Back to work - there's a market on Sunday!

The summer holidays in Australia – also known as the ‘silly season’ - are over with schools back already.  Unfortunately, it’s still hot, pity those kids going back to school in heavy new lace up school shoes to go with their school uniforms. 

I heard that I had a place the outdoor market that’s part of the Glenferrie Road Festival, the one I’ve attended the past couple of years, so I needed to get back to work too.

The last of the broken twill blocks tea towels are done, 2 pink, 2 lake combo and another in aqua.

I often struggle with variegated yarns.  They look great on the cone but never work so well when knitted or woven, to the point where I keep saying 'no more variegated yarns' to myself when I'm buying yarn.  However the lake combo one worked so well I may need to reconsider.

The Bumberet tea towels were finished last night, soaked overnight to remove any excess dye and had a hot wash this morning.  They should be dry by the time I get home and hopefully I can find the strength go upstairs to the very hot part of the house to hem them. 

I have a new warp for Tencel scarves on the 8 shaft loom.  I’m using the spot twill draft I used late last year but with a silver grey warp.  There’s enough for 3 scarves and I think almond and shale will work.  I have plenty of Tencel and should be able to find another colour that will work with the silver grey.  I thought that I would have at least one finished for the market but a run of very hot days meant that I could only finish the tea towels.

The white runner looked as though it was becoming a ‘dog on the loom’ but I needed the loom for the next set of tea towels.  I worked at it steadily, managed to get the length I needed, identified where the mistakes were occurring – Shaft 2 kept wanting to join in with 1 and 3 when I did the tabby picks - and used what was left for some overshot motifs which made good card inserts.

There’s a new member of the team – meet Polly.  A couple of years ago I was given an old, adjustable, dressmakers model.  I’d used it a couple of times adjusted to a smaller size and realised how useful it would be to have it closer to my size.  Over the break I managed to adjust it more or less to my size – she turned out a bit bigger than I expected - and made a black cover for her.  It’s already been good for the top I just made.  The knit dress I made last year also used the draped top in non-knit fabric as a summer top. I wasn’t sure it would work but I found some lightweight cotton on the ‘throw out’ table. it must have been very old as it was only 36 inches/90 cm wide and I can’t remember when we changed to 45 inch/115 cm for cotton fabric but it’s a long time ago.  Here’s Polly in my $10 top

– 2 meters of fabric at $5/meter, pattern, thread and buttons from the stash – just waiting for the next hot day to wear it.

It will be good to have a more solid model for photographing scarves

I enrolled for a class in iridescent weaving at my guild's Summer school.  I had a great couple of days and went in at the weekends to warp the loom and do the homework rather than taking the loom home.  The Sunday class memebrs came to see what I was doing and when one of them said 'it looks like oil on a wet road' I knew that it was working.  A lot of weaves look better when viewed from the side but the effect was even more marked with iridescence.  As I wove my sample, nothing seemed to be happening

but the people looking over my shoulder could see the iridescence.  I stood up and looked at it from different angles and realised that the effect is greatest as you move around and look at it.

Definitely want to try it again with another warp when I've got more time.

I'm working through the list of things to do before the Market tomorrow.  It could be an interesting day as the forecast is for mid thirties/nineties with a thunderstorm late in the day, possibly around the time we will be packing up. It should be an interesting day

Helen