Weaving. Really. Well, almost.

There hasn’t been much in the way of weaving around here for a long time. The last thing to actually come off the floor loom was my rainbow scarf, in February 2007. Since around October last year, I’ve had two warps draped on looms – a blue one on my baby table loom for some plain weave fabric for trimming a jacket I’m intending to make from some handwoven overshot I wove years ago, and a black one on the 4-shaft floor loom for both a scarf, and also some plain trimming for another planned jacket. Both warps got wound onto the back beams of the respective loom, and then progress… stopped.

Today, I decided to take advantage of the sun pouring into the sunroom (its winter here and chilly) and spend a couple of hours and get the loom threaded. After all, I only had to find my spare set of lease sticks, thread 224 ends, sley the reed, tie on and then I’d be weaving, right?

First step: find spare lease sticks (because my usual set are on the baby loom, where I’ve done over half the threading, but it’s a very awkward height to thread and if I wait until I’ve finished with them, I’ll never get the other warp done.)

Nope, spare lease sticks I was sure I had don’t seem to exist. But I have a pair of suitable sticks, so all I need to do is drill hole in the end, right?

Battery of cordless drill is dead. Found DH. Found his power drill. Talked DH into driling holes, because his drill is too heavy for my hand. Sticks are ready….

Nope, sticks need sanding. Rummaged in laundry cupboard for sanding paper, and finally found it. Sanded sticks in carport, while freezing my fingers off. Sticks now ready to put into warp cross…

Hmm… better dust the loom first. Fine black wool warp plus accumulated dust are not a good combination. Dust loom. Insert lease sticks. Set things up to start threading…

Where’s the pattern?? I was sure I had a suitable draft printed around here somewhere. Okay, I can quickly draw up a basic twill/advancing twill combo on the computer…

No I can’t, because I’ve changed from a PC to a Macintosh since I last did a weaving draft, and my weaving software doesn’t work for Macs, and I can’t find a suitable up-to-date basic software…

Finally found a previously printed out draft I could easily adapt without resorting to graph paper and pencil (phew!!). Sat down at loom, started threading…..

By this time, it was after 3pm, and the sun was getting low, and the room cold. I’ve threaded two inches of the eight, but the rest will have to wait until tomorrow.

However, at least I have made some progress! And here’s the evidence:
20080614loom

New Year's Day achievements

  • I now have $8 in the exer-stash fund. That’s 8km since yesterday morning (5 miles in US-speak).
  • There are now only 2769 people ahead of me in the Ravelry queue. I guess my invite will arrive sometime while I’m in Sydney
  • I threaded 56 ends through the heddles today on the plain weave warp on my baby loom that I’ve not worked on for a while (another 5 x 28 ends to go). When it’s warped, I can move the lease sticks over to the other warp draped and waiting on my small floor loom, which will be a) easier to thread, since I can do it sitting down, and b) potentially a more interesting weave (fine black wool warp, twill pattern in various coloured wefts).
  • I’ve knitted the heel flap on the lairy-coloured jaywalker sock, but I think I want to do the heel in a plain colour – I’ll just have to search my stash to find one that works.
  • Last night, I finished the sleeves for the Fisherman’s Gansey. There’s now just the front to knit.

I didn’t get a heap achieved, textile-wise, in 2007, but I’m happy with what I did in a busy year. In 2008 I’ll be giving my writing and PhD a priority, but since I won’t be working a full-time job other than those, I expect to squeeze in some relaxation time for textiles, in between editing a book, finishing another book, starting the third book, and launching and promoting the first book in September!

Some of the things I’m hoping to make in 2008 include:

  • sewing two jackets from the 2 lots of yardage I wove a few years ago – the current two warps include plain-weave sections for contrast fabrics for collars etc
  • Bianca’s jacket from the Fall 2006 IK. There’s photos here of another Bron’s completed version of this jacket. Because of my shape, I plan to make it longer, and a little fuller in the body over the hips. (Of course, if I ‘earn’ enough funds in the exer-stash to make this in silk mix rather than wool, I’ll probably have walked a fair amount off my hips 🙂 )
  • more socks – I’d like to do some different patterns, try out some different techniques. Plus my Dad likes his handknitted socks, and my sister who can only wear natural fibres probably needs some more
  • a couple more jackets/pullovers, as my existing hand-knitted ones are getting old and good only for around-the-house wear.
  • silk – weaving it, spinning it, knitting it. I think I’m suffering from silk deprivation!

That all should keep my busy and out of mischief!

The exercise-yarn resolution

Inspired by my good friend Theresa over at Knitterary, I’ve decided to put money into a jar for every kilometre I walk on the dreadmill treadmill, and limit my yarn and fibre expenditure to what’s in the jar.

I’m not much good at either exercise or resolutions, (but very good at buying stuff) so to make this workable for me, I’m paying myself more than Theresa’s doing. I decided, at least to start with, that $1 per kilometre will encourage me to exercise. Given the price of yarn here, and my knitting habits, that should be a good balance of discipline/reward.

I did 1.5 kilometres this morning. I’m already feeling like I want to do 2 kms this afternoon. Enough yarn for a pair of socks is around $10 for plain commercial, to $25 for handpainted. Enough Bendigo yarn for a jacket or jumper is around $70, and way more for other yarns. A cone of cottolin for weaving is about $25, likewise a skein of silk. Now, I’m slightly cheating here, because I do have enough in my stash to keep me going for a while, due to recent purchases, but if I stick to this commitment for future yarn purchases, I should build up enough funds for larger projects, as well as the occasional sock yarn purchase.

So, we’ll see how this works out!! To keep me honest, I’ll do a page here on the blog with contributions and ‘deductions’.

Yarn fund jar

(Yes, it really needs a label that has a knitter on a treadmill wrapped in yarn, but I’m not that artistic.)

Catching up

My mind hasn’t been on textile activities a great deal lately, as I’ve been distracted by other developments – like selling two novels to a major Australian publisher!

However, I have been working on a few bits and pieces in amongst other aspects of life, writing, and working:

My friends Michelle and Matthew have a new baby daughter, Saoirse. I’ve had this pattern for about 20 years – it’s from an Anny Blatt book I bought somewhere in my travels. I’ve knitted it a few times before, including at least twice in different sizes for my niece – who is now 16! It’s in 8ply (DK), so it’s a relatively quick knit. As can be seen, I just have to knit the bands and sew the side seams, which I may work on tonight.

I finished these socks a few weeks ago – using the standard sock pattern that I can knit almost from memory. Now I’m working on the next pair:

handknitted blue and gray socks

These will probably be for my Dad for Christmas. I’ve knitted him a couple of pairs of socks already, and he apparently wears them quite a lot. Dad’s got a small foot, so if he doesn’t like them, I’ll have them 🙂

Yes, the sock is sitting on my laptop. I often knit while I’m trying to write, but it has to be something simple, like a plain sock. Having the needles in my hands keeps the part of the brain busy that would otherwise want to go off and play on the internet, but I can put the needles down in my lap quickly when I think of words to write.

Now I’m back to working part-time, it’s giving me not just time to write, but a little brain-space and time to think about weaving again. Sitting at the loom makes for great plotting time, but first there needs to be something on the loom, which requires a design, planning and preparation process.

warps wound

The blue warp will be for a length of plain, plain weave, destined to become bands on a jacket made from an overshot fabric I wove some years ago. It needs something solid and simple to complement the pattern, so I’ve finally wound a warp to weave that contrast. The yarn is the blue cotton that I used as the warp and tabby weft in the overshot – the pattern weft is a light green. This will go on my baby 2-shaft loom, which is quite portable, so i can take it to the spinners and weavers meeting next week and weave while I’m there.

The white warp is a fine wool one for two scarves. I’m probably going to paint the warp, maybe tomorrow if I get myself organised enough to take the dyes and miscellaneous equipment into the guild rooms when I go into town. There’s a microwave for dyeing there, and long tables covered in thick plastic, so it’s a good place to paint warps!

Bits and pieces

Not much craft work lately, owing to other pressures. However, I finished weaving a warp off my table loom that a student in a weaving workshop had started, and then decided she didn’t want to continue. So, it’s been sitting on the table loom for a while, and we’ve occasionally used it as a loom for demonstrations for people to have a go on, but I finally decided that I’d weave off the rest of the warp and use the cloth to make a jacket or vest for our raffle dolls.Twill wool cloth

The warp was actually sett a bit too far apart, which made beating evenly something of a challenge, but the finished cloth actually came up very nicely when washed.

So, all my looms are currently empty. I’ll hopefully get a warp on at least one of them soon, but this coming weekend is busy with the Armidale Show, so it may not be until after that. I’ve spent the last couple of evenings finishing the fringe of the rainbow scarf to enter into the Show – I started twisting it last weekend, and did one end entirely, but then decided the ‘twists’ were too narrow and tight, so I had to undo the lot, and then redo them. But it’s currently reclining in the display case at the Show, and I’ll find out tomorrow whether it got a place in the contest. I also put a pair of socks in, and a skein of fine yarn, since there were hardly any entries in most of the classes.

The bliss socks are progressing, but I had to frog an entire pattern repeat as I stuffed it up. Now that I’ve finished twisting (and untwisting, and twisting again…) the scarf fringe, I can get back to the socks.

Finished!

I kept working at the loom yesterday. I decided to take a holiday from all the long list of Should Be Doing things and weave for a couple more hours instead. And then the end of the scarf was near, so I had to finish it, didn’t I?

end of the warp

I had about 8″ less of the red warp at the end than I did at the beginning, so the scarf is not symmetrical in terms of mirror repeat at each end. (Long story about how that happened that I won’t go in to here.)

However, despite the fact that I’m normally into balance and symmetry, I’m comfortable with this asymmetry. Not that I have much choice to be any other way 🙂  But this whole project was to stretch me into doing some new things, so being asymmetrical is one more new thing.

back rod

There it is, as far as I could go!

rainbow scarf - finished

Off the loom at last. I still have to hem stitch one end, finish the fringe, wash it, and cut off all the loose ends, but the weaving is finished, and yes, I’m happy with it!

Hmm… I wonder what I will weave next…

Blues and greens

The loom has been silent for well over a week, due to the demands of other aspects of my life, not to mention the heat in the sunroom the couple of times I’ve contemplated taking a few minutes to weave. However, this morning was overcast, I didn’t have to be anywhere else or have urgent deadlines, so off to the loom I went.

Rainbow scarf - blue into jade

From the dark blue of the last photo, I’ve shaded into the jade green – not quite as smoothly as I’d like, but even though I tried dyeing a blue in between the dark blue and the jade, it didn’t come out quite the right intermediate shade to blend the two. However, it’s smoother than the first scarf’s transitions in this colour of the warp.

Rainbow scarf - jade into green

Then came blending into the green, and as with the first scarf, the two shades I have work wonderfully with the warp colour at this point, so that the transitions are very smooth and almost invisible.

Being up to the green means that I’ve only got a few centimetres to go before I’m half-way through the scarf 🙂 The second half should go more quickly, because I don’t have to experiment with and decide on colours, just work in reverse what I’ve done in the first half.

Into the blue

Céline asked for more progress photos – so here it is, into the blue shades:

blue part of rainbow scarf

The warp dyeing was a bit blotchy at this stage, but I’m telling myself that adds character!

I’m pleased with progress, even though it will seem painfully slow to some weavers. If I was able to sit down for a full day, or even for hours at a stretch, I would get it down very quickly, but as it is I get half an hour here and there in between all the other work I should be doing – PhD and writing have to get fitted in, in addition to my job. Weaving is my ‘play’ time.

I’ll start shading in the green next – but as today and tomorrow are all-day work days, it may not be until later in the week.

Rainbow scarf progress

rainbow scarf painted warp

The weather’s been quite hot lately, which makes our sunroom too hot to work in except in the mornings – and I haven’t had a lot of free time in the mornings. It’s a bit too dark at night, when it’s cooler, so progress on the second rainbow scarf has been slow. However, this morning I’m working on it! I’ve even done a little more since this photo was taken, so I’m up to the purple part of the warp, and about to go into two threads of dark blue for the weft. The colours in this photo are a little ‘out’, but convey the general idea. The colour transitions are going more smoothly than in the first one, due to the extra colours and the more gradual shading over more pattern repeats.

mauve and yellow scarf warp

I’ve been planning for ages to weave a blanket for my  friend’s baby, who was born in August. It took me a while to settle on colours and order the yarn – I finally got the yarn before Christmas. I’m planning on doing twill blocks in the three colours, but want to do a sample first. So, I wound a warp last night for the sample and, as I’ve done several times before, I made the ‘sample’ warp long enough to be a scarf. It’s a 5-ply Bendigo yarn so it won’t take too long to weave, and this way I get to get a reasonable idea of how the yarn, structure and colours will work, and all going well, my friend will get a scarf to match her daughter’s blanket 🙂

I’ll weave this one on the big loom that I’m hoping to sell. I’m sure that once I get the blanket warp on it, someone will decide they want to buy the loom right away!

alpaca sock progress

I watched an episode of Taggart last night, so the alpaca version of theLatvian sock has grown by a couple of pattern repeats. The yarn is pure bliss to handle.

Now I’ve had my cup of tea and blog break, it’s back to the loom.

With one sock on…

I finished knitting the first blue lacy sock about a week ago.  Since I think the yarn’s a bit heavy for the pattern, I thought I might knit the pattern in the soft alpaca I  bought the other week, and not rush to finish the  second blue sock.

So, I’ve started the alpaca ones, and the yarn is gorgeous – a luscious treat to handle. The blue bluebell isn’t in the same league, but you know, it’s growing on me. It might be just as well that I’ve got two sets of needles – I can see both on the go at once!

Blue lacy Latvian socks

(Yes, yes, so my leg is not a Barbie doll! Memo to self: next time, wear something slightly more respectable than ancient track pants.)

I’m also knitting a little hand-spun jacket from a white merino-cross fleece for our group’s doll raffle.  I’m making it up as I go along, with twisted cables on the fronts. I hope I’ll have enough yarn – it’s stuff from the stash – if not, it will be a waistcoat 🙂

The doll project is taking up some of my thoughts just now, as we made the dolls last weekend, and now have to dress them. I still have a little handwoven fabric left from the last time we raffled dressed dolls (see below); there’s enough for a waistcoat.  It’s a plain weave with small checks of slightly thicker yellow on a background of fine black. I loved the fabric so much that I’ve woven a length with mauve on the black – I just have to find the time, courage, and pattern to make it up into a jacket for me!

handwoven doll clothes