Vacations are a wonderful thing….great to see the world, but
also great to be home and to celebrate what you have! Our month in the Cook Islands and New Zealand was
exciting, but man, am I glad to be home and back at the loom!
While away I had plenty of time to think about what I wanted
to put on the loom and what stash I wanted to bust… I made my mind up to weave
our family tartan using the yarn I purchased made by Lochcarron Mills in
2007. I know, about time......
So we pulled them both out and sold them on Craigslist ~ I must have
priced it too low because they went in hours!
I knew pretty much right away that I wanted a much stronger fan, so forward thinking gal that I am, yeah right! I picked up a few tiles when I saw them last year just hoping that I'd get a chance to use them.
Ngaire and I tiled the bare patches of wall and added these great stainless
steel button tiles for an accent. Michael cut the tiles to fit and he made short work of installing the new fan without a scratch! Ahhh, team work!
For a full week we were without a range or microwave and
this little hot plate worked really hard for us. My favourite recipe was this one from Martha Stewart, One-Pan Pasta, absolutely fool proof!
My new duel fuel cooker arrived last Thursday and the
plumber came in on Good Friday morning to hook it up ~ I’m totally stoked! No clock ~ no timer ~ no warming drawer ~
instant heat ~ priceless!
I was sure that I could put the five individual warps, with five individual threadings on my loom and weave them at the same time as long as the grist of the warp threads was the same or at least very close. That would ensure that I would keep the fell line level as I wove. Once I had decided on 2/20 as my warp grist it was a quick task to make all five 2 inch wide warps. The warps were only 2 yards long and had an average 96 ends. I decided to weave the book marks as a 12 shaft Twill Gamp.
Figuring out what shuttle to use on these tiny warps was my most challenging problem. Then I remembered the E-Z Bobs that I bought to use with my 
These worked fantastically; they held enough weft to complete a single book mark, held the weft in place with the snap feature and they were light enough so that if they fell off the loom they didn’t yank the weft out! Perfect in every way…
I found that the five book mark warps with two inches between them worked out to be exactly 22 inches in the reed, so that was a great workable width for me, I'm pretty small and I wanted this project to be fun, not a arm stretching workout!
Tadaaaa, here they are in all their glory! These book marks worked up so fast and they were so much fun to weave, hemstitching each one is what took the longest! Some of my first weft choices didn't show the patterns as well as I'd have liked; I had hoped to use all singles silk, but the slight slubs in my silk blurred the pattern, so I changed to 2/8 tencel in strongly contrasting colours and found this much more successful. I planned enough warp for four 8 inch book marks with 2-1/2 inch fringes, plus loom waste. I treadled two book marks Advancing, one Rosepath and one M’s & W’s. Here’s a selection of my favourites from each warp.
The gold 2/20 mercerized cotton was threaded Advancing Twill.
The peach 2/20 mercerized cotton was threaded Networked Twill.
The pink 2/20 linen was threaded Rosepath.
The green 2/22 mercerized cotton was threaded Point Twill. 
The 2/16 mercerized purple cotton was threaded M’s & W’s and this one was the widest of all the book marks by 1/2 inch.
I made the warp 20 inches wide and was weaving 14 inches long! This would have made the placemats have the fringe on the top and bottom rather than on the right and left of the placemat. So I had to turn the draft and rewarp the loom….
Here is the start of the first placemat; it really doesn’t look like much from this angle. I've had to use a temple to keep the edges even as this pattern seems to want to draw in substantially.
From this angle you can see the start of the sunflower or sunburst pattern developing. This is an interesting weave because there is no pattern repeat; I’m actually weaving a picture of sorts, so there is no repeat, just 309 unique picks. 
There always seems to be things to keep me off loom in the summer. Imagine how nice a bowl of these local peaches is going to be in November with a dollop of yoghurt! The jams are pure peach and a peach and mango blend……yummy doesn’t begin to cover it! Now I hear the tomatoes calling me. 
I went to the Art of Yarn in Kelowna a couple of days ago, and needless to say, couldn’t walk out the door without something. I was completely gob smacked by this amazing sock yarn from Germany. The purples fading through pink to orange had me as soon as I saw them!
As you probably know Overshot should be woven square with the same number of pattern and tabby wefts as the warp. I’ve sett my warp at 20 epi, so I have 20 tabby picks and 20 pattern picks in every inch. My Louet Spring loom is not happy with the hard beat I have to use to get my weft packed in. 
I created this Overshot pattern and am weaving it ‘as drawn in’ star fashion, so that there is a strong 45 degree angle from corner to corner. I used the Name Draft technique to find the pattern and kept plugging along until I got one I liked, then I made borders to compliment the pattern.
One way to weave Overshot is ‘woven as drawn in’. This means that the treadling sequence is exactly the same as the threading sequence…well sort of. To make this happen you have to do a little fudging on the treadling. You write down the threading sequence and when you see 121 you think of this as block A and fill all three of them in on shaft 1; 232 is block B and is filled on shaft 2 etc., before you know it you have a pattern!
After vigorous washing, my piece had only 22 ppi. – not enough picks per inch……so back to the loom. 
I had a good look at what warp was left on the loom and with only 32 inches left I decided that I had better look at re treadling the piece. The pattern I had originally chosen had a 7” repeat, much too long for the warp that remained, so I shortened the treadling to a 4” repeat. 
I then resleyed to 20 epi since there wasn't enough warp to do my regular tie on, I lashed the warp to the front beam. I then proceeded to weave a perfectly balance piece – but only just had enough warp to weave it 24”. 
I haven't even washed the piece and I know it's too short. This bummed me out….I know there will be 20% shrinkage and I need to hem the piece, so 18” just won’t be there. 
Today I pulled another warp of 3 yards – sett at 20 epi and using the same small pattern, third time lucky! 
I decided to make it easy on myself and do a 4 shaft Shadow Weave. I chose to do the piece in navy and turquoise 2/8 unmercerized cotton. My colour choice had two criteria, the first being that I wanted a strong contrast and the second is that it had to be out of my stash. I've only put on two yards and plan to get it right the first time (or two).The rules state that I must weave it a minimum of 12" x 18" finished and may not use floating selvedges (drat!).
This piece need not be an original pattern so this draft came from Marion Powell’s book titled 
Here are a few facts about Shadow Weave. Shadow weave is usually set on a twill sequence threading, it is not a true twill, but rather a plain weave with two thread skips, which because of the use of two colors, one dark, one light, alternating in both warp and weft, make shadows between the changes of the hatching. Shadow weave threads run at a 45 degree angle with distinct dark row alternating with a distinct light row with the edge threads interwoven with each other in a definite feather stitch pattern. If you use an ascending progression a dark thread precedes a light thread; descending is the reverse. Shadow weave is a firm durable weave which is completely reversible. 
This is my guilty purchase for the year, OK maybe not my only guilty purchase, but the latest one anyway! It arrived just like this, nothing but the clear plastic wrap and my name on the side, and it was just abandoned in my carport - they must have been sure it was ment for me...
I have been eyeing a steam press for a couple of years and was hoping to buy one second hand, but one never appeared on any of the sites I searched. I found this one on the internet but always talked myself out of this rather large purchase, until Ngaire found it discounted $60.00 at Costco! It was meant to be I guess! I’ve always felt that my pressing is my weak spot, I just can’t seem to press hard enough, so hopefully this will fix that problem. By the way the table cloth the steam press is siting on was made by my mother in the 1950's and it a real treasure!
This press has settings for different types of fibres, from synthetic to linen, so it should fit all my needs.
And it has lots of steam jets! Apparently it only needs 4 seconds in contact with the fabric to press it perfectly. I’m looking forward to giving it a try and seeing if it really performs as I hope it does. Now where, oh where do I put it!