Adding Things Up

When you are weaving away on 9.5 yards, treadling one up to eight and back to one endlessly, you tend to go on autopilot and you can do a lot of singing along to music or simply thinking.   Things like: how many picks to an inch?

How many picks to 36 inches?

Gee... how many in this total project?

... and the big one.... how many miles have I woven in the past 25 years?  

So when I finally finished my 8 towels woven to 36 inches each on the loom and one runner that eeked out the last of the warp at 43 inches, I sat down and crunched some numbers:

• 8 towels and one runner equals 332 inches or  9.2 yards woven on my 9.5 yard warp.
• I averaged 22 ppi - or a total of  8047 pics total.
• physical weight of finished project : 1.334 kg or 2 lbs 15 oz
• That's 537 repeats of treadling the pattern repeat which has a count of 15
• The only unwoven parts of the loom waste was 3 inches plus knots at the start and 13 inches at end, plus 6 inches for part of the fringe on the runner when I started it.   The final  fringe at the end of the runner came out of the loom waste..... so effectively I had only 10 inches of loom waste for the entire project! 😁 I had factored in 3 inches of take up for every yard woven.
• oh, and half a box of Colour Catchers in the wash water as that red (cerise) wanted to run!

8/2 cotton from Brassard's: 6 colours in the warp and  another 4 used as weft.  Sett was 24 epi.

With black weft. (above and below)

With white weft.

Then I used a kaki green weft and loved the effect! It somehow worked with all the colour groups beautifully. I also used a plum colour but didn't get a picture of it on the loom under way.

Here's the end of the warp right up to the back of the heddles. I couldn't get another half inch !

There was a very satisfying "chubby roll" on the cloth beam, as I like to call it,  but it actually only was 1 1/2 inches. Well, it looked good to me!

Here's the loom waste from the start, plus the knots which is minimal.

....And the final loom waste from the end and remember that 6 inches of this will be fringe for the runner.

So the final fringe length on the runner after twisting was 2 inches plus the tassel and looks marvellous on our dining room table. Hubby was so pleased it was staying.  I'm also keeping a black weft towel and a kakhi green one.

Some one jokingly (I hope!) asked me why I had a jelly fish on my table.

Next are the 8 towels, all were woven to 36 inches and after relaxing off tension, washing, pressing and then turning a hem allowance and hand sewing, they are measured up as 20 inches by 30 inches. They all  pressed up nicely on my Singer press.

Three black ones

Then two with kakhi green weft. Its my personal favourite.

Next up are two towels with white weft. They are crisp and clean, with the stripes adding nice punch of colour, but you lose the zig zag pattern stripe.

Then finally the plum weft with is Hubby's favourite. It melded the colour groups too but not quite as effectively as the kaki green did, in my opinion of course.

I have kept fairly decent records of all my woven projects since 1996 and I could sit and work out some rough numbers and get an approximation of my last question which was of how many miles have I woven. Tempting as it is, I'm not going to spend the time doing that.

I'd rather be weaving new projects!

Thankful 🍁

I had some running around to do on Saturday.  One was a stop at my bank downtown and I was surprised by these lovelies!   Sugar maples in all their glory.... on Alder Street. I stopped and took a quick snap or three with my cell phone. A gentleman also going to the bank machine said that its much like the blossoms in spring..... a few brief and glorious days of colour.

My timing was perfect everywhere I went. As you can see above, no traffic and any parking spot I liked.   Same thing at the grocery store.... "you should have seen it here two hours ago" said one tired looking staff member.   I breezed around the store and there was no line up at the cashier.  I even got a flu shot with no waiting.     

🍁  We have very much to be thankful for.   🍁   

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving  and we're foregoing turkey this year and doing a leg of lamb instead. All the prep work is done.   Its just hubby and I as usual, and this year,  that's okay with us as Hub isn't feeling too well.    

He was out a couple of days ago and took these pictures down by the waterfront here in Campbell River where we have miles and miles of beaches like this. You can pull over and go sit on a log and watch the water for wildlife and shipping traffic.

The mountains are over on the mainland and as you can see, there are more than a few extinct volcanic cones over there! Well, we hope they are....

Meanwhile, here at home, this is the ornamental cherry tree in the front yard and our little 'burning bush' on the side of the driveway

The chestnut has gone golden and starting to shed leaves.....

On the weaving front:  I have just completed 10 yards of towels and completed finishing, pressing and snapping the  'beauty shot' pictures.  So a post on them is coming very soon.   Towels are fun but they are a lot of work and take time, especially when you are hand sewing hems !   The spring loom is waiting to be reloaded and I think I will shift my attention to the Megado  for weaving time.       Enjoy the sunshine while you can.....   🍂🌞 🍁