I had a full pirn of Azure Tencel and two hanging selvages already wound and in film canisters that didn’t work with
the last project so I decide to build a project around them. I have been doing a series of lace weaves with Bamboo warp and Tencel weft so I looked at the small Bamboo section of the stash and luckily there was one that would work!
This may come as a surprise (not!) but I wanted to try a new lace weave and Swedish lace came to mind. I liked the pictorial properties that the lace has. I found a draft on Handweaving.net for hearts on 16 shaft showing hearts facing each other and changed the draft to suit my loom, which only has 12 shafts. I ended up with a 9 shaft pattern.
Due to the size of the hearts and not wanting to cram them too tightly I was only able to get three hearts across and for added interest the hearts are offset. When I saw them on the loom I was a little concerned because the floats were quite long at just a smidgen over ¼”.
The weaving went quite quickly once I actually sat down to weave, funny how that works! I took my time and measured every pattern repeat as I went because it would have been noticeable if they were differently sized. I didn’t have to do any un-weaving as miraculously each pattern repeat was the right size which is a first for me!
At the halfway point I changed the direction of the hearts, because I wanted the ends of the scarf to match. There was an optical illusion that made the upside down heart rounder and shorter, but they weren’t!
After washing I stuck the scarf outside and learned something interesting. Bamboo takes a very long time to dry but if you stick it outside at 35C with a light breeze in about an hour it will be dry!
This scarf is so lacy, truly lovely – even with the wrinkles!
There is a shiny side and a matte side to this scarf. The shiny side is the weft dominant side, the Tencel side, and the hearts gleam. The matte side is the warp dominant side which is where the Bamboo really takes over.
When I was twisting the fringe I was using a cookbook called Mediterranean Diet to hold the scarf and that gave me the idea to call the scarf Love in a Mist because it reminds me of the delicate blue flowers of the same name. They are also known as Nigella and the seeds are edible, tasting of pepper and lemon and is mostly used in Middle Eastern Food. The picture is from the herb garden that lines the path to the front door.
The scarf has a wonderful drape and I love the combination of Bamboo and Tencel. Bamboo has such a richness of colour and the Tencel adds lightness and shine. It is a wonderful match as long as the Bamboo is used as the warp and Tencel is the weft ~ reversing the two can create linen-like hard selvage turns as the Bamboo keeps it round shape and doesn’t snug up quite as well.
The heart shapes are really subtle and not ‘cutsie’, just lovely and elegant.
My very quick Turned Summer and Winter tea towels are done. They were such a fun project to weave; and especially nice to weave since Ngaire pulled the warp for me!
This is a photo of one of the towels before washing. I have just finished machine stabilizing the hems and this is my ‘final inspection’ to make sure there are no errors. Thankfully only one tea towel out of the six had an error and it was a very easy fix! I had to sley these towels 20 epi in a 12 dent reed and so you can see the reed marks at this stage.
I noticed when I was standing off square to the tea towel that there was a really interesting zigzag effect. This was totally unexpected since the pattern is basically rectangular blocks, but it certainly adds to the visual appeal.
This is a closer look at the Summer side and the Winter side and you can see that all those pesky reed marks have miraculously disappeared. I guess crossing your fingers and toes really does work!
I only had the enough of the soft teal weft to complete four tea towels, but luckily I had a slightly darker green/blue 2/8 cotton for the final two tea towels. Here they are side by side and I’m really pleased with both colours.
So here they are, all hemmed and pressed and ready for our fall sale in October. The only thing I would change is the length of the repeat. Each full pattern is just over three inches in length on the loom; and by tightening it up I could add weft stripes. Ah well ~ next time.
We grew a type of basil this year called ‘Lettuce Leaf’ and it grew fantastically. As you can see ~ bigger than my hand! This basil tastes lovely and if I could just keep the garden pests from enjoying them too, I’d be in heaven!
The warp for my runners is unbleached 2/5 cotton and I have enough for two runners. The weft that I’m using for the first runner is silk noil in a soft plum that has bits of cream, brown, black and red. The pattern really shows up well with the plum weft.
If you have ever wondered what the difference between a table runner and yardage is, it’s the fact that a table runner has a border on all edges. This runner has 2 inches of border on each side and the finish hem will also have 2 inches of border with trellis hemstitching in the middle.
The weft for the second runner is a similar silk noil but in grey. The weft has more variation in grist than the plum weft, unfortunately there are a lot of knots in the skeins so I am constantly reaching for the scissors, hence the title running with scissors!
The second runner is actually weaving up a little differently then the first runner, it’s a little wider and the picks per inch is a little different but not enough to impact the 45 degree angle of the pattern.
The runners are still on the loom at this point and I am really looking forward to seeing them completed. I’m really enjoying the easy weaving of the runners and so I am thinking about tying on to the warp.
Ngaire developed this pattern from a pattern by Mark Wilhite found in Handwoven November/December 1990, but I asked if I could weave it as I loved the colour. It’s quite amazing how each weaver changes patterns and how they evolve. Ngaire took out the plain blocks and merged the two pattern sequences as well as turning the draft.
The treadling is done in duplicate pairs, so although the pattern has 68 picks, it’s a cinch to remember. (1-3-2-3, 1-4-2-4, 1-5-2-5 etc) I’ve tied the loom up so the treadling is a walking sequence. My left foot does the alternating tabby treadles and my right foot takes care of the four pattern treadles. Sooooooo easy! 
This photo is the reverse side of the fabric ~ the Summer side, and it actually has the truest colours of all the photos today. 
The tube lying down is the sum total of the weft I have left after weaving only four tea towels! The other two tubes are pretty close in colour and have enough blue in the green and I’m hoping that one or the other will work on my final two towels! 
The garden keeps me from my loom, but my nicely filling pantry is showing the fruits of our labour. We have jars of jams galore and beautiful Okanagan peaches and green filet beans just waiting to be opened on a cold winter day!
This pattern is very much like the first but has a more tailored look.
I rarely sample while weaving, but sewing is another matter entirely – this is my sample blouse in 100% cotton. I am a petite size so I had to alter every piece to fit, thankfully it all worked out! I can’t believe how much sewing and unpicking I did! It seems that if there were two ways to read the pattern I always chose the gauche! The pattern is very well laid out, but I over analyzed the collar to the point that I was ready to toss the whole thing. When I just followed the directions, it worked out just fine. I am now an expert in flat felled seams!
Regardless of the lack of sun our garden is doing amazingly well. We are already dining very well on peas, beans, cucumbers, herbs and the inevitable zucchini. We have 64 tomato plants in 16 varieties that have set fruit and just need some serious sun to get sweet and plump.
I had to try a lot of different colours of weft to go with the green of the warp. If the colour was too dark, slate grey for instance, it leached the colour from the warp. If the colour was too light like yellow it drew all the attention to the weft. Blue was the best colour but none of the four different shades that we have really worked. 
I didn’t take any photos of the Crackle because it didn’t work with the colour of the warp. The weft was too light coloured and the pattern wasn’t balanced. I knew that there wasn’t going to be any weft that I could use so I decided to scrap the whole Crackle idea.
This pattern is a joy to weave, the pattern develops quickly and the warp and weft floats pick up wonderful luster. The finished scarf is really pretty, I just love the circles.
The scarf needed a little something to help it along, like beads! I haven’t been beading scarves lately but something about this scarf just needed a bit of sparkle. Luckily the bead stash just happened to have the perfect colour!
Rarely have I been so challenged by colour but the end result was worth the struggle.
We also noticed that we don’t have a lot of lace weaves in the scarves so we are going to be killing two birds with one stone, using solid colours and lace weaves together. The scarf that I am doing is a Twill Lace in blue Bamboo weft and blue Tencel in the warp. I really like playing with highlights and tones as it adds interest to what could be a plain scarf.
I liked the pattern so much that I did it again with yellow Bamboo and yellow Tencel. I love the fact that one side is weft faced medallions and so shiny from the Tencel and the other side is warp faced medallions and is matte from the Bamboo. The play of the shine and matte really make the pattern stand out.
For the first time I had a problem with Tencel, the yellow one, we had bought a large cone and there is black machine oil marks throughout the cone, it was really frustrating as some of them are faint but once it is woven and next to other picks you can really see it. I spent a lot of time unweaving these marks. I did leave some of the fainter marks because they were hard to see but with light behind the scarf they could be seen (so after it was off the loom) but they have washed out which I am really thankful otherwise I would have a new scarf!
I am always astonished by the difference a hard pressing makes on the left the yellow scarf hasn't been pressed. The shine that seems to magically appear from beneath the steam press and the scarf now has a liquid movement. The pattern really pops after the pressing also.
I love the play of colours with these scarves. The two tones of colour really bring a depth and interest to the scarves. Also I really love this pattern, it was easy to weave and so rewarding. It is definitely going to be a 'go to' pattern for me.
There is a little tree in the back garden that has a new nest by a Cedar Waxwing. She is the prettiest bird with a lovely black mask and the shiniest smoothest feathers. The tree is really special because there is also a Robin’s nest just a couple of branches below so the tree it is a now a condominium! 