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

Taking Stock

The start of a new year is always a good time to take stock. Here’s the tea towel stock,

what little of it there is.  In 2018, I made around 36 tea towels and have just 2 left after selling most of them and gifting the rest.  The total is probably more than that as there were several left from earlier years at the end of 2017.  

I even checked the numbers from 2017 and 2016 and found that I made 23 in 2017 and 18 in 2016.  I know there’s a message there, quite simply, make more tea towels.  They sell easily and my friends who are on the Christmas tea towel list, have started to ask, hopefully, if there will be tea towels this year.

I have 5 or 6 left on the broken twill blocks warp, the pale pink one looks particularly nice

and as the weather hasn’t been too hot, it’s very pleasant weaving in the garage with the door open.

I decided I wanted to weave some more Bumberet tea towels but in more neutral colours.  I even found the black and white setting on the software so that I could compare value.

Here’s what I started with 

Here’s the black and white version

And here’s the warp

I used the values to make a plan for the main colours – black, light grey, taupe, dark grey and white, and back to black again – and, as Bumberet needs groups of 9 ends, warped 2 of the main colour and one, randomly chosen, accent colour. After a few repeats, I added the terracotta/pink because I felt it worked.  Hopefully by the next post I will be able to show whether it worked – or didn’t

I also made around 17 scarves and probably sold or gifted much the same number. Here's just 2 of them

I made a coat for the Sheep Show

and managed to wear it a couple of times before the weather got too hot but it will be great for next Winter.

I am still working on the white runners, I suspect there are a couple of mistakes in the one I’m doing at the moment and hope there is still enough warp to start again.

Next week, I’m off to the Guild Summer School to do a workshop in Weaving Iridescence. Here’s the warp,

I’ve followed all the rules, but only time will tell if I achieve real iridescence

In my spare time I’m back at work though not working too hard as everyone seems to have gone to their beach houses for the Summer, and trying to convert the jungle that is currently where my back garden should be, back into garden

Helen