Yet More Table Runners

I have washed and dried the two runners, and because its winter they took a little longer to dry.  I gave the runners a first press on the steam presser before folding up the hems; I really think that helps to reduce the bulk of the folded hems.  I like to use a metal ruler to help fold over the hems; it gives a nice sharp crease.  I just have to be careful because the ruler gets hot!

Now the runners are waiting for a nice clear day so I can see to sew, it has been very rainy and foggy here on Vancouver Island lately.  Looking at the runners side by side they almost look like they are from two different warps, the green runner has an exceptionally beautiful golden gleam.  (Sorry, the picture is a little blurry)

This year is about reducing the stash so I have some of the blue rayon left.  It wasn’t enough to weave a runner 50 inches long, like the previous runners but it should be enough for a 40+ inch runner, a perfect size to go widthwise on a table.

I have just made a warp of a lovely creamy white 2/10 cotton.  It is about 5.5 yards long enough for a 40 inch, a 50 inch and a 60 inch runner.

The draft that I am using is one I have used before so I just blindly followed it.  Well it turns out that the draft didn’t quite have the right number of ends so I had to correct the draft on the computer and pull an extra 20 threads!  Boy, I’m glad that I checked before I had pulled on the warp because if I remember correctly this cotton can be a tad sticky.

I’m going to pull on the warp on today.  Hopefully I’ll have some pretty pictures of some weaving next week!

Final Picture is an atmospheric gloomy photo of the fog with the silhouette of the Douglas Fir trees, the scene can be seen from the studio windows.

Finishing the Tussah Silk Scarves

The two silk scarves that where inspired by one of the succulents in my garden are off the loom, washed and dried.  Now they are ready to have the fringes twisted; for the silver scarf I choose to do the twizzling in small bouts, for a more delicate appearance.

Next step is to iron the scarves.  I had quite the ironing pile to go through; there is a tablecloth, a table runner, four tea towels and what seems to be a lot of scarves.  And yes that pink scarf is really long!  It turns out that 3/1 twill doesn’t have a lot of take up; the warp was originally 100 inches but after weaving it to what Mom thought was around 70 inches, and then washing the final length of the scarf is 82 ½ inches long!

I am always surprised by the change that a hard press makes on a scarf.  It not only flattens the scarf but brings out the sheen and allows the pattern to leap forward.

The weft that I used for the rosette scarf was a lovely rosy brown but when I washed the scarf the weft ran and a lot of the red came out of the scarf but it left behind a gorgeous copper colour weft with a lot of shine.  The scarf is still lovely, just a little different from how I thought it would turn out.

The silver weft that I used for the second scarf really muted the plum and moss of the warp.  It looks totally different from the copper scarf.

Final garden shot is Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ and you can see a hummingbird hidden on both photos, that has staked out the patch.  The hummingbirds love this plant; they sit on the branches all day fighting off other hummingbirds, bees and seem to get particularly stroppy with the bumble bees!

Green Cotton Shawls on Eight Shafts

I was serious about using all the fine cotton that we had dyed back in 2014, after this post I have two more projects with same fine cotton in different colours.  This time I used a pretty grass green.  There are two balls of the green with one ball slightly darker than the other; I am using the darker shade on the edges to frame the two shawls, so that I had enough threads to make a decent sized shawl.

I thought with a green warp that it would be easy to find a weft because nature uses green all the time!  But I had a hard time figuring out a weft that worked well with this particular shade of green.  I tried azure blue, yellow and lilac, nothing really worked.

Then I tried darker colours; amethyst, dark teal and hunter green.  Nope, nothing there that I can use but the darker colours showed the pattern the best.

Last try; eggplant, silver and always a favorite iris.  You’ll never guess which one I picked.

The eggplant won and it really shows the pattern well and it highlights the green warp.  It reminds me of the jackmanii clematis on the trellis in the back garden.  The photo doesn't do this amazing shawl justice, it's a real stunner.

For the second shawl I changed the tie up and the treadling to make a pattern that had longer floats so the green warp colour showed better.  I tried gold, blueberry blue, a very pale green, Ming blue and white.

I went with the Ming blue and it seemed to glow on the loom.

After washing the colour difference between the edges and centre is less noticeable but it still adds an interesting element to the shawls.  I am always amazed at the difference a good pressing gives the final piece.

The medallion pattern used on the purple shawl created two distinct sides, one green and the other a deep dark eggplant purple.  It is really striking to wear the shawl showing off that design feature.  For Sale.

The blue shawl is very pretty, the colours seem to glow.  For Sale.

Final Garden Shot is the Jackmanii Clematis if full bloom.

Undulating Twill Silk Scarf - 10 Shaft

At one of the Guild yarn sales we picked up a small cheese of singles silk in that natural dark bone colour.  The singles also had flecks of blue, red and yellow running through it. It was pretty ugly but it WAS silk.  During our last dye day I chucked the silk in a turquoise day bath; it's pretty now!

I did a wrap test to check what the sett would be for the silk and I got 24 wraps in an inch.  I knew that I had 3oz of yarn which should be enough for a scarf warp but I wasn’t sure what the width would be.
I went to the warping board and started to pull a 3 yard warp.  I knew that I wanted to use all the yarn and I ended up with 318 ends, which is a width of 13 inches.  It is wider than normal for scarf but it is nice to be able to offer something a little different in the shop.

Now that I knew the width of the scarf I went looking for a pattern.  The warp looked water-like with the coloured flecks looking like reflecting light.  I wanted to reinforce that image so I looked for an undulating twill.  I found a nice one that is 10 shafts and has a ripple like effect.

I tried a lot of different colours of wefts.  The first attempt deciding between dark or light shades so I tried two light shades of blue and green, they were too light.  And two dark shades of blue, one was too similar to the warp and the other one was too grey.  But the darker colours worked better.

Second try was a dark teal, hunter green and grey.  The dark teal blended too much and the other colours were too dark.

Third try was a lavender, dark blue, mineral green, teal green and white.  The only one that worked is the dark blue.

Fourth try I am willing to try anything at this point.  So to complementary colours I go, yellow, gold, orange, pink and taupe.  Maybe the gold weft?

Fifth and last try.  I liked the dark blue and gold wefts the best so I grab every dark blue and gold weft that we have to try them all.

I went with the blue at the top it is called Iris, the colour is less stark then the navy blues and seems to be one of those amazing colours that work just about every single time.  The pattern shows up well and it looks like water ripples, exactly what I wanted.  The play between the matte of the raw wild Silk and the shine of the Tencel is lovely.

I am always amazed by how much a scarf can change just by the finishing ironing.  The scarf had a lovely texture but was quite matte.  After pressing with the steam press the texture is gone but the shine is back!

The scarf is wider than normal at 11 ½ inches but it is lightweight and has a lovely drape to it.

For Sale.

Final Garden Photo is something that oozed out of the compost overnight.  It is Dog Vomit Slime mold (Fuligo septica), gross name but harmless in the garden.

Tartan Yardage Completed ~ Lynch Tartan

My tartan yardage has been off the loom for awhile now and I just remembered that I haven’t shown you the finished product.

It made a lovely looking log of tartan as I pulled it off the loom.

I ran out of the Ancient Blue wool weft when I was well into the 8 yards; I substituted grey/olive marled wool in the same grist for the weft that I luckily had on hand.  You can definitely see the difference between the two wefts; the true tartan wool is much smoother and has more lustre than the run of the mill wool weft.  However, the grey/olive weft shows the green up much more than the Ancient Blue.  This photo is before washing to full the cloth.

The definition of Ancient colours is that they are distinct from modern colours by being less saturated in tone and lighter in shade.  The term ‘modern’ refers to the aniline dyes introduced around 1860 which produce darker greens and blues and richer reds and yellows.  The term ‘ancient’ should no be confused with the age of the design.

I thought I’d give you some weaving statistics for this yardage.  I sett the warp at 28 ends per inch, 2 per dent in a 14 dent reed.

The On loom Width was 32 inches ~ The On loom length was 8 yards.

The Off loom width was 30 inches for the Lynch Tartan ~ The Off loom lengths was 5 yards 29 inches.

The Off loom width was 30 inches for the Plaid piece ~ The Off loom length was 1 yard 12 inches.

The Loom waste in the warp was 15 inches at the end and 4 inches at the tie on for a total of 19 inches.

I washed the yardage in my front loader machine on a cycle that took 25 minutes.  I want the yardage to be well fulled and this was the least time my machine could do, and frankly I just wasn't prepared to do it by hand.  I used the tiniest amount of organic laundry soap in the wash. Ahhh, I’m wishing for the days when I could open the top of the machine and pull my weaving out when I thought it looked right, sadly those days are long gone and I have to wait for the full cycle!

I folded the yardage a few times so that it fit on the drying rack and put it outside in the shade to dry.

The finished width was 29 inches for the Lynch Tartan ~ The finished length was 5 yards 24 inches long.

The finished width 27-2/4 inches for the Plaid piece ~ The finished length was 1 yard 10 inches long.

The secondary weft caused more shrinkage than the Lochcarron Wool weft; but overall there was very little shrinkage ~ not even 1%!

This is the tartan before it was pressed.

 You can see a huge difference in the fabric after just one pass through the steam press.  This yardage is amazingly supple and light and has a fabulous sheen, really lovely.

My plan for much of this yardage is to frame a piece for each of the members of the family and maybe get a garment for myself.

The Europeans have a phrase for one slow truck trying to pass another slow truck on the highway ~ an elephant race ~ well, this yardage and Ngaires shawls were our elephant race!  Thankfully, both are off the looms and we are ready to weave again!

Variegated Again!

You’d think that we’d have had enough of variegated warps by now, but, no, no we haven’t.

We had a planned dye day back in 2010 for my Colour Study Group; at the time I had just acquired a vast amount of Ecru mercerized cotton from another Weaver’s de-stash. So when the two came together, the variegated dyeing just spontaneously happened! These cotton yarns have kicked about for almost two years and I was determined to use them. Thankfully, this wine cotton is the last of the batch that I wove!

This is both scarves together before washing ~ really, really different! The very nature of variegated yarn makes it hard for a pattern weaver like me to use. If you use it as weft, it may muddy the pattern to the point that you don’t see it. If you use it as warp in a complex weave structure the same result may occur. To my mind the best use of variegated yarn is in the warp with a very simple weave structure.

This is a 6 shaft, two block canvas weave pattern and for the first scarf I used 2/8 Tencel in Grey Mauve and treadled the pattern blocks about 3 inches long, alternating the blocks.

For the second scarf ~ well I went the the 2012 Island Retreat with my pal Susan at Thrums and my lovely daughter Ngaire wove this scarf off using 2/20 raw silk in Raspberry. The scarf above has been wet finished, but not ironed.....I have it sitting in a big pile on McSteamy(my steam press) waiting......

Ngaire used an all over pattern and created a highly textured scarf. The weft choice made all the difference to this scarf; it masks the warp colour and lightens the colour over all.

These scarves are very, very different; both are lovely in their own right and will be perfect for that casual look with a jean jacket or cotton blouse.