Colour surprise

At last I’m back to the loom and have something to show for my efforts, just as well as I'll be at the Hawthorn Makers Market in the morning.  Scarves have been selling quite well and I needed more stock.  There was quite a lot of rayon chenille in the stash so I wound a couple of warps, one in blues and teals

with a boucle rayon yarn in the same tones, and another in warmer tones. 

I made 3 scarves from each warp, using 3 of the warp colours for weft with the intention of having 3 related scarves in each colour way.  My vision was for them to be like fraternal triplets – similar but different. However with yet another colour surprise, I’d have to describe them as more like identical triplets.  Interesting how much the colours blended once they were wet-finished.  I took photos of each colour way but when it came to choosing the best ones, I couldn’t tell the colours apart, so one of each will have to do.

I’ve been working on the garden.  Most years I look at my vegetable patch in January and decide that it’s really too late to start.  I was determined to do better this year and here is a picture from about 6 weeks ago. 

Everything is growing well and I’m pleased to report that I'm now self- sufficient in salad leaves and rocket.

And finally, here’s the clematis on the back deck putting on a great display

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

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

One out of two is OK

It’s easy to have delusions about the time needed and available to complete projects.

I was sure that I had plenty of time to complete a ‘hand woven article’ – HWA - and a ‘hand woven garment’ – HWG - before the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show so entered both.

As usual, life intervened in the form of full time work to say nothing of the very early arrival of winter, making weaving at night in the garage particularly uninviting.

At the week end sanity prevailed. The HWG was well under way but the HWA was struggling – fine wool yarn, double weave, breaking ends, weird things happening in the layer I couldn’t see and unevenly hand dyed yarn producing a lot of unplanned stripes.  I realised that I had at least 16 hours of work to do but only 11 hours of spare time available so I made the sensible decision, took my time to finish the HWG properly and it was delivered with at least an hour to spare. 

About this time I read Tien’s blog and could really relate when she talked about ‘the gap between what your mind can envision and what your hands can create’

The HWA was nowhere near what I had envisaged.  I had made a sample scarf in the same design and yarn without any dramas but on the table loom.  I thought it would be easier to weave on the floor loom and it was as there were only 4 different picks.  Maybe the floor loom was the problem, putting more stress on the fine yarns.  I will sort out the HWA when the weather is a little warmer.  There are 2 scarves on the loom, the first one will be sample 2, I think the second one may work with a different weft yarn – or might turn out to be sample 3.

Other things have been more successful.  Before I could start weaving for Bendigo, I finished the rainbow painted Tencel which had been on the loom for far too long. 

I've ended up with a panel to put in a garment and 2 scarves, all in variations of plaited twill. Here it is in all its rainbow goodness and I've even managed to capture the sheen of the Tencel in some of the photos.

And I just looked at the Woolcraft catalogue – the HWG, now properly identified as a jacket, has been placed first in its section.  Here are a couple of progress shots, I always roll my hand woven fabrics on to a cardboard roll before I cut them out, that way I can almost convince myself that they are 'store bought' and that cutting into them will be easy.

More about that and the Sheep Show next time

Helen

A little maintenance

I started writing this post a few weeks ago, but life – in the form of a really nasty head cold – intervened and it was all I could do to get to work and home again.  I knew I’d been under the weather when I realised that I hadn’t lifted a shuttle in weeks.

Last post I wrote that my loom needed new cords and then for good measure my sewing machine and serger both needed new globes.  I suspect my 1975 Elna which has made everything from underwear to tents is only on its third globe.  It’s not that it hasn’t been used, it’s been used most weeks and has never missed a beat.  I think it’s because changing the globe is such a challenge that it trains me to turn the light off as soon as I’ve finished sewing.  I managed to get the old globe out with some difficulty and then managed to buy a close – 15 watt – but not exact – 25 watt – replacement.

Getting the new globe in wasn’t going well as it’s a very restricted space and even my small hands were not small enough.  Of course it took me a while to admit defeat and consult the book and I had forgotten the important step of putting a screwdriver in the hole on the top of the machine to push the whole lamp housing down.  Once I did that and after several more attempts, the globe eventually clicked into place.  It will take quite a while to forget how hard it was and by then I will have been re-trained to turn the light off when not needed.  Fortunately the Bernina serger has a screw in globe and went in without any drama.

The 4 shaft loom now has new cords and a rub down with furniture oil.  Getting the cords around the pulleys, 4 for each shaft, is a pain although this time I used venetian blind cord and it was much easier than the heavy cord I was replacing.  I sealed the ends of the new cord on the gas jet on the stove and they were firm enough on the ends and still flexible on the rest of the cord that I could work them round the pulleys.  Last time with the heavier cord I had to thread the curved upholstery needle with some strong yarn and sew it to the cord, thread the needle and the attached yarn round the pulley and then guide the cord through the rest of the pulleys.  It took ages and a few days after I finished we had very heavy rain, so heavy that the drains blocked, water went into the ceiling and the plaster sheets started to come down.  That was bad enough but the wet insulation all over the newly refurbished loom just added insult to injury.

Here it is with new cords and a good rub down with furniture oil, I do hope there are no storms on the way.  It was made here in Melbourne in the 1970s but it looks surprisingly like the Dorset loom, the predecessor of the Schacht's Baby Wolf, on Weavolution.  I can’t say it’s a copy but I do wonder if there was a common ancestor somewhere.

I decided to put just one last warp on the loom before I replaced the cords.  I had a bag of mixed yarns, one of those treasures from a workshop, a guild meeting or live in course where someone had cleaned out their studio and made up bags of leftovers to be sold for a worthy cause such as guild funds or scholarships to help textile students attend the event.  All the yarns were in shades of pale aqua and I knew I would have plenty in similar colours at home to add to the mix.  There was enough for warp for 4 scarves and weft for one, some of the recycled wool and silk from the wardrobe clear out was the next weft and I bought a couple of balls of knitting yarn for the other  two.  

As I wove them they reminded me a lot of the glaciers I’d seen on the West coast of New Zealand on a trip years ago.  So here are my 4 plain weave glacier scarves, whipped up from a mystery bag of leftover yarns, a few yarns from the stash and a couple of balls of knitting yarn, and all posing in front of the village of miniature china houses at the back of the kitchen bench.

Below, from left to right the wefts were mohair from the mystery bag, sage green knitting yarn, blue recycled 60/40 wool silk and pale aqua baby acrylic and wool.

Time to get ready for the Hawthorn Craft Market on Sunday, at least we’re inside, it’s no fun being outside in the middle of a Melbourne winter. 

Sometimes I think the loom is smarter than I am

A couple of years ago I replaced the old cords on my 4 shaft loom with good strong loom cord.  Maybe it wasn’t as strong as I thought, or maybe it’s just been used a lot but now the cords have started breaking in the middle of projects and rather than doing it properly and replacing all the cords again, I just do a cord transplant, inserting a short length and being careful to avoid the pulleys.  On Saturday night I was busy weaving some scarves, 3 done and the fourth half done. Early next morning we were due at the local Hawthorn craft market and I had the delusion that I would just finish the 4^th scarf, wet finish all 4 and in my spare time finish the hems on the remaining tea towels.  It was only 10.30 pm, plenty of good weaving time left before bedtime and the wet finished scarves could dry overnight.  The loom clearly had other ideas and snapped a cord.  I admitted defeat, had more sense than to fix the cord which is best done lying on the hard wooden floor with poor lighting.  I cut off the 3 finished scarves and wet finished them, hemmed the tea towels and went to bed at a reasonable hour. 

We had a good day at the market, more sales than usual and Gayle brought her small 4 shaft floor loom with her.   She got to work on some wrist warmers, at the same time demonstrating just what is involved making something handwoven.  We managed to set up the loom in the limited available space without encroaching too much on our fellow stall holders and we were surprised how much interest there was.  Sales of the charcoal and white tea towels were brisk and there are now only 6 left.

I didn’t quite meet my aim of making 15 different tea towels but I did manage 14 tea towels and a bread cloth before I ran out of warp.  

Here are towels 6 to 14 and the bread cloth: 

6 had elongated crosses,

7 just stripes,

8 long rectangles,

9 medium rectangles with squares within squares,

10 squares within squares alternating with plain log cabin squares,

11 stripes with small squares set closely,

12 crosses (and not sure what happened at one end which I’d hemmed before I noticed the mistake so that’s one for my tea towel drawer),

13 narrow columns with horizontal bars,

14 stripes with narrow horizontal bars

and finally the bread cloth,

same pattern as towel 1 from the previous post but using slubby yarns in grey/green and cream as I’d used all the charcoal cotolin after towel 13.

When I looked at our stock in the market bag I realised that there was very little to offer to our male customers so the next project after the tea towels was to make some scarves to appeal to men.  I set up for a simple herringbone in dark grey and red random stripes in fine wool.  The first had a camel weft, the second medium to dark blue and third red.  The last two were in silver grey and in black and they’re all a little longer than usual.

They have a great handle and drape but I’m not sure that they will only appeal to men, suspect that unisex might be a better description. 

 

Our next outing will be an expedition to Cross Pollination in Colac at the end of June and our next regular Hawthorn market is the first Sunday in July

The morning after the market I fixed the cord in a few minutes and got back to the 4^th scarf, I hope I will be able to find time to fix the cords properly before I end up with another new project on the loom

Helen

New projects

It’s been a busy few weeks with a conference for work, a house guest, overseas visitors and the opportunity to catch up with the people I worked with in the 1970s and 1980s.  A good time was had by all but it didn’t leave a lot of spare time.

There has of course been some progress.  I had put long warps on both looms so that when I had some spare moments, I could just sit down and weave.

The first project was for 4 scarves in 8/2 Tencel on the 8 shaft loom.  It’s the first warp I put on with the new warping valet.  I wrote at the time that it went on beautifully and with 3 of the 4 scarves finished, the tension has been perfect all the way.  The warp is deep coral with eggplant accents.  Each scarf has a different colour for the weft, so far - Tencel in light olive green, champagne and Xie bamboo in hot pink.

 With just one scarf length left, I’m still trying to decide which colour to use.  The draft is broken twill blocks adapted from a bedspread in Handwoven September October 2008 and is very similar to #246 in Carol Strickler’s 8 shaft book.  The handle is different for the Tencel and Xie wefts but both feel great, 

the draft gives an illusion of 3 dimensions and particularly with the light olive weft there is some iridescence as well.

I made some similar scarves last Winter and found them really easy to wear, I could arrange them in the morning and they stayed in place all day.  My only problem now is to decide which weft to use for the last one of the series.

The other project was to make some tea towels.  I had quite a lot of dark grey cotolin wich has matured in the stash for long enough and a similar amount of white 8/2 cotton.  I estimated that there was enough to make 15 tea towels and away I went using draft 4–47 in Marion Powell’s book, 1000(+) Patterns. 

Following the success of the warping valet, I thought I would try draping the (very long) warp for the 4 shaft loom over the heavy bench from the 8 shaft loom and weight it with bottles of water.  It was a great learning experience and I learnt that is was no substitute for the valet I made for the 8 shaft loom.  At one stage I had about 12 meters of tangled warp.  I worked on it patiently and eventually got it on the loom.  

Somewhat to my surprise, the tension has not given me any problems.  I guess I learned two things, not to do it that way again and when faced with a tangled warp, taking the time to make sure the tangles are tamed and that the warp goes on well is worth it. I gave myself the challenge of making 15 different designs, so far so good.  I’m up to towel 11 with a plan for number 12 and still have a few ideas left, if all else fails the last few might have some different weft yarns.  Here are the first five.

It’s the beginning of the 4 day Easter break, hopefully I’ll get both of these projects finished and something new on the looms.