We're Baaack!!!

The last month or two have been hectic times around here, so my apologies to my regular readers for my absence! My sister-in-law was visiting from Australia and we were constantly on the go, showing her the sights of Vancouver Island. The rest of the time has been spent on never ending landscaping, but oh, how beautiful it’s all beginning to look!

The 2/8 Tencel warp that I had on the loom was a study in frustration and although I did manage to get one of the two planned scarves woven; I must admit that I gave into my annoyance and cut the rest of the warp off the loom without weaving it! This turned out to be a decision I’ve since regretted…..the pattern is stunning! It's a 12 shaft advancing twill.

This shows the light and dark sides of the scarf.

I was having constant selvedge challenges and it was slowing me down while watching the selvedges for mouse nibbles. I’ve since discovered the culprit was the tension on my end feed shuttle.

I regularly walk around ‘Lily Louet’ my 12 shaft countermarche loom, and tighten up all the screws but I never check my end feed shuttles! My friend Susan at Thrums, suggested that tension could be the problem and she was absolutely right; while I was weaving miles and miles of warp it was getting looser and looser, to the point that my weft was pulling out very sloppily and causing this problem. It’s fixed now!

I’ve very hurriedly taken a few photos of the scarf and they really don’t do it justice. This scarf is sooooo amazingly iridescent and I just couldn’t capture it in this light.

This is such a beautiful scarf but I’m not thrilled with the selvedges so it’s going to be mine, mine, mine! I love the colour combination and I will weave again but I may choose a lighter azure blue to really showcase the iridescence.

On a completely other track, I received a shipment of silk and 50/50 wool/silk in the mail a few weeks ago which I ordered from Superior Carpet Mills who are selling off ‘mill ends’.  If any of you are in Canada and would like their contact information, just email me and I'll pass it on.

I received 4 pounds of silk and 3.5 pounds of 50/50 wool/silk blend  the idea is so that I can use my silk stash which is in very bright colours as well as my handspun yarn stash.

I had requested grey, silver and cream and sent them paint chips with yarn samples for a colour match. Luckily they still had these colours in stock.

My request for grey blue, grey green and navy unfortunately couldn’t be filled, so after a quick phone conversation I asked for chocolate brown and copper, which should go with much of my stash...hopefully!