Monday, February 1, 2010

Twill Gamp for Eight Shafts

A week or so before the Winter Olympics and many parts of British Columbia are having the warmest winter on record! We have NO SNOW and plenty of sunshine, it's feeling very Marchlike out there! I took this photo of the sky because it looked like my Network Twill scarves!

This week I found myself with both of my looms empty! This is a rare thing for me, so I used the time to give them a bit of a tune up before I put warps on them. It was completely amazing how loose some of the wing nuts had become!
Jane the table loom got loaded with a warp made from 4/8 Natural Linen; my intention is to work on a few ‘Weaver manipulated Rug’ samples for the GCW test. So far all I have done is 4 rows of weft twining as an edge protector…..not my favourite type of weaving and I’ll be waffling around with this for some time, but at least I have the warp ready and waiting.Lily got loaded with 2/22 Cottolin for another test piece, the Eight Shaft Twill Gamp. It must be in defined blocks showing 4 or more twill threadings, with 8 or more twill treadlings. I chose to use white cottolin for the piece with 4 picks of lilac for my separators. I’m using celery green for the weft and it’s coming out very fresh and spring like. The colours really make me happy and I must admit that the patterns are pretty nice too. Unfortunately my photos don’t capture the colour at all well.For my first treadling block I have separate leg M & W threading, treadled as drawn in.
This is a Snowflake twill treadled M & W.
This is a modified Rosepath treadled M & W.
And finally Herringbone treadled M & W. The whole piece is just a joy to do, easy; relaxing weaving that is only spoilt by my having to measure every ½ inch to ensure that my ppi are the same as my epi. So far so good! I’ve been knitting in the evenings and have just finished these socks for my sister’s birthday on February 14th! Yup she’s a Valentines baby….as a matter of fact everyone of my siblings were born on a ‘special’ day and my parents were married on Christmas Eve – quite spooky isn’t it?
I’ve also knitted these wrist warmers for Ngaire. These are made from handspun baby alpaca that I space dyed with Kool Aid in the microwave….They have half thumbs to keep them in place and are a great idea for when full mitts are just too warm.

6 comments:

Life Looms Large said...

Lots of nice stuff going on!! I love your weavable sky!!

You've made some very spring-like color choices....love it!!

That's cool that your family has birthdays on special days. Very interesting!!

Maybe I can send some of our snow your way for the Olympics. A lot of big storms have missed us far to the south, which is even weirder.

Stay warm!!

Sue

Marion B. said...

Hi Lynette,

Your weaving looks nice, When I started out weaving, years ago,I wove a 4 shaft sampler. I still have it as a table cloth for my garden table.
But I'm, by far, not as experienced like you are. So I enjoy your stories about weaving very much.

dorothylochmaben said...

Lynnette - I love the test piece and the colours look very fresh. What a lot of work to be done on this programme ! Do you ever get to weave something for yourself ?
Dorothy

Delighted Hands said...

Amazing to me; I have never seen a sampler woven like that-just beautiful! Love your knitting, too! My fav are toe up but I only do a short row heel, I have instructions for doing it the way in the pic and should give it a try.

charlotte said...

The twill sampler is lovely! I love twill, it has so many possibilities for variation. I look forward to see the rug samples. Perhaps we should send you a bit of cold? We have had very low temperatures in Norway all January, actually firing wood is now imported from the Baltic, since Norwegian wood stocks are used up. Fortunately, we have still left a lot of our own firing wood.

Theresa said...

Love the socks and the gamp looks great! I am sure the wrist warmers will be much loved too. I need to get a pair done for myself.
I was reading that they are trucking in snow because it was too warm to even make it. Is that still the case?
Warm winter here too. I suspect an ElNino, seems every number of years the Pacific gets a warm flow and passes it on with warmer weather on the left coast.