A little bit of DIY

When I found myself with 2 naked looms last week, I knew it was time for a couple of do-it-yourself projects before I wound on the next warp.

I went to the local hardware barn and bought 2.4m/8 ft of 30 x 30 mm quarter round dowel with a flat edge,

some bolts and wing nuts, a packet of saddle clips(enough for 2 projects) and some short screws, short enough for the jobs I had in mind.  Altogether it cost $24.48.

My first project was a warping valet.  Behind the loom in the garage there are some sturdy shelves.  The unit is quite stable as it is ‘L’ shaped and the heavy boxes of yarn are at the bottom and do their bit to contribute to the stability as well.  I thought I could attach something beneath one of the higher shelves and hoped that my DIY skills were up to the task.  

I cut 2 pieces off the length of dowel long enough to fit to the back of the shelves, leaving the third piece long enough for my planned valet. I lined it up on the floor to make sure it was going to work.

I drilled holes about 100 mm/4 inches from one end of each piece.  I flattened out 4 of the saddle clips and used them to attach the two shorter pieces below the second top shelf.

It would have been nice to line them up with a full shelf unit but I realised that where they really needed to be was lined up with the middle of the loom. 

I then measured the longer piece and found where to drill the holes and smoothed the wood with sand paper and steel wool.

The only other thing to do was to fasten it with the bolts and wingnuts and then see if it really worked.  It’s about 2m/6ft off the ground and that’s not a problem for me. 

I’ll need to be more careful when I take down the boxes on the top shelf but they’re up there because they’re not too heavy and I don’t use them very often.

I had a tencel warp ready to go but before I did anything I had a look at Laura’s excellent video and I was away.

  It worked like a dream, the warp went on in no time and was smooth and even just as it should be – thanks Laura! 

We used to have annual hard rubbish collections where everyone put their unwanted and broken household items out the front of the house and everything was collected on the appointed day.  What often happened was that items just moved from one house to another as neighbours spotted something they could use.  This annoyed the people who were paid to do the collections as by the time they arrived, the best treasures had already found new homes.  It’s much less interesting now as individual households book their own collections.  My neighbour had booked one and I noticed a small trolley amongst her collection.  I thought it had great potential as a weaving trolley but didn’t like to steal her rubbish.  We were talking and she was complaining that not only had the council failed to collect the rubbish when they said they would, but other neighbours had started adding to her collection.  That’s not allowed under the new rules but if it’s done at night, who’s to know.  Pointing at the trolley she said ‘that’s not mine’ and instantly, it disappeared down my drive. 

I bought a top and a cutlery drawer at IKEA.  The drawer fitted perfectly but my attempt to attach the top was less than successful and this was the second DIY project.  I measured out where the saddle clips needed to be, drilled some holes, packed the space between the round clips and the square frame with some scrap foam, put in the short screws, short enough not to damage the new top, and it was done. 

The things I use all the time are in the fabric boxes on top,

things I use less often but like to have close to hand are in the cutlery tray, the yarns for the current project are in the top wire basket

and the fishing tackle box with a good collections of ‘S’ hooks, paperclips, fishing weights, film canisters, small weaving tools and various other weaving bits and pieces is in the next wire basket. 

There are even 2 wire baskets waiting to be filled.

A good afternoon’s work and for a very modest outlay, I’ve now got a warping valet and a neat weaving trolley. Not only that, I realised that my DIY skills were up to the task and that gives me confidence to tackle the next DIY project.

Introducing Portia

When our group started planning to sell our work at local craft markets we realised that we needed a ‘portable shop’ and that’s a bit more complicated than a permanent one.  The word went out through the group and in no time we had most of what we needed.  Gerlinde was glad to get rid of a large, light and roomy suitcase on wheels, I had a good portable mirror and some other display items from work and made a table cloth and banner.  Hazel had picked up a small light display model when a local shop was closing and so Portia – what else could we call her – became part of the group as well.  The portable shop collection tends to end up at the home of whoever packed up after the last market.

At present it’s all in my garage so when I finish something I can photograph it draped over Portia. 

Here she is wearing my new green linen jacket, a cool wool scarf and a necklet from my Christmas stocking.  Looks good on her but fits me better, she’s a bit on the skinny side.  The cool wool scarves look good now that they are finished and do live up to their name. 

The yarn is very smooth so it really is wearable on a hot day.  It could be called light wool as well, the scarves weighed only 58 gm/2 oz each, maybe it’s just that they’re mostly holes.

I’ve started making the woven bands into cases and they’re looking good.

The back rod for the green yardage has just appeared over the back beam, a great relief as it’s been of the loom for ages, time to start another project.

And an update on the last post on recycling – today I’ve been wearing a top which had been hidden in the back of the wardrobe for far too long, so far 4 people have commented on what a nice top it is.  It’s like having a new wardrobe.

Helen

Recycling

There comes a time in the life of every cupboard, closet or wardrobe when an attempt to put in just one more item, risks the whole mess collapsing on to the floor.  So it was with the walk in wardrobe in the bedroom.  My plan for this past long weekend was less weaving and more sorting of the wardrobe.

First I moved to the spare bedroom so I’d have somewhere to sleep.  I almost thought I was on holiday somewhere.   Then I removed absolutely everything from the wardrobe and mostly threw it on the bed.  This included taking every garment off its hanger.  That way you have to pick it up and seriously ask yourself if you can still fit into said garment, and assuming that you can, whether you would be prepared to wear it in public.  Only if it ticks all the boxes does it get a new hanger and a place back in the wardrobe.

It’s all taken up far too much good weaving time but the end result is looking good.  Clothes are now arranged in groups rather than in random order.  There is a small pile of garments which need minor repairs or to be shortened.  There is a large pile of garments to be given to a friend who sells second hand clothes and another large pile for the charity shop.  I will probably never need to buy another coat hanger.

There were some garments that looked as though they might turn into weaveable yarn.  The yarn in one was so weak that is was not useful for anything but the others unravelled easily. 

I have 450 gm of pale blue wool/silk and 650 gm of white 70/30 wool/viscose all destined for the dye pot next time I have a dyeing day.  

There were also some wool garments that I hope will be able to be turned into felt.

     

The other treasure I found was afairly basic (and very small) blouse finished with about a meter of beautiful hand crochet edging.  Even though I’ve never done a lot of crochet, and being mainly self taught hold it as though I’m knitting much to the consternation of any properly trained crocheters who happen to be watching me, I’m sure I made it. The edging was too good to throw out so I removed it from the blouse very carefully even though I have no idea how I'm going to use it

The green yardage goes on, and on but is more than half finished.  The cool wool scarves are going well and should be finished soon – I wonder what the next project will be

Helen

Cool Wool

What sort of warp do you choose when the forecast is between 39ºC and 44ºC, that’s 102ºF to 111ºF if you’re still working in Fahrenheit,  for the next 4 days? 

Why Cool Wool of course.  Cool Wool was developed in Australia in the 1980s using small diameter merino fibres and special spinning techniques to produce a fine even yarn less hairy than regular wool yarn, specially for making lightweight woollen fabrics which can be worn most of the year. It’s been relaunched recently– thought their sheep were very cool. A local weaver who’s down-sizing had a studio sale late last year and something that moved from her stash to mine were a few cones of Cool Wool yarn, probably from the 1980s.

I was inspired by a curtain in VÄV 3/13 which had blocks of mesh and plain weave.  My yarn was a similar weight to the linen in the curtain but I don’t have a 110/10, that is 27.5 dpi reed.  My choice was 12 or 15, so went with the 12 initially with the assumption that the holes in the mesh would be bigger, and made the warp long enough for a sample.  The warp is made and on the 4 shaft loom. I needed something to keep the spaces even and the 1mm needles from the lace knitting phase were just the thing once I had removed the rust with some steel wool.

The first sample, on top, is done and wet finished, and as it was too loose, I did the second, lower, sample, with the 15 dpi reed which has produced a far more stable fabric.

The warp faced band is also finished and wet finished but I need to machine the ends of the sections before I start to make up the glasses cases.  Unfortunately my machine lives upstairs, the hottest part of the house, so they will have to wait.

When it’s this hot I think about how my grandmothers coped with heat waves.  The one who raised 11 children, mostly in the country and always doing the cooking on a fire stove would tell me that if you work hard, you don’t notice the heat.  My other grandmother who was a florist and thought of herself as artistic, would just paddle in the bath until the weather cooled down.  My bath is upstairs with the sewing machine, both off limits at the moment, as is the loom in the garage, so I guess I’d better keep working on the mesh scarves until it's cooler

Helen

A Place to Start

Portia’s Cloth is a group of handweavers who completed the 2 year certificate course at the Handweavers and Spinners Guild of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.  At the time the Guild met in an old scout hall in Shakespeare St.  When we started a weaving group we wanted a name with Shakespearean connections.  Eventually we chose Portia’s Cloth.  Of course we know that she wasn’t a real person, but we know from ‘The Merchant of Venice’ that she was rich, beautiful and intelligent.  The only cloth she would have known would have been handwoven and we aspire to produce cloth of the quality she would have known, but with a more modern twist.

I volunteered to start a group blog and when I understand how it works, I hope some other group members will be posting as well.

It’s hard to know where to start but a bit about me followed by a tour of the looms and the works in progress seems the obvious choice.

Like many who practise textile arts, I started early.  I’d mastered running stitch by 4 and was knitting before I started school.  My mother was a big influence and with little sewing knowledge, she would tackle evening dresses from Vogue patterns, only the complicated ones, and always with expensive material.  One day she came home with upholstery fabric and proceeded to take the sofa apart, make a pattern from the old cover and put it all back together, successfully, I should add.  In later years she became expert in cross stitch.  At high school, I was able to substitute dressmaking for geography, much to the horror of my academic friends.  We had an excellent teacher whose mission in life was to make sure we could turn out garments that looked ‘handmade not homemade’.  I‘ve never missed the geography and am sure that travel is a great substitute

After university, I completed a basic weaving course.  I loved it but didn’t have the sense to buy a loom.  Later, I learned to spin and bought a wheel but the desire to weave was still there.  Another short course or two and my first loom, a 4 shaft table loom, followed me home in 1985 when the Guild had a clearing sale as they moved to new premises.  Yet another short course and I acquired a 4 shaft direct tie-up floor loom as well.  I had started on my weaving journey. 

In 2005 and 2006 I completed the 2 year certificate course in weaving run by the Guild.  Two years of formal training, plenty of weaving practice and documenting it all in a folio was a great experience.  It’s given me the confidence to try all sorts of projects and it’s hard to stop.

When I’m not weaving I work as an optometrist in my own practice.

And now to the looms and works in progress.  

The original 4 shaft direct tie-up loom lives in the house near the TV. It was made by the Druva family who migrated from Latvia and manufactured wheels and looms in Melbourne in the 1970s.

I use it mostly for simpler projects like the warp faced band I’m weaving at the moment.  This is a 10 metre warp in 3/2 cotton.  If it ever ends it will be made into glasses cases which sell well at my practice and the local craft market.  The loom has had a lot of use and had performed well until I made some rag table mats late last year.  Weaving these under high tension was probably beyond its capabilities.  Cords snapped for no apparent reason, well maybe it was all that tension, and then one of the dowels used to tighten the warp beam, fell out.  With hindsight it was probably a bad design but the warp beam is now a bit fragile, hasn’t stopped the weaving, but it will have to be replaced.  I’m hoping a friend with woodworking skills and a few Leclerc spare parts will solve the problem.

The other loom is an 8 shaft Toika countermarch loom, also from the 1970s; it’s the model that is the forerunner of the Liisa.  It’s been modified with something similar to the 20+ tie-up system with the cords secured by golf tees. It lives in half the garage but fortunately our climate is mild enough that I can weave there most of the year. I bought it in 2006 and was told that it had some sort of draw loom capability.  I was excited this week when I read an article in VÄV about old shawls from Gotland, and suddenly it all made sense.  The project used a loom with a 4 unit draw device.  This is just the way my loom is set up but whether it actually works might be quite another matter.  At the moment I’m about 2 metres into a 6.5 metre painted warp in plaited twill 2/24 wool for yardage (or should that be meterage?) so the exploration of the draw loom will be delayed for a while.

There are of course many other projects in the pipeline too, but they will have to wait til next time

Helen