The weave structure is plain weave and the premise of the weave is that selected sections of warp are woven in plain weave in colour A and the weft skips behind the sections that are to be woven in colour B. I love the idea of this, but after 2 inches and masses of wool warp, the bell rung and I knew it was not the weave structure to use for my 4th “hand manipulated rug” sample! Well, more research is needed I guess. 
Lily Louet, my wonderful Spring loom has the old faithful spaced blocks on her. I’ve used a truly beautiful lavender 2/8 bamboo yarn for this scarf and so far, so good! 
My guild the Ponderosa Spinners and Weavers in Kelowna BC had our 15th annual Spinning Day on Saturday and we had a wonderful turnout. I managed to convince my friend Susan of Thrums fame to come for a visit at the same time. We had a wonderful day, although I didn’t get much spinning done, I did manage to keep the vendors busy. We were lucky enough to have 4 vendors at our Spinning day and I think that they all did well.
Homespun Haven brought her Ashford looms and lots of yarn.
Aurelia Fibres brought stunning New Zealand roving.
Art of Yarn brought Louet Black Faced Leicester roving that was amazing as well as a great selection of Sweet Georgia BFL roving’s and Joybelee Farms came with a selection of natural dyes….it was wonderful!
Susan and I managed to cram a lot into just 4 days and yesterday we drove up to her old stomping ground in The Shuswap. Don't you love the colour coordination?
The Adams River Sockeye Salmon run is the biggest in a century, so we knew it was something not to be missed. This is Ngaire and Susan at the Interpretation Centre.
To get to The Adams River the Sockeye have swum upriver some 350+ miles to get to their spawning grounds, to mate and die. They grow a wicked looking hump and beak and turn an amazingly brilliant red with a lime green head. Nature is astonishing in the colours she dresses her fellows – you just try getting the males in your life to wear that combination! 
The river breaks into slower running side streams and the salmon complete their four year life cycle by laying and fertilizing eggs only to then die by the millions. Yup, the smell is something special!
The Department of Fisheries was busy checking for salmon that had been tagged in the Pacific Ocean and keeping a count of the run. They were hauling very full nets so it was quite a sight.Susan's blog will have our very short but sweet visit from her perspective, so check it out at Thrums!
I took a few photos of the on the way. We started in the southern interior, a fertile valley on a 100 km long lake. The Okanagan Valley is a premier grape and tree fruit growing area and I love living here!
We set off north east toward Kamloops, above, which is located where the fast flowing mighty Thompson River carves a canyon which widens into Tunkwa Lake (formerly and much more beautifully called Lake Tranquille). This is the start of serious dry high ridges.
From Kamloops we continued north east toward Cache Creek. We passed Walachin , above and below, which is on a high prairie overlooking the Thompson River canyon. Walachin was settled in 1909 by the English who were led to believe this was a bountiful place. In fact it’s a dry belt and gets only 20 cm of rain per year. When the First World War broke out and the men went to Europe to fight, almost none of the settlers returned. There is a train on the left side of the photo, to give you some perspective.
Now we reached Cache Creek the beginning of The Gold Rush Trail to the Klondike! 
Again this is on the Thompson River, but dry, dry, dry…. The river has carved remarkable hoodoos which show the iron in the rocks.
We are now heading north toward 100 Mile House, 108 Mile House and 150 Mile House. Great names eh? These are all stopping points for those who trekked to the Klondike in search of gold. This is very high plateau country with very little top soil! We really did feel on top of the world as the sky was huge!
There are some really lovely lakes and Lac La Hache is one of them. The fall colours were really starting to show, so pretty.
As you can see from my photos, there aren't all that many old building between the towns, just a whole bunch of space....we really are a very new country and little remains of original settlements along the road.
The warp was pulled so the teal blues were in stripes but I didn’t want a stripe-y scarf so the idea was to use one dark teal blue then one light teal blue etc. So, I had a warp colour plan, but no pattern in mind. Looking at that style of warp, in that size and that type of yarn just shouts Turned Taquetè. This is one type of weaving I haven’t done one yet and the chance to design a new pattern is always exciting.
The funny thing is that when I beamed the warp it went back to the stripes! All that work separating and alternating the warp thread colours for nothing! Sorry about the photo it is a little blurry.
It took a while to design a 12 shaft Turned Taquetè pattern because I had a finite number of warp threads to use; I only needed to add 6 Hunter green Tencel threads to each side to create the scarf!
This pattern is really nifty because at different angles the pattern changes, the photo above is like diamonds. The photo below is more like a Greek key.
There are two different sides to this scarf, one side having more green and a lot of texture. The other side is bluer and has no texture. It is really interesting that the weft is only hunter green and yet there seems to be horizontal stripes in teal.
The scarf has a lovely sheen, but little iridescence. As you can see there are definitely two different sides to this pattern.
The scarf has wonderful drape and is really pretty, and I’d definitely weave it again in the future with a different colour way.
The Shuswap Spinners and Weavers were our hosts and they put on a wonderful day for those of us competing in the event as well as a sale, display, weaving, carding and spinning demonstrations.
This is the shawl that Ngaire and I planned and warped, the group chose to dye our corriedale handspun warp in gradations of red to yellow and we layed it in the warp randomly. We used natural brown romney lamb for the weft and we chose to do huck lace circles on six shafts.
Much to our delight our team came in 1st with a score of 290 out of 300! We got full marks for everything, with a small deduction for selvedge mousing. There are only four of us in this photo as two members had to leave before judging. Right to left are Chris MacKenzie (spinner), Ngaire (weaver), Brenda Howe (plyer and drum carder) and me (spinner) with our blue ribbon! Missing from this photo is Kirsti Jarret and Susan Garvie both spinners.
The Monashee Spinners and Weavers (my other spinning group!) had a stunning shawl in turned Atwater-Bronson lace in blocks of greyed red to yellow.
The Shuswap Spinners and Weavers shawl was going to be wonderful, but alas, they did not get if off the loom in time. A complicated twill pattern in black and apricot.
I just finished this shrug in a soft pink handspun wool for Ngaire. I love this pattern and this is the second time I’ve knit it. 
I knew that I wanted the novelty yarn to be an accent but I also wanted to use it in a way that made sense. So came up with the idea of boxes with the novelty yarn used as the defining perimeter.
That left the interior of the box for something interesting. A huck lace block seemed to fit the bill. 
It is a two shuttle weave so I needed to have a way of knowing when to throw the novelty yarn. 
As the huck is an 8 shaft pattern I was able to have shaft 12 raise with the pattern shafts which told me to throw the novelty yarn, much better then counting the pattern repeat!
After washing all the loops and bumps showed more prominently which is fantastic. It really gives this scarf interest and shows of the novelty yarn to its best advantage.
I wasn’t sure on how to finish the fringe on this scarf and so I tried a couple of things. I tried just twizzling the fringe but for some reason it didn’t look to be in scale with the scarf, they looked too thin. So I went to my tried and true wool fringe technique – the fish tail braid! It is thick enough to fill in the fringe and I was able to do the novelty yarn the same way so the fringe is cohesive.
The squares of huck lace are really pretty and add interest to the scarf without competing with the novelty yarn.
This is scarf has a lovely drape and feels amazingly soft, before washing I was a little worried about the novelty but it has become wonderfully supple after wet finishing.
I am the weaver for the Salmon Arm Fall Fair Sheep to Shawl competition again this year. Since it is always a learning experience with wool as this is not my usual yarn of choice; creating this wool scarf is very timely. It seems to take some getting used to the springiness of wool and having the correct beat. Now that I’ve had this little bit of practice I am looking forward to the Sheep to Shawl!
I also borrowed his builders square for this job, a bit rusty but the only way I could keep everything even. I used the builders square lined up against the factory edge to keep my lines straight and using a ball point pen I scored lines about 1/16 of an inch deep. 
I then turned the board and did the same to make my grid.
I didn’t want to take a chance on the ink or dirt coming off the board, so a good soaping with dish detergent ensured that I have a clean work surface.
I pinned the Overshot piece every inch or so lengthwise along one of my lines. Lengthwise it was still the correct size, then using my laundry sprayer I soaked the piece and stretched it out to the desired width. It worked really well as the rigid insulation is about 1 inch deep and I can really push the pins in. 
I will then use my McSteamy and give it a good hard press to finish it completely. 
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!