3rd time isn't the charm

I’m working with a friend from my book club to hold a little pop up shop between now and Christmas. We’re not sure how this wi work, how many customers we’ll get, but I know I won’t sell a thing while it’s sitting in bins in my closet, so I’m committed to tryin it. If you’re on one of my email lists, look for an email with details later today or tomorrow.

I think it’s really important for this type of thing to have a broad range of price points, so decided to (a) weave a bunch more towels (more on that in another post), and (b) do some dyeing.

First I dyed 6 pair of bamboo socks. I used some empty plastic yarn cones that had provided the best results last year, scrunching and tying the socks shibori style. I’m very happy with all the results, and am hopeful that they’ll sell.

Then I ice-dyed 6 onesies. Well. This wasn’t as successful. For the first round I was quite disappointed in how poorly the dye took on the onesies. After some time pondering this I realized I had neglected an important step – soaking the onesies in a soda ash bath. So I did that, bought more ice, and tried again. One I really liked, 3 were just ok, and 2 were unacceptable. So I soake those 2 in another soda ash bath and tried a third time. Still just ok. Don’t know if these will sell or not.

I wanted to use colors that were not obviously ‘boy baby’ or ‘girl baby.’ So greens, yellows, and reds were high on my list. The greens were the hardest to get what I wanted. In fact I still didn’t get anything close to what I wanted. Sigh.

This next photo are the ones I like better, with just 1 that sings to me – that red/dark orange onesie on the left side of the photo. am more hopeful these will sell.

I have 6 more onesies. I think I’ll try wrapping and shibori dyeing 1 or 2 and see how that works.

On the weaving front, I realize I’ve already taken one of the newer shrugs to the pop up shop, and hadn’t photographed it. Mayb I’ll snap it while I’m there this weekend.

This morning I took some shots of the other piece, although it would have been better if Dolly was still here; she’s also at the po up shop. This one isn’t a shrug, isn’t a shawl, it’s a...well, I don’t know what to call it. Your input will be appreciated.

So here it is from the front.

I used 3 buttons that I’d made last year from polymer clay. This wrap is mostly cotton with a bit of linen in the colored stripes. It i pretty heavy and warm, and therefore not as drape-able as most of my work. This looks pretty old-fashioned to me, but it is comfortable. Except that it doesn’t cover much of the back.

My daughter, who has always been infinitely more fashionable than I, particularly liked it when it was put on sideways, with the buttons roughly on one shoulder. She thought this look was fashion-forward. This is the one I could have shown it much better o Dolly.

Wearing it this way covers similar amounts of the front and back of the body.

I have to get back to work now. Busy, busy.

September 27th, 2018 | 

How I spent my...

...Tuesday afternoon. Before:

After:

Although this color – Dried Lavender at Sherwin Williams – wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, I really like it. It makes my house looks more like me. Since I plan to live here until I can’t live alone anymore, I am not concerned about what the next homeowne might think; I’m much more focused on what I like, what makes me happy. This was one more step.

I took the shutters down in the morning (with some difficulty as the old flathead screws were very rusty and I had to be careful n to strip them), then started painting at noon when my daughter and grandson left after their visit. I got 2 coats on the front door, the shutters, and the side door, and was putting things away at 5PM. Not bad for 5 hours work! This morning I got new phillips head screws for the shutters and put them back up in literally seconds per shutter.

A few days ago I also got some shots of recent weaving. So here you go.
You’d seen the flat black and white hand painted Tencel shawl. I turned one of the three into a mobius. A standard shot first.

What happens when you turn it sideways? A slightly different look. If Dolly was larger than a size 8, it would be easier to dress her differently.

And if she had arms, even more so. Photographing my shrugs well seems impossible to me. So how the heck will I display them at a show? I have no idea and am hoping you have suggestions.

Here’s the first one, with a mostly cotton warp (the hand painted parts are a bamboo-cotton blend) and a natural cotton weft.

And the second, with a black tencel weft.

Since that photo doesn’t really show it well, I tried another way. Not better, just differently not-good.

I have two more pieces woven and finished, but no photos. Next post...

September 19th, 2018 | 

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.

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