Preparing for the Sheep Show 2014 – it’s that time of year again

One of  the most important events for the local spinning and weaving community, to say nothing of the farmers and the wool industry,  is the annual Australian Sheep and Wool Show, held in Bendigo towards the end of July each year.

It’s like  an agricultural show or a county fair but just concentrates on everything to do with sheep, and a few alpacas and other fibre animals included for good measure.  For everyone involved in creating textiles there are competitions, and opportunities to top up the stash from the vendors and to actually touch equipment from interstate suppliers.  For the producers there are fleece and meat competitions, ram sales and displays of all sorts of farm equipment – I wonder what a lot of it does.

It’s held at the Prince of Wales Showgrounds in Bendigo, guaranteed to be freezing cold in the middle of winter.  Preparation for a visit starts with important decisions about warm and very comfortable footwear as well as the number of layers.  Actually preparation should start well before this when the Woolcraft competition schedule arrives in the mail.  There’s the will I/won’t I enter debate and if the answer is ‘yes’, then which classes.  I had several metres of hand woven fabric just asking to be made into a garment so ‘Handwoven garment’ was definitely a possibility.  Entries were due about the same time as the bad cold I had recently, the one where I wasn’t even interested in lifting a shuttle.  I assumed that eventually I’d be lifting a shuttle again, added ‘Handwoven article’ to the entry form and sent it off.

I had an idea for a double weave scarf but couldn’t quite work out the details, so I settled for 8 shaft Summer and Winter.  I had plenty of black 2/22 wool for the warp and tabby weft and fancied a dyed weft with long repeats.  I’ve seen the blanks for dyeing knitted on knitting machines, but as I don’t have access to a knitting machine, decided it should work with a mechanical knitting nancy which I do have.  I did the maths, worked out that I would need around 50 gm of yarn made into 30 metres of knitted cord and started knitting.  It gets quite twisted in long lengths so I ended up knitting on the upstairs landing and letting the cord fall into the stairwell to untwist.  Then I set up the laundry for dyeing, and dyed the knitted cord.  Each section of colour wove about 3 inches of the scarf and the pattern repeats were about 4 inches, I even managed to get both ends of the scarf to match.  The changes of colour weren’t quite as gradual as I had planned but it still worked well.

  I’m providing a home for a friend’s slightly larger but not full sized knitting machine while she moves house, I’m hoping that it will make better blanks.

For the ‘garment’ I used the green fabric from an earlier post, something that had languished on the loom for months.  


I fancied something with a Japanese flavour and settled on a hanten with a kimono collar, drafted the pattern with Garment Designer.  At the start I wasn’t quite sure how I would finish the edges but it all fell into place with a wide mitred band around the fronts and lower edge and a matching edge on the sleeves.  I attached the lining around the back neck and along the inside of the front bands and used the kimono collar to cover the raw edges.  The fabric was a little bit fragile for tailoring as I found out when I joined the first 2 seams together and then tried, unsuccessfully to serge the edges.  After that I serged first and then joined the seams without any further dramas. 

I was pretty happy with the end result but there was no time for proper photography, just a quick press and I delivered it to a friend who was able to deliver it to Bendigo.

As  well as the Sheep Show I’m spending Saturday night with an old family friend who lives nearby and if there’s time on Sunday I’ll try to get to the exhibition which is opening on Saturday at the Bendigo Art Gallery – Undressed: 350 years of underwear in fashion, including I believe a pair of Queen Victoria’s knickers.  It should be an interesting weekend.

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.

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