Changing Direction

This will be my last post over here as it's time for me to get purposeful about writing.  Last night was all about porting things to the new blog, making sure I didn't take credit for other's work, and starting the big slog of organizing.  But, there's content now and that makes it look less "new".

Taking the time to start fresh also forces me to organize a bit more; what I want to highlight, where I want to focus and put together a plan for the next 18 to 24 months.  That'll be this week's work, along with some other administrativa, so that I can really get working as efficiently as possible.  There will be lists, plans, and organizing.

And, I'm going to get those other two looms threaded.  There is so much to do.  And I'm the one to do it.

Loom Maintenance

Yeah, so it's been a while since either of us posted here, but that doesn't mean I haven't been weaving.  Oodles of stuff have come off the AVL and, with a request to weave a set of Summer and Winter towels, I decided it was time to dust off Gilly and weave on her for a while.  I wanted to get my head around the structure and having to pay attention to the treadling order, and being able to make changes as I went are two things that aren't as easily done on the AVL.  So, off I went!

First step was to see if I could use the warping wheel to beam on a sectional warp.  The height of the beam on the Gilmore is much lower than the one on the AVL, so I needed to decide how to deal with the differential between the beam on the loom and the comb on the wheel.  It's possible to change the height of the wheel, so I lowered it as much as possible (and now I would have to wind while seated) but there was still a good 12" difference between the comb and the beam.  With a little encouragement from a friend, I gave it a go.  Worked a charm.

You can see that I've also angled the comb so that the width of the section matched the width on the beam.  Once things were lined up, I wound on in no time.  Mischief managed - and I'm another step closer to putting in an order for my own wheel.  By the way - this also meant that I needed to make sure that I planned out my winding order so that the colors would change where necessary rather than just at sections.  And, I even managed to pay attention to how the section gets built versus how it winds on so, amazingly, there were no mishaps in getting the warp on the loom.

I proceeded on to threading, sleying and checking for threading/sleying errors and everything looked just fine.  It was nice to be able to thread so quickly; being able to flick the heddles into position and then out of the way is a luxury that the AVL doesn't have.  And, the little pieces of drafting tape that tell how many heddles are on each shaft continue to pay off.  I was all set to go before the day was over.

Or at least I thought I was.  There's a bit of rehab that I've been putting off doing on this loom because I was pretty sure it was going to be a royal pain in the butt.  Over time, the cushioning strips in the lamm guides, as well as on the underside of the jacks, go bad.  Actually, they don't just go bad, they do it by converting from foam to sticky goo that oozes down the sides of the loom and forms an unholy bond with the lamms.  From a functionality standpoint, it means that the lamms and shafts actually stick when the treadles are depressed.  I'd lived with it for a long time but it was even more annoying than previously after the ease of the AVL.  So, when I sat down this morning to start weaving on the actual towels, I decided that I couldn't deal with it any more.

Naturally, the best time to do serious maintenance on a loom is when it's just been dressed and is ready to start weaving, right?  Of course!  So I dug out the instruction sheet and the four new pieces of foam that I'd gotten from Gilmore last year and had a good look.

See?  Horrible.  It's been in need of doing for quite some time.

First step was to remove the two screws that hold in the lamm guides.  See them there?  One on the top, one on the bottom.  Those, dear friends, are flat-head screws.  The instruction sheet makes lots of noise about possibly not being able to get them out and warning against breaking them off in the process.  I got Chris to come out and help because those screws were MURDER to try and remove and we got three out of four.  The bottom one in the picture just wouldn't budge.  And, after we managed to cam out the slot, Chris resorted to getting out the Dremel tool and cutting a new slot.  Eventually, that screw came out and we were able to get both of the guides out for cleaning.

I had to use an X-Acto knife to scrape off the worst of the perished cushioning; to give you an idea, here's what the jack cushions looked like when they came off the loom:

and after scraping off the worst of the goop:

then, liberal applications of Goo-Gone, time, elbow grease and Murphy's Oil soap, it was time to put on a new piece of foam:

and it's ready to go back onto the loom.

I also had to crawl around underneath the loom because the lamms themselves needed cleaning.  All in all, it was about 3 hours of work to get everything disassembled, cleaned and then reassembled.  And, I must admit, it's much more pleasurable to weave on it.  The shafts raise and lower when they're supposed to and even give a happy bounce when they drop.  Massive improvement.

And, not surprisingly, it's much less physically taxing to weave on the Gilmore.  Mentally, OTOH, it's a bit more challenging.  But that's all good, right?  Because then I won't think about the marathon I'm not running.

Now, back to the studio.  I've got towels to weave.

I Was Here Somewhere

Oddments I should tidy up...

The band for the Turkish Coat.  It's all woven off and wet-finished.

I like the visual effect, but the fabric is rougher than the body of the coat.  The weft on the body fabric is Harrisville Highland; that of the band is Harrisville Shetland.  I suspect the Shetland packed in too tightly for the cloth to full well.  The weft floats held up well to washing and drying, but we shall see how they do when I cut the fabric.

Don't hold your breath till you see the sewn-up coat; I'm scared, for one thing, and for another, I need to do a muslin.

Second:  The next warp.

Every so often, I get a strong urge to use up a lot of the yarn I have all at one time.  A bit of stash-busting, you could say.  I can't imagine why I feel the need to bust my stash.  (Did you know I have 29.5 fleeces?  Well, did you?)  That's this warp; it's 8/4 cotton rug warp that was given to me.  I used up all of the green I had and all of the blues I had in small quantities, but I'm still left with two almost full tubes of blues.  It's 34" wide, sett 16 epi, for a double-binding rug (a blue and green rug; Sara, you might as well stop reading right now).  For the blue and green wefts, I'll use 5 or so strands held together of mill-end rug yarns and what not, including some of the enormous bag of Paternayan I have.  A double-binding rug is reversible; I've never used this draft before, but I think what it's going to do is squish alternating wefts on top of each other, such that only one color shows on each side.  I might, if I work at it, start weaving Tuesday night; I'll post more photos then.  This could be an interesting fabric, or not.  I'm looking forward to finding out which it is.

Plugging Along

A quick drop-in now that I'm back from holiday to show a bit of the pre-Art Fair process.  Part of getting to know the AVL is to use it as much as possible - and this latest batch of towels threw another tool into the tool box:  the cloth storage beam.  After weaving off about 3 yards of cloth, there was enough to reach to the back, and it meant I got to do this:

that's the warp coming off the warp beam above and the cloth going onto the storage beam below.  The storage beam has it's own tensioning system so that as I advance the cloth it just winds on.  And, there's only enough tension to keep the spring going - the actual tension on the just-woven cloth is delivered by the sandpaper beam.  It's all very clever; and exceedingly simple to use.  Best of all, the rollers direct the cloth in such a way that my knees never interfere with it - a nice change from both the Gilmore and the Baby Wolf (curse of being a tall person!).

This also being a long warp forced me to keep changing tie-ups and treadlings so that I didn't lose my mind.  I also tried different weft colors within patterns - all of which led to me discovering a lovely Color-and-Weave variation:

I absolutely love this pattern.  I may just have to keep one of these for myself.  Or, I'll have to make more.

That said, it's time to finish beaming the next warp (three sections to go) - it's a variant of this warp in all browns/naturals.  Part of that is clearing the stash, part is to have more color options within a pattern group.

Once Fair is behind me, it's time to get serious about the cotton shirt and also to start thinking about this:

I have a few thoughts about how to incorporate this into cloth - and I'm hoping that Sara and Deb will have more when I see them next month.  Next month!  Where does the time go?

Yes or No

When I took the Margo Selby class, I was reminded of a local weaving resource I've been debating using.  The Hill Institute offers a four-year program of Master Weaver classes, about an hour away. The classes are very, very reasonably priced and cover a wide range of weaving structures, different yarns, looms, etc.  You can take one year and never come back, or take all four years and go on to do independent work that is then evaluated towards a Master Weaver Certificate.  I've met maybe five weavers who have taken the courses or are in the middle of taking them, and they all rave about the process.  The courses are popular enough that there is a wait list to get in; it might take a couple of years to be able to take them.

Now, I have no real desire to get the Certificate.  I don't intend to teach and I don't need official recognition.  However, I keep being attracted to the idea of taking the courses and I want your input on whether I should at least sign up for the wait list.

Pros:  I'd learn a lot about different weave structures.  I'd be forced to try many different kinds of weaving, fibers, looms, etc.  I'd meet lots of other local weavers.  I'd get to see and touch good fabrics, which would help inform my own standards.  There is some homework, but there would still be time to do my own weaving over the years.

Cons:  It's a major time commitment.  If you have to miss a class for whatever reason, you are expected to make it up at another session that week (I don't know what happens if you're away on vacation for a week).  I worry that I will get sucked into a "style" of weaving - let's call it the Hill Institute style, even though I can't identify any such thing - and not develop my own ideas.  To explain this concern further, imagine I throw myself whole hog into Scandinavian weaving as taught by the Vavstuga.  Becky Ashenden and her Vavstuga are fantastic, but after four years, most of what I'd know would be solely Scandinavian weaving.  Chris Hammel at the Hill Institute is by all accounts a very good weaver and teacher, but she's just one person, teaching mostly a standard, let's-call-it-European style of weaving.  So, not Saori, not Scandinavian, not backstrap/inkle/tablet, not any of that (I think).  Finally, if I commit to the Hill Institute, I probably wouldn't spend that much time knitting or spinning (or gardening or dragonfly-chasing) over those four years.

So, I'm torn.  What do you think?  If you only had 25 years left in which to weave (remember, I just turned 60, so this weighs on my mind), would you commit four years to the Hill Institute coursework?  Or even just take one step at a time and ask to be put on the waiting list?

Working

I've spent the last two weeks making friends with the AVL.  And when I say "making friends", I mean putting serious effort into getting to know what works, what doesn't, where things go wonky and how this lovely loom and I can find a way to work together.  It's made me think differently about warping (more planning leads to a swifter execution), about threading (it's slower - texsolv doesn't fly across the heddle bars with a little flick) and about finding a rhythm in the weaving (treadling each shed is a TWO PEDAL operation rather than one).  All of this is different from the other two looms, but the reward is that once it's set up, it's much more conducive to just weaving.  While I can't completely turn off my brain, it certainly becomes a much lower-level activity.  Almost like spinning.

The other big difference is that there's a different level of flexibility.  On the other looms, I can just start randomly trying things - treadling patterns in particular.  I can do spontaneous network twill curves (ala Bonnie Inouye) and reverse treadling orders whenever I want.  Pattern generation on a whim is easy.  With the AVL, I need to plan ahead - including reprogramming the loom - before I can make changes.  Less wear and tear on my back and knees, but definitely not as spontaneous.  There's likely another way to do this but I've not yet discovered it.  Time will tell.

All that said, am I happy with this loom?  Yes.  Absolutely.  Having the constraints of planning is good for me - and being able to execute my ideas quickly is also good.  I also appreciate the obvious effort and thought that have gone into the design and manufacture of the loom.  The engineer in me is kept happy.  I do have a few bones to pick (why, oh WHY can't I *SEE* what the dobby is picking when I'm seated at the loom?) but that'll just lead to me making modifications at some point.  It's a tool, so why not?

I also owe an answer to "what's next".  Given that the power is going out soon, I may defer answering that question until I can get a little more time with power.  This also may be an opportunity for me to sit down and get some quiet time to work out my thoughts on the subject.  There is much to do, you see, to turn the notion into a workable plan.  While I would normally do this as part of a run, my legs ache in that "marathon training" way and it takes concentration to not get lazy and trip.  So a quiet few hours spent planning wouldn't go amiss.

All righty then.  There's coffee to drink, a shower to take, and then some planning/writing to do.  Maybe I can work in a stop at IKEA and Office Depot, too.  :-)

All Righty Then

I don't even know where to begin.

My mind is in a complete whirl - partly the Margo Selby class, partly the appalling weather, partly the trip to Nova Scotia, partly the blast of weavy stimuli from the NEWS shows and my classmates.

So, I'll begin at the end.  Today, I finished weaving off the last bit of warp from the Margo Selby class, in a 2/6 random-walk twill.  I used up the rest of the Noro Sekku (cotton/wool/nylon/silk) - well, I used all but the the brilliant lime green and pale, intense pink, which dominated the warp too much.  Once I ran out of that, I used a hand-painted wool/nylon, skinny sock yarn from Woolbearers in New Jersey, simply because the colors appealed to me.  And it's done.  I forgot to photograph it before I washed it, so these are wet photos.  First, the front of the Sekku weft....

And the back....

The front of the Woolbearers weft...

And the back....

I don't like the back of either of these wefts, because the wefts overwhelm the warps.  I like the fronts much better, but neither is getting me where I want to go, which is to somehow meld and interlace the colors of warp and weft in complex ways, disguising the weave structure along the way.  I don't know how to do that just yet - double ikat in plainweave?

As for the class itself, here are reminders of what I wove.  Day 1, which was supposed to be playing with a wide variety of different wefts and weave structures:

And Day 2, which was supposed to be an elaboration on one or two ideas from Day1:

Margo did not give us instructions of what kind of warp to bring; she just said bring a loom with a warp on it and as many different kinds of yarns as we could manage. On Day 1, I really liked these changes in weft color, which were made by swapping out and alternating different colors of yarn.

I also liked the hand-manipulated, long-float structure I invented, because it was easy on an eight-shaft table loom. 

So on Day 2, I combined the two, using a Noro yarn for the skinny weft (easy color changes!) and two worsted-weight knitting yarns for the float weave.



I picked the colors of the heavy yarns to reflect what was happening in the Noro weft at that point.

I think this worked in interesting ways, with the colors and the textures talking to each other.  However, instead of continuing this thought, I went off into another weave structure Margo recommended and kept using the first two heavy yarns for most of the float weave parts.  You can see the results in the photo above of what I finished on Day 2 - not terribly successful, to my mind.  That doesn't mean it wasn't a successful exercise, of course; it was a very successful exercise because my brain is still whirling, but not surprisingly, I didn't hit upon The One Perfect Fabric right off.

So, where do I go from here?  Good question.  I need to finish off the wool band for the Turkish Coat, because that's on the Purrington floor loom.  After that, I'm free - and that's scary.  Or exhilarating.  Or both.  I suppose I'd like to get the 8-shaft Norwood floor loom up and running, but that's just doing, not creating.  I suppose what I'd like to do next is figure out how to get the colors in warp and weft to be co-dominant, and yet change in ways unrelated, at least directly, to the straight lines of the warp and weft yarns.

Did I mention my brain hurts?

Distractions

Amazingly, today is July 15th.  That means the year is well over half-gone and I've certainly not said anything here about how Second Quarter went, much less what's on the docket for Third Quarter.  On the other hand, this has been a year of both inspiration *and* production - with the promise of much more to come.

Going back to the post in March, I had these as targets for the past three months:

• Project for Jacey - DONE
• A thing with linen - NOT DONE (but I bought linen!)
• Shirt fabric - NOT DONE
• Dishtowels - Half-done (that 16 yard warp is done and finshed)

On the other hand, I did manage to get another vest finished, which I think will stand in for the linen vest.  I had a great opportunity to get even more comfortable with Fiberworks and how to play with threading/tie-up/treadling to design patterns.  I also learned good lessons about color and made some improvements to my vest sewing abilities.  The second is better than the first; I can see growth.

I also will lay a bit of blame on this beauty:

I still can't believe I have this.  And that I have a glimmer of knowledge of how to use it!  Granted, it's been sitting idle since it came home but that's currently changing.  A warp is going on thanks to Jeane loaning me her warping wheel and I expect to will finish that tomorrow.  I'm putting on a six yard warp and I'll sett it for twill on all 16 shafts.  Then the fun starts.  And re-threading will be easy if I want to do something else.

Separately, I'm also going to use the warping wheel to put a long warp on the Gilmore so that I'm ready for dishtowels there as well.  And I've already wound a third warp that can go on the Baby Wolf for a bit of crackle play.  This all goes for dishtowels for fair - and I've two more weekends of dyeing and that'll be ready as well.  Then it'll be September and another three-month window gone.

My SOAR project is also limping along; only four bags of cotton spun up since the ginned stuff is slow, but I can backfill with the four ounces I've already spun.  It really does go surprisingly fast - so once Fair is behind me I can focus and get the shirt finished.  I don't think I'll do anything extravagant since it's about the yarn and the shape.  But, that'll wait until I have yarn.

But, I've a reason for a seemingly meager set of work - a lot of thinking.  Thinking about what gets my mind working and how to turn that into a set of tasks.  That's the real work to take me until the end of the year.  Some writing, some reviewing, some discussing, some planning, and then a lot of working.  2014 is going to be an amazing year.  At least I hope so.  At a minimum, I'm going to learn a TON.

Ok, Lynn - please, please, please share more of what happened at NEWS.  The tidbits just aren't enough!

Making

As promised, I'm now working away at the loom and churning out cloth.  It's only fair that I provide some proof.

Yes, dear Sara, I went with purple/blue.  While I'd gotten a lot of prodding from others that the blue/jade or purple/jade would be so stylish, I knew I'd get no joy from either the weaving/sewing or the wearing.  If I'm going to make yards of this stuff, and create a garment that (hopefully) I'll wear for a lifetime, the least that I can do is make cloth that is pleasing to my eye.  And my hand.

I did, however, make one concession and that is in pattern.  There was another in the gample (still using it!) that I liked more, but it didn't really have the look of a plaited twill.  So, I went with this:

It's an 8-harness, 10-treadle pattern.  Threading is straight-forward (straight twill) and treadling is simple (straight-treadle) and the fun is in the tie-up.  I'm pretty sure that this is one of the tie-ups I did on my own, rather than one drawn from either Strickler or Oelsner, but that really doesn't matter.  What does is that it's interesting, easy to weave and makes a lovely finished fabric.  Complex, but not.

And, I'll leave you with this - proof that there's a person actually doing the work.  I didn't know this was happening, but it was there, so I'm sharing it.

The weaver at work.  And oh, how happy she is.  :-)

Details

So what I posted yesterday was a sample from the beginning of an 8-yard warp.  Or, at least, the part of the warp I painted last summer with Sara was 8 yards long when I measured it out before painting.  I padded this painted warp bout out to around 6.5 inches wide with stripes of Harrisville Highland Blackberry and Aubergine, and planned to weave this off as warp-faced plainweave with Aubergine Highland Shetland, about half the grist of the Shetland.

I wanted to sample weaving occasional weft-faced, weft-float stripes, in kente-ish fashion, so I set up the loom using the draft from Suzanne Halvorson's Handwoven article, Kente-Inspired Scarf, in the March/April 2013 issue.  Here, the contrast weft floats over three ends at a time, which worked well in my sample, I thought.  From the bottom up, the three weft-float samples were gold and purple Paternayan needlepoint wool (all three strands together), a thin red rayon mill end, and a pukey flesh-pink silk singles, Fiesta's La Luz (oh, look, they called the colorway Champagne; I'm never drinking anything that color).

The texture of the Paternayan wasn't different enough from the ground warp to stand out as much as I wanted.  Also, the bright gold was too bright and too monotone; if I went with this yarn, I'd overdye and tone down this color (and every other bright/light color I would have used of this yarn, as I was thinking of using many different colors, depending on what the painted warp was doing at a particular point).  This sample weft also made clear to me that while going from selvedge was interesting, it might be cool to have these weft floats go only partway across the warp, or cover only part of the middle of the warp.

The red rayon was much better, but I quickly wanted a thicker yarn.  A quick toss of one bin turned up two skeins of the silk La Luz.  This texture I like a great deal; the color not so much (did I mention puke?) and again I think I'd prefer a less solid color, although the little dark warp-wise shadows help this yarn out more than they did for the wool.

Here's the sample after washing:

The differential shrinkage between the ground warp and the weft floats is tolerable, but note at the top of the photo how the solid Harrisville Highland stripes shrunk lengthwise more than the painted warp bout.  That's because the painted warp yarn had been washed, but the Harrisville hadn't.  When I wound on this striped warp, there was about a foot too much of the Harrisville at the end, even though I'd measured off 8 yards.  I don't know if this will be a pain in the final finished fabric; we'll see.

Kicking and Screaming

After a six-week or so hiatus, Our Heroine returns to the fray.

Stay tuned.

Decisions

It's time to fish.  No more cutting bait, no more sampling.  I need to get the warp on the loom and woven off so that it's down to assembly and writing before we head off to pick up the AVL on the 22nd.  That weekend will be gone, so I need to make sure I'm in good shape.

That said, I've been looking hard at the gample (see?  new word!) I did this past week and it was absolutely the right thing to do.  My beat was much better and more even (and I'm also reminding myself that a 20" warp is a different beast than a 9" warp) and the patterns are now evident in ways they'd not been before.  So, first off, some pictures of each particular treadling/tie-up:

In all versions, the warp color order, from left to right, green-blue-purple.  And, I treadled each version in all three colors, green-blue-purple, before changing the tie-up/treadling pattern.  Squares were 3" wide by 4" tall on the loom.  Or as close to that as possible, and woven as a balanced fabric - 30 epi/ 30ppi.

This version has a more distinct horizontal/vertical look - and it also has a waffle-like texture that's quite different from the other two.

And here's an example of what I mean about a fabric being "hot".  That value difference between the light green and either the blue or purple is significant - and the purple/green zinging off of each other really tends to overwhelm the pattern.  Comare the upper left with the lower right - and, most intriguing, the top middle with the lower right.  Neat, huh?

A better look at the waffle-like one - I think either of the two-color versions would work well.  But, I'm 99% sure that this one is the winner:

It has the plaiting effect that Anita wanted, quite strongly, but when viewed from a distance, it doesn't get too crazy.  And, it's in line with the Pantone colors that she wanted.  I've plenty of both colors to make this happen so no worries on that front.

So, whaddya think?

Progress

Deadline weaving continues over here - it's another vest but this time it's specifically for Handwoven.  I was asked to follow the Pantone "Winter 2013" color palette and I boldly chose a set of three colors from Jaggerspun in the 20/2 Maine Line wool.  I had planned to take a page out of Sara's book (article) and use two colors that are close in value to get a more interesting warp.  That resulted in choosing a purple and a deep blue.  For the weft, I wanted a high-contrast color and I settled on a very light teal.

Next was some quality time looking at plaited twills from a variety of sources.  This was my Saturday:

A combination of FiberWorks, Olesner, Strickler, a few Handwovens and various other weaving books.  I'm so glad that I have a good library on which to draw - it makes a world of difference.  A few hours later and I'd worked up a series of potential fabrics based on an 8-shaft straight-twill threading.  So, time to wind the warp and get moving.  Lickety-split, I was done weaving on Sunday afternoon and then I washed and finished the fabric.  I'd even tested two different setts so I could be sure of the fabric.

Yeah, I can hear it now.  You're already saying it to yourself, "What was she THINKING?  Plaited twill?  In THOSE colors?"  Well, Pantone was thinking along those color lines, and in principle it seemed like it could work, but once I got the fabric off the loom ... ugh.  Suffice to say that it would be fashionable but most assuredly not something that I wanted to stare at for the next four weeks, much less wear for the next 20 years.  I was pretty despondent on Monday.  So, I got out my calculator and spreadsheet and confirmed that I could squeeze out another sample and still be able to choose any combination of colors I wanted for warp/weft.  I threw on another warp - this time, each color by itself in a wide stripe so that I could do a little gamp.

Smart girl.  Should have done this from the start, and "note to self" in that category, but I'm much, much happier with all these possibilites.

Here's the whole shebang - and now you can see, perhaps, why I think that greenish blue is just a bit "hot".

None of the green ones are particularly horrible - and that bit in the lower right corner is woven off with 20/2 silk, you know, for science! - but absolutely not "me".  And, for something that's going out into the wild, I think it's important that it be something that I like and not just something that the customer wants.  Otherwise, what's the point?

So, the decision now is whether I want to use the purple or the blue as the warp.  The fabrics are distinctly different - and switching them out, warp vs. weft, gives different looks, but all of them are worth going after I think.  Even the monochrome ones are interesting - but they'd be a bear to weave.

Yeah, huge sigh of relief over here.  I'll make it.  It'll be tight, and I can't get distracted, but I'll make it.  Then again, I've got these headbands I've been knitting ...

I'm Weaving, Honest!

Yeah, it's been a little while since I've posted, but it's not for lack of productivity.  Since finishing the sample for Jacey, I've been clearing the decks (both physically and mentally) in prep for the Handwoven work.  None of it is particularly inspiring, but I'll share it here just as a talking point.

First off, placemat samples for the shop:

The owners are always looking for simple rigid heddle projects and these fit the bill nicely.  Big, chunky cotton (machine wash and dry!) and a little bit of finger manipulation to make it interesting.  The pattern is an adaptation from The Weaver's Idea Book to use yarns we carry, so the write-up is just enough to describe the yarn substitution changes.  I liked these, actually, and they were my first chance to make use of the table loom.  Total overkill for plain weave, you might say, but I liked the fact that I could just flip levers and not worry.  And no mental stress when learning the quirks of the Jane.  These go to the shop today.

Second was the end of the Long Towel Warp.

It's my own adaptation of the Keep It Simple towels and there are 13 of them there.  Plus some other treadlings because I was losing my mind after a while.  Also, a bit at the end to keep as a sample for color possibilities in the future.  I'll be cutting apart and hemming these babies this weekend (one or two are already sold to my neighbors) and the rest go into the bin for Art Fair.  I'm more than half way to my total, so two more long warps and I'm done.  I think I'll make it.

Separately, I've been knitting like crazy on a Knit, Swirl! sweater.  It's big, white, and there's lots of mohair.  The knitting will get done tonight, then I can wash and block over the weekend while the weather is good.  It'll also serve as a foil for getting the sample warp on and off the loom for the vest, washing Edith (finally!  It's only been a year.) and generally trying to ignore the fact that I'll have a lot of time to myself next week.

And who thought that Plaited Twill would get my brain pinging so hard on Blocks?  It's just crazy making, I know.  I think I need a separate brain for percolating and one for actually weaving.

One Down (well, almost)

As you so rightly point out, Lynn, it's May.  The good news is that this means we're smack in the middle of Q2 and I'm not yet totally hosed when it comes to getting things done.  And, with the added revelation that my two article pieces aren't due until July 1st, I'm breathing a big sigh of relief.

I'm going to go ahead and put the project notes for Ply here, with a mind toward keeping a virtual record and having a link to which to point people if they end up asking about it once the magazine comes out.  And, here's a picture of the finished piece:

Ha!  Fooled you, didn't I?  I'm such a stinker that way.  On the other hand, I can show you a picture of this:

an empty loom.  I cut the finished piece off yesterday morning before heading in and the only thing left to do before finishing it is twisting the fringe.  Initial plan was to borrow the fringe twister from the shop yesterday but I forgot it - so that's on the list for tonight.  I did, however, wash the sample and I couldn't be happier.  It feels magnificent and I think it's just lovely.  So, for posterity, here are the details:

Yarn:  2-ply point-of-twist-spun English BFL combed top
Colors:  Warp left natural, weft dyed light turquoise to match the "mood board"
Grist:  approx. 5,000 ypp (roughly 18/2)
Sett:  30 epi, three ends per dent in a 10 dent reed
Beat:  30 ppi (as much as possible!)
Warp Length:  3 yards
Warp Width:  200 ends, 6 2/3" in the reed
Woven Width:  6.25" on the loom, 6" off the loom (unfinished)
Woven Length:  72" on the loom 69.5" off the loom (unfinished)

Sample post-finishing:  5 3/4 - 5 7/8" width.  I think 5 3/4" is where the FO will end up.

Pattern is a 4-harness "Fancy Twill" that is a mixture of Network and Advancing Point twills.  Treadling is all Advancing Point twill.  I'll be supplying a .WIF along with the article text.  The design was a compromise - but I still wanted to give 4-harness weavers a nudge.  Jeane called the design "sophisticated"; I'm mentally transferring that to "complicated", but I don't think that's true.  We'll see how it goes.

Separately, Jagger called me back this morning (still processing a lovely female voice attached to the name "Chuck") and they're popping yarn in the mail today for the vest.  I'm going to say a bit more about it here because it's not finalized (colors are, but still) and the planning stage is important!  We've settled on an 8-harness plaited twill from A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns.  There are a few that are related to crepe weave and that should yield a good fabric for sewing.  I'll do a short sample warp to make sure I'm happy with sett and then off to weave.  A test-drive in Fiberworks gives this:

I'll most likely turn the draft once I settle on a fabric because I want something that'll be quick to weave off and not prone to mistakes.  A complicated threading is fine; but straight treadling makes for quick work!  The warp will be two colors, wound together and threaded semi-random.

If I get the fabric done quickly, I'll head down to Palm Springs for a weekend with Jeane and we'll sew together.  She gave me high marks on the first vest, and a few tips for improving the finishing, but they require pattern modification and I'm a bit loathe to do that on a piece that has a deadline.  I'm totally happy to just make what I've already made, with a minor improvement in execution, but it'd be nice to update the pattern in general.

So, that's where things sit.  This week will be weaving off that loooooooooooooong towel warp so that I can reclaim the Gilmore and, hopefully, put on a cotton warp for an origami shirt.  I need to make that so that I can test-drive for my Summer Project.

All this weaving has made me deliriously happy.  I can see real improvements over where I was even six months ago - and that is chalked up to actually making stuff.  Don't tell Sara, but I think she's right.  Even if it's not perfect, it needs to get finished.  Because that's when we really start to learn.

Oops. It's May, Isn't It?

And that means I need to get my ass back in some semblance of organized gear, doesn't it?

First, a review:  The Towels.  The Dreaded Towels.

They're not yet hemmed - given my history with this wedding present, I didn't dare try hemming them whilst dealing with dying cat, a bad cold, or excessive pollen, meaning all of the past week and a half.  However, they are woven and I like them.  And they go reasonably well with the scrap of upholstery fabric the bride assures me matches everything in the house.

I will be very, very glad when these are wrapped and given away.

Second, last summer's homework:  The homework I never got around to after learning how to paint warps from Lambspin last summer.  I think we need to see those photos again, don't you?

I was quite pleasantly surprised by how much this softened up after washing; it really would make good coat fabric now - warm, lightweight, windproof.  So, I suppose I ought to attempt making a coat from this.  What do you think I ought to use for a lining?  Cotton, silk, polyester?  Tell me cotton, please; I have bins and bins I could use.  And should I go whole hog and use a wool batting as insulation, or just a polyester batt?  I'm thinking of the Folkwear Turkish Coat here.

Next up:  More weaving off of the painted warp chains.  First is the last remaining bout of the mill end wool I used for the fabric above.  I'll weave it off with the same weft (Harrisville in Aubergine) as the wider fabric, so it coordinates.  After that, I know I have painted cotton and silk bouts to weave with - and maybe more wool?  Lots, in other words, plus I'd like to paint some more and try ikat. 

Finally, I'm definitely not going to SOAR this year, for several reasons, not the least of which is $$$ - I don't want to think about how much I've spent in the past four months on everything that's broken down around here.  This is why we have stashes, you know.  However, I'll still keep trying to figure out a cheap way to get together, somewhere, somehow.

Dangerous Curves Ahead

This past weekend, a whack of us descended upon Nevada City to learn Chimayo tapestry weaving techniques.  The three-day workshop was organized by the Foothill Fibers Guild and featured a husband and wife team out of Chimayo, New Mexico.  They supplied warp for us to set-up our looms and then came armed with tubs and tubs of dyed yarns for us to use as weft.  These are the yarns they use in weaving their blankets, rugs and vests.

My previous experience with tapestry had been limited to some solo-fumblings and a less-than-successful "studio" experience through a local community college.  The notion of tapestry and the idea of painting with fiber continued to appeal, so I jumped at the chance to not only take a class, but also spend the weekend with friends.

The class started with us coming up with a design that we'd then weave - using Chimayo techniques.  I drew geometric blocks/triangles of the ever-present mountains and ocean, chose colors, and got busy.  I weft-joined.  I plied/blended.  I made blocks and attempted to lay-in ends.  I wasn't having fun.  It was a struggle to get the yarn to make the picture in my head and that nearly turned me into a petulant toddler.  So, by late-afternoon, I gave up and started to try and make the curves that I saw in my head.  Then we went home, spun, ate a HUGE salad, and went to bed.

The next day was more of the same; curves, colors and just soldiering on.  I was happier and definitely more productive.  Then we bought rugs, looked at other's handwovens and retreated to another HUGE salad, wine and bed.  Third day was more of the same, this time peppered with conversations about whether or not we'd continue and if tapestry was in any of our futures.  I do think that it's in mine - there's enough opportunity for creativity and organic expression that I think I can keep going.  Plus, the Mirrix makes it easy.

First efforts are never what we expect.

But I expect to do more.

Some Assembly Required

When last we left our heroine, she was getting ready to cut the now-dyed fabric into bits and pieces.  Yesterday morning looked like this:

And after about two hours of laying out, cutting, maneuvering, etc., I had umpteen pattern pieces of the main fabric laying about the studio.  I unvented something in the process - underneath the fabric is the back side of my blocking board.  It has a soft nap, rather like felt, and absolutely eliminated the problem of the fabric moving about on my otherwise slick folding table.  Also, the nap is fine enough that the shears had no problem gliding along, and I could have put pins into everything if I'd so desired.  It made cutting pieces out a breeze.  Plus, the fabric behaved like a champ.  I even took a moment to try and orient the pattern at key points (where the front closure will be, for example) and hopefully that all works out in the end.  After I finished the cutting, I dashed out for a run, had lunch and then went to work until nearly bedtime.

Cut to this morning when I swallowed my coffee and headed back to the studio.  Lining and interfacing are now also cut and I started stay-stitching and assembling the vest.  Here's as far as I've gotten:

Interfacing attached to the fronts and I've pinned the fronts and side-fronts together.  The pattern calls for ease-stitching at the bust but the fabric is so lovely and compliant, I'm going to skip it.  This isn't shirting so I'm not worried at all.

Amazing, this.  I'm so much more confident than I was with my shirt.  Whether it's because I could check shoulder slopes and waist points, or have a better understanding of how this whole process works (thank you Vogue Sewing!), I'm just not worried about anything.  It'll be what it is, and I suspect I'll like it a lot.  Because it's mine.  :-)

Now, the down side is that we're going away for the weekend.  Today.  Shortly after lunch.  No sewing, no assembling, no nothing.  I'm hoping to be able to make some further inroads on this when we come home on Saturday afternoon/evening, but that feels unlikely.  And, Sunday is a memorial service for a dear friend, so that might be off the table as well.  But!  There's hope that it'll be done in time for the tapestry workshop next weekend and then Sara can provide a review.

Regardless, I'm very happy so far.  And I'm learning.  Perfect.

Nearly there

I was going to put a picture of a bucket here.  And then I thought about a washing machine.  But, neither one of those are really interesting, so I'll save the picture for a little later and just say that my vest fabric is currently in the washer.

I finished weaving it off today - it'd been 100% trouble-free until I started to get a little greedy at the back end and I snapped a warp thread when I hit it with the shuttle.  I was at the end of a medallion anyway so I listened to the Weaving Gods and just wove a 12-shot header and called it done.  Then, I cut it off the loom, zig-zagged the ends, sewed the two warp ends together to make a big tube and banged the whole thing into a bucket of hot water with a little dish soap.  My aim was to ensure that the fabric was fully wetted and the size was dissolved before fulling it - we'll see if that makes a difference. Then I went off to go buy lining fabric, some interfacing and get a haircut.

Back to pictures!  After gazing at the roll upon roll of 8mm silk, and putting my little swatch up against all of them (started at yellows, went through the blues, greens, browns, purples, so many colors!), I kept coming back to a family of greens and a family of blues.  The greens made sense (Lynn - you're so smart!) since they're complements to the red, and the blue really helped make things pop.  So I pulled down five or six different rolls and just kept playing about.  Finally, I decided on two colors and just bought a yard of each:

In both cases, the value is much less than the actual fabric.  I just didn't think that a similar, or darker, value did anything for the pattern or the piece.  Given that it's fully lined, this will only be spotted occasionally at best.  And, with the amount of black that I'd put in the overdye, really saturated, BRIGHT! colors didn't seem to work either.  Hence these two.

A little closer on the green, and a little closer on the blue.

Anyway, as stated, everything went into the wash.  And, because I'm a dope, I didn't weigh the fabric before putting it into the wash so I'll have to wait until it's dry to dye it.  That means tomorrow.  GAH!

So.  Green?  Blue?  Oh, and I got dark interfacing for the fabric.  I thought white interfacing was a patently Bad Idea.