as gifts or for myself, but that’s all. It’s not one of my favorite activities and I’m not interested in investing the kind of time and attention it needs to have a professional-looking finished product inside & out. Don’t think I could get my money back on that kind of time commitment, either.

Ok, so this morning I sewed on the waistband, made the ties, and then could try the pants on for the first time. Lessons learned the hard way:

Although I’ve never done it and doubt that I’ll start now, it makes a lot of sense to make the pattern out of muslin (or similar) first so you have an idea of fit and can make adjustments as needed.
Before getting this far, stop and think. Do I own anything similar I can lay on the bed so I can compare shapes and sizes? Don’t believe either the measurements or the pictures on the pattern.

When I sewed that vest from my handwoven fabric I made a size medium. It’s really too small. You can fudge a bit with a vest, but I sure didn’t want to make that mistake again with the pants. Plus my actual body measurements were what the pattern called large, so I made the pants large. Big mistake.

They are SO big that it’s way too much fabric bunched up at my waist, and it sticks out very unattractively in both front and back Only at this point did I realize I had been wearing a pair of drawstring waist cotton shorts, so I laid them on the bed to compare sizes.

Those pants are A LOT bigger.
So I went back to the pattern and looked at the photo on the front again.

I realize that model’s probably an extra small, but there’s NO WAY that her pants fit the way mine are cut. Even if I’d made a medium instead of the large, the legs of my pants are WAY wider than hers, and the drawstring is gathered only slightly at her waist, too. False advertising!

Now I know I could remove the waistband, take out the side seam pockets, re-cut the fabric, and re-sew. However I also know that taking out the waistband and the pockets will cause lots of fraying. While I have enough fabric to cut a whole new waistband, that’s not true for the pockets, and in reality, even it it were true, I know myself well enough to know I wouldn’t do it, and even if I did, I’d end up hating the pants for what they put me through and never wearing them anyway.

So I pinned in some pleats on one side. Would I like that better?

It’s better, but is it enough better to make them wearable? Here’s a view of the side without the pinned in pleats.

I do know this...I’m not going to make a decision and implement it in time to wear these pants for the show I’ve got this weekend. I’m also not going to blindly use the top pattern for my planned top; I may not use it at all.

I’m fed up. I’m tired from lack of sleep. I’m going to put away the sewing machine, put everything else in a bag or bin, and watc some mindless TV for a while.

June 22nd, 2016 | 

What was I thinking?

 Weaving was progressing smoothly and rather rapidly. I finished 1/3 of the warp on the first day, and on the next I was past 115′′ All of a sudden, the light bulb went off in my head. I couldn’t make pants out of the fabric I was weaving! It was far too loose for this pants!

So I started weaving anew, now packing it much more densely. You can see from the photo that after that decision I struggled to make the weave consistent...some areas are more closely woven than others. This got better as I went along, but was a challenge throughout.

The good news is that I can most likely use the more loosely-woven fabric to make a top. The pattern I bought for the pants als has a simple top pattern.

The bad news is that I’ll have to wind another warp to make up the length I need. Sigh. The good news is that I have enough yarn to do so.

June 16th, 2016 | 

Unintended design elements

I finished that warp of 3 scarves shown recently on the loom. I used an undyed ring-spun bamboo warp and 3 colors for weft. Above is my favorite, an olive tencel.

I had wanted to keep the scarves all bamboo, but don’t have much in my stash (and am not buying more yarns, remember?), so first tried with a bit of hand painted bamboo left over from a project.

IMHO the variation in the weft detracts from the lace pattern.

It’s unusual that I re-thread the loom in the middle of a run of three scarves, but I decided to here. The threading and treadling were things I had adapted from a draft in Strickler’s 8-Shaft Patterns book (#625). I was proud of myself for figuring out to to change the draft to a skeleton tie up, since Strickler showed it with 12 treadles and I only have 10. With a skeleton tie up you have to step on two (or more) treadles at once for each pick. Anyway, after 2 of these lace diamonds I wanted to thread and treadle for the original, which was more triangles or steps of light and dark lace. For this one I chose a sienna tencel weft.

This scarf has some unintended ‘design elements.’ I saw the first when I was already half way through the weaving. I had left out a 6-unit treadling sequence! Here’s a close up.

The red arrow shows how I’d been doing it wrong, having a maximum of 4 units of white lace showing. The black arrow shows how I should have been treadling, working up to 5 units of white lace showing.

Once I discovered my error I thought about it for a while. No way was I going to unweave almost 40′′, and I didn’t have enough length on the loom to simply start again. I decided that I didn’t think it would impact on the fabric’s stability, and since I had been entirely consistent, I’d keep weaving it ‘wrong.’

The second unintended ‘design element’ was that the sienna tencel bled into the bamboo fringe a bit. I’m calling it an ombre effect.

Marlene asked me how I threaded the loom for my green & white scarf, so I’m providing photos of the two different threadings here. If anyone would like a wif file (for weaving software), let me know and I’ll email you directly.

On the rodent front, this morning I poured about a pint of white vinegar down the hole, with no noticeable impact. Tonight I’ll do the rest of the quart. Next I’ll probably try buying moth balls and putting them in the hole. I really don’t want to use poison, because it’s passed on to whatever prey animal(s) end up with a poisoned carcass. Trapping? Possible, but I’d sure hate to catch a neighborhood pet in a rat trap. Hav-A-Heart trap? I don’t know, but I’d have to buy/borrow one. If I believed it was bunnies, chipmunks, or even squirrels I’d just look the other way. But I can’t bring myself to do that if it’s a rat, possum, groundhog, or skunk. (I highly doubt the last as there’s no ‘perfume’ around.) Your ideas on convincing the critter to move on?

June 7th, 2016 | 

So soft and cozy

Why was rayon chenille calling to me during a warm spell in late May? There are, in fact, good reasons.

I’d purchased many cones of the luscious stuff over a year ago when it was on sale. I couldn’t do anything about it when was weaving baby wraps pretty much full time.
Almost all my yarn is stored in clear plastic bins. The colors of this chenille are so saturated, so rich, that looking at them for more than 12 months was almost torture. Now that I have time to do something with them, I just had to.

I am committed to stash busting. I’ve been doing a pretty good job of it, emptying some shelves and/or bins so that I can see what’s there and use it up. I’ve been exercising my will power not buying more to, for instance, do more rep weave with that filler I did buy recently, even though I was really tempted.
Although I do have some rayon chenille shawls in my stash, they’ve been here for a while and aren’t calling to either me or my customers. I have a few shows in the offing where I think I can sell shawls, even though it’ll be summer, if they’re stunningly beautiful. At least that’s what I’m hoping.

So I warped for three shawls and wove them all. Each a bit different, as is my custom. I’d love to do three more, but I’m trying something else now. More on these later....

Meanwhile, I felt better about those braided twill scarves when I realized that I dyed them in the first class, when I didn’t really know what I was doing in terms of color choices or length of the colors. I’m hoping they appeal to someone, although they are not my best work.

I’ve also been enjoying my garden. My veggies now include potatoes (less than 1/3 sprouted), peas (first flowers now appearing), kale (recently thinned well), carrots (thinned yesterday, but poorly), yellow beans and green beans (one of which the bunnies nipped already), tomatoes & peppers, yellow straightneck squash, sugar cube melon, and latest planting – Brussels sprouts! Never grew many of these veggies before, so am excited to see how they do this year.

Gave Jack a short haircut, which I think he really likes, am figuring out how to keep him and my house cool without using the air conditioning, loving doing laundry and hanging it on the line, watching/playing with my grandkids, and generally living the good life. And you???

June 3rd, 2016 | 

Going public

 Does the scarf in that spread look familiar? It’s my cityscape scarf, published in the new Handwoven magazine. This article wa 11 months in the making, from me watching a webinar on how to submit to the magazine, to having the scarf accepted as a concept, to having it published. In between, the USPS lost the scarf in the mail for a month, making me crazy. But it all worked out in the end. If you can’t bear not reading it, here’s a PDF of the article.

I also just got notice of my acceptance in this year’s Clothesline Festival. Now that I live in Rochester I wanted to get into this well-respected show, so was holding my breath that I’d be accepted. I think this will be a predominantly new audience for me. You can get details on this and the other shows I’ll be doing this year on my website.

A few weeks ago I showed you a braided twill scarf on the loom. It took a while for me to get them fringed, wet finished, presse and photographed, but here you go.

I thought I’d done a better job of color changes on this warp...they’re still too long. And that pink is garish. Sigh.

Anyway, from left to right the weft colors are red-purple, medium blue, and forest green. The blue is by far my favorite of the three. The close ups of these scarves, showing the front and back of each, are pretty dramatic.

I also finished the baby blankets. Although I’ve previously done a polyester satin binding because I know babies like that smooth & silky feel, I’ve been told by others that it can tend to reduce the perceived value of a handwoven baby blanket. So this time I used a cotton weft for a rolled hem, putting a ‘tag’ made of that binding material at each corner for baby’s fingers to grab and rub.

Closing with color....here are the appetizers I made for my daughter’s Memorial Day party. Green & red peppers topped with a ‘stuffing’ of neufchatel cheese, lemon juice & lemon zest, black pepper, & almond meal, finished with toasted slivered almonds.

May 30th, 2016 | 

Making new

I’ve been working on a variety of fronts. Although I don’t have any good pics at the moment, I’ve made plenty of progress in my new gardens. In addition to raiding my daughter’s garden I found two local people with perennial gardens they were dividing, an got lots of things: crocus, English primrose, hosta, lady fern, bleeding heart, echinacea, perennial forget-me-not, and more; even some clematis. My crabtree is doing its maiden flowering, and my tulips look very pretty. I’ll try to get pics of it all soon. Meanwhile I have taken pictures of some of the beautiful flowering trees I see on my walks.

I ordered some cotton rep filler, and when it came couldn’t wait to get started on a new set of mug rugs for my booth; I haven’t had any in a few years.

The warp only gave me 5 mug rugs instead of the 8 I’d planned, so I quickly warped up a second length and did 5 more.

Here are both sets finished. Sooooo much nicer than my first attempt at rep weave. Although I’m quite pleased with them, we’ see if they sell.

Next I decided what to do with another hand painted warp. This time I went back to my first dye class and am using a rayon war and weft. I’ve always been intrigued by braided twills, and this one is different – and better – than a draft I used before. This one is from Carol Strickler’s 8-Shaft Pattern Book, #381-4.

The treadling looks more complex than it is. However, I’ve learned something new in the weaving of this scarf. I have to back up a bit to tell the story....

When I moved into my new home I got a belated birthday present from my daughter and her hubby: a new Sonos system. I love it and use it all the time to listen to NPR and podcasts. But my old Mac was too old and couldn’t speak to the Sonos so I couldn’ listen to my music on it. And I didn’t really have the space to set up my old system: receiver, CD player, tape deck, and big speakers. So it all went up to the attic till I got a new computer. I did that about a month ago when I got my income tax return.

But when I sat down to load my music into the new computer, lo, a CD drive is no longer standard, and I hadn’t paid attention and asked for one. My high tech son-in-law came through once again, lending me his external CD drive. It sat on my kitchen table for at least 2 weeks before I plugged it in and got to work. (The impetus to begin will be revealed in another post. Are you curious now?)

The process is SOOOOO easy. And fast. I’ve gotten through several dozen discs yesterday and today. I must say I’m LOVING listening to my music again! I’d forgotten how much I like my music!

So what’s this have to do with weaving? Well, I can’t sing along to my favorite tunes and simultaneously pay attention to what m feet are doing. I’ve had to do a fair amount of unweaving. Fortunately I’ve caught the mistakes after a maximum of 6-8 pics each time, but still. I’ll have to figure out a reasonable balance between music and treadling: how complex can the treadling be i I want to sing along?

May 13th, 2016 | 

Bit the bullet

 After thinking about it for literally 3 months, on Friday I bit the bullet and put scissors to my handwoven fabric for the first time. I planned the warp in November and wove it in December, and then the fabric sat on my dresser waiting for me to get the nerve. And find a pattern that I liked. But mostly get the nerve. Friday was the day. No more procrastination.

It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough for my first attempt. The biggest problem is the bulk in the seams. I couldn’t trim and clip the seams because I was too fearful of the handwoven fabric fraying if I did. Next time – and there will be a next time because I hav more fabric from this warp with a different weft and weave – I’ll first research how others handle this problem.

I’m going to buy a black frog closure for the center front. In this vest the warp is unmercerized cotton, the weft is rayon chenille. lined the vest with violet polyester satin. Very slippery and not so easy to handle, but I love the color, more vibrant than it appea in the photo.

Never one to let the grass grow under my feet, while I was waiting for the needed tube of baby blue yarn to arrive I put another o my handpainted warps on the loom. I liked the twill blocks so well in the silk that I used a similar design for the rayon.

I used a different weft color on the each of the 3 scarves. Now that they’re off the loom, the first one is far and away my favorite. I’ll show you all of them after they’re fringed and wet finished. That’ll be a bit away; the needed yarn arrived today so I’ll start on the baby wrap warp tomorrow.

March 23rd, 2016 |