Getting it right

Sorry for the silence but I have been working on scarves for the Geelong Scarf Festival and although they were sent off in good time, they have to stay under wraps for a bit longer.

 

I decided that my stock of tea towels was getting a bit low so decided to try some in Bumberet in 6/2 cotton.  I worked out that I wanted to do stripes of 27 ends, 15 in one colour and 12 in another.  This meant lots of colour changes while winding the warp but straightforward threading and weaving, or so I hoped.  I was working under some difficulty with a head cold but eventually got the warp wound and on to the loom.  There were of course, a couple of threading errors but recently I made a few reusable safety pin and string repair heddles

and these worked beautifully.  I wove the plain weave hem and I was congratulating myself on how well the repair heddles had worked when I launched into the pattern.  With a simple 6 end repeat in the threading of 2,3,2,1,4,1 it should be easy to get it right but, and I’m blaming the head cold here, I managed to insert an extra 2,3,2 or maybe miss a 1,4,1.  The error was just to the left of the centre (of course) and because of the colour stripes there was no easy fix apart from unthreading right back to the error and starting again.  I’m glad I did, the stripes look good, the shed is good, and the 6/2 is a bit thicker than the 8/2 I normally use, so I’m finally making good progress.

I guess the lesson is to check the threading constantly and especially after taking a break.

What else has been happening?  Each May, the traders’ association where I work have a sculpture festival.  We all give up part of our window display and it’s always a surprise when the sculpture arrives.  This year we have Dianne Thompson’s ‘Stars in your eyes’, not only appropriate for an optometry practice, but it’s a ‘winged sheep soaring over a lunar landscape with indigenous names for the stars’, so also very appropriate for someone who spins and weaves with wool.

The weather is getting cooler and I need to work on the loom in the cold garage if I am going to make something for the Sheep show.  In the meantime, the crepe myrtle in my garden is in full Autumn dress

Helen