Four Shaft Twill Scarf

I have actually got a scarf warp on the loom, woven, washed, twizzled and pressed within three days! In an effort to be completely transparent, Ngaire actually did the twizzling and pressing.

This is so very unlike me it’s scary; my last warp of four tea towels sat on the loom for months while I found many a reason not to weave!

Yup, ‘one of these things is not like the other’....thank you Sesame Street for that little ditty.  It had been so long since I last used my tea towel template I forgot when to start the stripes, yet another grey moment.

I pulled on one of the pre-made hand painted warps that I prepared last summer, and frankly, I’m not sure what I was thinking when I made it.  The warp is based on sea coral 2/8 tencel; to which, for some unremembered reason I added a blue stripe before I painted it!  Why oh why?  And to make matters even worse I made two sea coral warps with blue stripes!

My next conundrum was choosing a pattern, it is such an unusual warp that I decided to keep it very simple and I chose to do a four shaft 3/1 twill.

This gave me the full show of the painted warp on one side and the weft predominant on the reverse.

I chose the same sea coral tencel for the weft in hopes of allowing the dyed side to dominate.
Dressing the loom was wonderfully easy, no long reach for that 12th shaft and a straight twill threading.  It was a real joy and went on really quickly.

I am thrilled with the result of this weave, although for some inexplicable reason it is really, really long!  The 3/1 twill had virtually no warp-wise take up.

I liked this weave so much that I immediately pulled on another painted warp, this one is loaded with colour in moss, magenta and purple on the same sea coral base.

Its raining outside as I write this, so no garden shot today, but here is a real beauty shot.

This is a tempered chocolate dome, filled with lemon cremeux, sitting on lemon curd with chocolate sponge, blueberries and roasted lemon dust!  Yup, it was totally yummy!  This just proves I watch too much Masterchef Australia!

Not quite as pretty is my first days spinning for Ravelry's Tour de Fleece.  I am taking this really seriously and have promised myself to finish the Gotland fleece by the end of the race.

Black Shawls in Frost Flower Twill

I decided to do some shawls for the shop.  I wanted to do something dramatic so I put on a black 2/8 Tencel warp.  I tried out some weft colours, two shades of gold and a red in 2/8 Tencel.

The red won!  The pattern is Frost Flowers from Twill Thrills.  Mum used the pattern a while ago to create lovely scarves and the pattern is still stunning.

I put on enough warp for two shawls and the second one is woven in silk.  The silk is a lovely purple singles that Mum plied for me on her spinning wheel.  She actually spent a night hand winding a bobbin with singles so she could have an easier time plying the silk.

An interesting thing about the Frost Flowers pattern is that the variations are created from changing the tie up not the treadling.  I changed the tie up for the second shawl and started to weave with the plied silk.

The red and black shawl is as dramatic as I hoped that it would be.  The shine and drape of the shawl is stunning.  For Sale.

The purple silk and black shawl is lovely; it has a very different feel to it.  The pattern of the red shawl is full of pointy diamonds but the purple silk shawl the major pattern is the rounded diamonds.  The purple silk has a softer feel overall.  For Sale.

Final Garden Shot is of two dwarf rhododendron (Rhododendron yakushimanum) which have lovely pink candles and white flowers and some rhubarb that is ready to be picked.

Theo Moorman Twill on Four Shafts ~ A Scarf

I have had quite a summer... full of computer angst and weaving!  My laptop which was running Windows 7 crashed and I bought a new laptop with Windows 10.  Recovering my photos and information has been an ongoing frustration.  I’m not a complete Luddite, but man, Windows 10 is very unfriendly towards older files and programs and tries to force you to keep your information on their cloud which they meter.  Hopefully, I’m back on track now, so back to weaving!

After completing my first Theo Moorman technique scarf on three shafts for the Qualicum Weavers study group (seen here) I immediately put on another scarf warp.  I was really happy with the first scarf, but the reverse side of the scarf was really plain Jane and boring.

The goal I set myself was to see if I could use the Theo Moorman technique to make a scarf that had nice drape and that also included some interest on the back side.  Usually all the fun stuff sits on the front and the back of the cloth is covered up if it’s a garment or by being placed up against a wall if it’s a hanging.

I threaded the loom using a 4 shaft 2/2 twill as the background cloth rather than the traditional plain weave.   My base warp is 2/8 tencel and the Theo Moorman tie down treads are silver lurex.

My weft is the same 2/8 tencel and the inlay section in the middle is hand spun, hand dyed silk singles. The soft spin of the silk really encourages the drape.

I was thrilled with the way the silver sparkled on the reverse side of the scarf and with the contrasting stripe of colour near the selvedge and the twill pattern, I’m calling this a winner!

I was so happy with this scarf that I contacted Handwoven Magazine and happily they asked me to send it to them.  Then the Canadian Postal strike in June made it impossible for me to make the submission deadline.  Then I had a horrible time trying to find a commercially made yarn that is the same as my hand spun....it just all became such a daunting task, I’m giving up and sharing with you instead.

This year my hardy hibiscus are all doing fantastically...Hibiscus Syriacus ‘Aphrodite’, look closely and you can see a bee inside.

Spinning~Knitting~Dyeing

A few months ago I spun a bobbin of merino wool in a colour-way called ‘Teddy Bear’.  The colours seemed to be really lovely so I plied with a very fine cashmina yarn to keep the colour transitions clear and to avoid the dreaded candy cane effect.

I wanted to get a nice spiral yarn, so I held the cashmina yarn tighter than the merino and I got a really lovely textured yarn as you can see on the niddy-noddy below.

Last week I decided to knit the skein into a short scarf and found a pattern in A Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker on page 220 called Scroll Pattern I have to say it is a truly lovely pattern.

As I was knitting along I discovered that the hand spun wasn't quite working out colour-wise.  Instead of having the lovely smooth transition from colour to colour that I was hoping for I got clearly distinct bands of colour and not in a good way. The pink and brown are great together but every once in a while a random yellow appears all by itself.

Ngaire is holding the scarf taut while I take this photo so you can see the pattern and the colours ~ this is pre wash and just off the needles so it's really sproingy.

One of the amazing things about this pattern is the reverse side ~ for a weaver this basket weave appearance is just a bonus!

Here is the scarf finished but not washed or blocked.  I’m really not happy with the colour transitions and so before I go any further with it I think a quick dunk in a dye bath is in order.  

Well, it's been a few weeks and a few changes....You can see on the photo above of the scarf, that my cast on edge and my cast off edge are really different; one frilled outward and the other curved inward ~ not a good look, so I made it a circular scarf!  And I dyed the scarf; I chose to use a blue dye bath and watered the dye down so it was just a pale wash.  My goal was to even out, but not completely obliterated the colours.

I 'frogged' the cast off edge and put the stitches on a straight needle and then did the same with my cast on edge.  Then I cast off following the pattern taking one stitch from each needle.  I think the join looks very subtle!

Here is the scarf after it was blocked and the curved edges and the pattern really show up nicely.

I'm really please with this scarf now!

8 Shaft Advancing Networked Twill Scarf

This was such a great silk scarf to weave!  I used some of my own hand spun silk that I dyed medium blue with purple and red patches. 

The silk is about the same thickness as 2/6 cotton, so the sett was 20 epi; so needless to say with a sett like that it wove up very quickly.

As usual for me, I had to try several wefts before I was sure that navy 2/8 tencel was the right one.  This makes the scarf essentially warp faced, but with hand painted silk, that’s a good thing.  I just noticed that my shoe in the picture matches the warp!

The pattern is on that I’ve woven before and loved….8 shaft 10 treadle, advancing networked twill.   This pattern is treadled very similarly to summer and winter or overshot because you treadle a tabby pick between each of the pattern picks.  This gives the fabric really lovely structure.

This is ‘freeform weaving’ in that as long as you make sure to put in the tabby and to run the sequences in order ~ advancing or declining~ you can treadle it however you like.  I love to have the ability to make each scarf completely unique.  I have enough shafts that I could turn the draft to make treadling easier, but then I wouldn't have the ability to free weave as easily ~ a conundrum to say the least.

My Tour de France socks are progressing nicely and I will probably finish them tonight on Stage 13….the first thing in my Christmas Present stash!

I bought a 100 gram skein of sock yarn and split it into 2x50 gram balls and before I started to knit I lined up the sequence so my socks would match. I'm trying something new for me ~ I knit the instep of the socks in ribbing to help keep them in place and not bunch up in shoes....here's hoping it works!

Just a pretty garden shot to finish up ~ this is Masterwort (Astrantia major ), don't you love the little native bee!

10 Shaft Undulating Twill in Silk

I’m working steadily through the silk warps that I painted last summer!  Such a fun afternoon!
This warp was dyed with ProcionMX in gold and yellow and although it the colours looked really different when it was painted, they mellowed out quite a bit after washing so now it is a bit more subtle.

I chose to embrace the sunshiny yellow colour and I gravitated toward orange for the weft ~ I know, it’s a bold move, but someone’s gotta make it!

The pattern I’m weaving is 10 shaft undulating twill.  I modified the pattern by making the threading really weird so that I could weave it with a straight 1-10 treadling.  That is such a bonus because you really can’t get lost in the pattern.

The scarf wove up in no time, but once it was off the loom I could see some real texture forming.

I even got the fringe twisted in record time!  I decided the twist 3 bouts of ends together for a cord fringe. (I can really recommend these books to any foodies out there!)

The scarf has two distinct sides; this is the hand painted silk warp dominant side.

And this is the weft dominant side.

Nothing is prettier than a good close up, right?

Amazing what a good pressing does!  Surprisingly I was looking at a few of the blogs I follow this morning and Cindy at Eweniquely Ewe has woven a very similar scarf this week….great minds think alike… that’s my opinion!

I’ve already got the next silk scarf on the loom….it is handspun silk about 2/6 in grist in dark blue and purple from the same dye day ~ can’t wait to see what it looks like woven!