Autumn Leaves Scarf Finished

I can’t believe its been a month since the last post!  I’ve finished weaving the autumn leaves silk scarf.  To remind you the warp of the scarf was hand dyed in orange, plum, moss, bronze brown and scarlet and the weft is eggplant purple Tencel.  The pattern is a personal favourite, it is a network twill that kind of looks like leaves.

The finished scarf is quite lovely, the bright hit of the orange really stands out.  I think that a scarf needs to be bright and cheerful against a dark winter coat.  For Sale.

We went on the first botany walk for the year and while there wasn’t much to see yet, we did some identifying of trees by their bark, there was some hints of spring.  These are fawn lilies (Erythronium oregonum) and they are probably blooming now, three weeks later!

In our garden, we’ve add a new raised bed into the vegetable patch.  We put it into a difficult corner where the land dips making it hard to plant, but, it is the hottest part of the garden so we don’t want to waste it.  We are doing Hügelkultur which is a layering technique for a raised bed.  You start with a layer of wood/logs, then compost-able leaves and debris, then compost and lastly top soil.  It helps to bulk out the new bed so you aren’t having to buy lots of soil.  It is also composting so there will be nutrients available for years as the layers break down.  We are still in the process of layering.

The forget me nots (Myosotis scorpioides) are blooming, they have such a pretty delicate bloom.  And the lilacs are starting to leaf out and the blooms are just starting to form.  It is hard to believe that it is only the beginning on April.  I think that we are almost two weeks earlier than normal for spring here on our part of Vancouver Island.

In one of the Japanese maple trees there are two branches that are crossing but they are both integral for the shape of the tree.  So we are pulling one branch down using a piece of string tied to a rock, it is working but it does look like the tree has a pet rock that it is taking for a very, very slow walk!  Every time I walk past this tree it makes me giggle.

Choosing a Painted Silk Scarf

The navy blue tea towels are off the loom and the yellow ones have already gone to their new owner.  The red tea towels have had their final product photos taken and are almost ready to go up in our Etsy store.

Now I’m trying to find something to put on the loom.  All week I’ve taken out different bins of yarns to see if anything leaps up and grabs me.  So far nothing has inspired me, maybe it’s the grey sky.

I finally just pulled out the painted silk scarf warps that we painted last fall.  They are gleaming in the light and they are definitely making me happy!  I lined them up and then had a look at the scarves that we have in the Etsy store, to see what colour we are missing and if any of these would fill the gap.  

I went with the one in the middle of the pile, it is 2/22 silk dyed in moss green, brown, orange, scarlet and plum.  I think that it looks like autumn leaves.  I don’t have a pattern planned or a weft chosen but the warp has been pulled onto the loom and it looks exciting.

We are in the long pause where it isn’t winter anymore and spring is just waiting around the corner.  The daffodils are heading up and the rhubarb is starting to appear from the ground.

The catkins, female flowers and leaf buds of the contorted Hazelnut, Harry Lauder's walking stick (Corylus avellana 'Contorta') are always an early indicator of spring and frankly I can't wait!

It's In The Sett

The bright happy tea towels are off the loom and ready to hem.  I have worked on creating this pattern for some time and have in the past woven a very similar pattern  without issue.

My goal this time was to create a very colourful, uplifting tea towel that was really thirsty and would really hold water well.  So, I decided to change the sett on the weave.

I chose pink, magenta, blue and aqua green for the warp colours.

I decided to sett the tea towels at 20 epi as this has been recommended on several recent articles I have read with the goal to enhance the functionality of the tea towel while preserving the weave.  Sometimes a fabric that is woven too closely will be a little water resistant.

Here is a photo of the tea towel on the loom and it shows distinct diamonds with both warp wise and weft wise floats.  A lovely pattern that gives a lot of surface interest when interacting with colours.

After machine washing and drying I took the tea towels to ‘McSteamy’ my pressing machine and gave them a light press.

To press anything with length you have to accordion it behind the plate and press it while moving forward.  I thought that this was a pretty cool photo.

Then I fold up the hem 5 cm and give it a second quick press.

Here are the tea towels all ready for hand hemming, but where did the lovely diamond pattern go?  I think that the looser sett allowed the weft threads to move around and consequently the pattern has been hidden, drat!

I think that this is a beautiful thirsty tea towel that will function well and brighten up any kitchen, but since I intend to create and sell the PDF pattern on Etsy I will be reweaving these tea towels with a closer sett and few more modifications to ensure that the pattern holds firm after washing.

I have started knitting a new pullover from Drops Design 180-22.  This is a top down stranded knit pullover and so far, so good.  Here is what it should look like when finished.

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!

12 Shaft Advancing Silk Scarf

Another week, another painted silk scarf, another conundrum; this seems to be the never ending theme of my weaving life.

I picked a lovely teal and purple warp because I thought it would be any easy one to find a weft for and this could not have been more wrong!  But, I’m getting ahead of myself because the first thing I do is pick the pattern I’m going to weave.

The 12 Shaft Advancing Twill draft has large diamonds and has quite a large repeat of 95 threads. It is amazingly pretty and gives spots of weft, spots of warp and a definite diagonal. 

Ngaire wove this scarf a while ago and I thought it was time for a re-visit.  Ngaires full post can be found here.

Now that I had the painted warp chosen and the pattern, now choosing the weft for the scarf.

I lined up the first of the possible candidates: magenta, dark teal, eggplant, light teal and mauve.  I draped the warp over them and was able to delete a couple right away.

I was down to dark teal, magenta and mauve and these I took to the loom to trial out.

I wove a few picks of each and just for the heck of it I added silver.  The dark teal made the purple look brown, so no to that one.  The magenta was exciting, but took over the whole scarf, again a big no.  The  silver made the warp fade into the background, a resounding no.  The mauve was  the only choice for me.  It made the warp colour show through and rosey’d up the purple.

We have been in a November fog for days now, so getting a photo has been a challenge, it is so, so grey outside!  Here is an early photo of the scarf showing the lovely shine as it goes over the breast beam.

And another from a slightly different angle.

Now that gardening season over for awhile, time to hit the knitting needles.  This is my latest project using hand spun natural merino and hand spun merino/silk blend in dark purple.  I’m quite pleased with it and I know it will look even better once I block it.  The pattern is called FARA Hat, by Anniki Leppik and I bought the pattern on Ravelry.

10 Shaft Crackle Silk Scarf for Autumn

  My autumn crackle scarf is off the loom today, and I’m totally chuffed!

This scarf has been a joy to weave right from the beginning.  The colours of the silk were so inspiring and I loved seeing the foreshadowing of the pattern from the back of the loom.

Notice the floating selvedges?  On my last few projects I have doubled the floating selvedges on each side to give added presence to the edges and to help negate fraying.  It seems to have worked and I will continue to use a doubled floating selvedges when using silk and tencel.

The gold weft really is working well with all of the different colours in the warp, it contrasts beautifully with the burgundy and the olive and when it hits the brown portion, it just gleams like silk should.

The crackle trellis pattern was a really lovely weave, it is treadled as an advancing twill with fairly short runs that are woven from 1 – 10 and then reversed from 10 – 1.

I wove right up to the end of the warp and frankly couldn’t get any shed at all by the end of it.  I just managed to get 70 inches with the tension off.  I expect that I will end up with a scarf between 67 and 69 inches.

Here is the scarf right off the loom in our very weak November sunshine.

Same scarf and hour later in much stronger sun.  

The last two silk scarves have had their final photos taken and now are up on the store, WovenBeauty, on Etsy.  The first is the yellow and blue scarf, For Sale.

The second is the blue polka dots with the centre panel of pink and orange silk, For Sale.

Pink and Orange Silk Scarf with Blue Network Twill Polka Dots

The scarf started with a small warp of 88 threads in 2/22 orange and pink Silk and I’ve added azure blue edges in 2/8 Tencel to make an 8 inch wide scarf.  I’m using a darker blue 2/8 Tencel called ming as the weft.  It has worked out very nicely in my humble opinion!

The pattern is an 8 shaft network twill that makes polka dots,  and it is just lovely.  The plentiful dots dance across the warp and are a joy to weave.  The photo is a little washed out but the blue edges with the tone on tone polka dots is really quite effective.

I’m quite surprized by how similar the pink and orange splashes are in the warp.  At certain angles they blur together and its hard to tell them apart.  And when the blue weft is added the centre stripe seems to be iridescent.  

The finished scarf is quite striking, even if I haven’t given it a pressing yet!

There are two sides of the scarf one with the Ming blue polka dots (weft faced) and the other side has orange and pink polka dots with the lighter blue dots on the edges (warp faced).  Sorry for the slightly blurry photo.

We’ve had two big storms with lots of rain so the mushrooms have started to show up in the local forests.  We went on a mushroom walk last week and there were two highlights, one was the Hydnellum peckii also called strawberries and cream or blood fungus or jam tart.  The cap leaks red fluid that pools and looks very creepy.

The second was Phellodon tomentosus also called owl eyes.  They are very cute, looking like the mask around the eyes of an owl, like the one at the top of the picture.  

Just as an FYI we are running a 20% off sale on selected items in our store Woven Beauty.