Spot On

I have always adored the polka dot scarves that Mum did a fair while back.  I love the fact that I can lay in straight lines of weft and magically produce pretty little circles; it is amazing what networking a draft will do!  I have finally woven two of my own scarves and I thank Alice Schlein for the pattern. The warp is navy 2/8 Tencel and I put enough warp on for two 70 inch long scarves.  The weft for the first scarf is red violet 2/8 Tencel and the second scarf is a stunning celadon green 2/8 Tencel.

 

As I was weaving I noticed that the navy warp was releasing a lot of fibre dust, it was making the proverbial dustbunny under my loom!  After washing the scarves I hung them up to dry and careful smoothed the wrinkles away then I noticed that my hand was covered with navy fibres.

When I was steam pressing the scarves I noticed that they had a halo of navy fibres that really blurred the pattern.  So I used a sticky lint remover sheet on each scarf to remove the excess fibres and the scarves look amazing, the pattern is now crisp and clear.

These polka dot scarves are just wonderful!  I loved weaving them and I love the look of them, fun and funky enough for a young woman, but classic enough too.  The light dots on one side and dark dots on the other give the scarf a sense of depth and make them a versatile wardrobe addition.                                                      

This green is much, much fresher in real life - seems that greens are very temperamental about having their photos taken.

Both looms have had to be moved into the dining room and here they sit, back to back while the studio is having a remodel.  The dining table is pushed against the picture window and the chairs have had to be put into our guest room!  What a kerfuffle! We've pulled out the pellet stove and are in the middle of installing a gas fireplace, so the dust will be flying for a few days more. 

Right now the plan is to put one loom in the den/office and the other in the family room. I keep telling myself that change is a good thing!

Getting Ready to Go Slow

Ngaire and I are getting ready to be vendors at the Slow Fiber Festival in Penticton next weekend, so if you are in the area, please come and say hello! This will be our second time as stand alone vendors and there seems there’s a huge amount to get done, far more than I expected!

In the past the sales that I’ve participated in have always been group affairs and always in conjunction with other weavers, spinners and fiber artists. It’s a very different situation when you venture out on your own, so many things to think about and to buy. When Ngaire joined forces with me, suddenly our combined production made it possible to have a booth dedicated to weaving only.I have had two black wire mannequins named Fric and Frac for a number of years and they have been so versitile that I’ve purchased some companions for them. But first Ngaire had to spruce them up as their original white paint was showing through! Here’s the first photo of Tyra and Naomi – so named because they are taller and skinnier, they should really make the scarves pop!

We’ve pulled out the black fabric that I had originally purchased for Hallowe’en costumes yonks ago (OK I'm a few years behind on my sewing projects!) and I’ve cut and hemmed to fit the eight foot long tables that are provided. Oh yeah, we’ve ironed and defuzzed too, neatness counts as far as I’m concerned!We’ve purchased a small swivel mirror and added a couple of extra lights for the display and now it’s time to think presentation. Every item has to be pressed and labeled and I’m always surprised at how far behind I can get on this! I love to weave and I hate to label….go figure!

I’m not a huge fan of items overlapping or laying flat on tables, so we are looking at everything in the house to use for props, from glass vases to stainless steel waste paper bins! I’ve recently woven bookmarks and rather than have them lie about limply I’ve mounted them on cardstock and plan to fan out a selected few at a time. These are my least expensive item, but I swear I’ve spent more effort on them than they’re worth!I’ve hauled out my stainless steel towel rack as a display stand for tea towels. I’m planning to display one of each style of tea towel per rung with the remaining stock stacked neatly below - much neater than in this photo! This is a lot more difficult than I thought because those red tea towels don’t play well with the other colours!

I found that hanging scarves exclusively on the metal hangers that fit on the wire display racks can look neat, but being shown edge on didn’t do them justice.

This year we’ll have fewer items on the wire display and they will be featured on these small busts, I have three now, but I've decided to add three more. We don't know what the walls will be like in the hall, so Ngaire came up with a the idea to use brown paper to back to panels - the width is perfect and we'll use bulldogs to hold everything in place.

The South Okanagan Slow Fibre Festival will be from 10-5, Saturday October 29 at 2965 Main Street in Penticton, and we'll be there with bells on!

A Whole Bunch of Wrong

This project started out with the very best of intentions. I was on a stash busting mission and I wanted to challenge myself to NOT weave a defined pattern. I have come to the conclusion that ‘hording stash is tying up cash’, don’t you just love truisms? A quick look through my stash and I saw these bits and bobs of thick silk which spoke to me – mistake number one.

These are some dyeing samples that I produced when I was in a study group last year and I love the vibrant colours. I found a huge cone of this milk chocolate coloured single silk to act as a foil for the thick random dyed silk. Now my goal was to find a ‘non pattern’ to show them off. Aztec Wanderings by Russell Groff was my choice as it had potential.I pulled the thin silk warp separately from the thick silk warp. I can’t remember why this seemed like a good idea, but since I was getting ready for my trip to Europe, I’ll use that as my excuse. I warp from back to front on my Louet Spring – having two separate warps that needed to be interleaved – mistake number two just reared its ugly head. I ended up beaming the thin silk onto my back beam rod and the thick silk onto a supplementary wooden rod which I tied to the steel back beam rod. Not a pretty sight, but it worked

This is when I left for my month in France and while I was away I’ve got to say I didn’t think about my loom at all, so coming home to this jury rigged warp was a reality jolt.

I treadled a bit of broken twill to start and then swung right into the small band of pattern I had planned. Mistake number three just showed up, I had screwed up the threading on the thick silk ends. Not so much that I couldn’t make a pattern, but enough that it wasn’t the pattern I’d intended. This is the point that I looked at this warp and decided I loathed it. Not just disliked, but vehemently hated it! The pattern was all sorts of ugly and the lovely milk chocolate coloured silk looked like poop! I treadled most of the scarf without the pattern. I had wound two regular bobbins of the thin silk a few months earlier for a project that didn’t pan out, so rather than rewind onto pirns I decided to plunk the regular bobbins onto my end feed shuttle – yup, being lazy made mistake number four! I’m quite determined and did force myself to deal with it nibbling my edges, but I probably cost hours to save minutes! I just couldn’t contemplate cutting the warp off, so I soldiered on and just did the broken twill. This proved to be my only good choice and the way the colours peak through are very enticing – don’t get me wrong it’s all kinds of funky and I still don’t really like it, but I’ve gone from hate back to dislike…..and that’s a good thing.

As the end of the warp approached, mistake number two reared its ugly head; the funky beaming became a sticky mess, so I decided to cut off about ten inches early and avoid the snarls. That’s when I discovered I’d made sackcloth…..you could just about cut yourself on the edges of this burlap! I’m holding my breath that wet finishing makes the difference. On another note, this is one of our last Fred’s Plum tomatoes and it’s huge, but beautifully sweet and meaty. A really wonderful tomato to grow.

The Same But Different

I really enjoyed weaving the fancy twill runners so much so that I tied on.  For this set of runners I wanted to have the colour in the warp so they are different from the previous runners.  In the stash a four ply round cord in blue leapt out. 

The blue cotton was a mystery cone that I didn’t know how much was on it so I pulled the warp in 50 thread groups.  And I tied on from the middle of the warp so if I ran out I could change the pattern as I needed.  Thankfully I was able to squeak out enough for the entire warp although I did make the warp short but the width remained the same.

For the weft I used white cotton, actually the same stuff that was the warp in the previous runners (it is a really big cone of white cotton!).  I love blue and white colour combination; it’s so clean and classic.

The last 6 inches of weaving was terrible.  I had eased the knots through the heddles and they were sitting just behind the beater.  Every time I changed treadles I had to clear the shed, all the knots were sticking.  How come the knots were OK behind the heddles but in front they were a sticky mess?!  I was able to slowly weave until I was 4 inches away from the knots.

I don’t think that I will tie on another warp.  I don’t think that it actually is a faster warping process than what I do now.  I don’t think that it saves me any warp either.  This time I was able to have only 4 inches of warp waste but next time I wouldn’t weave with the knots past the heddles so I wouldn’t save any warp.  I just found the whole process tedious, slow and frustrating. 

But the runners are off the loom.  They are sitting in a pile waiting to be washed.  I hope to get to them sometime this week.  They look great and I can’t wait to see them washed, hemmed and on a table!

Fancy Twill Table Runners

It's harvest time and I’ve been busy trying to keep up with the tomatoes, by planting over sixty plants means that there are tomatoes ready every couple of days. The raspberries are also ready so I had to make some jam too!This post is about the table runners that I started back in August, they are a cotton warp and silk weft in a plum and a grey and the pattern is a fancy twill. Here they are side by side before washing. I was able to get them the same length with the same number of pattern repeats!After washing and pressing them I noticed that they are no longer the same. The grey runner is longer than the plum runner by five inches. And the plum runner is wider than the grey runner by two inches. It is amazing the difference weft can make to a project even when the two colours are supposed to be the same.The both runners are finished with a two inch border with fancy hemstitching in the middle. The plum runner has trellis stitching and the grey has ladder hemstitching which I am going to be lacing a ribbon through to add a punch of colour. I haven’t bought the ribbon so I don’t know the colour yet but I am thinking blue.For the plum runner I chose the weft dominant side. I think the warp dominant side too white and it washes out the pattern, although in the picture it looks pretty good.For the grey runner I also chose the weft dominant side but for a different reason. The weft is a thick and thin variegated grey and black silk so on the warp dominant side there are splotches of black that look like mistakes.On the weft dominant side there is more colour and the black blends in better.The runners were so much fun to weave and I love the colours. The runners made a nice change to all the scarves that I have been weaving. I really like these runners, so much so that I have tied on, but that is another post!

False Damask Yet Again

I’ve just finished another six tea towels in one of my favourite ‘go to’ patterns; False Damask on 8 shafts. I love weaving this pattern and playing around with the colour sequences. Sorry, there hasn’t been time to press them though! I have hand hemmed these two, but I’m leaving for France in two days and these four will just have to wait until October when I come home! This pattern really allows me to play around with warp colours the stripe placement. I pulled the warp with stripes in three different shades of grey, black, mauve and white as the divider threads. I used black weft on all six tea towels but every tea towel has a unique weft stripe sequence. These colours just look amazing with stainless steel appliances.I thought I’d share my way of ensuring that all the stripes begin and end at the same place, so that when the tea towels are displayed they look their best.

I like to weave 4 inches of pattern before beginning a stripe sequence. I never just weave tabby for hems unless the pattern is tabby, I’ve found that tabby often weaves up wider than patterns. The 4 inches allows me a 1 inch hem (1/2 inch turned under twice) and about 2 inches before the stripe begins.

I like to weave my tea towels 36 inches long and generally end up with about 28 inches when hemmed. I have a non stretchy piece of trim that is 36 inches long and that I’ve marked off with a line 4 inches from one end. I pin this to my woven cloth after a few picks and weave to the marker.I then begin to weave any stripe sequence I feel like; when I’m happy with the result I pull the other end of the trim forward and match it up with the piece pinned to my fabric. I then insert a straight pin to mark where my stripes end. I can then forget about measuring my woven cloth, I just pin the tape to the cloth as I go along. I ‘frog leap’ two pins as I go along so that there is never a time when the tape isn’t attached to the cloth. When I reach my straight pin I start the stripe sequence I’ve chosen and weave it in reverse. This ensures that both ends match perfectly. I thought I’d share this photo….I feel like a proud mama with my first really ripe Meyer Lemon! I got one lemon last year that I had to remove when still under ripe; but this year I have 10 on my wee tree and one just about ready to eat!

Summer Tea Towels Two

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!