Weaving for the Holidays

While certainly not exclusively for the holidays by any means, these handwoven cashmere & silk scarves are such a lovely, rich color, they make me think of the mid-winter holiday season. Hopefully people who come to either the Roycroft Winter Festival and my local Holiday Show think so, too.

I again tried a new huck lace pattern – the one at the bottom of the picture. And again, I much prefer the old standby of Swedish Lace, at the top. The lace diamonds don’t show up in the bottom until you view it at just the right angle, and it doesn’t do the lacy thing anywhere near as well as the Swedish Lace blocks. But I’d never have known that without trying it.

So I wound a warp for three scarves, threaded up for the new huck lace diamonds, and wove the first scarf. Even while I was weaving I knew it wouldn’t be one of my favorites, so I cut it off and totally re-threaded heddles and reed, and wove the last two in the Swedish Lace blocks.

November 22nd, 2011 

Lacy Handwoven Silk Scarves

Being an early riser, I have a few minutes before I have to leave for the show this morning, so will sneak this post in.

I knew I only had two handwoven silk scarves left after Elmwood, so wanted to give my customers at least one more option. I had enough dusty rose silk left to weave two more, and chose alternating blocks of Swedish Lace. I sett this 20/2 yarn at 18 end per inch, and was off and running.

They worked up quickly. As usual, I made these handwoven lace scarves on my counterbalance loom.
I was pleased with the results, and quite surprised when I saw how clear and lovely the color was in comparison to the last/first

time I’d used this yarn in the gray twill blocks – it really muddied the color more than I realized.

I thought that would be all I’d have time for before the show, but had a whole day left (woo hoo!), so decided to weave a few more cashmere silk scarves, too. I intended to weave two, but my habit got the better of me in measuring the warp – when I finished winding the last bit, I realized I’d measured for three. No problem. Put three on the loom, and if I can only get two done, that’s fine; I’ll just cut them off and weave the third when I return home.

OCD me of course got all three woven.

Two of them are an all-over huck lace pattern, one is a woven with huck spots. I’m less thrilled with the look of that one. Spot Bronson would be a much better choice for spots, but of course my loom was already threaded for huck. The lavender color is much nicer in person than in this picture, which makes them look more gray.

Ok, now you’ve seen them all, and I have to get ready to leave the house.

Your turn: is the weather as gorgeous where you are as it is here this September weekend? Sunny and warm – great!

September 11th, 2011 

Where does the time go?

 How is it possible that another 10 days have passed without a blog post? Answer: I’ve been really busy.

Last weekend I had another great show in Buffalo. People were particularly interested in my scarves on Sunday, when the weather was cooler.

And next weekend I have another big show – Clothesline in Rochester.. So now I have to weave, weave, WEAVE! I’ve gotten six scarves done in the last 4 days, and will put a warp for 3 more on my loom today. I’ve taken a few days off my paycheck job to give me more time. The new scarves are in the drying process, so haven’t been photo’d yet, but I can show you a few more things I finished before the Elmwood Ave. show last weekend.

First I finished the two purple & silver mohair scarves I’d put on the rigid heddle loom for the Chautauqua show. I do love how these scarves look, and am getting better at wet finishing them in soft-as-a-cloud delights. Many other people agreed, so I simp re-created the one I’d woven in May.

I knew I needed to stock up on some cashmere silk blend scarves, so I started with the light blue. I would have made 3 of them, as is my usual fashion, but I only had enough of the blue yarn to warp for 2.

I put a cream stripe down the center, and wove lace along both edges. I think they’re lovely. Interestingly, although I did sell four handwoven cashmere silk scarves last weekend, these were not among them. That’s not a problem, just a comment.

I also had some black cashmere silk yarn that I hadn’t used yet, so I could definitely warp for 3 of those. And did. (Warning to non-weavers: weaving terminology follows. Simply skip down to below the picture if you don’t want to read this part.)

I decided this was a great opportunity to try something I’d been wanting to do since the MAFA workshop in July – name drafting in overshot. Since I was only making a scarf and wanted to have a reasonable number of repeats, I didn’t want to use my entire business name – second wind weaving – so just used the first two words. I played with star fashion vs. rose fashion and an assortment of assignment strategies, ultimately choosing a standard arrangement in rose fashion. I really like the visual.

I used a gray silk for the pattern on the black cashmere, making a border that’s about 4′′ wide. The rest of the scarf is plain weave. I enjoyed weaving the border.

It is funny to me how I forget things. When I wove the first border on the first scarf, I was being very careful to follow the pattern correctly, and used a very light beat. After I got my border done I thought my beat was too light — the fibers weren’t packed in tightly enough — and the pattern was therefore more vertically oval than round. I had to make the other end of this scarf the same, so used the same light beat.

For the second scarf, I beat the pattern in more firmly, making the pattern more rounded. Looked great to me. Until, of course, I took them off the loom and wet finished. DUH!! Of course those vertical ovals on the loom reverted to circles when they were released from the tension of the loom, and circles on the loom became horizontal ovals. I think only a weaver would notice these details, it just made me chuckle.

So here are the two scarves.

I really like them, both on the loom and off, but can’t decide if they’re classy scarves or grandma scarves.

I had planned to make the 3rd scarf different – no border and a lace treadling. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do it. I found the black yarn to be problematic from the beginning. Lots of broken warp threads, something that hasn’t happened with any of the other colors I’ve used. However, I did have the same experience with black rayon chenille last year, and did some online research tha told me that black yarn can be troublesome. A solid black can be a challenging color to achieve in dyes, and as a result, it can sometimes weaken the fiber.

I was clearly having that problem. By the time I’d gotten to the end of the second scarf, I was fixing lots of warp threads. That was enough of a pain, but the yarn along the selvedges was become really troublesome. As a result my selvedges were thick and uneven. I tried several strategies to try to correct it, all unsuccessful. I ultimately decided it was better to cut off the 2 scarve and waste the rest of this lovely fiber than waste my time weaving a scarf I was not going to be happy with that was not going to be saleable.

After this frustration, I needed to weave something quick and easy. So I put on a narrow warp (42 ends) of cotton and wove 25 bookmarks. I used a periwinkle overshot threading, an assortment of weft yarns, and an array of treadling patterns.

September 2nd, 2011 

Eggshell Cotton Huck Lace

 My eggshell cashmere silk scarves were a failure, at least as far as being saleable. So I combined my customers’ requests for white or eggshell scarves and their desire for cottons into one product.

After my recent experience with the 5/2 handpainted Egyptian cotton, I knew that I wanted to sett the eggshell cotton farther apart than the 15 ends per inch I used then. I also wanted to make them be handwoven lace, because that would help with softness and drape. Lace weaves need to be sett and beat loosely, so I took a gulp and set the neutral 5/2 pearl cotton at 12 ends per inch. I threaded the loom for an all over huck, and sat down to weave.

I LOVE THESE SCARVES!

They’re soft drape really well for cotton. The color and lace provide a very classic look; the cotton ensures great versatility. I’ll be amazed if they don’t sell at the Roycroft summer show this weekend. I’m sure I’ll be making more of these. (Hope I don’t end up eating those words.)

Like with most of my handwoven lace, I made these scarves on my delightful little counterbalance loom. It is totally possible to weave with 3 shafts against 1 on a counterbalance. It just takes a bit more care, since the shed (the opening where you pass th shuttle through) isn’t as large.

No, once again I didn’t sample these scarves. I am much more confident when I’m working on my little loom. We operate on the same mental plane, and I just knew this one would work.

June 24th, 2011 

Cracked Eggshell Scarves

One of the things people wanted at the Kenan show was more scarves in white or eggshell. I’d ordered the silk in white, and thought I’d get it in time to weave with it, so wanted to make something in eggshell.

I recently bought some eggshell cashmere & silk yarn, so perfect. I decided to try a new lace pattern in a diamond shape. I wanted to use a 7-thread huck instead of my usual 5-thread huck, and combined those two ideas. I sett the yarn at 18 ends per inch, which is the sett I used for all the cashmere silk lace scarves I’ve made, all of them successful.

These scarves may look ok in the picture (I chose what parts to show you, after all), but using the three new ideas in combination was a recipe for disaster. There wasn’t enough plain weave surrounding the lace for stabilization. The 7-thread huck had floats that were too long at this sett. And the Macomber, which I had to use for the pattern, is hard on the cloth on the cloth beam when I advance it. So all in all, the scarf is a failure and can’t be sold. (It’s the scarf on the left in the picture.)

So since I’d warped for two scarves, I decided to make some changes for the second scarf. I modified the treadling to make the pattern more stable, adding much more plain weave in the pattern. The scarf on the right is much more stable, but...

...there’s one place on the scarf that the Mac really smushed the weft threads together. I could not fix it in the wet finishing, so this scarf, too, is unsaleable.

Poop. I think I’d better start changing my attitude about sampling, don’t you?

June 20th, 2011

Weaving Catch Up

Yes, I’ve been gardening, mowing the lawn, and making jelly, but I’ve also been weaving. What I haven’t been doing is blogging So I’m going to cram the last 3 warps into one post.

First I wove three scarves in some of Tammy’s hand painted 8/2 Tencel, in a colorway she calls Silver Linings. I used this last summer and it was popular, so decided to make some more.

These scarves have a huck lace ‘windows’ border. At least I call them huck windows. I’m sure there’s a correct name, but I don’t know what it is. I like the various versions of huck, but this is the one I use the most.

Next I went back to working with cashmere-silk yarn. My first big show of the season is coming right up — 100 American Craftsmen at the Kenan Center next weekend — and I decided I really needed to expand my cashmere-silk stock. I’d recently ordered more, and tried a few new colors. One of them was an interesting green – sort of a sage-y spring green.

I’ve woven huck blocks plenty of times before; this time I decided to change it up and make the blocks alternating sizes. I find th design aesthetically pleasing. As usual, I made this handwoven lace on my counterbalance loom.

Then I decided to make some cashmere silk scarves using two different colors. I spent quite a bit of time in front of my compute working out designs. The options are endless, time isn’t. So I ultimately settled on a relatively simple design that’s sections of plain weave alternating with bands of twill in a second color. I had to use my Macomber for this, as I needed 6 harnesses – 2 for the plain weave and 4 for the twill.

I set the yarn at 18 ends/inch, just as I do with this fiber for my huck lace, and started weaving. 18EPI was far too loose. Even after wet finishing, the fabric is entirely unstable.

This was a case when it was totally inappropriate not to sample. Anyway, I cut it off the loom and re-threaded the reed, this time at 24 EPI.

They worked up fine at this sett, but I made notes that it could have been even closer.

I’m working on a batch of 2 scarves in rayon in the same threading and treadling pattern, using 3 colors. I need to get them off today so I can twist the fringe and have them ready for this weekend’s show.

May 30th, 2011 

Jelly Guessing Game

I'm betting you won't guess what kind of jelly I made here. It's a brand new thing for me -- not making jelly, but making this kind. Here's a hint - it can only be made in the spring.

When you're ready to know the answer, go to my new blogsite.