New toys

The first new toy, one that has taken up quite a lot of time, and the reason why there’s not been much weaving, is a new and very small electric spinning wheel. 

Back in December last year I decided to back Maurice Ribble’s Kickstarter project for a very small electric spinning wheel, known as the Nano.  I looked at all the online reviews and everything was very positive.  I followed the design process, the manufacturing and even the shipping – who knew there was a website to track ships?  

Finally the package arrived, probably within a week of the estimated date, and it did have to come all the way to Australia.  Fortunately there were no problems with Australia Post or customs unlike some German backers who were summoned to the customs office, shown their new wheel and told they couldn’t have it because it didn’t quite meet all the regulations.  Other German customs offices were less rigorous and happy to hand them over.  How annoying would that be?

It worked straight out of the box but like many others I tried changing a few things to see if they improved its performance – some worked better, some didn’t.  I converted a Decor plastic bucket into a light rigid case/lazy kate for travelling and made a cover using a remnant of fabric from a window display at work and some lighter fabric from the stash.

All I know is that I haven’t done as much spinning in years, and I learned to spin in early 1976.

Here’s my new toy posing with my large Ron Blyth wheel for scale. 

They make a great team, using the Nano for spinning but the large wheel with its large bobbins for plying.  

Here it is at the craft market

And here’s all the yarn I’ve spun in the past 6 weeks,

including the cowl I knitted because the yarn was just crying out to be knitted

There hasn’t been a lot of weaving around here with all the spinning and the marathon effort for the Sheep Show.  It’s still a bit too cold to weave in the garage and I’ve had a sore shoulder.  It hasn’t improved at all with a break from weaving so I can now keep weaving without feeling guilty.

I did manage to get a warp for glasses cases on the 4 shaft loom and decided after the success with the warping valet for the bigloom, that I needed something better for warping than draping the warp over the loom bench weighted with a bottle of water.  I had a nice aluminium mop handle and bought another, unfortunately not an exact match, but it wasn’t expensive and I will get a matching one and use the odd one as the bar as they’re very smooth and the warp runs over it easily.  I slid the mop handles into my folding loom so they rested against the wood at the back. 

My loom was made here in Melbourne by the Druva family but I’ve always suspected a common ancestor with the folding Dorset and Schacht looms.  I tied the handles to the most convenient part of the loom

and suspended a rod from the ends.  I weighted the warp with a bottle of water and had it wound on in no time,

much better than draping it over the loom bench.  The warp is black cotton and gold chainette, nothing like a bit of bling, even if the bling doesn't show up well here.

I should go and get on with the weaving but there's some very nice roving tempting me from the stash

Helen

Whew!

In the past few weeks I have finished the Tencel scarves on the 8 shaft loom and the glasses cases on the 4 shaft loom so that I could weave fabric for my entry for this year's Sheep Show in Bendigo - that's about 25 meters altogether

The Tencel scarves were a success and have the expected drape and shine – I do wish that I could take photos that do them justice.

Based loosely on scarves in Handwoven March/April 2006, and with a silver grey warp, there was one in pink,

probably my favourite,

one in slate with diamonds

and one in greyed teal with waves.

The warp on the 4 shaft loom – a weft faced plain weave for glasses cases – was inspired by the distinctive stitching on cricket balls and I couldn’t come up with a better name for it than ‘Cricket Tragic’. 

Hopefully some of the finished cases will become gifts for Fathers’ Day, celebrating on the first Sunday in September in Australia.

I’ve been to the Hawthorn Makers Market in June and July with reasonable to good sales.  It really seems to be settling down well back in its original location.  Even better they've finally finished adding an air look to the door where all the cold air was getting in on cold days, and that door is closer to the carpark than the one we've been using the past few months.  Much appreciated when moving out at the end of a long day.

My entry for the Sheep Show is still under wraps but was finished and delivered to the pick-up point at the Guild with at least 45 minutes to spare.  I managed to catch a cold that turned into laryngitis a couple of weeks ago.  I had no voice at all so couldn’t work but felt well enough to stay home and weave, maybe not such a bad thing

Next weekend is both the Sheep Show and the annual optometry conference and trade show and I really want to go to both – why does everything happen on the same week end?

Helen

Best Laid Plans

With a long weekend coming up and a Yarn Barn of Kansas gift voucher from my cousin burning a hole in my pocket, I made a plan.  I would order yarn for tea towels and a Bluster Bay shuttle as a (not so) little treat, and spend the long weekend working on tea towels as my stock is very low after the last market and some gift giving. So last week I did my order for the yarns and shuttle on line as well as some colour cards as I wanted to know just what the Brassard cottons looked like, apart from the ones I’d already ordered from my computer screen, hope they are not too different.  

Unfortunately yarn is heavy and postage to Australia is expensive but I used the gift voucher for most of what I’d ordered and paid for the rest and the postage myself.  I chose the 6 to 10 day option on the postage, and here I am on day 10 but with no parcel.  I’ve been following it on the USPS tracking app, and the Australia Post app as well, and it’s had quite the whistle stop tour.

It left Yarn Barn in Lawrence almost immediately, went to Kansas City then to Chicago where I would have expected it to take a trip to Los Angeles or Fort Worth and pick up a direct flight to Melbourne.  But no – it’s been to Houston and then Auckland and arrived in Melbourne the day before yesterday.  It just has to clear customs and get to my local post office.  I made a quick and unsuccessful trip there late yesterday.  It’s now a public holiday, followed by the weekend with no mail deliveries so although it’s in town and probably not that far away, I’m not going to get it before Monday.  By then I will be back at work and the long weekend, with extra weaving time, will be over.

I think that means that I will just have to work on the unfinished projects. With the first market for the year coming up on March 4, there are plenty of those to keep me occupied.

There’s a very little bit of warp left on the 8 shaft loom (where the tea towels are going),

once that’s done it can join these for fringing and wet finishing.

There’s a little bit of warp left on the 4 shaft loom as well, and a couple of other warps ready to start. 

This one is for glasses cases and I need more glasses cases for stock.  Actually I don’t need to finish this warp or even need to get out the sewing machine to get started on these.

In case I get all of this done there are about 12 kumihimo necklaces for glasses that need some finishing and to have findings attached.

Obviously I shouldn’t be bored over the long weekend but it’s just not like unpacking a new box of yarn and getting a fresh long warp on the big loom.

Enough complaining, back to the finishing

Helen

It's back

My weaving mojo that is.  

I found the Bumberet tea towels in the last post a bit laborious, they were on the loom from June to the end of October for 7 tea towels and a breadcloth.  I know part of the problem was that there were a lot of colours in the warp and some of them were 4 strands of 20/2 cotton.  Not all the strands lined up precisely and there were quite a few joins in the warp – note to self: just don’t ever do it again.  So there were joins and loose threads and fishing weights hanging all over the place.  

Once they were off the loom, I put on the burgundy tencel warp I’d saved from the double harness project last year.  It was the first time I’d saved a warp and it gave me no problems at all.  It was so nice to have something without loose threads and fishing weights and the 2 scarves were finished in no time. I used a draft from VAV and did one with a turquoise weft and the other with multi coloured tencel in jewel.  Both turned out well although I’m happier with the turquoise.

than with the multicolour

as there’s a battle going on between pattern and colour – as usual colour is winning. Clearly it's not nearly as photogenic.

A couple of weeks ago it was Melbourne Cup day – a holiday for a horse race at just the right time of year to make Christmas cakes so that’s what I did.  They need to be cooked very slowly so once there were in the oven I turned my attention to the next warp which was to be more tea towels for Christmas presents and for the December market.  Despite my problems with the Bumberet tea towels I knew I wanted to explore it further so I planned a warp, all with yarns from the stash.  I did a couple of wrappings before I was happy with the colours – I wanted green but neither of the greens I had contrasted with the grey but the bright aqua was fine so I went with grey, aqua, rose and just a dash of maize yellow.  

I knew I had 2 cones of the rose and started with the smaller one but there wasn’t quite enough.  I found the second one, hoping that it would be close enough in colour.  It seemed fine so I checked the dye lot and they were exactly the same.  I know I bought one from Halcyon Yarns in 2007 or 8 and the other from Village Spinning and Weaving in Solvang several years later.  I don’t know if I was just really lucky or that UKI dye colours in very very large batches.

The Bumberet towels went really well – the colours worked together, there were only 2 threading errors and both easily fixed, the weaving was an easy 4 pick repeat and any errors were so obvious that they could be fixed without unweaving more than a couple of picks.  

There’s just one problem – they’re not the same as the previous Bumberet.  I knew from the earlier towels that Bumberet needed groups of 3 ends and I planned and wound my warp carefully, taking the 3 end groups into consideration.  I threaded it in groups of 3,4,3 and 2,1,2 and away I went.  First I used a grey weft, just a little lighter than the grey in the warp, then white, then turquoise, then rose.  The warp was behaving and the texture of the cloth was great but something told me that they were different from the previous ones.  Eventually I looked at the draft I’d used for the previous towels and what I’d threaded was point twill – 2,1,2,3,4,3 – not the Bumberet I’d used last time which was 2,3,2, 1,4,1.  This set me off on a search which turned up an article by Madelyn van der Hoogdt (it's at https://www.interweave.com/article/weaving/the-bumberet-family/) but Blogger won't let me provide a link and another by Alice Schlein that I will try to find next time I make it to the guild library.  I now know that there are quite a few variations in the Bumberet family and the one I’ve used this time makes very nice, slightly textured tea towels with no long floats – what could be better than that?

I finished 10 towels and a bread cloth easily in time for the market last week even though it was a challenge getting them washed and dried in the middle of a few very wet and humid days. I wasn’t too concerned when none of them sold, as other things sold and it means that I still have a nice selection of tea towels for Christmas gifts and I don’t have to make another batch in the next couple of weeks.  

It was the last market for the year and there had been a question about the plans for 2018.  We received the good news that the market is moving back to its original venue after an absence of about 5 years and will now be known as the Hawthorn Makers Market – even though we had moved to the next suburb, we kept the name of the previous location in Hawthorn and were using the somewhat unwieldy title of ‘Hawthorn Craft Market – in Camberwell’.  It will be good to move back home.

As I had enough tea towels, I made a warp for another batch of glasses cases instead. 

It’s simple plain weave, just the thing for a bit of relaxation in the middle of the silly season.

Helen

New Warps, New Year

It’s the beginning of a new year, so it’s a good time for reflection on the past year, a look at what is in progress and plans for the new year.

In 2016 I managed to weave 12 scarves, here's one of the Geelong ones

18 tea towels,

6 meters of yardage for a jacket,

a warp for felted hats/pots,

a band for glasses cases,

just finished, 

and worked out how to use the double harness attachment on my loom.

I also worked on my sock knitting skills and completed 3½ pairs socks, and sent 4 scarves to the Geelong Scarf Festival and sold all of them.

Oh, did I mention that in my ‘spare time’, I worked full time?

What’s on the looms at the moment?

One of the new warps in the title has just gone on to the 4 shaft floor loom.  I need to replenish my tea towel stock for a market coming up at the beginning of March, more about that later.  I thought some tea towels in turned taqueté with a white background and a rainbow of stripes in what I like to call gelato colours would work.  It’s been very hot the last couple of days and it was hard work getting it threaded and sleyed with the help of a fan. 

Fortunately it has now cooled down and it’s amazing how much more quickly things get done when the weather is kinder.  The first tea towel is half done already.

I’m thinking of calling them the paintbox tea towels.

There are still 2 scarves to finish on the second double harness warp, and as soon as the weather is cool enough, I want to get back into the garage and finish the 2 red scarves on the loom. 

What’s coming up in 2017?

I’ve been going to the Hawthorn Craft Market for a while now, initially in the suburb of the same name, then a move to a new venue in Hawthorn and then to the adjacent suburb but still with the same name.  It’s fair to say the some of the customers are confused and some probably think it’s closed.  Every March there is a street festival in Hawthorn and in 2017 the Craft Market is returning to the suburb of its name.  We’re hoping some of our past customers will reconnect with us and new ones will find us.  We’re already praying for a dry, warm but not too hot day with a cool breeze if that’s what’s needed for a successful outdoor market and working on extra stock, hence the need for tea towels.

I’m enjoying using the double harness attachment on my Toika loom and I have some other ideas to try with the attachment.  The other job I really need to do is to fix a problem with a couple of the treadles.  My loom has a homemade system for tying up the treadles, a bit like the 20+ system.  One of the cords on treadle 1 has pulled out and the cords on treadle 4 have jammed, I suspect a fallen pin from a broken warp is the culprit.  I’m sure it can be fixed if I crawl under the loom for long enough.  At the moment I am restricted to 8 treadle drafts, with a straight treadling on 2,3,5,6,7,8,9,10.  It seems a bit odd but the mind does adapt.  Sooner or later I will see a draft that needs the whole 10 treadles and is so good that I will be forced to fix the problem.

The Geelong Scarf Festival is coming up in a few months with entries due at the end of April and after selling all the scarves I entered last year, I’m keen to enter again this year.  It would be great if I could start a bit earlier and not leave everything to the last minute.  Having said that I’d like to avoid the last minute rush, I guess it applies just as much to the Bendigo Sheep Show although that’s a couple of months later.

I have started planning for both events and will need to have a dyeing day in the near future and while I had the warping mill out for the tea towel warp, I wound the warps I need for some of the projects which need to be dyed first.

I think that should be enough to keep me entertained for the next few months, I’d better get back to the loom 

Helen

In which I finally admit that wise weavers use choke ties

Have finally got back to the blog, fortunately no major dramas to account for the silence, just busy with life, work and having more fun weaving rather than writing about it.

I mainly weave with fine wools and 8/2 unmercerised cotton.  These are not particularly slippery yarns and I have not had any trouble winding even long warps up to 15 metres on my warping mill, so tend not to use choke ties.  Last time I was at the local yarn shop I spied a cone of a fine Italian rayon ribbon knitting yarn.  Although I didn’t have a firm plan for it, the colour – somewhere between red and coral with a great rayon shine – spoke to me and of course it followed me home.

I used some in some black scarves with a supplementary warp.  The red was the first and looks great but I didn’t really think the project through and the red accent yarns were not secured well enough and if caught behave like threads for smocking or woven shibori.

I guess that’s one for my scarf collection but for the next 2 I used less slippery handspun yarns, and secured them much better.

About this time I realised my stock of glasses cases was getting low so decided to use the rest of the red yarn to top up the stock.  I thought that the shiny red rayon would contrast well in colour and texture with some black chenille in the stash and I started to wind the warp.  The rayon yarn was much heavier than the yarns I normally use and very slippery but I didn’t think about choke ties.  As I started to take it off the warping mill it mostly fell down under its own weight and was not helped by getting the guide string mixed in with it.  It was one of those ‘it’s just yarn’ moments but I knew that there had only been one cone at the yarn shop so I persevered.  In the end I wound it on to the warp beam, then on to the front beam and back on to the back beam, working out the mess as I went. 

Fortunately the crosses were well secured and even though it looked bad in the process, definitely worse than in this photo,

I eventually (after working on it for a whole day) managed to get it on with reasonable tension as this picture of the very end of the warp shows. 

The end result was just what I had planned so I was glad I didn’t give in to the ‘it’s just yarn’ moment but know that I really do need to use choke ties for any yarns like the red rayon.

I’ve also been busy making some scarves for the scarf festival in Geelong later in the year.  They need to be in Geelong by Friday but I posted them tonight so I had a day to spare, I'm not always so efficient

Helen 

Just a little bit obsessive

Last post I said I was having a clear out of excess paper and I’m pleased to report that I finished the shredding, cleaned up almost every last piece of shredded paper, a few are still appearing, and sorted my back issues of Handwoven so they now have their very own book shelf.  It might look obsessive but it’s really good to be able to put my hand on the issue of Handwoven I want.  There are still a few missing, hiding in various piles of books around the house but they will turn up eventually and be restored to their rightful place.

My warping mill is having a holiday with weaving friend W who wound half a warp, ran out of yarn and is waiting for the rest in a parcel that the post office has misplaced.  Rather than disturb the part wound warp, I have been working my way through the warps lurking at the back of the cupboard.  They’re the ones where inspiration hits, a warp is wound, more inspiration hits, another warp is wound and somehow makes its way on to the loom ahead of the already wound warps.  I’m sure I’m not the only weaver with this problem.

So far I’ve found and woven a dyed cotton warp for glasses cases, they might look finished but still need to be lined.

The painted tencel warp which was on my loom on January 1 is now finished, I'm very happy with the result but frustrated that I can’t seem to capture the sheen of the tencel in any of the photos.

I also found a wool warp, originally planned as men’s scarves about 6 years ago.  On closer inspection it’s really a bit heavy for scarves but I think it has potential for covers for bolster cushions so that’s the current plan and it’s now on the 4 shaft floor loom in a straightforward if somewhat muted, log cabin.

There has even been some progress on the 8 shaft loom, not sure why it’s been sitting there for so long as it’s very simple weaving, simply treadles 1 through to 10 following each other.  The stripes are 5 shaft satin so this is the wrong side and this right side is still hiding under the beam but it’s progress.

Even though it’s the middle of Summer, the weather hasn’t been really hot so I hope to get a some more done while the good weaving weather holds.  There are plenty of warps in the cupboard and if I happen to need to refer to Handwoven that’s not a problem

Helen