Fancy Twill in Green and Purple Silk

Mom and I have switched back to our original looms but we both decided to reuse the weaving patterns that are on the looms, in my case it is a lovely 8 shaft fancy twill.  I put on another hand painted silk warp, this one is 2/22 and is a lovely fresh green with a sinuous purple curves.

For the weft I was sure that a blue would be perfect, but I tried royal blue, navy and light blue 2/8 Tencel.  The darker blues matched the purple and would have hidden the pattern and the light blue over powered everything.

Next I tried Tencel in straw, taupe and birch, a silvery green.  They are brave choices but weren’t the right one.

The last round I tried black, charcoal, a different blue and a different navy.  The clear winner here is the black, it makes the green and purple pop.

The pattern is a beautiful fancy twill from Strickler with large diamond and cross motifs.  

I quite like the juxtaposition of the formality of the pattern with the organic movement of the colours on the warp, it makes for an interesting dichotomy.  I think that the finished scarf will be fantastic.

Final Garden Photo is Hydrangea paniculata 'Vanille Fraise' the shrub is over 6 feet tall and the heads are at least 1 foot in length.  The flowers start as white in the summer then as the nights get cooler they start to pinken going all the way to dark pink.  The charming blue violet flowers is hardy Geranium 'Rozanne' it spreads 2-3 feet and flowers until the frost.  The small pink flowers are fall blooming Japanese Anemone called 'Fall in Love Sweetly', and they truly live up to their name!

Falling back into Weaving

I have seriously been considering selling my 12 Shaft Louet Spring Loom, since for the past ten months it has been idle.  Well, now that my knee pain is under control and I’m feeling perky again I thought I’d give the Spring one more warp to make sure that letting go was the right answer.  We have two Louet Springs in the studio, a Louet Spring 1 from 2008 and the other an Original 1990’s Louet Spring; so we thought we’d better see which one we want to keep.

So Ngaire and I swapped looms and I put a warp on the Original Spring loom.  We thought it would be interesting to see what the differences were and if that factored into which one we should sell.

I put on a painted silk warp that was one of the ones that I dyed last summer.  This was the last warp I made and it had on 132 ends and the dye colours were super subtle.  Well, 132 ends are far too few when the sett for silk is a minimum of 24 epi; so borders were on my radar.

I found a very pretty pattern in the Strickler 8 Shaft Pattern book and built my scarf from there.  I found some silk in a complementary blue colour to bulk out the width and chose teal tencel for the warp. This is the border sequence I chose.

The most notable difference that I noticed in the looms right off the bat is that the Original Spring is made of heavier gauge timber, it just feels more solid and tends to move around less.  The second difference is the distance from the castle to the back beam is about 5 cm longer, not sure why that has changed but there is more headroom when you’re working with the lease sticks.  The third major difference is the braking system which is a tad more cumbersome to use.  Frankly, it feels just the same and actually feels more secure on the floor.

Now, that I’m actually weaving again, I find that my knees are doing great as long as I take a short break now and then so I’m really enjoying the whole weaving process.  Here is the scarf off the loom but unwashed.

The scarf is a joy to weave and I’m really stoked at the end result which is a lovely scarf and as a bonus, I think we’ll hang on to both looms for now because weaving feels fine!

Here is the beauty shot!  For Sale.

Right now the stars of the garden are the grasses and my urns one on each side of the garage at the front of the house.  The flowers are Scaevola aemula or Fairy Fan Flowers and they bloom from June to December.

Finishing up the Black Table Runners

I finally started the last of the 2/22 black cottolin runners.  For the last runner the weft is 2/22 purple cottolin.  I also decided to change up the pattern, it is the inverse of the original pattern.  It is now a pattern of diamonds instead of X’s.

It wove up quite quickly and I was able to cut all the runners off and all that is left by the loom is some dust bunnies hiding in plain sight!

I’ve washed and given the runners their first press.  I’ve folded and pinned the hems ready for hand sewing but it has been very foggy lately so I need to wait for some sunshine to finish the runners.  I’ve taken some photos (with the pins in hem).  First runner is 2/22 beige and black cottolin, it is about 67 inches long and 18 inches wide.  The graphic punch of the X’s make for a lovely modern table runner.

The second runner is 2/16 gold ramie and 2/22 black cottolin, it is about 50 inches long and 20 inches wide.  It is the widest runner by 2 inches!  I had to take the photo with the lights on so the colour of the gold ramie isn’t quite right but in real life the colour is stunning.

The third and final runner is 2/22 purple and black cottolin, it is 53 inches long and 18 3/4 inches wide.  The diamonds are just as lovely to the X’s in my humble opinion.

The autumn crackle silk scarf is up on Etsy.  For Sale.

Final Garden Photo is seed heads for the Echinacea purpurea 'Green Twister' with a white crowned sparrow who just loves them.  Don't let the cuteness fool you he also likes to eat my blueberries!

Twice as Nice

Twice as nice is the theme of these table runners, because it seems that I have to do everything twice!  I started these runners back in March and I originally pulled the warp for these runners at 5.5 yards but the warp ended up 100 threads to short.  The warp is made from 2/10 Pima cotton.

So I placed the warp back onto the warping board, it took two of us to stretch it back on, and unwound it.  I had pulled the warp using two cones that were ever so slightly different shades, so I had to carefully pick the warp apart into two balls. 

After more careful math I pulled the warp again at 4.75 yards long.  This time it worked out!  There is enough warp for two runners.

I have woven this pattern before many times; it is a favourite, so I used the threading chart that I had printed out years ago.  Well, I got about ¾ of the way through threading and I had run out of pre counted heddles on three harnesses.  I went back and looked at the computer, to find out that at some point I had created a second version of this pattern and I had threaded using the first version.  Oops.  So I threaded again using the correct version of threading.

On the home stretch, I finally sleyed the reed and tied on the warp.  I started to weave the hem and I noticed that I had a sleying error right in the middle of the warp so I had to fix the mistake and resley again!

I am finally weaving the first of the two runners; the weft for this one is a lovely lavender 2/8 Orlec.  The runner isn’t weaving up very quickly because between rain showers I’m running outside to work in the garden. 

It has been a very cold and late spring; we are about 3 weeks behind.  But the tulips are up in the spring flower pot, a promising sign of spring.  It is hard to believe that in two weeks, at May long weekend, that the tomatoes will get planted out in the vegetable patch.  The tomatoes that we started in the greenhouse are only about 2 inches high still.  They have some catching up to do!

Black and Birch Shawl

The raspberry red and black shawl is finished but I still have enough warp on the loom for another shawl in the black 2/8 Tencel.  Before I tied the warp back onto the cloth beam, I changed the tie up of the treadles.  I like to change things up so that the shawls aren’t exactly the same. 

I still have the same threading and I’m even using the same treadling as the red shawl but the motif is definitely different.  The motif is a diamond within a circle surrounded by a trellis of diamonds.  I really like motifs that create circles, I think that it is cool that two straight lines can make curved lines.

The weft colour that I’m using is 2/8 Tencel called Birch.  It is a lovely soft silvery green and it glows against the black warp.

This fancy snowflake twill pattern is a joy to weave and one of my favourites.  I was coming to the end of the shawl and with less than an inch to go I finished my pirn.  As I hate waste I measured out the last of the weft that I needed and hand wound the last pirn.

Something that I find interesting with the pattern is that the motif that I think is the main motif on the shawl isn’t the motif that they show in the pattern.

Below is the motif from the pattern.

This is what I think is the motif.  Even then it doesn’t really show that full story of the pattern, I think that showing two repeats of the threading and two repeats of the treadling are much better idea to show the pattern.  

The shawl isn’t quite finished; I haven’t twisted the fringe or press it.  But here some pretty photos anyway because I can’t wait to show you.

Final Garden Photo is of spring crocuses.  The first two blooms have opened and they are a lovely sign of spring!  

One More Shawl is Done

I am doing a commission for a lovely black and dark raspberry red Tencel shawl.  The pattern is a fancy twill that has a trellis of diamonds running the length of the shawl.  So pretty!

Does anyone else to this?  I sit at the loom for a measured period of time but I use physical markers to set the time, for example I’ll weave until I finish the pirn or until the cd is finished.

My favorite measure of time is, I’ll weave until the top of the containers that hold the floating selvages reach the top of the back beam.  That is also usually the time that the paper that I’m using to keep the warp separate on the warp beam hits the floor, it makes a satisfying thump.  So many ways to measure loom time without ever looking at a clock!

Here is a fun photo showing both sides of the shawl, one side is red dominant and the other is predominantly black.

I’ve finished weaving the shawl and have done the hand hem stitching.  The last step is to cut the shawl off the loom; I used 1 inch metal venetian blinds as spacers.  A trick that I learned the hard way is to make sure that you pulled the warp far enough forward so that when you cut the warp it doesn’t snap back and you lose the threads through the reed.  It also helps if you keep the tension of the warp loose. 

I loosely braided the fringe and the shawl goes into the wash.  I like to use a gentle soap like Eucalan.  The excess water is squeeze out of the shawl in towels and then the shawl is placed on a drying rack to dry.  I remove the loose braids from the fringe so the fringe can dry flat before it is twizzled.

After the shawl is dry, but before pressing the shawl, I like to twizzle the fringe.  

The shawl is now ready for McSteamy, the steam presser.  This is when the shine that Tencel is known for appears.

The final shawl is stunning. 

Final Garden Photo is a winter planter that we lasagne planted with bulbs and pansies.  Lasagne planting means that we layered bulbs into the planter so we will get a succession of blooming.  In the bottom layer is some tulips, then some compost/dirt and a layer of daffodils then more compost/dirt and the last layer of bulbs are the Dutch irises and then the last layer of compost/dirt and the pansies on the top.  The Dutch irises are just starting the spear their way through the pansies.  It is the first year for trying this process but we have high hopes!

One More Please

This year I wanted to finish up all the loose ends so I could start the new year fresh, with new weaves.  I took some time from weaving to do photography and computer work to list the last of the scarves from last year.  The collapse weave Merino wool scarves in lavender and fawn are now listed.

I also got a new computer as my old computer is over 10 years old and it is starting to have difficulties staying connected to the internet, so lots to learn there.  As I was transferring over files to the new computer, I noticed that we haven’t had any black table runners in the shop for a while.  I found a new draft to try and picked out some 5/2 cotton in black and beige and that is as far as I got in the planning.

Because as soon as pulled the colours and plan together; I accepted a commission for a shawl, so I dropped everything to focus on the shawl.  This isn’t the first time that I’ve been asked to reweave this shawl, it seems that every time that I sell one, the next day someone asks if I can make one for them too!

On day 1: I pulled the black 2/8 Tencel warp, I have put on enough warp for two shawls.  I did a rough sley of the warp using the built in raddle on top of the castle of the Louet Spring loom and then pulled the warp onto the back beam, ready for threading tomorrow.

Day 2: I removed the breast beam and the beater bar, from the loom, to make it easier to reach the heddles.  This cleared the front of the loom so I was able to place a chair into the loom to get even closer to the shafts.  It is always good to get close and have a comfortable reach to the threads; especially when the threads are black and on a foggy and grey Vancouver Island winter day.  Before replacing the breast beam and beater bar, I like to tie up the treadles, it is easier when you don’t have to watch your head banging on the web.

Day 3:  I put the breast beam and the beater bar back onto the loom and sleyed the reed.  I was then able to tie on the warp to the cloth beam.  I hem stitched the warp and wove the first pattern repeat to make sure that there wasn’t any mistakes.

Day 4 and I am now weaving away on the body of the shawl.  The weft colour is a lovely dark raspberry red 2/8 Tencel, a different colour from the original shawl but truly lovely.

Final Garden Photo is one of the groups of King Alfred Daffodils just starting to pop up with some Drumstick Alliums amongst them.  We did a lasagna style planting (layering bulbs in the same spot) and so far so good.  On the left side there is a deer foot print, she just missed stepping on one of the bulbs!