All That Glitters Collapse Weave

After the wonderful success that Ngaire had with her scarves, I jumped on that glittery bandwagon!  This style of collapse weave really reminded me of a Fortuny dress, with all the stunning pleats and the ability to curve and hug the body.

Hoping to expand on the theme I decided to weave my scarves using Cobweb Merino Wool, Cotton Slub and Lumeya glitter.  The Cobweb Merino is in a pale, pale lavender, the Cotton Slub is soft white and the Lumeya glitter is pure silver.  It is a really lovely combination with an overall soft grey vibe.

Pulling the warp did not start out well because I was trying to pull the cobweb merino and the glitter together since they would ultimately share a heddle, this seemed like a good plan at the time.  But, they had such hugely different levels of stretchyness it was a nightmare!  Started again and pulled each of the different warp threads separately and it was much better.

Putting the warp on the loom went fairly well and using this pipe insulator really helped the ends not tangle in the raddle.  [This was the same piece of foam that Ngaire used to even out her tension on her collapse weave.]  The end of the warping process left the final few inches a tad snarly though.

I do love a photo of the warp when it is all organized.

Weaving plain weave was pretty boring, but using super fine over-twisted wool added interest and a little bit of trepidation, especially on the selvedges.  It is absolutely imperative to beat on the following closed shed to maintain the loose, even beat. 

The two scarves came off the loom essentially the same size and they are absolutely gossamer-like before washing.

After a long soak in Eucalan and the hottest water I could get they were squeezed dry and then popped into a hot dryer to tumble and transform for twenty minutes. 

Voila! They are stunners and truly resemble the pleats in a Mariano Fortuny dress.  I’m so sorry that the weather is so very grey and that I can’t capture the amazing sparkle, but trust me, sparkle they do!

I bought an Amaryllis bulb last month and she’s a looker!

Merry Christmas Everyone.

Parallel Threaded Scarf 2

 I know, it’s been forever; that would be November 23, to be exact; since I started my two Parallel Threaded Scarf .  After really working at the second scarf for the past two days, I have just cut them off the loom.  Like many of you out there, I have been stalled in the doldrums, so nothing in my world is moving at any kind of speed.

The first scarf I wove on the orange and green warp was crossed with Blue/Purple Tencel.  This produced a scarf where both sides have very similar depth of colour.  The pattern is reversed but since the colour saturation was very similar, the differences are quite subtle.  The iridescence is really lovely with the fourth colour wandering into the crimson/purple range, although the grey day and my camera really didn’t capture it well.  And of course it needs to be washed to snug up all the threads and allow the colour play to develop.

This photo features the bluer side of the scarf and it has all the potential to be a stunner.  Not sure how I’m going to treat the fringe at this point though.  I have several options (a) just twist two green and two orange threads together (b)  isolate the colours and let them go (c) add weft coloured threads to each bout.

This second scarf is by far my favourite.  I worked on the treadling and took out a lot of the pattern echoing and reduced the pattern to these lovely small flower shapes.  I changed the weft to Iris Tencel and the greater contrast really made the scarf pop.

The iridescence is wonderful and there is more of a rosy/purple shine coming through.  I’m sure once it is washed and the drape show, it’ll be a real looker!

I did learn a lot, even though I moved like a snail....I learned that using split complementary colours to create iridescence works and you CAN move the placements around.  The accepted norm is to use colours next to each other on the colour wheel as the warp, then use the colour opposite on the colour wheel as the weft.  I split this up and it still worked just fine.

I will post a couple of photos later after I've done the fringes and when the light is better and hopefully the beauty shots will shine!

Eight Shaft Tea Towels

January is synonymous with tea towel weaving month for me, so very satisfying after the holiday season.  I take the time while weaving a straightforward pattern to make sure my posture at the loom is correct.  Weaving tea towels is  comfortable enough for me that I can concentrate on my throw and really think about technique, balance and comfort.

To that end I wanted to put on tea towels that used only one weft, so I found a pattern that would give me lots of interest without any colour changes.  I found this lovely 8 shaft Scandinavian pattern called Korndräll.  FYI  dräll in Swedish means twill.

I put on a 535 end warp in white 2/8 cotton and put enough warp on the loom to weave 6 tea towels.  Working towards my ‘always years’ resolution (because I make this one every year) to use up odds and sods of weft, I wove each in a different colour.  I know I have enough weft to finish a 36 inch long tea towel if I have more than 2 ounces on the tube of cotton.

The pattern really shows off the warp colours and is the same on the reverse side.

Here they are just off the loom.

Ready to stabilize the hems and wet finish.

All done.....you’ll notice that there are only 5 in this photo; and that is because the wine red towel ran like crazy.  The white warp still has a slight pink tinge to it even after soaking in warm water with dye catchers.  Lesson learned, no red and white; and yet another tea towel for me!  Another lesson learned is that this pattern has quite substantial width take up; I put 22 inches of warp on the loom and after tumble drying I ended up with 16 1/4 inches of width.  The upside of this is that these are beautifully lofty absorbent towels.

I have already pulled the warp for my second batch of 4 tea towels using what was the same colours that were left over from the wefts on these towels, minus the wine red.  I did however, take the pattern and made each square larger and made the warp 601 threads,  I am still debating about weft.

The final garden shot is not a living plant at all.  This is all that is left of my lovely Himalayan Birch tree that we had to remove last autumn.  What a lovely reminder of a lovely tree.

Twelve Shaft Advancing Twill Shawls

My last project on the loom was a pair of shawls using some hand dyed 2/20 cotton in three tones of blue.  The colour variations are very subtle, but it still shows enough to add a bit of interest.

This is such fine thread with quite a strong twist that I ended up setting it at 30 ends per inch and even with that it was just about transparent on the loom.

I chose to use a twelve shaft advancing twill pattern and I am more than pleased with it although, I did have some real issues with the selvedges, and no amount of pattern manipulation seemed to fix it.

So I ended up adding seven threads to each edge due to weird pull in on the pattern.

The selvedge edges were added using the same yarn as the weft, in this case it was 2/8 tencel.   I added the selvedge threads by winding them individually onto a sewing bobbin and popping them into an old film canister with seven pennies.  I really had to search to find pennies now that Canada no longer makes them.  Luckily, we had just come back from the Garden Show in Seattle and had a handful of US pennies.

With so many hanging threads in one place there is always the danger that they tangle, so a few holes punched into a piece of cardboard and clipped to allow the thread to be inserted and I was good to go.

I did make sure to take the weight off of these hanging selvedges when I took a weaving break.  My big footstool did the trick.

I decided to make my hem stitching in increments of two reed dents, so with 30 ends per inch, that was a huge amount of hem stitching and when it came time to twist the fringes it was a beast!

The first shawl was woven using a blue/navy weft and was woven as drawn in; you can see the warp colour variations in this photo.

The second shawl was woven using hunter green weft and an advacing M’s and W’s treadling.

The garden shot this time is my newest Japanese Maple ~ Acer Japonicum ‘Green Cascade’.  It is waiting for this darned mizzle to abate so I can plant it!

Twelve Shaft Tea Towels

This time of the year I always seem to want to weave something simple and satisfying.  Tea towels always fit the bill.  My Louet Spring has twelve shafts but finding patterns using twelve is always a hunt.

This pattern was exactly what I was looking for, a lovely twill on twelve, and the threading and treadling couldn't be simpler.  Treadling a straight twill allows me time to make sure my posture and technique are correct.

I pulled an eleven yard warp in navy blue cotton and sett it at 24 ends per inch.  I beat these towels fairly hard to get a balanced weave. 

My plan was to weave ten tea towels in deep jewel hues; so I wove the towels in emerald, turquoise, ruby, garnet, sapphire and amethyst. 

Since I was weaving these in a single colour I did a short hem detail.

A tangle of towels waiting to have the selvedges finished.

A new addition for me is an upgrade from a Janome mechanical sewing machine circa 2003 to a Singer Quantum 2017.....holy cow have things ever changed during that time!  This baby even threads the needle by itself.  I think my only job is to choose the project.  Although some things will never change; that is my mothers sewing box in the background.

It was very satisfying to see the pile of sixteen tea towels ready to be washed and hand hemmed.   Ten are mine and six are Ngaires'.  We often share tasks, I cut them apart and finish the selvedges, Ngaire presses them and pins up the hems and then I hem them.  I’m still happiest with hand finishing because I don’t like the squished line that the machine gives to the hem.  It was a really good day for me, not only playing with my new sewing machine, but a couple of loaves of bread too.  The sweet smell of a successful day.

One Mistake at a Time

I have been weaving away and not always as successfully as I’d like.  I wove a really lovely crackle scarf with an original pattern that had so many mistakes that I’m gobsmacked.

There was one treadle that every once in awhile just dragged an adjacent thread along with it.  This was all happening on the underside of the weaving and I completely missed it.  This is a beautiful iridescent scarf and now it’s mine.  It joins the host of mistake ridden scarves that are just ‘too good to be threw’ in my wardrobe.   It will take another weaver, very close up to spot the mistakes but dammmmn!

I then put on one of my hand painted silk scarf warps.  This one is a lovely white and soft grey.  I chose to weave it using a variation of Marguerite Davisons Twill Complications pattern.  I am having a problem with my right knee, so weaving with four shafts and tying all the treadles for my left foot feels pretty good right now.

The warp went on as smooth as silk and the scarf wove up in a flash.  I was really happy with the overall effect until it was off the loom and I noticed an incomplete pattern block.  What the heck?  Again I couldn’t see it from the front of the weaving, but man....it’s there.

This is a lovely scarf and I just can’t take yet another addition to my personal scarves, so for the first time I will sell it as a second.  A non weaver will never notice the treadling error and I will point it out on the sale page.  It will be a good deal for the right person.

Today's garden shot is all about the abundance of figs on our trees.   This is my Fig and Onion Jam.....I took a regular fig jam recipe and doctored it to create these beauties.  It tastes amazing with cheese.

We also have a bounty of cherry tomatoes that are going to be a real ray of sunshine next January!

12 Shaft Dyed Crackle Scarf

Crackle weave is still the hot topic around here.  After making some quite unattractive 8 shaft crackle tea towels; the pattern worked really well and showed the various gradations of crackle blocks, but the colours were yukky!

I know I’ll have these tea towels kicking around the house for years....why do the ones we hate last so darn long?

I had purchased a bit too much Lemon Drop yellow tencel in the heat of the moment and I thought it would be a great candidate for over dyeing. Late last summer I pulled a tencel scarf warp in 5 bouts of 40 thread segments.

 Before I painted the warp I flipped alternate bouts end for end and applied the procion across the warp.

When I put the warp on thee loom I flipped them back again to the original position and I was really pleased with the result.  

I created an original Crackle design by using an advancing curve of crackle blocks for the threading and then I treadled it with a regular twill treadling.  I was attempting to get a circular design with the centre of the circles in plain weave.

 I sett the scarf at 24 ends per inch because there was so much plain weave in the crackle and wove the scarf using black 2/10 tencel for the weft.

This scarf turned out really beautifully, upon reflection I would do smaller areas of each colour.  The scarf is yellow with red, brown, orange and bronze areas.

The bronze falls right in the centre of the scarf and is much prettier in real life than the photos show.  For Sale.

The final garden shot is really one for the books, it's Ngaire waist deep in snow last week!