Shrugging along

 I really like making the mobius wraps, and my customers seem to like them, too. I’ve wanted to expand beyond straight flat pieces for a while, and mobiuses (mobii?) was my foray. Next up for me are some shrugs. Again, weave something flat and sew just a few straight seams to turn it into something else.

In the use-up-the-stash mode, I wound a warp long enough for 2 shrugs, starting with 5/2 pearl cotton and moving to some hand painted (not by me) bamboo-cotton blend I’ve had for some time. I really like the way the warp looks going on the loom.

I decided to use an undulating twill I like and sett the warp at 18 ends per inch. For the first shrug I used a natural 5/2 pearl cotton. Although this isn’t a great photo, I like it the overall look.

I have very little 5/2 left, so for the second am using 2 strands of 8/2 black tencel. Ooo la la!

Eager to get these off the loom, wet finished and sewn.

September 2nd, 2018 | 

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 learning going on

 Warning – long post. Read at your own risk.

Apparently lot has happened in the last week. As soon as I got that black & white shawl warp on the Macomber and saw that there was a loom problem, I dyed a tencel warp for a run of 3 scarves. I wanted the blue-violet and periwinkle I’d used before, s pulled out my formulas and set to work. The colors going on the tencel looked just as they should...that is, just like I thought the had last time. But as the dyes batched, soaked, rinsed, and dried, my brain was confused. Where was the blue violet? And where the periwinkle?

That is red-violet and turquoise/teal. So I went back to my sample that I’d dyed using this formula. Yep, they were the same colors as what I had here. While those colors are very nice, there is no blue-violet and no periwinkle. Perhaps those were the colors I was going for when I created the formula, but they’re not the colors I got. Yet I never re-named my notes or my samples DOH! Still I think the warp is beautiful, so it’s all okay.

While I was waiting for the Macomber parts to be ordered and shipped, as planned I got a towel warp on the counterbalance loom. I opted for a red-based bumberet. In the must-use-stash mode, I chose color combos outside my general comfort zone. Here it is on the loom, with the first towel I wove, using a red weft.

That was too much bright red for me. I used a white weft next and really liked the way it muted the colors, so wove 2 towels of that. Then I wanted to use that peach/coral color that was also prevalent, but didn’t have enough left for even one towel, so matched it the best I could. Next I used one of the dark blues in the towel, then a cranberry. Here’s the batch of them.

Interestingly, now I like the red. Not as well as the lighter colored wefts, but definitely better than the darker colored ones. The cranberry one is too short to be a towel – not enough warp on the loom – so I’ll hang onto that for generic kitchen use.

In between weaving the towels I also finished weaving the warp that I’d put on my rigid heddle loom for demonstrations at the July show. Since I generally weave with relatively fine yarns, I have a challenge finding yarns in my stash that work well on the rigid heddle loom. So this time I thought I’d try a thick-ish variegated sock yarn in the knitting stash.

Looked nice, but O.M.G., what a pain to weave! The yarn was loosely spun, and the movement of the heddle kept abrading it. After a few broken warp threads I got wise and used the heddle only to raise and lower the warp threads, packing the weft in wit a weaving sword that I’d fashioned a few years ago out of a paint stick.
Fancy, eh? But it was with me at the show, and it worked. Not a great demonstration of what the loom could really do, but this was another live and learn situation.

First I used an orange rayon chenille weft for a long scarf.

Then a red rayon chenille weft for a cowl.

Moving on...you know that saying that no good deed goes unpunished? This next segment is like that. I suggested an ice-dying activity for a winter evening meeting for my Guild. Would I teach it? Um...sure. However, since I’d never actually done it, I’d nee to practice and work out some kinks.

First I dyed two little Tshirts for my youngest grandson. This was a test of whether it was better to use the dyes in powder form o after they’d been mixed with liquid. I was hoping the liquid would be just as effective, since I didn’t want to have to deal with the powders with a group of people, as they’d all have to wear masks.

Here are the Ts after I’d sprinkled on the dyes. Red & orange were sprinkled on dry, blue & green after mixing with liquid.

The next morning, after the ice had all melted, they looked like this.

After that I rinsed till clear, then washed and dried with other laundry and a color catcher. The reds are quite nice, I think.

The blues & greens, not so much.

Ok, so we’ll use powered dyes. (Or maybe I mixed them with a bit too much liquid...that’s for the next experiment.)

Then I realized that I’d planned on using little silk scarves I’d purchased for this process. But uh oh, silk needs to be steamed for the colors to set. No way will everyone who takes home a scarf covered with ice and dye at the end of an evening meeting have a dye-dedicated steamer at home. So next up was a test to see if other heating methods worked as well. Three little scarves are under this ice and dye.

After the ice melted, I steamed one and let the other two dry on the line in the basement. Then I tossed one in my dryer for about 20 minutes, and pressed the other with my iron set on silk. After that I rinsed all three scarves – it didn’t appear that any color ran at all.

An apparently successful experiment. Here are all 3 scarves after pressing.

Personally, I prefer the top one, with the most variation in color, but that’s a function of how it was in the container when I put the dye on, nothing to do with the method used to set the color.

Next experiment, which I’ll be doing with a few friends, is to try koolaid and other food dyes, and also to use both some cottons and some silks. That won’t happen till September, so the learning will continue. Glad the evening meeting isn’t until winter!

August 9th, 2018 | 

Elephant jokes

When I was a kid, elephant jokes got very popular for a time. In case that wasn’t happening when & where you were, here are a few I remember.

Q. What’s red & white on the outside and gray & white on the inside? A. A can of Campbell’s Cream of Elephant soup.

Q. How can you tell if an elephant has been in your refrigerator? A. You’ll see his footprints in the cheesecake.

Not good, huh?
Again, maybe just where I grew up, but the elephant jokes transitioned into nun jokes.

Q. What’s black & white & gray? A. Sister Mary Elephant.

That’s the nicest one I can remember.
So why am I posting about bad elephant and nun jokes? Because of my dyeing, specifically my black and white and gray dyeing

It took some days longer than I’d anticipated to get my warp bouts wound for the shawl, and then more days to find the time and energy to dye them.

I was quite surprised when I took them out of the ‘scour’ bath (soda ash and Dawn) to find these odd yellow blotches on the yar Fortunately it washed/rinsed out.

Then I laid them on my table in the basement and set about dyeing. Oops! Had to stop mid-stream and run to the store since I ran out of saran wrap, darn it!

Got it finished, remembered to wind tiny bouts of both natural silk and 10/2 gray cotton to see (a) how the dye would take on the silk and (b) if I might like the gray & black as an alternative to white & black. Interestingly, the silk and cotton both took the color the same
as the tencel. Hmmmm. Not what I expected.

Did my usual steaming of the wrapped yarn, then soaked it all for 12 hours in a 5-gallon bucket of water.

Took it out of that bucket, only to see that there was a LOT of red on the yarn where the dye ‘broke.’ I have no problem with the dye breaking on this, and in fact got some comments from customers that they like the color variation, but this was most definitely too much red. So I rinsed quite a bit, then put it into 3 large dishpans with a little bit of Dawn to soak for another 12 hours.

After that second 12 hours and plenty more rinsing, the red is virtually gone. Thankfully. But when I was hanging it to dry, I couldn’t help but think of those old elephant and nun jokes.

July 22nd, 2018 | 

Quick, quick, slow

I think that’s the mantra when they teach people to dance some type of classic dance...quick, quick, slow. Might be the two-step Or not.

Anyway, this is post is about things that move quickly and things that move slowly.

Last post I promised photos of the 4 scarves I’d woven at the end of June. First up is a scarf in which I successfully used ladder ribbon as a supplemental warp.

I’d tried using ladder ribbon before and hated it. I’d also tried some supplemental warps before, not successfully. I had to try again, with both, after a recent Guild meeting when a fellow weaver showed some yardage she’d made. I asked lots of questions, and she told me the draft was in a Handwoven magazine (November/December 2000).

I got my hands on this issue, copied the appropriate pages, and then made a bunch of changes to the draft. I only warped my loom for 1 scarf, since I wasn’t at all sure I’d like it. I used 10/2 cotton, sett at 24 EPI. Winding, beaming, and weaving all went rather quickly.

I’m not overly fond of the colors, but will use a similar draft in the future, both with more of the ladder ribbon and some other ribbons I have.

Then I warped my loom with my last batch of handpainted yarn, this one being the blue-green tencel. I threaded the loom for Tara Oftenorth’s snakeskin variant, and wove the first scarf with a medium blue weft. I love it.

Just because I could, I added some sweet little beads to the fringe.

Next up I used an odd, bright green rayon weft I’ve had forever. This yarn is definitely not my favorite color, which is why I’ve ha it forever. But it worked perfectly with this warp.

I had enough warp left for a short cowl. After auditioning several different colors of weft, I returned to the odd green since it worked so well. I modified the treadling to be a simple zigzag pattern.

After picking and making some more cherry stuff, I went back to the loom. I decided to use just one motif at a time for my transparency, not drafting out a cartoon for its entire length. This will both save time and hopefully make the actual weaving a bit less cumbersome. It’ll also be a bit less planned, and hopefully that will work well.

My sister was interested in how I wove the transparency. When I explained it to her, and that I needed several ‘bundles’ of yarn each color, she was a bit amazed. I thought I’d take a photo of weaving in process so everyone could see it in all its messy glory S.L.O.W.

Since there are lots of ends to weave in, I decided that given my temperament I was better off to do that for each rose as I finished it, not waiting till it was all off the loom and I’d have about a gazillion ends staring at me. Again, S.L.O.W.

You’re seeing the wrong side of the weaving there. That’s the side I work from. So here’s an in-process snap of the right side.

Completely unrelated to weaving, on my walk the other morning I came across these infested leaves on the sidewalk. I have no idea what kind of creature was living in these ‘bumps’ nor was I going to bring one home and watch it. So your input on the nature of this phenomenon will be appreciated.

Gotta get back to work. I still have to warp my rigid heddle loom for demos this weekend. I’m planning to use a variegated thick- ish sock yarn. Hope it works well. I’ll wind a tiny sample on my little jig for a test of sorts.

July 11th, 2018 | Tags: cotton, hand painted yarn, handwoven scarves, rayon, tencel | Category: Weaving | Edit this post 5 comments to Quick, quick, slow

Peg Cherre
July 11, 2018 at 8:28 pm · Reply · Edit

Theresa – As long as I’m not feeling pressure to produce for shows, I’m okay with moving as slowly as

transparencies require. At least for now. Wouldn’t want to make a steady diet of it. And although green is not my color (makes my skin look, um, sick), I like to use it when I can for my customers. And I am fond of these scarves.

Helen – I never took ballroom dancing, so would trust anyone who did for the correct info. Join the other (just not me) green lovers.

Jennifer – You’re always so complimentary it embarrasses me.

Alma – Why do you think I didn’t bring that leaf home? There were LOTS of leaves with those things on them right in that area. You, too, can join the other green lovers. Thanks for the comments on the transparency. We’ll all have to wait to see what it looks like when it’s all done. Don’t hang by your toes for this one. MAYBE I can finish the weaving by the end of next week? MAYBE??

Alma
July 11, 2018 at 7:53 pm · Reply · Edit

Yuck – what are those green-onion droppings living on the leaves? It’s a cinch I don’t want to know/touch/watch any of them!

I LOVE the first scarf – with the ladder ribbons. It is beyond eye-catching!
I’m sorry to hear that the green is not your favorite color – I think I have to vote in its favor.

Now – to the roses – you explained it, you drew it, but I’m still in the land of amazement at what you have to go through to create these. They are really something else!!

Keep up the great work, Peg!

Jennifer P.
July 11, 2018 at 7:39 pm · Reply · Edit

I’m in awe, my friend.

Helen

July 11, 2018 at 6:39 pm · Reply · Edit

I think when I learnt ballroom dancing, more years ago than I care to remember, it was the slow foxtrot that went

‘slow, slow, quick, quick, slow’ Amazing what’s lurking in the back of my mind.
I think the green weft looks great but then I’m very fond of that shade of green. It’s funny how those odd cones of rayon work, I found a hot pink one in my stash recently and like yours, it was just what I needed

Theresa

July 11, 2018 at 3:48 pm · Reply · Edit

Beautiful transparency Peg! Boy, slow or not you really took to it I think. Love the funky green makes myself, but then again, green is a favorite color.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

6 for June

I’ve gotten six silk scarves woven and finished so far for June. I still intend to warp my loom with that lovely blue-green tencel I hand painted, and believe I can get it woven off pretty easily before the end of the month.

First I put on a warp of plain blue silk, threading the loom in a huck lace pattern I’ve used before. I used a slightly lighter shade o blue silk for the weft, and wove away.

After it came off the loom I decided that this was the scarf to add beads to in the fringe, and luckily found some that were perfec for it in my stash.

After this all blue scarf I decided to try and achieve some iridescence by using a red weft. I decided on a burgundy cashmere-silk blend, one that is so fine I had to use 2 strands together to approximately equal the weight of the 30/2 silk warp. It isn’t personal my favorite piece, but I hope it will call to someone else.

In this closeup you can see the lace design, and how light and airy it is, better than in the all-blue version. You can also see a bi of not-so-nice selvedge.

I obviously did something wrong in my calculations, because I thought I could get a short cowl out of this warp, too, but nope. I was at the end. So be it.

So then I put on that hand painted silk warp, the one that turned out very differently than expected.

As an aside, I asked my dye teacher about the difference in colors between the tencel and the silk, and she concurred, the two fibers dye very differently. It’s the difference between a plant fiber (tencel) and a protein fiber (silk). Still, when I showed her the photos of the two, she was shocked at just how dramatically different they were. She told me that cotton will turn out similar to tencel, as they are both cellulose based, but not the same. So, from here on, whenever I paint any fibers, I’ll make little butterflie of yarn of the other two fibers and paint them, too, to see the results. At least I’ll try to remember to do so.

I decided to thread the loom with a huck lace draft that I spent HOURS working out a few months ago. I may have blogged abou it; I can’t remember. Anyway, I had a few threading errors, which isn’t overly common for me, and had to tie some replacement heddles to fix them. I dislike tying those heddles and am far from quick at it, but it beats doing a ton of unthreading to correct errors in the middle of a piece, even when we’re only looking at about 240 threads.

I tried a medium purple silk weft that I hoped would bring out the purples I’d intended when I dyed the yarn. I had to weave several inches and then walk away from the loom to be certain, but when I came back a few hours later – YUCK! I really hated i It made what I thought were garish colors even more so, adding to the overall unpleasant look with the dark weft. Since the weft and warp were both silk, I didn’t want to waste either, so I unwove those several inches to start again. I went with the rule: black brightens other colors, gray muddies them, and white mutes them. Muting what what I wanted, so I picked a natural cashmere- silk weft, again doubled to approximate the 30/2 silk warp. I was very pleased with it as I was weaving, and with the final result.

In fact, I like the scarf well enough that I decided to spend the extra time to add a bit of pizzaz to the fringe, this time twisting tiny pearlized seed beads into each bundle of fringe.

I thought I’d planned enough warp length for one fringed scarf, one short cowl, and one long cowl. However after my experience with the blue warp (above), I figured I’d better approach the project a bit differently than usual. I wove the fringed scarf, then the short cowl so that the third piece would be as long as it could, whether that was a long or short cowl.

In my continuing desire to use up my stash, I only had a small amount of lavender cashmere-silk so decided to use that for the short cowl. This isn’t a great photo, but I’m happy with the piece.

Time for the long cowl. I decided to stick with pale wefts, and chose some 60/2 pink silk. I knew I’d need to use it doubled, and the 2 partial cones of pink I had were different shades, but I figured they’d work fine together, 1 of each. And they do.

Surprisingly, I had enough warp left for another short cowl. This time I picked baby blue 60/2 silk. I only had one partial cone of i so had to wind some onto a tube first so I could double it for weft. I really like this one, too, although again it’s not a great photo.

I just realized that none of those photos shows off the huck trellis pattern I am proud of, so here it is. Need a wif? Let me know.

So six down, three to go by the end of the month. I’ll be ahead of the game.

June 15th, 2018 | 

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 |