I’m back – and with a cure for ‘dog on the loom’

As we live through these very strange times, the urge to blog and the urge to weave seems to have deserted me for quite a while.  Maybe it’s just what was happening in my life – once we came out of lock down at the end of October last year, work was very busy and then I had a family member staying with me for a few days each week until March.

I wrote last time about the dog on the loom and I have to report that there has been no weaving action there at all

There actually has been some weaving happening – I finished the tea towels based on Stubenitsky. With a natural cotton warp, I’d used the darkest yarns in the stash to give the best contrast.  I ended up with a rather dark and dull pile of tea towels, the nicest thing I could say about them was they looked as though they’d been woven during a pandemic.

I decided that the next warp needed to be brighter so I pulled out the brighter cones of cotton and designed my version of #728 from Carol Strickler’s book.  Apart from hemming them on the wrong side, they turned out well and now even the hems are fixed.

And the ‘dog on the loom’? – still waiting for inspiration.

Then I remembered that I’d entered a piece in the Complex Weavers exhibition in Canberra, postponed from last year.  I finally found my notes and realised that I was going to attempt something on my 4 unit drawloom.  I needed lots more of the long eyed and long heddles.  I tied all the heddles,

changed the shafts, set everything up for the drawloom, made the warp, threaded it through both sets of heddles and realised that I had almost zero shed and that the side I could see was the wrong side.  I knew that there would be many many mistakes with such a small shed and that it was time for Plan B.  Plan B was much the same design but done in Summer and Winter.  So I took all the extra heddles off the loom and put the normal ones back and, as I couldn’t find the original email with the dates, emailed the organiser.  Turned out that I had just over a week before my entry was due but somehow It was done in time, with I think about 3 minutes to spare.  

Here’s the wrap. The theme of the exhibition was Cartography of Cloth and I had been spinning a wool and silk braid from Moseley Park in shades of coral and magenta with some black and white as well.  It reminded me of the various colours of red wine from Merlot to Shiraz and my entry became Map of the Vineyard.  I used Zephyr as the warp, a fine wool yarn for the tabby weft and the handspun, plied with plum reeled silk, as the pattern weft. If you look carefully, you might see the gate into the vineyard at the bottom, the long rows of vines and the roses at the ends of the ends of the rows to indicate the grape varieties. 

Although we have few cases of COVID 19 in Victoria, our health officials want to keep it that way and as soon as a few cases appear we’re back in lockdown, usually just for a couple of weeks.  I think at the moment we’re in our fourth for 2021 and it’s just been extended by another 2 weeks

We went into lockdown at the end of May but it still looked as though the Sheep Show would go ahead. I wanted to make a jacket for the ‘Hand woven garment’ section but I still had enough warp left on the loom from the Complex Weavers piece, for another wrap. The Zephyr wool and silk warp was far too expensive to just cut off.  As I had a bit more time because of lock down, and enough of the handspun for another wrap, I decided that I would use the left over warp for another entry.  I played around with the weaving software, thinking I would be able to come up with something that looked like tiles.  As I experimented, the tiles elongated and turned into stylised eyes.  It just happened that the theme this year was ‘Vision’, I should know a bit about that. And just like that, the design was done and I even had a title – ‘The night has a thousand eyes’.

In the right light it does look like eyes peering out of the darkness but to be honest I think I can only find 472 eyes.

Once that was done, I still had enough time to weave fabric for the jacket and the facings.  I used 2/28 wool from Geelong Dyeing, a colour and weave draft from Robyn Spady’s Heddlecraft July/August 2020 for the main fabric and Strickler #43 for the facings. The pattern was Vogue pattern 1648 by Júlio César, a simple jacket suitable for handwoven fabric.

Once I finished weaving the fabric out in the cold garage, I told my 8 shaft loom that I would see it again in the Spring and went inside where it was much warmer

I rolled my yardage onto a cardboard roll,

 it almost looked store bought, and got on with the tailoring. 

I decided that it was time to try bound buttonholes in hand woven fabric. I used plenty of iron on interfacing and Fray Check and they turned out quite well. 

I’m not sorry though that I only need to do bound buttonholes occasionally

I delivered my entries to the Guild, they were taken to Bendigo, judged and put on display – and a few minutes after that we went into lockdown again and the entire show was cancelled.  I felt so sorry for all the people who run the Sheep Show every year. They were so close to going ahead but I heard that there were traders who took all their goodies out of their vans, set up their displays and then had to just pack them away and go home. Of course they weren't the only ones, everyone involved from the food vendors who had to throw out all the food they had, to the sheep breeders some of whom ended up stranded in Victoria along with their sheep and sheep dogs, missed out on the excitement, fun and income they get there each year.  Let's hope we can have a real Sheep Show in 2022

And the dog on the loom? Even though it was now the only loom with a warp on it, I still wasn’t inspired

We were in lockdown for the last couple of weeks of July, I got back to work for a couple of days, had my second COVID vaccination and found that night I had lost my appetite.  It wasn’t fixed by a good sleep and my stomach became sore.  I was a bit concerned about myself, went to the doctor and was promptly diagnosed with appendicitis and found myself on the way to the emergency department followed by surgery the next day.  

It all happened so fast I still have a surprised look on my face. I have been assured that I am too old to have appendicitis, apparently 15 to 30 is the peak age, and that the timing relative to the injection was just an unfortunate co-incidence.  Everything went smoothly and I was home in a couple of days with a long list of dos and don’ts.  My surgeon’s nurse rang after a couple of days to check on me and to reinforce what I was meant to be doing.  Nothing strenuous or any heavy lifting for the first couple of weeks, then more exercise, perhaps an exercise bike.  That’s certainly not going to happen but it did occur to me that the effort involved with an exercise bike was probably similar to weaving on my small loom. I asked her the question and once I had explained what weaving was – she told me that I shouldn’t weave for at least 2 weeks. It was however a good opportunity to re-hem the tea towels. It made no difference to the drying qualities but I felt better once they were done.

I can’t tell you how interesting that dog on the loom became once I was told not to weave.  I’ve examined it from all angles, have decided that I will finish the first piece with the hand spun yarn.  I read somewhere that rather than having needles disappear into the middle of the pincushion, it’s better to have a separate needle cushion with loops to secure the needles on the surface so I’m planning to weave a small strip to make into ‘needle cushions’.  Then I think I will re-thread the remainder to a different overshot design and use it for a table runner.

So there you have it, a rather drastic cure for dog on the loom

Must go, my 2 weeks of not weaving finishes today and I’ve got a dog on the loom that needs some attention

Helen

A more productive day

I might be getting used to not rushing off to work although today seemed like a waste of a good Saturday - all the things I feel that I miss out on by working til 2 on Saturday were closed, so I wasn't able to do them anyway.  It may only take a few more days before I give up even trying to work out what day it is.  Every day is feeling like a Sunday, it's the only day I'm home all day.

I managed to do my hip exercises and got a walk in, between showers.  With a lot of rain overnight, I wanted to see how much the creek had risen so I went downstream today. Yesterday was the upstream view. There are several bridges, possibly very loosely inspired by Monet,

but it’s very hard to get a good photo of them. 

If you look very carefully,

I live on the other side of the creek and across the field.

In the middle of summer this part is quite dry

but today it was almost ready for a little white water rafting and there were lots of people and their dogs checking it out.

I've made a little progress on the next tea towel, Nassau Blue this time.

I'm getting the hang of the treadling, not enough to do it without checking each few picks, but enough to know when I've made a mistake.

Way back in 1964 or 65, I bought new bathers that came with an excellent headband, just the thing to keep my hair out of the way when I wash my face,  The bathers are long gone, not surprisingly, but the head band, used every day, is beginning to wear out.  Things just don't last these days.  I saw a pattern for jersey headbands recently and decided, reluctantly, that it was probably time to pension off the 1964/5 model.  I now have 2 new headbands, took all of 15 minutes to make, I wonder what took me so long

The knitted cardigan is progressing well, have just started the last blue stripe, then another 6 cm and the band. That will just leave the sleeves, haven't checked for the right needles yet

That's it for today

Helen

Retirement - maybe

Well a lot has certainly happened since I wrote the last post. There I was just a month ago looking forward to another year of weaving and craft markets with just a passing aside as to whether I should order more yarn for the stash - I didn't - and here I am, at the end of my first day of self isolation/retirement/call it what you will.  They tell me that because of my age I should be at home, and as I've still got a lot of stash to use and want to use it, I knew that I actually should be at home as much as possible.  I guess I could look at it as a very sudden retirement or I could just treat it as an unexpected holiday.  To some extent, I am really working fromhome, helping patients who have an emergency with their eyes or glasses, still doing the paperwork and just trying to keep up with all the new information about the guidelines for seeing patients and accessing the various government support packages.

One of the things that I put on my 'To Do' list was to blog more often so here goes.

Did I take the opportunity on this first day of freedom to sit and weave all day? Not really.  The first thing I noticed was that I was no longer under pressure, especially with craft markets postponed, possibly for months, and rather than trying to squeeze everything into the weekend, I really didn't have to get everything done today, so I sat back and enjoyed the freedom.

I did get to the loom late in the day and wove one more repeat of the Stubenitsky Code tea towels, but before that, I decided to spend the morning doing some of the things that needed to be done and spend the rest of the day doing things that I just fancied doing.

I managed to get some exercise, listened to a couple of work related webinars, made a few work phone calls, and cleaned the bathroom

Then I called a couple of friends, did the small amount of weaving and did a little knitting

A few years ago, when the Guild was open one night a week, I started some knitting.  It was going quite well until one night as I got into the car, I dropped it in the gutter and it got wet.  I sort of lost interest at that point.  Last weekend, I decided it was time to get back to it - I figured that there were worse germs around at the moment than anything from the gutter from years ago.

I found a part knitted shawl, just where I expected it to be - but unfortunately there were no instructions.  As I looked for the instructions, I found a part knitted cardigan.  It had a faint stain which I'm sure will wash out, a mark on the instructions where it had been wet at some time and a faint lingering smell of gutter, I realised that this was indeed the knitting that had been in the gutter, goodness only knows what the part knitted shawl was all about or how I will track down the pattern.

I have started working on the cardigan and I'm finding it just the thing for troubled times.  It's a top down, one piece cardigan.  The pattern is 'Caramel' from Ravelry in Bendigo Luxury 8 ply and it's just stocking stitch.  There is enough to keep me alert with mock seams on the sides, an unusual rib on the bands and the sequence of stripes, but the familiar rhythm of the long rows of stocking stitch is very relaxing.  I've picked it up several times today and done a row or two each time.  It's not going to grow quickly because of the long rows, but I'm well advanced with the body and then just have to knit the sleeves on. It's just the project I need at the moment and I'm enjoying knitting again
That's it for today

Helen

Catching up

The choice tonight was to weave in the garage where it’s started to get quite cold, wind a new warp or stay where it’s warm and take the time to catch up with the blog.  Guess what won?

The past couple of months seem to have been particularly busy so this is what’s been happening around here

In the last post I mentioned that I’d been allocated a stall for the annual outdoor market

and if I had written a post just for that outing, the title would have to have been ‘Too good to last’.  On the 2 previous occasions, here and here, we’ve been up the ‘better’ end of the street.  No trams, good cafes, good ice cream shop and kind weather as well.  I guess it was our turn to be up the not so good end of the street at what was more a foot path (sidewalk) festival than a street festival.  For readers not familiar with the workings of a tram system, there are a few points where the trams can reverse and go back down the other side of the track and clearly, when part of the road is closed to trams, they need to reverse somewhere to service the rest of the line.  The reversing point was just at the back of the row of tents, so close in fact that when there was a barrier extending from the back of a tent a couple up from mine, the tram hit it and caused half the tent to collapse.  However the problems started even before the tent collapse.  We had been sent instructions to use a parking area quite close to where the tents were.  We arrived in good time complete with the directions we had been sent, to find a very cross woman, who was just trying to run her business using the same parking area.  We said this was what we had been told to do, waving our instructions and she told us sternly that it wasn’t a legal document and we were not parking there.

Rather than facing the street and being part of the action, our tents faced the footpath and there was a step down to the gutter for anyone who wanted to look more closely. Fortunately  for us, we looked into the church yard. 

There were not a lot of people going past, and we had trams behind us, about a foot from the back of the tent, at very regular intervals. The local shops were very limited and it was just so hot. Surprisingly, I did manage to sell a couple of scarves even though I thought it was far too hot to even think about trying them on.  

At the beginning of the day I had managed to get everything to the tent with assistance from some of the members of the Rotary Club who run the market and had then parked some distance away.  During the day I realised that getting packed up could be an issue as I had brought a few extra things, thinking I would just be able to park outside the tent.  I didn’t want to leave everything unattended in the middle of the road so I took the suitcase full of weaving and my favourite folding table back to the car with some effort. I moved the car a bit closer, and the market gods must have been looking after me as the parking place closest to my tent was vacant when I needed it. Somehow, I managed to get everything else back to the car in just one more trip – but I know I had at least 3 trips worth of stuff to move.  Never underestimate a determined woman who just wants to get home and out of the heat!

I’ve finally finished the white runner, including proper hemstitched hems.Here’s a couple of photos though it’s hard to show the detail well when it’s white on white

I’ve managed quite a bit of sewing, possibly inspired by Polly my new assistant although I now realise that having gone to all the trouble of adjusting her to fit me, I’ve managed to lose enough weight that she’s probably now bigger than I am.

I wrote last post about using the pattern from Burda 3/2016 to make a knit dress, then a woven top.  Since than there have been 3 more knit tops,

all successful

especially the last.  At a distance, it just looks like a repeating design

but up close the little cat faces become obvious,

much to the delight of cat lovers.

I saw some upholstery fabric that spoke to me and managed to draft a jacket pattern from a favourite in my wardrobe.  I’m happy with the result

and can think of other ways to use the pattern as well.

A couple of weeks ago I needed to have a day procedure, nothing drastic and results all good.  It was at least 20 years since my last encounter with the hospital end of the medical system.  I remembered the long wait last time and went prepared with some kumihimo braiding. 

I got some strange looks but just kept on braiding and 5 hours of waiting later I’d done about a metre.  In case you're wondering the design is my kumihimo version of leopard skin, here's a close up

As I was in recovery, I studied the heavy cotton blanket and was able to analyse that most of it was leno,

with what appeared to be a summer and winter border that included the name of the laundry in very long floats.  When I moved on to a critique of the border – floats far too long to withstand the rigors of a hospital laundry – I knew I was just fine.  I even took photos but clearly I was not quite as fine as I thought, because I was sure I took a photo of the other side where the floats were much worse but somehow ended up with this one

of the better side.

Apart from all that I've been to the April and May Hawthorn Makers Markets with reasonable sales.  There's some renovation going on near our usual spot.  Hopefully by the time winter comes the second set of doors will be finished and it will be a warmer inside

My tea towel stock has been replenished with the Neutrals with a touch of spice range finished

as well as a set in blue tones, using every blue, green and aqua yarn in the stash

I still have lorikeets in my garden, when I looked they were playing close attention to the lacrosse game on the oval

I'm off to wind a new warp

Helen

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