Thrums

Fresh Beginnings

2012-01-26T12:06:00.000-08:00

These are my grandparents Louisa and Reginald enjoying an English country side picnic with a young son Frank. I would say this is about 1931.

Roll the clock forward to spring 1956 and here's that same young man but holding me!

Here I am again with my mother Vivien, most likely in my grandparents garden.

Here are four generations: me, my Dad, my grandmother and great grandmother and I believe this was 1957.

My children's baby pictures are stored and I must scan them, but here are my son Chris and daughter Carrie some years back in the mid 1980's.

They were all dressed up for a family member's wedding and enjoying themselves! Both are quite grown up and married, with busy lives, jobs and friends and in laws. The time flies by and they grow up so fast!

Yesterday afternoon my daughter in law Lisa posted this picture:

Its a picture of a monitor screen so pardon the shadow but if you look carefully, you will see a little face! We are about to become grandparents in 12 weeks time! We are just thrilled!

Then the weaver in me went into panic mode.... and I have been busy planning a baby blanket. I'm going to use a draft I've used before and weave three. All details on draft and such will be posted at another entry but for now the warp is 8/2 cotton, 22 ends per inch and 7.5 yards long and 36 inches wide. My last blankets were 24 ends per inch but I thought it could be a bit more open, but not by much.

I put a 'big push' on and just finished winding this warp of over 800 ends just before supper last night! Still a lot of work to go but the first major hurdle is done.

In other news:
I have finally finished twisting the fringes on the three scarves that came off this loom and they are now ready for beading. There isn't much warp left for the snowflake runners left and so the last one will be a bit shorter than I was expecting! I'm busy planning a shawl warp for this loom so best get busy on that! There is lots going on and all in progress but nothing ready for their close up (sorry).

My belated Christmas gifts to myself have been arriving in the post and I hope to play these cd rom's soon and freshen up my perspective on warping and general weaving techniques. Interweave Press had a 60% off sale and I couldn't resist! Heck, they are by Madelyn van der Hoogt and I reckon she knows more about this stuff than I do so it couldn't hurt my skill levels any :) I like to try new ideas out from time to time and see if there is anything I could be doing better. Bad habits and ruts can creep up on you before you know it!

I haven't had a minute to watch them as yet but will give you my impressions hopefully soon. (I did try to photograph the cd cases but the glare off the shiny plastic was blindingly bright). Their package was also accompanied by this book:

Like the cd's, I have yet to get into this book as winding the blanket warp took priority over all else. Getting texture into my projects is my second task, after working with more colour. I normally go for smooth fine threads and so is about me stretching my boundaries. Well, that's the plan.....

A postal card tells me my yarn order has finally arrived (ordered from Webs on December 6th!) and is ready for pick up so that will be a fun trip to town. All these goodies were funded by my recent Christmas sales but the party is coming to an end.

One last gizmo gift to show you and this time its courtesy of our Airmiles points.

Its an iRobot vacuum cleaner, called Roomba. I have back issues and doctors say that vacuuming is the worst thing for it. But I like a clean house! While this won't replace a full on vacuum job, it keeps things tidy in between and so you can go longer between sessions. I decided to test this units proficiency and so used our fairly new German made Sebo vacuum (with Hepa filter) in my studio and then set this fellow loose! It gently bounces off walls and furniture and takes strange routes around the room. In the 30 minutes it took, it criss crossed every inch of carpet (some a few times) When done, it used wifi to guide it home and it ran home to its base to recharge! Next it played me a song to tell it was done. (If it gets into trouble, a voice calls for you to come and help). The dust cup is at the bottom end where the black button is and it was full

I'm almost embarrassed to show you this picture as it all came from my so called fresh clean carpet! I suspect that a lot of this is lint from deep in the carpet from weaving things like tencel as it sheds a lot. Needless to say, we are impressed! The company even has a model that washes floors (bathroom and kitchen) I like where this is all going! It cleaned while I wove. What's not to like??

The A,B,C's and 1,2,3's of Classic Crackle

2012-01-17T14:20:00.000-08:00

I briefly mentioned crackle weave in my last post and later I even got a request to cover it so apparently its time has come! I did the first level of the Guild of Canadian Weavers test program (they have a newly designed web page!) and so I have done some in depth study of several weave structures and that included Crackle or Jamtlandvaev. If you click on the link under crackle, it will take you to a downloadable file at Handweaving.net and shows the original article by Mary Meigs Atwater. The link under Mary's name will take you to an older post of mine where I do a review of the book featuring the story of her amazing life. You don't have to be a weaver to enjoy her story and she literally packed six lifetimes into one!

So if you are planning a project for upholstery fabric, then crackle fits the bill nicely. There are no long floats and the weave structure is tied down every fourth thread. Upholstery textiles needs tie downs as chair cushions can get a lot of abrasion! It also works well for blankets for babies as you don't want long floats to catch little fingers.

True classic crackle never has more than a three thread float. (but there are other variations that will go as far as five ends.) We are sticking to the classic version for now. Each threading group uses only three shafts and four warp threads.

It is a two shuttle weave with pattern weft shots and tabby shots alternating in between. As with other two shuttle weaves, you are weaving a plain weave ground cloth and have pattern weft shots as well. A good beat is required! Proper shuttle rotation will lock the wefts at the edge for a neat appearance or if this is fabric for a sewing project, then it is usual to carry the threads up the selvedges.

Crackle is more complex than summer and winter weave as it weaves two pattern blocks at the same time. If you weave block A, you also weave D. If you weave block B, you also weave block A. Then if you weave block C, you also get block B. Lastly, if you weave D you also get block C. Its like a two for one special with no limits on the order! See the photo of the paper draft to see the blocks involved. The draft shows the tabby shots in the drawdown. Click to enlarge for detail!

The end results, especially if several colours are used, are quite visually complex! We are sticking to a four shaft crackle for now but you can see where an eight shaft crackle could get very involved!

Okay, now we come to the actual drafting with crackle blocks and there are some rules that must be followed for a successful outcome. Incidentals. What they are and what they do.... and why you need them. The various four shaft crackle blocks are:

A is threaded: 1, 2, 3, 2
B is threaded: 2, 3, 4, 3
C is threaded: 1, 4, 3, 4
D is threaded: 1, 4, 1, 2

If you visualize the threadings in your mind or take another look at the paper draft above, you will see they are tiny little point twills and even look suspiciously like a close cousin to overshot. (overshot flows from one threading group to another with two threading groups sharing a common thread) It is common to repeat at least two threadings of a group and this becomes a unit. ( I used three groupings to form a unit in the draft above) Then you use multiple units in the designing. More on units or unit weaves at another time!

With crackle you can thread as many block A's together as you like but when you shift to B there is a bit of a disconnect so how do you get the groups to flow?

This is where the incidentals come to the rescue!
Incidentals or extra threads are inserted into the crackle threading to provide continuity between blocks and avoid a 'flat'. A flat is where two warp threads are unintentionally threaded through heddles on the same shaft. There are standard incidentals used with each separate crackle block:

A = 1
B = 2
C = 3
C = 4

So when you want to shift from block A and design with block B you add an incidental thread on shaft 1 and the two groups join up nicely! So you add the corresponding number 2 as you shift from B to C. You must also add them if you go in reverse!

How do you remember which one to use and which number goes with each block? Simple. Change the name of the blocks from A, B, C and D to 1, 2, 3, 4. The number is the incidental you need! Now books will show a crackle draft, especially profile drafts, as A, B, C and D still so you will have to convert them to this.

So let's say that your particular pattern is better if you have blocks of A and then C. No B's at all. You can do this! When designing using A you add the incidental for the missing B and then also for the preferred block of C. You must use the connecting incidental for B even though you won't be using the B units. This rule applies to joining up any group combination. Remember to do this either going forward or backwards in your groups.
{ I tried writing this last section using the corresponding number but it got too busy so you have to do the mental substitution of A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4}

Clear as mud? Take a minute to read the last three sections again and take another look at the paper draft and see the circled incidentals in place.

We'll wait..... :)

So incidentally speaking: A, B, C, D is 1, 2, 3, 4 or D, C, B, A is 4, 3, 2, 1. A, C, D is still 1, 2, 3, 4, or C, D, A is 3, 4, 1

Got it yet?

Edit: caught one crackle victim already :)
No typo there.... A,C,D is 1,2,3,4 Don't forget you are adding incidentals for blocks that are not being used so to transition to the next block you are using!
If it was A, and D only, it still would be 1,2,3,4 (but if you were going backwards D to A, it would be just 4 to join them)

Once you have this under your belt, then you are free to play and design! I find my weaving program invaluable for times like this as you can shift blocks around and get the design in your mind onto the screen.
Multi shaft designs will have assigned threadings for shafts 5 to 8 (for example) and might be labeled E, F, G, H but they are also 5, 6, 7, 8!

Helpful Tip: At the loom I tape a threading print out from my PCW Fiberworks program and then use two small mini 'post it note's' to isolate the grouping I'm working on and then advance the notes carefully to the incidental required and then again to the new block being threaded next. It can be very easy to lose your place with crackle threadings and so I recommend you take measures to keep track!

Now for some show and tell. This sample show my understanding of block placement and not colour interaction. So this is why there is a single solid colour for the pattern.

The blocks were woven in a climbing sequence A, B, C, D. look at the bottom corner and see block A. Notice block D in the centre of the diamond. It came along for the ride! If you visually pinpoint the block being treadled on the angle, you can see the additional woven bonus block. Finally at D they descend in reverse order to A and so on.

I also completed a six week intermediate workshop many years ago held by GCW Masterweaver Margaret Hahn and one of those weeks we covered crackle and some variations:

This is crackle woven 'overshot style'. Literally woven using a summer and winter treadling.

This crackle woven on 'opposites'. So using treadles 1 and 2 against 3 and 4 (or 2 and 3 against 4 and 1)

... and finally a crackle sample treadled 'polychrome style'

If you'd like to do more reading on this topic, this link takes you to a PDF which explores four shaft classic arrangement, variations with longer floats and multi shaft designs. There are some great designs that show the beautiful designs possible.

This book is fairly new on the market and having spent some time reviewing it, I can assure you its worth every penny! It explains everything I told you above (more clearly and with much better diagrams) and then goes onto much more and has all the beautiful pictures to show you what colour can do with this weave structure! Its timing couldn't be better in my opinion as there has been relatively few books to turn to on crackle.

There is a brief chapter on crackle in Key to Weaving by Mary E. Black (1982 revision). The only other book in my collection on crackle is this one:

This has been a standard by Mary E. Snyder and while filled with good information, is rather sparse, limited to four shafts, and only black and white images.

I know there is a wealth of information on crackle at Peg's blog Talking About Weaving Peg isn't active at her blog right now but if you type in crackle weave into her 'search this blog' box and you can surf her past posts on her exploration of crackle. She loves this weave structure!

The beauty of weaving in this time period of history in which we live is that you can simply google crackle weave and read more on line. You still need to understand the basic rules of Classic Crackle.... so as you progress in this study, you can bend and break the rules.

Its really hard to cover everything off in a brief blog post and I hope this little primer helps you on your way to further in depth study and playing with crackle on your loom! (any mistakes are mine and most likely come about due to not being clear in my explanations, so feel free to straighten me out!)

On a more personal note...
Thank you for all the kind emails regarding my four years of blogging! The guest towels are on their way to all the winners and I'm looking forward to hearing what they think.

I'm back in the studio again but there's just a continuation of the older projects that were stuck in limbo during Christmas and the health crisis. New projects are being planned and so I should have more to show you soon.

Speaking of the health crisis: Bruce is much improved and now walking with no crutches or cane, no more antibiotics and is regaining his strength. The heel/ foot gets tired and so he needs rests but I know he's getting better as he's arguing with me about what he thinks he can do. The wives out there will recognize that one and sympathize I'm sure!

As a parting shot.... here's the road to our place, taken this morning:

Winter 2012 has finally shown up. That's the view from the house and just a dusting of snow. With luck, it will be all we get.... but I see its started falling again. I'm calling it a 'snow day off' anyway..

1461 Days is Four Years

2012-01-08T21:10:00.000-08:00

That's 208 weeks, or 35,064 hours

Including this post, there are 180 posts (and I deleted some so there were more than this)

Picasa says I have 5008 images stored there from posting to my blog!

I also have 212 dedicated Regular Readers. I have learned a lot about you individually in the past few days as I got ready for the Big Draw. I found my family supports me and they all signed on... thanks, but I have taken them out from the draw as fair is fair! It would not look good form if my Dad, daughter or hubby won! :)

I found one reader who had signed up twice so could only count them once and I also discovered two readers opted to follow me 'privately' which means their identities are unknown. They simply show up in the count but no names. Sadly I can't include you because of this and I wish I could.

I have over 8 screen loads of people to record on little slips of paper! Through what you were willing to share when you signed up, I could see where you live in some cases, what your other interests are, and who else you follow.

There have been over 108 thousand page views and well on the way to 109! Its all a bit overwhelming given that this time 4 years ago I tentatively pushed the publish button for the very first time and wondered who on earth would be interested in reading what I have to say!?

All I can say is 'Thank you'. I had help with the draw today and asked Lynnette to do the honours. It was duly witnessed by Ngaire and our hubbies, Michael and Bruce. First they brought flowers for Bruce:

Here's Lynnette and myself this afternoon about to do the deed!

I *hate* having my picture taken so you know this is a special effort on my part! I went for the picture that turned out great of Lynnette, but then I look like a deer in the headlights. :)

So the winners, in the order drawn, are:

June *
Rocky Top Weaver
Martha VA

June * has a turquoise generic exclamation point for an image and is on the first screen of followers you see. If this is You, then please email me at weeverwoman@yahoo.com For some reason, the friend connect thing won't let me 'connect'.

Rocky Top Weaver or Annali lives in Oregon and has been weaving 2 1/2 years.

Martha VA has a blog and was from Rochester, New York and now resides in Virginia. She is also a new weaver.

Please contact me with your addresses and we'll get the guest towels moving through the Post to you!
Congratulations!

Now the rest of you are no doubt feeling somewhat crest fallen at having missed out, so perhaps I can cheer you up with some recommendations for spending some of your left over Christmas money? I have ordered some books, cd rom's and (new to me) yarn with my sale proceeds and so far only the books have appeared! I'll report on the rest as and when they appear. In the meantime I'm looking forward to digging into these gems!

This one is thanks to my daughter who gave me an Amazon online gift certificate... thanks Carrie! Crackle is one of those weave structures that looks incredibly complex on four shafts and amazing on multi shafts! There are some rules to designing with Crackle blocks and perhaps we can chat about them here on a another post?

New Weaver? Want to learn how to modify or create your own drafts? Then this book may be for you!

On other news...

Our condolences to Theresa and Gene as they have lost one of their beloved brood. Dennett who just reached 19 years old has sadly passed away. Having lost our Connor just over a year ago, we understand.

On the home front, hubby Bruce has had improvements in some areas and a step back in others. This situation is not going quietly into the dark and so we will continue to follow up with doctors and soldier on!

Lastly, I'm happy to report that life has settled down enough that I have picked up a shuttle and resuming where I left off nearly 9 weeks ago (has it really been that long?) I feel a little rusty as you can imagine! But the weaving new year is finally now underway!

First Time in 30 Years....

2011-12-31T21:36:00.000-08:00

Meet Bruce, my hubby of 27+ years. For the third time in two months he's back in the hospital fighting a MRSA super bug. Seems the abscess in his thumb has flared up again, even though he was taking antibiotics.
He's been there three days now and more or less resigned to the fact. You'd be right in guessing there's no weaving going on here right now. Though I did manage to take down the Christmas tree at 3 am last night...I couldn't sleep and it was annoying me standing there so 'cheerful'!

So for the first time in 30 years we are apart on New Year's eve. We'd normally be at home sipping something and barely stay awake to see the new year in before going to bed.... but we'd be together.

May I wish you all a happy, healthy 2012!
Susan

Edit New Years Day: They let him go home today and we're hoping third time's a charm!

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful messages!

Susan and Bruce

All the Shiny Things

2011-12-26T23:23:00.000-08:00

I'm resting my tired 'dogs' after four days of having my Dad and brother visit with us for Christmas! I enjoyed having them here and we would chat by the hour, eat, watch movies, eat, chat some more, eat....and for a change, eat some more! Then suddenly, it was all over and they are gone....the house sure feels quiet now!

I hope that you all had a wonderful time with family and friends in the past few days and more to come in the week ahead till we welcome the New Year!

I thought I would share some of our special ornaments on our tree...

I kept the ornaments on the light side near the bottom of the tree where they were in range of a curious Airedale!

Yeah, this one... who needed encouragement to open the first gift and then took to her new job with a vengeance! The pooch who loved her new ball and had the 'squeaky' chewed out of it in under two minutes. The industrial strength nylabone will take her a lot longer (hopefully... she is still quite the chewer, even at 18 months old! My Dad discovered she had chewed a whole in one of his tee shirts. Too much upheaval going on in the house I guess.)

There was this lovely new addition to the tree this year from Dorothy in Scotland! Thank you Dorothy.... its a real sweet ornament and much admired by all house guests.

There is this angel made by a friend Marcia and she features a handwoven dress and beads (Calli really wanted to get this one!)

The tiniest pair of mittens....

A crystal train to represent my husband's many years working for the railroad

A boat to represent the five years we lived aboard a boat (1988 to 1993). That's a whole blog post all by itself!

The above grouping are little woven bands, with the beaded hanging cord inserted as a weft. They were woven by my friend Gudrun Weisinger. She has a lot of talent.... check these little gems out!

A tiny paper folded star which I understand is a tradition in Germany

Isn't she cute? a tiny pine cone, pipe cleaner, beads and an acorn hat sitting on a round wooden ball.

Inkle band folded

Then there is the beaded sheep I found one year...

Then there is this group that I cross stitched:

There is also this one which is a tribute to all our previous dogs we have shared Christmas with. Their names are recorded on the back:

I just realized there is one more with a jolly Santa but it must be on the back side of the tree and I missed it with the camera!

I received only one hand woven card this year.... thanks Joan!

Here's a closer view! I love all the shades she has used in this cloth...

So pretty soon this gang will all be tucked away for another year...

My husband has been ordered back onto crutches to rest his achilles heel, but hopefully I can get back to weaving soon..... look, its patiently waiting for me!

I have decided to increase the prizes for the Blogiversary from one to three guest towels! So your chances of winning just got better. Sign in as a 'Regular Reader' and you are entered. I will scientifically pick the names by drawing it out of a hat on January 8th.

Wishing each of you a healthy, happy New Year!

All the best, Susan

21 and counting

2011-12-17T23:52:00.000-08:00

In 21 days, or on January 8th, 2012 I will have been keeping this blog for four years! It was a leap of faith to start it. To think that people would be interested in what I do and what I have to say!

I had all kinds of intentions of keeping it on topic and no personal stuff but time progressed and life's events interrupted my weaving and so there went that condition!

I have 'met' many of you through the blog and developed some wonderful friendships. I can also count four or five blogs that you might also follow as having had a big nudge from me to get their start. I can spot a new blogger in the making a mile away!

I have tried to add blogs to my long list as I find them and try to be inclusive of textile blogs from all over. If you have a favourite that you like to visit and think it would be a great addition to my list, please send me the address!

So why the picture of the towels? Well, I have one (sadly, just one) navy guest towel (with the single row of hemstitching) and on my Blogiversary, January 8th, 2012, I will draw a name from my list of 'Regular Readers' (or formerly Followers) and they will receive this guest towel as a gift from me. That is the only condition: be a Follower and be entered to win.
Yes, this is me trying to get that number to shift... I'm stuck and it goes up by two and then drops by three, then up by one and... well you get the idea! I'm also saying thanks for reading!
Anyhow, good luck!

Update:
Our lives have resumed a more normal pattern, interspersed with occasional tests and doctor appointments. Hubby does not have infection in his foot bones so we are happy with that news! Both surgical sites are healing well and he's resting lots and actually listening to me! ( the married women out there are gobsmacked by the one I'm sure!) We have decorated the house, put up the tree and tomorrow some outdoor lights will be added to the deck railings to light up the dark. There is just the final polish to be put on the house and the special grocery shopping for the Day to come. My family will be arriving on the 22nd and the fun and games will be under way!
Apart from admiring what is already in progress on the looms, no weaving will be happening for a spell.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and that you spend the time with friends and family! That Santa recalls that special something from your textile / tool wish list! I will try to get a post up again after Christmas!

All the best, Susan

PS. Be sure to check out my sale page! Everything is listed now.

The Devil is in the Details

2011-12-11T20:06:00.000-08:00

hand made bears from a Christmas sale past

The two sales I participated in are all done and I'm waiting for one more cheque to come in and I have yet to get back some of my handwovens due to the kerfuffle of my hubby's medical woes*. (*more on this later)
It has been interesting to take a closer look at two guilds and two sales in two diverse locations. What sold well and what price point were the best sellers this year?

The guild in the south central portion of BC had a one day only sale. I can see the benefits to this as the customer has but one chance to buy. There is no tomorrow or next week....buy it now or regret at your peril!
This is also easier on the participants as we all have busy lives, getting ready for Christmas ourselves, or as in my case, having Life keep me busy despite other people's time table and plans.

They have a theme each year and also have a mailing list to alert people of when the big day is. Their venue is an art gallery in the centre of town, along a good highway. The benefit of this is obvious but the nicest perk is the battery of halogen lights meant to highlight the art works normally shown there through out the year, now shine on our items for sale and show them at their best. Yes, there are paintings and sculptures in the room but somehow they add to the ambiance (though one year, I recall a certain nude painting being covered up as it was a bit too distracting!)

The guild members bring sweets and treats and have an area set up for tea and goodies (by donation) and encourage people to linger. There are staff members everywhere to assist and answer questions. The guild member playing her own harp that she made is a lovely touch too! Their inventory runs the gamut of soaps and hand made wooden boxes to felted items, knits, skeins of yarn, weaving and jewelry. There are pressed flowers and hand made paper. What ever the guild members (and spouses) create, is showcased. The guild just acquired their sixtieth member and fully half of them participated. Here is a repeat of the FaceBook link to the pictures.

Here are my sales stats for the inland guild: I submitted twenty two items and sold twelve. The prices ranged from $15.00 for guest towels, to $25.00 for tea towels and $99.00 and $125.00 for scarves depending on yarns used and complexity. The guild took a modest 5% commission and I got a nice cheque! I averaged $41.55 per item, so not too shabby!

bobbin lace by Sandie 2011

The southern Vancouver Island guild has a different approach which is mostly due to the conditions of their venue. They hold the sale on a mezzanine or loft above a retail business. The mezzanine is given over to local artists and groups to do displays for a month at a time and the retail business below takes a 25% commission. The inventory covered bobbin lace, felted items, hand knit sweaters, weaving and some small jewelry pieces. Pricing for my weaving was the same as for the other sale.

The sale was held over thirty days and required at least two persons to cover the day in two shifts. That can be tricky getting sixty spots filled on a schedule! I was only able to work one shift during this time due to a family medical emergency. A guild member kindly covered for me on my second shift. The shift can be long and quiet if no one comes in or *very* busy if several customers do show. I had seventeen guests appear on my shift and was kept hopping; two items were sold that day.

The location is in a shopping mall, above a wine u-brew shop which means there is the musty smell of wine the entire time. The upper floor is very warm as the heat seems to collect up there and wearing light clothing is recommended! The guild has roughly sixty members, with only sixteen contributing to the sale. I entered twenty two items to this sale as well, and sold seventeen. After the 25% commission, I averaged $18.83 per item sold.
That's quite a difference! $41.55 per item in the Interior Sale vs. $18.83 per item on Vancouver Island!

Granted the two sales had a different type of shopper. The interior sale sold seventy six scarves (yes 76!!) and twenty five hats, thirty three tea towels and thirty nine runners among many other items....

The local guild seemed to sell mainly small items with lower price points, or leastwise I did! I have yet to see a break down of the type of items sold other than grand totals for the monies but I'm sure they will look into what was popular this year. Though, no two years are alike as locally this year I sold no scarves at all and last year I sold quite a few here. You try to make things in all price ranges and then hang on for the ride!

There are further differences between the two sales. One is all about one day and everyone knows it, seller and customer. There is one end goal: putting product and client together and they did that successfully this year and had their best year ever! Collectively they sold over $11,000.00 of hand made goods too happy people! That's amazing! Job well done!

The Vancouver Island guild has just had their third year of selling at this venue and increased their over all sales but its a far harder slog for those involved. The venue was also closed one day a week and holidays. There was good advertising done by both sales but I noticed that the majority of people entering the retail business were there to either start their Christmas wine or bottle it. The U-brew displayed small signs indicating that a sale was going on upstairs, but as of my shift mid month, there was no window display as we had last year.

I had to resist the urge to lean over the railing and call out an invitation to come up stairs while wine customers waited their turn downstairs!

I must thank Lynnette and Ngaire for minding my weaving at the interior sale in addition to their own entries! Its fair to say that I could not have done it without you! I feel at a crossroad and must look into doing something far different for 2012 and will be looking at my options. I need a new game plan!

I have listed some of the returned unsold items on a separate sale page (see the top menu bar below the very first picture). I will be adding more items as I get some decent pictures done! I hesitate to advertise something until I have it back in my keeping and can see its in the same condition I sent it to the sale. So please check back and I will collect the balance of my weaving this coming week and then update the list.

Now, moving on.... The Hubby Report!
Well, he's been home for two days from the hospital and very happy to be in his own bed and surroundings again. I placed Calli into the doggy resort for about 5 days for some R and R! She was able to play with other dogs, socialize and get regular exercise. They even bathed her before she came home so it was a seamless return for her. The house was sure empty with out Hub and pooch...

first night home!

So what happened? well, the signs and symptoms seem to add up to a (tentative) diagnosis of osteomyelitis and septicemia. A source of infection in the body had spread via the blood and settled into his bones (right heel) and appeared in various places as abscesses (example: his thumb for one location) It resisted normal antibiotics and so was classified as MRSA. He was kept isolated in a private room where doctors and nurses had to 'gown up' and wear gloves before entering his room. He had two surgeries in less than two weeks and no less than three ambulance rides for various high level tests including echo cardiogram, total body/bone scan, ultrasound, xrays and an MRI in Victoria and Nanaimo.

He is to continue with antibiotics and follow up with blood tests and doctor appointments in the days and weeks to come. His job is to relax and get well.... and write more stories at his blog.

Bruce modelling his new hat in October

We may never know the source of the infection for sure! It could have been the routine procedure back on November 1st or it could have been far earlier as a bone infection can take two to three months to settle in.
Either way we are hopeful that the worst is behind us ! Bruce thanks you for all the supportive comments you have sent via emails and messages to my blog posts. Your messages of hope and encouragement have meant a lot to both of us.

Heavy Handed!

2011-12-03T23:25:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago I was answering questions on the Beginner Weaver forum at Ravelry.com. There are a number of weaving related groups there and we form a little enclave in the midst of knitters / crocheters galore!

A newbie weaver, Jennifer was asking about using an end delivery shuttle on her table loom. Well, why not? Anything that gets the weft across, though a EDS is sort of wasted on a table loom. It would be more of a pass through than a throw!

It was a beautiful shuttle she had found at an antique store in North Carolina... or it came from a textile mill in the Carolina's. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details right now. It was lovely and I was coveting it! I collect shuttles and ones like this don't usually cross my path on Vancouver Island too often. I wrote to her and said that if she came across another, to keep me in mind. Well, imagine my surprise when she said she had two of them! She was willing to sell one to me. The pictures here were taken by Jennifer.

The tightly wound yarn on the wooden pirn is polyester and its wound *perfectly*! The inside of the shuttle has these synthetic filaments that hugs the end of the pirn and tames the yarn as it flies off in the shed. Great idea for very fine yarns. Its the ultimate in yarn control!

I can't find any identifying marks on it at all so if you recognize this shuttle or know something about them, please email me at the address shown on the right hand side of the blog.

There is one small detail about this shuttle that took me completely by surprise.....the size and weight!

Here are pictures taken by me....and you might want to click on these to get a feel for the dimensions!

So its roughly 17 inches long and while I haven't weighed it (yet) its really heavy!

Here it is against my other Schacht end delivery shuttles. The 12 inch and 15 inch which are real light weights next to this behemoth! It arrived in a very long box and I thought Jennifer had reused a mailing box and it was a bit over kill but apparently not. I did have plans of hanging it on the wall with my other antique shuttles but now I'm wondering how to do this?! I love it....

Changing subjects entirely...
My husband was readmitted to hospital and is fighting one of those nasty MRSA super bugs. He had a second operation today and this time it was on his hand by a plastic surgeon. We are hoping that this now means he can start to heal and the antibiotics can do their job. I must wear a lovely yellow gauzy gown (yellow is NOT my colour) but they do coordinate nicely with the blue non latex gloves that every one entering the room must wear. Its been a long month as we have been dealing with this since November 1st.

We decided it was unfair for Calli to be cooped up in a kennel so I took her to the doggy resort and when I last saw her, she had a huge grin and was being chased by a little Yorkie! I'm happy that she is playing with other dogs but it means the house is rather empty. This would be a supreme weaving time but I have no heart to throw a shuttle and, to be honest, I'm too tired to play with my toys.
I am chipping away at Christmas tasks and I have even placed a yarn order! Webs web site said it was all in stock and no sooner than I hit 'confirm' for the order, half of it was immediately back ordered!
There will be show and tell when it does arrive....this year or next! :)

PS I have created a sales page (see top bar) for some of my handwovens that came home from the Christmas sales. More will be added as time allows so please check back!

Life Intervenes

2011-11-27T12:19:00.000-08:00

This is a busy time of year for all of us and apparently its become even busier for me! I have been wearing many hats lately but 'weaver' has not been one of them!

My husband had a routine test procedure in early November and mid month came down very sick with a resulting infection from it. It all happened quite quickly and resulted in an emergency operation this past weekend. There was lots of driving to and fro to hospital and keeping family and friends informed, all managed along with running a house and also walking a dog!

who could say no to this face?!

It was good to bring him home from hospital but the same day Hub started to complain about his ankle. It was swollen and bruised looking and he had no recollection of how this happened. Within a day or so it became worse and he could put no weight on it at all. I was out beating the bushes looking for crutches in a hurry! Once he got a pair of those, life got easier!

So now I'm nurse, cook, dishwasher, laundress, errand runner, dog walker .... oh, and Christmas shopper too and .....well, none of it includes weaving right now.

The big one day sale happened in Salmon Arm yesterday and I heard that I did very well! Here's a link to the Facebook page with pictures of the day! Lynnette tells me I sold: 7 tea towels, 2 guest towels, and 3 scarves! I'll get the final tally and unsold items back shortly. My white snowflake twill shawl had many admirers but sadly no takers!

This post isn't entirely with out weaving content! I can at least show you where things were left when I had to become "Nurse Ratchet"

I decided to go with the third variation after all!

The pattern is quite striking and must be my favourite of the three treadling variations!

So this has an elaborate point twill threading and treadled snowflake style, which is also called a twill progression. Nothing else changed. The tie up remained the same and as you can see, you can effect quite a change by merely changing the way you 'dance the treadles'. It almost has a 3D look to it and when you view it from the side the diamonds look like they are raised up from the cloth!

I *hope* to have the scarves done and off the loom for the next post and I can show you the three different looks side by side! Well, I'll try!

On the Louet, the snowflake twill is patiently waiting....

Its funny as normally I will switch looms to get a change but right now I have the same treadling happening on both looms! I can do snowflake twill in my sleep now and its the only place where weaving is happening for the time being!

Sitting Pretty

2011-11-20T20:29:00.000-08:00

Its time for the local guild's annual sale and it runs a full month. From October 29th to December 1st actually.
It seems that this year people are being more careful with their spending as all my smaller stuff such as guest towels, bookmarks and tea towels have all sold, while my scarves are still waiting for their new owners! Personally, I wonder if the very length of time of the sale gives some customers 'pause' and they decide to 'think about it' and come back later? You can never fully predict what your best sellers will be!

The sale is attended by two volunteers a day from the guild during opening hours of the shop so there is a morning and an afternoon shift. It is surprising how many questions we field, including the ubiquitous "how long did it take you to make this?" :) There are advertised scheduled demonstrations every Saturday. I sat an afternoon shift this past Thursday:

Here's a general overview of pictures from the day... and be sure to click to make any of them larger! By the time I got here the sale had been on for two weeks and I'm sure that I missed quite a lot of nice things. I just couldn't get there any sooner! So let's see what's left....

Two of these scarves should look familiar!

Scarves!! quite a few in fact and all unique: silks with braided fringe, self pleating scarves, felted double weave, hand knit laces, tencel and silks (mine :) and brushed mohair. It seems that our customers don't need new scarves just yet so Mother Nature has given us a cold snap in the past few days to help change their minds!

Then we have shawls and wraps:

Luscious wraps in warm wools in canvas weave... along with fantail lace shawls from hand spun lace weight yarns.

Bright wool blankets and mohair throws! Wouldn't that throw look wonderful over the sofa at Christmas?

Then we have tea towels... (what's left of them!) The one on the very far right is the last of mine. I had nearly a dozen and they are all gone....

There is a good selection of hand knits and I sold a lovely peach cable knit sweater that looked like it was made just for the customer! She was thrilled..

Next up is smaller items such as pin cushions, book marks, purses and bobbin lace jewelry! Even yarns to entice knitters out there...

Beaded cuffs

These are woven leather bracelets with carved antler closures!

And finally, this beauty that came home with me...

and a close up...

It's official.... the run up to Christmas has begun!

Scratching the Surface Some More

2011-11-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

I thought I would bring you up to date with our recent adventures in getting a new water source to our house! They say that most people take water for granted until you have none. Well, we had some... a slow dribble that made day to day life awkward. Years ago we lived aboard a boat with limited water and electricity and so knew all about the 'one appliance rule' and fast, fast showers! Our hot water tank was a mere 6 gallons in size. So here we are living in a full sized house and we were back to our old boat day rules: No flushing while someone was in the shower! You don't get scalded, but the water disappears entirely until the toilet tank filled! No showers or laundry during the dinner hour as the water was needed in the kitchen for dinner preparation. The dishwasher goes on at bedtime when there is no chance of water being needed anywhere else in the house. Laundry day was more like laundry week!

So last time I wrote on details, we had had the well drilled and this is what it looked like when they were done:

Yup, its a hole in the ground! A 182 foot hole in the ground to be exact. Do you see the water around the base? The water would normally stay down at the level you find it at which in our case was 162 feet. We opted to drill another 20 feet and this would help serve as storage space. Well, imagine the surprise when they took the top off and the water was right to the top of the pipe, so 184 feet of storage! Then it started to dribble out as you see above. The plumber Sven said we were darn lucky as this meant we would never actually draw on the acquifer and have plenty for our needs! This sure sounded good but I was wondering how to get it to the house and out my taps?

No problem..... you dig another hole or trench rather..... 300 feet long to the house. Here's the machine that did the deed:

The caterpillar tracks helped on the slopes but it sure chewed up the driveway!

From the well positioned behind the garage you come out to the front of the garage, where you dig up and break the existing irrigation line for the dug well (which was repaired and reburied)..... then start marching up the road....

Up the drive and across the bridge, where near the tree you find an old culvert bringing water from the neighbour's property under your driveway and onto your land. This was 'fixed' ... enough said on that. :)

Then beside the drive where you deal with big tree roots

Then you hope your line of new cedars haven't spread out their new roots too far yet!

Why stop there? Let's go through the path and even the garden! Here they placed a junction box (see green box waiting) where they changed the type of pipe and its diameter.

Ultimately they drilled a hole right through the foundation and then pulled pipe through under the house which they accessed via the crawl space. Yes, it was a #%^&@% mess! They covered it all up again but the ground is subsiding as the dirt compacts down and its not the nice (relatively clean) crushed blue granite you can see we had down. A muddy mess which will most likely have to wait till spring to fix as winter is upon us!

While the men were working up by the house, I heard a little yipping noise and someone told Calli to be quiet. Since Calli was lying beside me as I wove, so it wasn't her! I got up to check and this is what I found!

This is Cali (short for Mexicali?) the Chihuahua! One of the big tough guys had brought his little dog along and she was COLD ! I offered to bring her in and warm her up but her 'Dad' just tucked her into his coat and zipped it up. No more yipping!

We had the well drilled right beside the garage so there was electricity near by and the well components can be mounted safely in the garage and we wouldn't have to build a pump house. (These pictures were taken with a mobile phone so not entirely clear.)

This shows the main black water pipe coming in from the well and a pressure tank above. Next to it is the 'brains' for the pump which sits down at 172 feet in the well. It is set up to provide a constant pressure or PSI.

Here's the gauge: (I can almost feel the full pressure showers now!)

So apparently getting the pump down the well is a task all unto itself! It has to be somehow suspended and sanitized and without touching anything settled down into the well which has also been sterilized. (You have always wondered about stuff like this right?)

Here Sven has a special derrick truck to lift the pump into the air. Meanwhile the well has been painted a bright blue so you miss it with the mowing tractor! There is some testing or cleaning going on right now.

Here's the submersible pump being readied for lowering down the well. Once this was completed, we had to 'develop the well' for a couple of weeks. This meant twice a day we hooked a garden hose onto the pipe fitting that comes up through the floor in the laundry room and run water from the new well for 20 to 30 minutes a time. This flushed out any fine sediment and debris that was created by the drilling. This was a long two weeks and it evolved into three weeks with various delays. Next up is the final hook up to the existing water treatment system in the house and the cutting off and capping of the old well pipe.

In our laundry room what you see from the new well system is the pipe that runs under the house and then appears up from the floor, tucked in behind the hot water tank:

The lighter coloured small pipe takes water off to an outdoor hose bib ahead of the treatment system. The main water then goes to a treatment system that softens, filters and irradiates the water with UV light. Now its safe to drink and bath in!

So I did! This shower is the highest water appliance in the house and it was quite pathetic what we had before. Not any more!

....and for good measure I ran the vanity tap too!

There was no fluctuation in the water volume! So that's all settled now and we must eventually repair/ patch the driveway, then replant the garden come spring and make it so it doesn't look like the garden gnomes went bonkers!

Well, after an early winter storm that rolled through here yesterday, it all looks chaotic! We had some very high wind gusts out of the south east and in one to three gusts, the wind cleared off the maple and alders and the air was *full* of flying leaves, branches and other debris! I managed to sweep off all the decks and I literally needed a shovel to lift it all. The power outage lasted 3 1/2 hours so not too bad for the first storm. The gutters on the house seriously need a cleaning now!

Apart from a small interior decorating job that we plan to start tackling in January 2012, that's it for reno's for the year! I've started my Christmas baking and writing cards....

When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Appears

2011-11-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

There is an old saying that "when the student is ready, the teacher appears" and thinking back over my weaving past, this has proven to be quite true. I have been very fortunate in my mentors finding me along the way!

What I have discovered by taking on a student is that I have learnt as much, if not more, than the student! A learning curve for both of us... I'm new to all this and still developing a lesson plan and so Denise has been very patient with me. I thought I would find out what she has been doing in the past with her weaving and then determine what she wants to change, then to learn and try as new. The goals became: to use finer threads, explore pattern work, work at hemstitching and finishing. Turns out Denise is detail orientated much like myself so this put us both on the same page.

Denise has been weaving for past two years and has an eight shaft Gilmore jack loom. I have seen ads for these looms in older Handwoven's, complete with old Mr Gilmore proudly standing by his creation, but never seen one in person. Denise sent me some pictures:

Its a great loom and my first thought was "this is a sturdy, well built little tank of a loom. I dare say her thighs get a work out lifting those shafts!

Since the set up and warping of her Gilmore loom is quite different from my Louet Spring, we agreed that I would wind and beam the warp. We also agreed that we would only use eights shafts and not the full twelve on the Louet as what ever we worked on must be relatable to her situation at home So while we worked out dates that worked for both of us, I wound the warp and got the loom ready, threaded and sleyed for the big day. Denise teaches classes in soapmaking and has a young son in school so we had some calendar scheduling to do.

I sent her pictures of the warping process so she would feel a part of what was to come.

The warp is a fine 16/2 mercerised cotton, sett 36 epi and fourteen inches in the reed, so 504 ends. We are doing an 8 shaft snowflake twill! The threading and sleying went well. I customarily take my time and double check as I go and the end result?

We are good to go!

I am fully flattered that a weaver would want to come and learn with me and even more impressed that she would want to drive an hour and twenty minutes to do so! Here's Denise hard at work doing trellis hemstitching:

Oh to have such flexible joints like that again! (She's showing off ). Denise brought along samples of her previous weaving to share with me (and vicariously, you)

Cottolin and cotton towels, sett 24 epi. Her first project on an eight shaft loom!

Multi colored Tea towels are 24 epi, 8/2 hand painted warp (by Denise) 8/2 maroon bamboo. Weft is black 8/2 cotton.

A beautiful overshot shawl! Silk/alpaca weft, sett 20 epi bamboo warp, woven on a four shaft loom.

Then my favourite, (and it was hard to choose!) overshot table napkins. "The napkins are an overshot pattern from " A Hand weaver"s Pattern Book " sett at 30 epi, 16/2 natural cotton warp, 8/2 natural cottolin weft. 4 shaft loom"

I planned my time with her accordingly so we would cover the goals we set originally and ensured that we covered those topics off. So 'finishing techniques' is covered by the trellis hemstitching and luckily I had scarves pinned out on the styrofoam boards so we reviewed how to get nice consistent even fringes. We have discussed books that would be a great help to her to have at home. Then there are lots of little hints and tips from marking the centre treadle with a thick rubber band so you have a guide to where your feet are in the scheme of things. There was also a demonstration of efficiency warp winding.

I must say that it was wonderful to have her company in the studio and someone to talk weaving with! The neatest thing was hearing the thump - thump of a beater and it wasn't me making the noise!

Denise has been working away on what can be a rather tricky treadling and doing just fine. Well, she is now that we found my little mistake! I had written out a cheat sheet to keep track and near the centre of the snowflake "X" the treadling reaches for a pivot point: 5,6,7,8 ...6,7,8,...1,7,8,.....1,2,8.....then 1,2,3,2,1. The 3 is the centre of the X and everything reverses from that point. In a Mental Pause moment I wrote the last 1 as a 3. Why? I have no idea! My brain apparently thought it logical at the time. So Denise followed along treadling and then would have to unweave. This happened a few times so I would sit down and weave the centre, throwing the shuttle and going on memory alone and it worked out fine. I have woven this pattern so often over the years I could do it in my sleep! Apparently just not while fully awake! We finally worked out what I had done and I felt dreadful. It just so happened to coincide with a casual conversation between us on the ills of menopause and this will serve as a horrible warning to her (and you?) as to what is coming!

Denise must have forgiven me as she has written some very nice words about her time here:

I started following Susan's blog about 18 months ago. Out of the thousands of weaving blogs, Susan's was one of the few that interested me. I love the detailed patterns that she chooses, the colors, the beauty of all of her finishing touches. Two months ago when I was checking her latest entry I was beyond thrilled to read that she was thinking of teaching...I could scarcely believe my good fortune! I emailed Susan immediately explaining that I am not a beginner weaver ( two years into it ) but would love to absorb anything she could teach me. Perhaps remedy any bad habits I had formed, weave with a fiber other than 8/2 cotton, and understand a draft a bit more comprehensively or create my own.

The next morning I received a cheery response from Susan, we spoke on the phone that week about what I might like to weave then decided a visit was in order first.

I was welcomed into her home and Susan's large, bright, very well organized studio instilled some serious "studio envy ". Susan did not disappoint, the experience I had with her exceeded the expectations I had from following her blog. I have learned some very valuable techniques I'm proud to say have broken one bad habit. I no longer do " the claw " with my shuttle! It has increased my speed/rhythm tremendously. The 1 1/2 hour drive has been more than worth it to me.

Spending time weaving with Susan has been an invaluable experience for me. I have picked up some great tips to make my weaving more efficient. I love a good tip!

Susan is meticulous in her weaving record keeping (something I don't do very well ) and she has encouraged me to do the same. I actually went home after one session with some beautiful sample notes in lovely plastic sleeves to start my own binder. So organized!

My lessons are winding up and I will miss my time learning with Susan, but I am coming back most certainly in the New year to be 'sponge - like' in her presence.

Denise

Yesterday was our last session together and the time flew by. We covered project planning, more hemstitching, pirn winding, hemming details and of course, weaving some more! There is nothing that tells a story as well as a picture!

I caught her while hemstitching the last hem and a short while later, we had the grand unveiling!

I hope I helped Denise with her weaving skills. I know that she had a wonderful head start and I look forward to seeing more of her work in the future. I admire her commitment to learning more and finding the time in what is a very busy life, complete with a hubby and young son. With that sort of dedication, you know that she will continue to learn and grow as a weaver.

Late for the Party

2011-10-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

My big loom 'Emmatrude' has been very patient this year. (She is a Woolhouse Tools floating parallel countermarche, model name Gertrude) Not much happened on her while I dealt with life issues such as my cranky lower back. I found my loom bench aggravated my sciatica and my 'fix', the big black chair has been working very well and I find I can weave longer sessions which is fantastic! I'm under no illusions and I listen to my back and rest when it tells me to.

My Louet is busy right now... but more on that next time! :) I am keeping the other loom busy with a series of three scarves. The warp is 10/2 tencel and the weft is 30/2 silk; sett is 28 epi and it's approx 7" in width. I was given a dusty rose pink skein of tencel some years ago and I was challenging myself to team it up with other colours and put it to work (stash busting?) Perhaps I saw too much dusty rose and sea foam green back in the 1980's and so the rose skein has sat a long time waiting its turn. I found a mineral green, violet and black that seem to work nicely. The colours are all medium hues and so of similar values.
The threading is a fancy 8 shaft point twill and here's the draft for scarf number one (which I'm still weaving on the moment, but in the home stretch!)

The scarf in the picture at the top of the post shows it being woven 'as drawn in' or the old fashioned 'tromp as writ'. Since its boring to do the same thing over and over, the second scarf will look like this:

Same threading but now the treadling will be network. Changes everything doesn't it? I love to be able to play with the treadling possibilities on a screen. I can even view the back of the work and then check for overlong floats in warp and weft! The colours are much brighter than the ones actually used but I was okay with 'close enough!'

I have been playing around with variations for the third scarf and thought this one is a good contender and may happen. We'll see. I'll continue to play with choices while I work through the first two!

This treadling is is a twill progression such as you would find in a snowflake twill. I'll have to try a sample to see how it works with the real cloth and colours to see if its a go. Its too bad that these weren't ready in time for the coming sales, so they are officially late for the party!

So if you have a long warp on and want to change the project, try changing your treadling sequence! Its amazing what appears when you dance the treadles!

I have also been busy preparing for sales like many of you are doing as well. I spent time going through my hand wovens, tagging and making up inventory sheets. Happily, they are all coming at easily to handle intervals this year! I divided my items into two groups with newer items going to be set up on display with other guild member's contributions at a month long sale in Mill Bay, BC. It runs Oct 30th and closes Dec 1st. I'm on the list to sit a couple of shifts at the sale, but not until the 17th and 30th of November. I'll have to go in much sooner than that to photograph the entries before they all sell!

The balance will be mailed off to a one day sale in Salmon Arm which is in the south central interior of BC, held by a guild that I'm still a member of despite having moved away. They are such a great bunch of ladies !

Last, but not least... one of the benefits of my recent stash collection clean up was the rediscovery of an antique! I bought this from a friend some years ago and the general consensus is that it was new in the late 1950's or early 1960's. I'm the third owner of this little machine since then. It still has the original cloth wrapped cord which makes me a bit nervous! I did replace the rotting cotton cloth on the roller with some new cotton ticking.

When plugged in, the roller turns and I believe (if my memory serves me right) you pull the lever on the right to to snug up the curved metal plate at the back. It holds the cloth between the metal plate and the roller and presses it in a continuous rotation, with the cloth being slipped in the top and rolled out the bottom. No steam but I can recall that two or three pressings gave good results. I guess you could mist the cloth before slipping into the roller!

Hubby watched me trying to hard press towels this week on a conventional ironing board and hinted that a steam press might be in my future. That sure would be sweet but with a new well and plumbing, I think it might have to wait a spell.

As a parting shot, one of the items being pressed up and prettied for the sales is the 12 shaft snowflake twill shawl. Rather than fold it up, I thought it might be nice to look at it for a short while until it ends up around someones shoulders for Christmas!

10/2 undyed tencel, sett 28 epi, silk seaweed blend is the weft so its buttery soft. There's hundreds of twinkly crystal beads along the edges. Madge Manikin looks like she's ready to party now :)

And a Good Time was had by All !

2011-10-22T23:51:00.000-07:00

This very large old tree is at the entrance to the "Island Savings Centre" where the Cowichan Fleece and Fibre Fair was held today. I can't say that I'm a fan of naming buildings after businesses but it seems to be done everywhere now.
I can recall seeing this tree just as it was beginning to leaf up this past spring and now suddenly its autumn and down they come.
There is something special about this tree....

Its hollow! Click to see better.... it doesn't seem to interfere with it's annual duties....

Inside the Centre it was a sea of people and kids and they were there for the fibre and fun!

Alison was in a corner with children and parents everywhere and they were busy creating masterpieces on their "L" looms.

Janette (left) and Karen (right) manned the table for the guild and what you can't see here is the baskets and bins with yarns for sale below the table. Jan was there too but I think she had gone on her lunch break.
{There wasn't much left to my stash goodies! In fact by the end of the day, I have a few books left to come back home and there are the larger cones of mixed acrylic/ cottons which I have now donated to the guild. That's it!}

I bought some gently used, one pound cone of 10/2 mercerized cotton in a soft robin's egg blue at the guild table and two older Handwoven magazines. I didn't have my list with me of what I need to complete my collection so I went on the basis of 'I don't recognize these covers' and for $2.00 for both, I couldn't lose!

Humming Bee Farm had a lovely display and I drooled over the (not for sale) shuttles and old bobbins.

Near by Leola was having a great conversation with a (new? old?) friend...

Her booth / table looked great! Her studio spaces is amazing and she must have close on 40 (yes, forty) looms all warped up and ready to go in the three studios. I'll have to do a feature on her activities one day soon...

At a little table I spotted this young lady, Nancy, and her amazing needle felted creations!

She had little owls, dragons and even a mouse or squirrel with life like eyes. Check her blog out! There are great pictures of the owls and creatures she makes.

She also had this grand old man " King Winter". I wondered what the Queen will be like one day soon?

I couldn't see a business name here but there were many colourful projects at this rug hooking display. They are like paintings with cloth!

Jeannette (in red) of Hummingbird Fibre Arts was busy! There was a veritable kaleidoscope of dyed fibre all around her. It was hard to resist!

Michelle (left) and friend was wearing a big grin as she told me that seven large bins of fibre was all gone to new homes. That's the last of it on the table. The *serious* shoppers were at the door at opening and knew what they wanted! I turned up in the lunch time lull so I wasn't all that serious :)

Heather, of Conheath Farm, took a moment to pose for the camera. We exchanged cards....

While Heather wrote up sales, I noticed the needle felted nativity scenes tucked in the corner. Christmas is not that far away after all!

The crowd in the hall started to pick up again and the vendor's attention turned to customers once more. I decided it was time to make a graceful exit. It had been raining earlier in the day and now it brightened up and the sun was trying to shine through.

I made my annual stop to photograph this row of trees that I call the "Dancing Ladies". They are not in full colour as yet so I may stop again in a few days time. The property where they line the drive is now for sale. Its 33.5 acres with a lovely home and out buildings and no neighbours near by. Oh, and this is their view:

Please click to enlarge and see more detail in the picture. The turn off to my street and home is just down the road from here and I never tire of coming over the hill and seeing this view open up to the east. The two distant peaks are actually on Saltspring Island, with Mount Maxwell on the left. The dip in between is where the little community of Maple Bay sits.

The view at home isn't shabby either.... our Japanese maple is so bright red, the leaves look like they are floating on air! The darker green foliage frames the tree nicely. Complimentary colours at their best!

Now, to take these colours and move them to a loom!

Clearing out the Cobwebs

2011-10-21T23:10:00.000-07:00

Hey! Yarn alert! But this is actually leaving and hopefully going to new homes. Strange concept huh? There is a fleece and fibre fair tomorrow and one of the organisers asked me if I had anything I would like to add to their sale table. My contribution went from a few odd and ends to 64 items! Its a blend of some books, yarns and small pieces of equipment.

I have been in gather mode for years and eventually you begin to realize that you tend to weave with certain types of yarns and some cones just sit and gather dust. You will never use them.

It all started innocently enough.... I'll just look through these here.... oh, look at the dust balls.... next thing you have the vacuum in hand and the entire stash is being dusted, reorganized and the orphans are in a box for the sale... It took me two days (yes, I do have a lot) but I was rethinking every single ball, cone or skein. Getting familiar with them all again and finding some I thought lost forever! :)

Some were hard to part with. They came from friends who have passed away. Some were guilty of being synthetic, some are simply too lumpy..... others too fuzzy. There are some I regret sending off but the inventory sheet is done and they are beyond my reach now.

I found I have more room for new yarns now! If all this banished yarn sells tomorrow, then I can afford to refill the empty spots, but I will resist the temptation as I have a better goal for the funds. There is a spinners and weavers retreat being held the end of March in 2012 that I have booked a room and reserved space at the events for both myself and Lynnette. The last one we attended was back in 2006 and we had a blast!

So with this retreat in mind, I was guilty of reaching for yet more cones and viewing them more critically and "when in doubt, then toss it out!". I was motivated!

So it was a hefty load and I noticed that my friend who was taking the boxes was busy checking things out as she's walking them to the back of her car. It was hard to get her attention to say good bye..... yarn does have that effect on us doesn't it? :)

So my stash is still on the crappy shelves I don't like (to be resolved at some point later) but its better organised, dust free (for now) and set up in categories that makes sense. (well, to me it does!)

Well, it's clear that I have S.A.B.L.E. disease.... you know "Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy"
If that's the case, I'm going with a smile!

Next post... pictures from the sale!

Arrived by Snail Mail

2011-10-15T20:58:00.000-07:00

Do you recall this picture?

I wove up these bookmarks as part of the annual weaving exchange with the Guild of Canadian Weavers, with Lynnette as the hostess. This is her last one as she gracefully 'retires' from organizing them. She has done an amazing job! I have been participating in them since they were resumed by Carolyn H. back in 2006 (I'm guessing at the date right now!) They are so much fun to do. You have oodles of time, very clear parameters, minimal costs and it's like Christmas in October when the parcel arrives in your mail box!

For details on my book marks, draft and information, please read here

I mailed four bookmarks away, complete with the draft and project information and yesterday I received my package in the mail! It felt a bit bulky for book marks but I was eager to get home and open it up.

The first I saw was a very pretty pink lace. Click to enlarge any of the pictures. This weaver had just come from a lace workshop with Jane Stafford and so was clearly inspired! The weaver used 16/2 orlec, which is an acrylic, sett 30 epi, and wove it on four shafts.

Then there was this elegant silver and black one! Its a point twill that is 'tromp as writ'. The warp was a cotton/ acrylic blend from Italy and the weft 16/2 cotton. Here's a close up:

Next up was this bright and cheery book mark! It's an eight shaft summer and winter. No information was provided about yarns used or setts. Very pretty though....

The last one was by Lynnette herself and its my favourite (even before I knew it was hers! True Story! :) She chose a 12 shaft rosepath treadled as threaded. A fine 20/2 cotton warp, sett 36 epi and 8/2 tencel as weft

Click to see the close up!

Then I discovered why the package was a bit bulky! Inside was a lovely gift - a 'souvenir' from their travels in France. Lynnette and her hubby, Michael had almost a month long stay in the country. I do hope she writes a few tales of their time there and share some pictures!

It's a 100% cotton jacquard woven kitchen towel and is *very* generous in size. Larger than my big towels actually! I find myself thinking " but it's too nice to use as a kitchen towel" (sound familiar?)

Lynnette said that it was the only textile she found in her time there that was actually made in France and she bought it in Pontivy , which is in Brittany. When I look at the jar of strawberry jam, or "confiture de fraise des bois", I can't but help think of Michael! (private joke... sorry!)

Seeing Stars

2011-10-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

Its the Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend and I hope my Canadian readers are enjoying family and good food! Its a busy time of year with getting the flower beds and gardens cut back for winter and other preparations. We were both inspired to get out and get busy one day and it seems our timing was perfect as its rained ever since!

I have been soldiering on and finally wove off the last of eleven yards of kitchen towels. The first post is here including the draft and story. Since then that loom has been busy every day with weaving the yardage off and makes for dull reporting! My Louet has been sitting idle and 'naked' (horrors!) but that's changing soon. More on that another time. :)

Since this warp was all white with a few stripes, I can recall going through 3-4 cones of 8/2 cotton while winding the warp and about the same again as I wove. Once the warp came off the loom and I carried it all rolled up to the sewing table I was quite taken with the sheer weight of all that effort!

This is nine of the ten towels all rolled up beside the serger, with the first towel stretched across and being trimmed up on the serger. I usually cut and tie onto my new colour of serger thread and pull through. An acceptable cheat I think given the dismal all black and white hand drawn sketch of where the threads go for all four cones! Well, I forgot to take off the tension and some threads broke mid way. Two hours later I finally had it rethreaded and now my machine and sketch are colour coded against future faux paus. Something I should have done years ago!

So here they are all folded and piled up waiting for the hemming !

I didn't think you'd want to wait another week or so while they are hand hemmed! They'd look like this after anyhow :)

They are quite different from my other towels I've woven up in the past two years. Simpler pattern, and colours. They were easy to thread and treadle and I wove one up every day at 34 inches (okay most days!)

They are also a bit different in how I placed my pattern stripes. Its hard to show you clearly so I got out our little step ladder and took this picture. Not very artistic but it gets the point across!

(Click to enlarge) The hems will be a small rolled hem so they are generous sized towels. I'll have to check the shrinkage once wet finished. There are blue stars on the front and yes, it finally worked out right so they are reversible and have white stars on the back:

Once the holiday weekend is over, all heck is going to break out around here (again) as the work will begin on hooking the newly dug well to the house which is 300 feet away. Our driveway will look a bit rough for a few days. Three days if things go well and five if not! Wish us luck! I am so looking forward to a shower with full normal water pressure again...

Oh, and our new well is 'artesianing' as we found to our surprise! The water level had filled all 182 feet of the pipe, plus the two feet above ground and has been trickling out the top cap. This caught our plumber by pleasant surprise and apparently its a good thing! We will have lots of water for all our needs.

Something to be thankful for....

Done Like Dinner

2011-10-01T23:56:00.000-07:00

My bright idea of getting some more mileage from tie-up's on the Louet loom were brought about due to a cranky lower back. A great idea in theory! I would do one project and tie-up and then go looking for another, usually modified, project and use the same tie up again. When you come to think of 12 shafts and 12 treadles and 144 ties, it's a reasonable concept!

The book mark project was the instigator (see picture on head of blog!). I played with the draft in my PCW Fiberworks and changed a few things. Here it is again:

I had two ways that I liked to treadle them. One as shown and the second is to add the diamond and a half between repeats. Okay, so two scarves! I beamed a 10/2 tencel warp at 28 epi. I have more details on this at this post. My weft was uber fine 30/2 black silk and one full repeat was a lot of treadling! I recall the first scarf progressing well and no difficulties but things went far slower on number two! The floating selvedge edge thread on the right hand side kept letting go and breaking every six inches until I finally accepted it was going to happen regardless and kept the T pin handy. My final fix for this was in my last post. My problem was boredom! The book marks had been quick and fun but this was dragging for some reason. I found myself avoiding the loom and weaving more on the blue and white towels! (they are coming to a conclusion soon... patience grasshopper!) I did force myself to sit down and weave so many repeats before I was allowed to weave on the other loom.... and when it seemed like I would be having a student come soon and use the Louet, I got busy and wove the last portion and got started into the finishing. The loom sits empty for now now... geesh!

I had difficulty getting decent pictures for you as the scarves are black and a deep red, with a silk weft which all reflects light when my flash goes off! So please bear with them ... trust me, these are the better ones!

Here they are on the fringing board. I did a nice firm, rounder three stand cord using my triple twister. Twisters make the work go so much faster! Next up, beading and bling!

Click to enlarge for better detail. It took me a pleasant two hours yesterday to do the four scarf ends and then I lay them and my samples to soak while we made our dinner.

Since our summer seems to have moved on, they hung for the night in our shower stall and then out came the ironing board this morning!

So with diamonds in between repeats.... (wow, great sheen on that silk!)

... and without! There was just one complete box or square to start and finish and the rest was all undulating pattern repeats. They are not as shiny in person as they appear here. I'm an automatic 'point and shoot' type so the more technical side of all things camera are not my forte! The scarves are now tucked away with the rest of my inventory for the coming sales.

With those sales in mind, I did something special to get ready. My very first professionally made business cards! They also serve as my hang tags so there is a small hole punched in one corner and care instructions on the back.

The image is the echo weave scarf I wove using Lynnette's unique computerized draft. The first cards I didn't make on my little printer with little perforation marks all around the edges!

On the Edge

2011-09-22T21:51:00.000-07:00

Look who I found in the herb patch! He (or she?) sat very still while I went bonkers taking pictures and even the flash didn't phase him. Then I sat the camera down at ground level and got the one above. Click and enlarge... I'll wait for you...

Its a magic world at ground level.... all that is missing are the faeries and a hobbit or two.

Our new well is a two foot high pipe (sealed of course) and we are waiting on the next company to come and assess the situation and do the hook up to the house. No doubt there will be a waiting list to get the work done but we do hope to have it done before the weather turns nasty. While we wait for the second part of the water fix, we got word that our septic field needs repairs but a trusted 'expert' assures us it can wait till spring and we should practice water conservation in the mean time. For those of you who have been following me for awhile you must be wondering what else can go wrong here! So with that in mind, Hub (who used to sell roofing among other renovation goods) assure me the roof is fine for ten years or more....

So we are waiting and a bit on edge as it were. My weaving friends have all left on vacations or quick excursions and I have been spending my time weaving most afternoons. I have fine 10/2 tencel scarves in red and black on the Louet and using 30/2 black silk as my weft so the weaving was slow. It was just two scarves but the treadling repeat is long and tedious and quite frankly, I was getting bored with it. The weaving gremlins decided to have fun with me though. There were no problems with scarf number one but on scarf two as boredom was setting in, the floating selvedge on the right hand side (only) repeatedly broke or frayed through every four to six inches for the entire seventy two inches woven! I did try to work out why and fussed with cures but nothing I did improved it and it kept on breaking. So after a while I would keep an eye on the floating selvedge and when it appeared fuzzy, I would lift and pull it forward and set a T pin into place to hold the new section and carry on weaving! No point fighting it and I tried to work with it and go with the flow. The treadling sequence was enough for me to manage!

After the scarves came off the loom, I took a fine needle and ran the ends up and down along the edge...

Apart from a small 'tail' every 6 inches .... the results look smooth and like nothing happened! The scarves are on the fringing board and I'm working my way through the twisting. So no 'show and tell' just yet but very soon. So about the breakages, I have a theory: so why one side and not the other? I think it has to do with the twist in the yarn which when dangled off the back in a little weighted film canister unwinds slowly. It untwists and so makes the thread weaker and more susceptible to fraying and breakage. The other side is also hanging but its twisted with the direction it wants to turn and so is fine. Its always the simplest of answers I think….I’m not going to fight the earth’s rotational pull!

The Louet is sitting empty for now.... and my new student will beam the next warp sometime in October when she comes for weaving time here. So we'll be sharing our learning time with you as we go....

I'll leave you with these characters just hanging around relaxing...

They are Pacific Tree Frogs and we have no less than three outside the kitchen window. Every morning, while the coffee is brewing, we play 'find the frogs'. This morning the third was elsewhere. Its even smaller than these two.....maybe visiting that other frog?

Scratching the Surface

2011-09-14T13:41:00.000-07:00

Right up front, this is a non weaving post! Sometimes life interferes with our pursuit of all things weaverly. I try not to let it get in the way of my shuttles but.... apparently Life right now insists on my full attention. :)

We use well water here at our home and have installed a full water treatment system to keep it clean, soft and healthy for all our needs. We draw it (legally) from a shared well on the neighbour's property and then it travels some distance up a hill to our home. Water loses pressure when it travels up a grade and so our water pressure has always been a bit of an issue for us. The neighbour? he has LOTS and us? Not so much! The pressure this summer has been steadily going down to the point where if someone wants a shower, no one dares turn on a tap and even then the person in the shower has a nice dribble!
Awkward is one word I can use.... the rest are not lady- like to write here!. I have been caught all soaped up and there is no water at all until either the offending tap is turned off or the toilet tank is full again.
The dish washer runs at bedtime when there is no danger of interference! It hasn't always been this way and our thirty year old home has had this shared well arrangement for all of those years and various owners of this house with limited success. We have always been water conscious and after living aboard a boat for five years with only 300 gallons in the storage tank, we are quite conservative with water usage. We just naturally fell into our old habits of notifying each other of water events. "I'm going to water the gardens" meant reduced water in the house. We haven't watered lawns at all this year except for some newly sown areas after last fall's deck rebuilding. The neighbour and well owner unfortunately wasn't helpful with solutions and quite grumpily said "its your problem" and hung up on us. (Some of my un-lady like language was reserved especially just for him).

So we began our research of the existing lines from the pump house and where they might be located. After thirty years where documents say they are and where they were actually placed are two different things! The codes and practices back in the late 1970's were quite different to what is done now. At best the pipe runs through a swampy area and even under a creek according to a former owner from that time period. Not allowed by today's standards !
If the galvanized fittings used in the 1970's have corroded, as one plumber thinks, and we were lucky enough to find and replace them, then some of the issues we have still exist. Lower than normal water pressure, a thirty year old system and a cranky neighbour who still owns the well! So even a booster pump and cistern wasn't going to work and be quite expensive to boot!

What fix is the best use of our money and solves all the problems for us once and for all?

You drill a well.

Click to enlarge.... this was taken today and at this point they had gone through nineteen feet of overburden and and were just heading into bedrock. The wells in the area that we know of are all at about eighty five feet and produce ten to eleven gallons per minute, so this should come in at under one hundred feet. The exhaust is spitting out fine clay, surface water and now ground rock. Its a messy process!

The height of the drilling rig is up at about fifty feet +/-. The length of the pipes are twenty two feet each and they are called casings. Apparently the well will be drilled, and capped by the end of the day if all goes well (no pun intended!)

Hard hat zone so I didn't get that close! Noise was a bit hard on the hearing too. The cranky neighbour might know something's afoot by now. His well and (possible leak) is about to be entirely his problem.

Bruce and Calli were checking out the meadow when I arrived on the scene with camera in hand.

Here, she had just spotted me and came running right away!

This one isn't entirely in focus but I like it anyway.... if you enlarge it, you'll see she's smiling! True story!

There will be a lot more to this water story as there has to be a trench dug up nearly three hundred feet to the house and the electrical and plumbing hook up's done before we drink our own water. Won't that be sweet? I will celebrate by flushing while in the shower and run the dishwasher all at the same time..... just the once!

Water report to be continued....at a later date....

Edit, 3 hours after posting : by days end they had drilled 182 feet and we have water at 6 gallons per minute. A bit deeper than we were expecting but feels good none the less!

This is the end of the drill bit.... not sure what those nubs are made from but you know it must be hard to drill through bedrock!

... and here's the water! Not as many gallons per minute as we hoped for but enough at 6 gpm! They run a stopwatch as they fill the five gallon pail and work out the rate. Boy, was the neighbourhood ever quiet when they stopped!

Perseverance Furthers!

2011-09-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

I needed a break from the intense focus needed to treadle on the Louet loom! I also wanted to get Emmatrude, my Woolhouse Tools countermarche back in service again. I seem to have some default patterns I wander back to when it comes to tea towels and I wanted to try something new! Towels can be like full sized samples and give you a chance to try new weave structures. I flipped through past issues of old magazine such as Weavers and Handwoven and then looked at my (real) sample collection and moved onto my few issues of Väv magazine. I subscribed briefly but sadly let it drop due to the high subscription rate. I found a pattern that appealed to me in the April 2006 issue and one I'm calling my "Swedish Stars". I have modified the stripe pattern from their version and I was happy as this was a straight forward draft and would be an easier treadling then my other loom!

So I wound 600 ends (25 inches x 24 ends per inch), 11 yards long in 8/2 cotton for ten towels. Snowy white and stripes of a deep royal blue and beamed my loom.

As you can see I used my hybrid sectional method and my stripes are off centered. I'm trying to change pattern, stripe placement, colours.... everything!

Next up is threading and its a nice straight draw of eight down to one. I still paid attention as its easy to get a flat with a run like this.

It feels good to see a task completed! Sleying is done two per dent using a 12 dent reed. So far so good!

All set and ready to go except for the tie up. Countermarche looms have twice the number of cords compared to jack looms and they must be tied up to both upper and lower lamms. They separate the threads equally up and down so both sides of the shed are equally tensioned. Jack looms only lift up half the threads and the weight of the shafts and metal heddles 'dip' the bottom threads and that's why you need a shuttle race and I don't. I throw my shuttle across tensioned threads.
Now I have a 20+ tie up assist and it requires some 'mental gymnastics'. When you stand at the front of the loom, take note of the first treadle is to the far left and shaft one is directly behind the beater....... then you go to the back of the loom and you see this (picture is from a previous project)

The very top row of holes is shaft one and the bottom are shaft 12; the far right is treadle one and the far right is treadle 16. There appears to be a lot of cords, 384 in fact, as there must be a tie up point for each treadle and shaft but I'm only going to be using the centre eight as shown above. So as you see it's flipped and reversed! I take the tie up grid and rework it so that its becomes upside down and flipped. Its easier than it sounds. Just the first time is confusing... (honest!)
I like to call the dark squares on the grid " x's " and so by default the empty squares become "o's". I tie the x's to the upper lamms as they will go down when treadled and the o's go to the lower lamms as they will rise (think bubbles!) With me so far? good.....

Now with the 20+ tie up assist you translate the routine I just mentioned above to the cords and clips. If there is an 'o' on the grid, I go to the right holes for shaft one (at the top) and pull and clip the corresponding cord for the lower lamm.... and leave the opposite cord trailing free. The picture above shows a series of o's on a grid. The cords on the right would all be the x's. You only pull one on either side.
Still with me? :)

I sat down and pulled out the locking pin and eased the treadles so the cords between front and back could find their way and ease. Wove in some scrap yarn and looked for errors..... and , none! I wove in plain white for approx six inches and then thought to do some rows of stars and that's when it all went sideways....
No stars.... nada, zilch! So I double checked my threading, and then thought that perhaps I should reverse the tie up. Make it so the o's and x's change place. Its obviously means I'm weaving the stars upside down then which is no fun. I'd rather see them and know its going well! I'd hate to weave 10+ yards only to find there's no stars on the other side too. So I reversed the tie up and tried one again. No Stars.

I went back and flipped the tie up... and basically to shorten this story up, tried just about every possible way you could tie this up and finally got stars!

There are perfect white stars on the opposite side too! I have no idea of how I did it other than tried every possible combination. I'm glad that this wasn't a normal tie up loom as I would be still under there tying cords! I just sit and pull cords and clip although that took time enough when you do it several times. :) I'm on towel number two now and so its underway....

Later that afternoon as I was clearing things away (yes, I tidy up.... sick huh?) I looked once more at the draft on the magazine and that's when I saw it. They show the draft REVERSED from the way we do it over here in North America and so the tie up was reversed as well.... ah, geesh....

So moral to this story: always read the fine print!

If You Could Choose....

2011-08-30T11:31:00.000-07:00

I'd love to say that I've been away, been enjoying house guests but the truth of it is, we have been dealing with water woes and how to resolve issues with the coming in of it, and the going out of it from the house. Also conscious of the dwindling summer and time to effect a solution!
All solutions are expensive of course...

Me, in approx 2004, eagerly heading into a workshop with my table loom all prepped! I was caught being 'creative' by friend Gudie Hupfauer.

So to that end I have been thinking of teaching but, 'true confession' time: the idea of standing at the front of a class of students terrifies me! What I would be able to do comfortably is teach one on one here at my home.
I could show the student how to do project planning, wind a warp and beam it B2F on the Louet (either floor loom or table loom) and guide them through some of the basics such as reading a draft, choosing appropriate yarns. Later we can do finishing and they can take their work home as a purposeful cloth such as a scarf or tea towel or table runner.

So that is how I envision the overall goals but as they say, the devil is in the details! Since I'm brand new to this I would like to ask 'You' that if you could be the student or teacher in this situation, what would you like to see in place?

how long would the class session be? 2 hours, 4 hours?
how many days or weeks?
day time? evening? or weekend?
...and what to charge for my time, equipment and yarn?

I think by the time a student has finished a project they will have a much better understanding if weaving is for them or not.

What would you add to the list? What would you like to see included if you were the student or the teacher?

Years ago I had a weaving teacher tell me that I would not be weaving anything of merit for at least the first year and hopefully, I proved her wrong! Now I'd like to help someone learn to weave and get off to a great start. I'm looking forward to your comments or you can email me directly to weeverwoman@yahoo.com

Seeing Red

2011-08-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

As my regular readers know I have some back issues and so climbing under looms to do tie up's can take some time for me. So I've been trying to leave a tie up in place on the Louet and create a second project from it. I took the draft from the recent book mark project and made a few changes to the threading and got this:

This shows a network style treadling but when the treadling touches down at 'one' again is the end of the repeat and that is where I added in the centre 'V's as shown in the threading to create a border of sorts at the start of the scarf. I plan to weave the whole scarf now as one big undulation of the pattern and complete with a separate boxes at the other end.

Here you can see its started and underway. I'm using 10/2 tencel sett 28 epi and for my weft I'm using 30/2 black silk. It takes a lot of concentration and weaving to make an inch! Look at this tidy little world...maybe click to enlarge:

Tencel is known for its high sheen so I was trying to get a picture without the glare and so changed the angle and got the shine from the silk instead!

The twill diagonal is a perfect 45 degrees too! So my yarn sizes and beat are perfect for each other. Now that's a happy accident!
The second scarf will be the boxes with the 'V's in between each but that is all paused while I wind and load a warp on the big loom. So I will give you a look at that next and see if we can get the scarves woven off. Its summer and so the great outdoors is calling.... that and we've had no rain for 4-5 weeks and so no real excuses for sitting at a loom right now. Off to a house warming today... to welcome an old friend to her new neighbourhood! The house warming gift? the usual bottle of good quality (local) wine and a handwoven towel for her kitchen!

A Yarn Infusion!

2011-08-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

I was quite surprised when I reached for yarns for the last runner project and found that I had big gaps in my supply! Since there was a postal strike looming across Canada at that time, I was *forced* to rely on my reserves and as a result went with the navy blue 16/2 cotton. It was a warp that needed daylight and an additional light source too. It seems my eyes aren't quite as young as they used to be. My first choice was a white, or natural or flax coloured mercerized cotton and I was completely out!
So out came my colour charts for Brassards and I went shopping. I built a list and then let it sit over night, then I cut it back to a reasonable amount :) I have plenty of 8/2 cottons and so decided to stick to just 16/2 cottons for this order. All these colours are available in 16/2, 8/2, 4/8, 8/8 and even the mop cotton and a 8/2 boucle cotton. Its wonderful to have so many choices and colours... all with great service, and, happily for me, in Canada!

I ordered four cones of each of 16/2 mercerized cotton in white, natural and a colour called flax. They are smaller sized cones of 227 grams. These will be warp for things such as runners, guest towels where I want a better quality look and a bit of shine.

Then I ordered some basic white regular 16/2 cotton. As well as being warp of weft for 16/2 towels, I also use it as weft with some 8/2 projects to help reduce the over all weight of a cloth. These are half pound cones:

Okay! this is filling up my bare spot on the shelves, as those are some of my basics Now for some colour as I have a hankering to try more towels in 16/2 . The finer cloth feels nice to the hand, is still very absorbent and they sell well.

So I went with a soft lime green and hunter green, navy blue, brick, creamsicle orange and a colour called honey:

I tried to get a triad from the colour wheel. I have no set plan or draft right now but simple went for colours that appealed to me. I've done other colour arrangements in the past two years and it was time for something new!

So with my order all in place, I did allow myself one guilty indulgence! I saw from their sample cards that they have French linen and I was curious. I've seen Irish, and Eastern European and even Belgium linen....so I ordered two cones of 9/2 linen in natural, my preferred colour for linen.

I think you can see the lovely sheen to the cones here, but what you can't see is the nice even twist and then there is the way the yarn feels soft to the touch. Linen usually feels wiry and so this is is a nice feature! I'm looking forward to using this as weft to some of the new cotton I just bought.

So what's going on with the looms? Well, I'm winding an eleven yard warp for ten towels (plus samples) for my large Woolhouse Tools loom which seems to be constantly interrupted by 'Life' but is slowly making progress. More on this project at a later time!

I still have the 12 shaft tie up on my Louet and seem to have settled on an altered version of the bookmark draft. Here's a peek (taken with my cell phone camera). Details to come as its still under way right now. Its the lazy hazy dayz of Summer so nothing is happening quickly it seems!

I see that the local Fall Fairs are coming up soon and we are into the last weeks of summer before the kids go back to school. It goes by so quickly huh?

Before I leave you for this this time, a small announcement: Treenway Silks has been sold and the business has been transferred to the new owners in Colorado! You can get all the details at the web site here
Rather than come from the island just off shore from where I live, my silks will have to travel a bit further now...

A New Blog to Watch

2011-08-02T12:05:00.000-07:00

Announcing the launch of a new blog: Caboose Coffee where my husband will share tales of his days working the railroad in many parts of Canada. So if you or someone you know has a love of all things 'railroad', we invite them to drop by for a visit.... and bring a coffee.

Bruce: then... and now.
Thanks ... Susan

Between Two Pages

2011-07-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

I have been participating in the Guild of Canadian Weavers annual weaving exchange now for some years. They are quite addicting and certainly low pressure. Hostess Lynnette gives the assignment in the early spring and then have until October 1st. to turn them in, with minor postage costs. So far we have done: tea towels, card inserts, guest towels, runners and here, scarves and this year the theme is book marks. Design, weave and send in four and get four back. That's it.

I've never woven anything this small before! I dug out all my books on small drafts and weaving miniatures. Not satisfied there, I moved onto looking through my sample binders at actual woven samples for inspiration. Now I love fancy twills. Their simple threading and intricate treadling runs can produce intricate patterns that look impossibly complex. I found my friend Gudrun's draft and set to finding the right materials. I have a nice selection of 20/2 cottons but I spied a small cone of a fine gold linen that had been absorbed into my stash from somewhere. No size is recorded and its a bit larger than 20/2. I do plan to use the McMorran balance to determine its yardage and size before I turn my project in. { Edit: I snipped away at the thread on the McMorran balance and came away with 39" which you multiply by 100 for 3900 yards per pound. Not certain which size this corresponds to but.... Anyone have an idea? Please leave a comment. }

So here's the draft again. My warp is 3 yards long, sett is 47 epi and is 2 inches in the reed. Edge threads are black 20/2 cotton and centre warp is my fine mystery linen. The linen will give a nice firm quality to the book marks.

It was wound, beamed and set into the raddle all in under an hour! What a treat!

Everything is quite compact and dense!

This is a 20 dent reed and it's sleyed 2,2,3. So all this was done in quick time.... until we get to the tie up!
I have a cranky lower back and I need a 12 treadle / 12 shaft tie up. The Louet Spring is a light loom and we 'cheat' by lifting her up onto crates:

That pile of ties is only half... the other pile is over to the left. I took a few days to get it done doing 3-4 treadles a day. One reason why I'm planning multiple projects from a tie up!

Calli held the carpet down and kept me company. There is a perfect circle of toys around the loom!

Finally I laced on to reduce loom waste and treadled the network treadling and I really like it! So tiny and compact. The pattern below is only half the bookmark and I wove another repeat, then hemstitched.

Then I wove some using the threading as my treadling (or'as drawn in' or 'tromp as writ') and I really liked this version too. During the second half of this warp, I had a linen warp thread part company. Most likely due to tension. I had a heck of a job trying to find the various ends, the heddle involved and fishing in a repair thread. It was a very tight situation and eventually it called for help from hubby and his head lamp 'cyclops' to brighten up 47 heddles crammed into one inch! We finally found it and got it squared away.

It was all woven and done in no time! I took the warp off and gently soaked in in warm sudsy water, primarily to tighten up the pattern. I left them all linked and plan to cut apart later. Linen doesn't like having its cut warp ends washed and they can get ratty.

Next, I used a rotary cutter and cutting mat for a nice clean edge.

Here's a clean edge. I went on to cutting it shorter by half again as the fringe looked out of proportion.

So here's the final show and tell and they are ready to go on their way later this fall! They were fun to weave up and it was a quick project. I also learned about miniature weaving and I would like to explore this in more depth at some point.

Woven network style:

Then woven as threaded, or as drawn in.... and also know as "tromp as writ" from very old drafts.

Now I have a habit of resting my shuttle on the project underway and I forgot how narrow my warp was and somehow I nudged the shuttle and it lurched sideways and it fell point first onto the top of my left foot. It HURT and it developed a large goose egg lump right away and my first thought was "uh oh, that's gonna bruise"
That was an under statement!

First one shows the swelling and the second the lovely evolving colours!

The whole thing over the last week has turned shades of green and purple and its crept right down into my toes. I can walk okay (for the most part) but there is still a sizeable lump where it impacted and its tender to touch. I have woven with either socks in winter and bare feet in summer and been doing this since 1995 with no mishaps. I know that some weave with shoes on or slipper style shoes but I have portions of my feet that are numb (due to my back injury) so I need to really be able to feel the skinny treadles. I think I will carry on in my usual manner but be extra careful about where I place the shuttle from now on!

I have two completely naked looms! Time to get some threads moving!

Blues Review

2011-07-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

I left you waiting for the big reveal on the runners! I got the hand hemming done just before this past weekend and then I had to leave the wet finishing part until we got back from some days away in Vancouver. We had gone over to visit with family again and spend some time in the "Big Smoke". I guess I'm a small town girl now as I found the sheer number of cars and people rather unnerving! Its just way too busy for me and the city noise doesn't stop at any time of day or night. Sorry no pictures as I forgot my camera!

Calli went into a kennel for the first time and she had great fun playing with her new inmates. She went straight from the kennel to a groomer for a bath and a haircut!

I decided to hand wash the runners and used a normal washing detergent and squeezed out by hand after soaking for 15 minutes. I rolled them into towels to absorb excess water and then hung to dry over night.
They pressed up nicely with a steam iron. Its been difficult to take good pictures of them as two are a solid blue shade and one is 'busy' looking, but I have given it my best shot (pun intended!)

There are three runners; the first has 40/2 linen weft in a natural colour: (click to enlarge)

Here's a close up:

The second runner is all blue with (approx) 8/2 orlec as weft. (Orlec is like a skinny cousin size wise to 8/2 cotton)

The orlec is crease resistant and more easy care. A closer image:

Orlec has such a deep shine, coupled with the mercerized cotton warp, it makes getting a decent picture of the pattern a bit tricky.

Finally the third runner has 10/2 mercerized cotton in blue as the weft:

I would say that the weight and hand of the all cotton runner is my favourite of the three. They were all woven to 50 inches or bit more, all were ladder hemstitched and are fully reversible. They all go into the box for the coming sales in the fall. More complete details on the draft and such can be found at this older post and this one as well .

My little assistant is a hand twisted fencing wire gecko with glass beads. He's a flashy little fellow and originally comes from South Africa. He and his friend, a chameleon, sit on my kitchen window ledge when not modelling in photo shoots.

Next time... book marks.

Making Choices

2011-07-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't fallen off the planet! I had a week where I nursed a twitchy low back back to something less painful. After spending three months healing from the last bad back episode, I listen when it tells me to slow down or stop!

My sister came for a visit and so not much else was done during that time also. Just a whole lot of talking! Its always memorable when my sister comes to stay. :) Since she left, I have been trying to catch up on chores and life.

Let's talking some weaving ! I have woven three scarves in the Gebrochene / Hind und Under pattern and you can get the details here and on the blue runners here. I had left the loom tied up and planned a second project. It is a 12 shaft / 12 treadle tie up and quite time consuming on a countermarche loom, especially so when you have back issues. So I'm trying to get more out of the time spent on my tie up's by planning at least a second project. The second project is a set of three table runners with the sales this fall in mind. I left you last time weaving my second runner using navy blue orlec and one last runner to do. *Insert bad back week here* When I finally sat back at the loom, I decided to go with another blue on blue and used 10/2 mercerised cotton for a finer cloth. It took longer to weave up due to the dark colours, complicated treadling and my sister's arrival. *Insert chaos here* :)

The good news? the runners are done and off the loom. The bad news? they are waiting for hand sewing the hems. I'll be starting them after I post and show them next time.

I did get another warp wound and onto the Louet Spring right away. I'm participating in a weaving exchange with the Guild of Canadian Weavers and the deadline to hostess Lynnette is October 1st. I thought it might be nice to be early this year and start on them now. Its not a big deal: four book marks. That's it. Somehow I have made it a big deal! 12 shafts, 12 treadles, 47 epi with a fine linen and 20/2 cotton. Oh, and I put on three yards to make extra. Its a point twill designed by my friend Gudrun Weisinger and is treadled "network style". No distractions while working on this one!

This is one repeat and its only three inches long. Like I said, I made it into a big deal! But I love fancy twills....

Well, it will keep me busy for some time! I also want to do a second project off this tie up so now mulling over ideas in my head. So there should be some show and tell in the next post for you. Hope your summer is going well!

PS We took our house off the market and staying put for now. That means I can plan a warp for my big loom now that it won't be dismantled. Life is getting back to normal.

Flights of Fancy

2011-06-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

So, not much weaving has been happening here! Besides the necessary garden work, I was busy getting ready for some special company and then there's cleaning up after all the fun! My Dad and brother came for a short visit and we had a lot of fun. Good food, lots of stories and laughing... and best of all, lots of time to simply be together.

My Dad has a love of birds of prey and so when he heard that we have the Pacific Northwest Raptor Centre just down the road from us, we were on our way! We lucked out and caught a bonus flying session in addition to the normal 30 minute show at 3:30! We saw many birds in large outdoor pens either as recovering patients or permanent residents. By the entry we saw two kookaburras and two large ravens. We slowly made our way down to the viewing area and saw Great Horned Owls, Red Tailed Hawks, Prairie Falcons, and a Vulture. Their enclosures have small trees and greenery in them to reproduce a natural look and feel but it still is a cage, so they are all given time to fly each day. Clearly the Vulture thought she was due to stretch her wings!

This youngster was first up: (click on any picture to make them larger!)

This is a young Bald Eagle or Haliaeetus leucocephalus Not sure what sex this bird is until it becomes mature but it will assume the adult colours by the end of this year. The woman doing the demonstration wore a heavy gauntlet and judging by the talons on this twelve pound bird, good thing!

There is no denying that steely gaze and narrow focus when flying! The guide told us the birds more or less do what they want and they shape the show around it. We were sitting on low benches just mere feet away from these free flying birds with just a little fence to keep people back. I wondered if I should move a bit further back? Dad sat right up front and was loving it! His camera was doing bursts of eight frames a second. The noise 'annoyed' some of the birds but it went well.

Next up: Harris's Falcon or parabuteo unicintus These birds are used to guard airports and wineries against flocks of birds straying through or feeding on the grapes. They are super fast divers as the video link shows if you click on the latin name.

A beautiful bird, not native to these parts. She (or he) was a calm steady flyer and seemed to know the routine and which perch to fly to next.

Then this dainty killer! Peregrine Falcon or Falco peregrinus. It has a lightening fast flight and can dive at amazing speeds and can catch other birds on the wing. This technique was demonstrated by twirling and launching a lure for the falcon. Its a fake bird lure filled with quail meat. This one flew so close over my Dad's head that it could have parted his hair!

It all happened so fast that if you blinked, you missed it!

This is Phoenix and she is a Turkey Vulture. It was not a good day for her! She finally got a chance to stretch her wings but she decided to be cranky instead and charged the lady's feet and legs. She was rather determined to teach her a lesson about something. They finally lead her off the field and let her chase the woman back to the pens! Talk about cranky!

Now here's my personal favourite, Elton! He's a Spectacled Owl (Pulsatrix perspicillata) from south and central America, and was simply too cute! He did the classic head weaving motion owls do to see better (their eyes are stationary in their heads) and the neatest little churring noises. When his portion of the flying demo was done and she motioned for him to come back to her from the fence post, he turned his back and ignored her. He liked being out and didn't want to go into the little stand by house.

Isn't he handsome?

Sunday, we drove north to Yellow Point, a peninsula just south of Nanaimo, to check out a different type of bird! "The Crow and Gate" kind!

It is an authentic British style pub out in the country side. My brother and I went there about 18 months ago and decided that we had to bring Dad there for a visit when his health allowed. This was the day! The day was bright, warm and not overly hot so perfect for touring the grounds and enjoying a meal. They have amazing gardens there and its all beautifully maintained year round. (Hubby and I have been there mid winter with fresh snow on the ground and a large logs blazing away in the hearths... picture perfect!) Lets take a look!

All this is what you see after parking your car! There's been a lot of work done here and it shows beautifully. They have a large pond on the property and encourage wild birds to nest there. Then next to the pond is their private residence:

We sat inside near a doorway out to the back garden and enjoyed steak and mushroom pies with crispy fresh salads.

We sat here in the corner and where the gent is standing is one of the two bars, where you order your own food and beverage 'Brit- style'. Afterwards, we went for a stroll through the gardens in the back of the building. They have a large outdoor patio for patrons there as well.

Here are some pictures of the gardens....

And my favourite... peonies!

We noticed a few years ago that the pub has some stained glass windows and one is rather special:

If you enlarge the picture you will see its an Airedale! We had heard their last dog, Hobbs, had passed away and they had a new pup this spring, then while out for a walk Bruce and Calli met the new Airedale by accident. 'Swede' is ten months old and quite fair. The two of them played like demons, lay on the grass to catch their breath, then did it all over again. A conversation later and we discover that they both have the same father! So they are half brother and sister and we are invited back for another romp on another day before the pub opens. It really was a Family Reunion weekend!

Calli, 15 months old

I'd like to thank my Dad for the use of the bird photographs and the special one of Calli. The pub photos were taken by either me, or my brother, and flowers were taken by my hubby, Bruce. It was a very memorable time and over far too soon! I'm still working on the clean up (three men in the house!) and hope to be back at the loom shortly.

Making Blue

2011-06-19T22:32:00.000-07:00

The tie up on a countermarche loom is fully double that of a jack loom but oh, so worth it! The large shed and easy treadling is a delight. For a twelve shaft /12 treadle project, that's 144 ties. Even a healthy back may have an issue or three by the time you waded through that! So, I decided to make the most of my projects by leaving a tie up in place and reworking the project and loading on another warp. First project was three scarves and this project will be three table runners, all woven in the gebrochene hind und under pattern.

I was inspired by Dorothy's runner (also shown at the link above) that she sent me for my birthday and so went looking for a fine 16/2 mercerised cotton in cream. I was more than a little stunned to find that I have none! How did that happen? In fact it always makes me laugh that I have a stash the size I do and still need to buy more. So I decided to see what I did have that would work and found a mercerised deep midnight blue 16/2 that might do. So I wound a 6 1/2 yard warp of 537 ends, for a width of 14.92" in the reed. I plan to sett the project at 36 epi, using a 12 dent reed.

Beaming a warp on the Louet Spring is a breeze and it goes quickly. Here's a review of the process. Here's the current project ready to load on the loom:

The bubble wrap stops the ends from slipping into the raddle slots on top! After a bit of work slipping the ends through the rod and lacing on, and filling the raddle, you have this:

Slip in the brown paper and wind on, tweaking the threads at the raddle every so often. The warp didn't give me any trouble winding on but it was another matter when it came to threading! Mercerised cottons have been treated to be smooth and shiny... right? They should behave.... right? Well, no!

Every single warp thread did this (above) as I tried to thread. They clung to each other like they were mohair!

I like to pull my heddles across in an easy pattern, in this case one through four and then take four warp ends slotted between my fingers and then reach through with a hook to thread.

Some times the thread pulled free of its clingy siblings and other times, they knotted. I kept a needle handy to open snarls. This meant the threading took far longer to do and my patience ran thin at times. Air got a little 'blue' :)

I also took many breaks as it meant being hunched over far longer than I planned on. I wanted to use a natural beige 40/2 linen and so wound six pirns tightly and then dampened a clean new dishcloth and rolled the pirns into it, then slipped it all into a zip loc bag and placed in the fridge. In 24 hours they should be evenly damp and easier to weave with over the dry wirey linen straight off the cone. {but once you start a project with damp linen, you must continue till you finish and not switch to dry weft. This may mean winding new pirns and having to wait till the next day to finish. } Its also best to allow the new cloth to dry before being curled up on the cloth roll. If you are not able to weave with the damp pirns, store in the fridge. If you can't get to weaving for a few days, then slip the pirns into the freezer. Why all this fuss? Linen is susceptible to mildew if left damp and warp. Defrosting pirns only takes 15 to 20 minutes ahead of resuming your project. I just leave mine in a spot of sunshine and its ready in no time.

This is the first runner underway and I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. Its a busy pattern and that's why I was looking for softer shades of cream to play the greyed beige linen off. I thought it wouldn't hurt to complete it as someone would love it and buy it for their home or as a gift. Its never failed to amaze me how something I have woven that I didn't like becomes someone's absolute favourite!

These two pictures are of my second runner in a 'tone on tone' approach to use a play of light to show the pattern to a good advantage. Click to enlarge and you'll notice that there are 2 shades of blue: the lighter shade is the 16/2 cotton warp and my weft is an approx 'skinny' 8/2 orlec. Yup, a synthetic yarn. For one, it was a gorgeous shade of deep navy blue and it also means the runner will be more hard wearing and easier to iron. {Orlec comes in 90+ colours and is super for day to day table linens such as placemats, napkins and such as today's households can't fuss with specialized laundry. I have alternated end for end with a good quality cotton as well and the table cloth turned out great!}

Runner number three is due to start and I have no idea what the weft will be! It will be from the stash though as Canada has a nation wide postal strike going on right now. Can you imagine it? Being cut off from yarn orders like this?

Oh, the horror!

Litha * Approaches

2011-06-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen such a perfect nest? Beautifully made... a perfect circle. Thoughtfully dished with soft grasses.

Three robin's eggs in that classic blue...

There is even a ring of mud in the outer wall to give the twigs firm support for the bouncing chicks and the moss all around the base just completes it. Bruce found this nest at ground level in the old cedar hedge that was taken out recently. He was heart broken when he realized that these eggs had became a casualty of our gardening up grade. He moved the nest to a new spot with the parents watching and they did try to make a go of it, but finally they abandoned it. They built another nest in the tall fir tree and have a brood on the go as I write. We have a number of cats and also raccoons that would have attacked the nest as it was quite accessible. Perhaps their first time choosing a nesting spot? At least it will have a happier ending now they have a high rise condo!

My rhododendron by the front door, next to my studio window is in full bloom and they are a glorious red! A couple of hand fulls of fertilizer once a year has made a huge difference to the shrub over all since we moved here late 2007. It looked rather sad and we considered pulling it out but I'm glad we left it in. This is where my little green tree frog sits in the evening and 'sings' to me.

These are my two baskets on either side of the front door. They are filling out nicely and I love the vibrant green of the potato vine on the left.

The large magnolia has more leaves than flowers now and this is one of the few left. Our property seems to be a bit later than homes in town and I don't mind. Despite my seasonal allergies, this is my favourite time of year, with fall a close second. That blossom is very large... about the size of a dinner plate!

The Japanese maple badly damaged in the heavy snows of Winter 2008 has adjusted well and somehow rebalanced it's limbs to compensate for its missing branch. Amazing how Nature heals itself...

Where there were several large trees that came out two years ago, is now full with ferns and native plants (yup, some of those are weeds too!)

Now this picture is fuzzy and was taken very quickly by my Hub with his mobile phone camera. You can just make out our resident doe and she is bringing out her twin fawns to show off. They are quite small still. She knew he was working in the garden area and still came out. We also have three bunnies in the meadow so perhaps our lost little Peter left a legacy? We have also seen signs of a bear nearby and our immediate neighbour ran into the small black bear in his carport last week. We have squirrels running around the trees and the occasional raccoon parading through. With all this abundant life around us, its easy forget the other side of the coin.

This is a prayer flag woven by Theresa of Camprunamuck especially for our little Lakeland terrier Connor who passed away last September. It contains special messages, poems and a Buddhist metta sutta written on silk that is cut into strips and woven into the flag. You hang it in the breeze and let the wind take the message. Traditionally they hang until they are almost shreds. There are little bells hanging in the fringe to tinkle as the wind blows. And there is this:

He was a good and faithful companion for thirteen and a half years. We can't thank you enough Theresa....

*Litha or Summer Solstice:

Of the modern religions, it is the Pagan Celtic societies that celebrate this day with the most passion. This holiday is most commonly known as “Litha” (the ancient Germanic name for Summer) and it is believed to be the time when the Sun God is at his strongest. He is also the God of the Forrest and is often depicted as seated at on a green wood throne. During the time in which Christianity and Paganism were merging, images of the Sun God wearing masks made of leaves were included in the architectural features of many early churches. This God has become more commonly known to modern Pagans as The Green Man.

Drawing to a Conclusion

2011-06-04T18:22:00.000-07:00

This was a pleasant weave after all was said and done, and not to mention the months to get it woven off! I used various colours from the warp to use as weft so my eleven or twelve yard warp yielded eleven towels! I had planned on ten towels, but wove eleven so the last one, albeit a bit shorter than the others, was a bonus. I couldn't do coloured borders on this last one as I had no idea how far I could realistically weave it. I got four woven up with white weft, two in celery green, one in salmon pink, one in a pale yellow (not the darker yellow in the warp) and three in plum, all in 8/2 cottons. I would settle into my chair every afternoon and Calli took up her station next to the loom:

The new chair has been working out very well for me and the fact I can change the angle of the seat has made all the difference in the world. I was able to get a nice rhythm going even with moving a temple. Good music certainly helped as well. I've become a fan of Adele and her '21' album. I'm also getting smarter listening to podcasts from 'Stuff You Should Know'

I wove extra time on the day the knots came over the back beam. I find seeing those babies energizes you into action; a sprint to the finish line! Calli can actually sleep with her head against the loom even with a regular 'thump, thump thump' ....she doesn't seem to mind the vibration.

She only woke up when I stopped! Well, I had to stop as this is how much warp was left. Talk about getting your monies worth....

Once the cloth roll was off the loom, I had cleaned up the loom. Its a habit I do after every project and I put every thing back to the start ready for the next warp and get out the vacuum and thoroughly clean the loom and underneath. There is a lot of lint created by weaving and its not good to be breathing this stuff. {in really linty projects I will even vacuum as I go along and keep the dust down} Since we may sell our place this summer, I've decided to leave this loom empty for now. If we do move, its a big chore to dismantle and keep everything organised. I know, I have moved it five times already!

I like to use the serger to cut the towels apart and secure the edges. It's quick and the edge seems to be reasonably 'thin' for the want of a better word. A friend commented that using a zig zag stitch seems to bunch up the cloth and it can get lumpy. There is quite the lengthy load to separate!
Next step is to turn and press the hem allowances and this pattern is really neat as it has clearly defined lines in the pattern to guide you. I turned two rows of 'boxes' over and then turn over two more again, press firmly and pin. The basic steps for my hand hemming can be found here. I find I'm hand hemming more and more over machine stitching. One reason is that I'm not much of a sewer and so don't trust my abilities to keep a straight line! Secondly, if there are natural lines in the cloth and you do go off, it really shows! I prepped all ten towels (the pink weft towel had gone home with Lynnette!) I just worked my way through all twenty hems on the ten towels in about 4-5 evenings.

I dropped all the towels into the washing machine and just did a normal cycle, and then after snipping off all weft tails, they went into the dryer. The washing and drying tightens up the pattern into tidy little squares that are fully reversible, and thirsty for drying dishes! Our slightly abbreviated bonus towel was pressed into service right away. No pressing required.

Click on the image to see the squares better:

The squares really show up well where it's a solid colour. Next time, I might try this as a ten or twelve shaft project with 16/2 cottons and see how that turns out.

The other towels are destined for sales and so they are pressed and primped.... but ready for their close up!
Brief review: 8/2 cotton sett 24 epi, 25" wide in the 12 dent reed, 8 shaft straight draw and all pattern is in the tie up. Breaks and Recesses #47 in The Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns by Carol Strickler (Interweave Press).

One in soft yellow and two of the green. I like the greens...

...and three plums and then four in white.
And their close up's.... feel free to click and embiggen!

You can see the diamonds appearing where two colours meet and then very distinct squares where there is a solid colour. Nice hand to the cloth and soft. I'm pleased with how this turned out with the exception of how long it took to weave! There was one more colour, the salmon pink and that went home with Lynnette....

Here's another peak of that while it was under way on the loom. Its a neat colour as it has a decided yellow undertone and so works with the green , yellow and plum.

More conclusions: a scan has shown a large disc bulging and pressing on my S1 nerve. So that's what has been causing all my discomfort which has been minimal of late. I've been offered surgery as an option but I think I will leave that and keep it as a last option. So now my 'Back is Boss' and I must adjust my activities. I can still weave but not as hard and heavy as in past times. I find frequent but short rest breaks make a huge difference to my day. So, I'll still be posting about what's on the loom but most likely at the same time span as its been for the last while. Since this Woolhouse Tools loom is going inactive for the summer and we figure out if we're moving or not, the next project is under way on the Louet Spring, but that's for another post.

When Good Cloth Goes Bad

2011-05-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

I would love to show you some finished towels from the last post, but they are still in the process of being hemmed. I decided to hand sew as I much prefer no heavy 'stitch ditch' line. I don't mind doing this and its a nice way to spend time in the evenings while Hub watches hockey play off games. So next post they should be front and centre for you!

We had six house viewings here in seven days and then had some out of town company for three days. Happily the viewings conveniently ceased for the company time period but something told me to get cleaned up real fast and so we blitzed the house and mowed lawns. Sure enough, we had three viewings this past weekend! Pays to trust that intuition!

Lynnette and hubby were over our way and stopped in as they were heading home. We had a lovely visit and we did some tourist type stuff here where we live and enjoyed a great roast prime rib dinner at home. The best part? When the men folk went to bed and she and I had a late night jammie party and chatted up a storm. They brought gifts!

They had toured a meadery (is that a real word?) and gifted us a bottle, plus two lovely fluted glasses! Yum! Its been years since I last had mead so I'm really looking forward to this! Then, I got this !

I'm a lucky lady as its one of Lynnette's Shibori scarves! I'm just thrilled with it! I was cheeky and sent Lynnette home with a new kitchen towel that she was going to have to hem herself before she could use it!

So a very busy week as you can see. One thing that Lynnette and I discussed was a small runner or tray cloth I got many years ago. It has a bit of a story to it : I was new to a weavers guild and still very new to weaving when I met Donna. She was bright, very easy to talk with and also the guild's teacher for beginner weaving classes. She was wearing an elegant turban style head scarf and reclining in the shade of a tree at a guild pot luck.

And then she was gone.

You see, she was battling cancer and I didn't know at the time. She made an impression on me and so when I was offered one of her little tray cloths I was very happy to take it home. Now these are not items that will be washed very often; maybe one or twice a year. So now some years have gone by and I have an interesting problem and one I'm sure that Donna would be chuckling at if she was still here. Take a look!

Now isn't that strange?! This 'problem' took years to get to this point and its such a lovely undulating twill too.

A seismic shift! So what happened? The two of us took a very close look at the warp threads and noticed that the yarn about three inches in starts to be blended with another yarn until it becomes 100% the new yarn. The shrinkage occurs where the new yarn is blended in. So one day long ago, Donna ran short of her warp yarn and substituted another that was either from a different supplier, a different fibre make up, or a different twist. What ever the reason, this is what happens when yarn from two different cones are used! So be sure to either alternate end for end across the entire warp if you are short, or, keep known batch codes of yarns together so you know exactly what you have on hand. Blending end for end means it will do what ever it will do evenly across the warp. I can recall my first project, where money and yarns were a tight commodity, using one end of orlec and one end natural cotton. It was a soft and more wash and wear towel that had great looks but not very absorbant! Hey, I was learning! Meanwhile I'm not sure how to re-hem this tray cloth and I suspect that shrinkage rates will continue at different rates regardless. Your suggestions are welcome!

Then I recalled another sad towel I have and showed Lynnette a perfect example of seer sucker. It was a kitchen towel I bought at a sale back in 2004. Its woven in fine 16/2 cottons and in a turned twill. I have two and the second one looks as good as it did when I bought it. The other? not so much!

and the reverse:

From what I can see all the warp threads are 100% cotton. The problem lies with the white weft used before and after that green stripe. It was used evenly from one end of the towel to the other so it looks planned! This rippling took time to produce and it appears to be a combination of a mystery weft yarn PLUS heat in the dryer. Lets take a closer look at the mystery yarn in the cloth and what has happened over the past seven years (don't you just love how long hand woven towels last?!) Click on any pictures to enlarge:

It's gone very fuzzy so I suspect its not cotton but maybe a synthetic. A burn test will confirm this but it means cutting the towel and I'm not ready to do that.

It has also tightened up and distorts the other areas that are all cotton and creates seer sucker. This I think is a combination of heat on the white imposter! You know weavers try to achieve this on purpose and it's hard to do.

In both cases, the effects took time to occur so put yourself in your customer's shoes wondering what the heck happened! So be sure to keep your yarns labeled, try doing a burn test with known yarns to prepare for the day when you get a great bargain at the right price... and don't know what the heck it is!

Meanwhile, Calli tells me to sew those hems faster and no slacking off! Oh, and another cookie please?

Edit: I think the white fuzzy yarn might be an ultra fine wool! Now that would make sense!

In Which We Actually Weave Something!

2011-05-16T11:24:00.000-07:00

This project has been a long time coming. I have woven it before and chose it again knowing it was what I call 'mindless' zen weaving, great for listening to music or podcasts while you treadle one to eight, and one to eight again and again, occasionally measuring for length or mix matching colours for the borders. No, this warp has sat patiently due my bad back and then again while I worked on a new seat to weave from. Rear mounted treadles make for lighter work but the whole leg must depress down almost to the floor which in turn pulls on lower back muscles. So it waited and rather patiently too. I even thought about selling this loom (which I really do not want to do) but now with my new chair, and well rested back, I'm weaving there again. Mind you I'm not breaking any speed records but I don't want another three month time out again for a cranky back if I can help it.

I'm not certain when the warp was wound but this warp was already on the loom when Lynnette came for a visit last September. Yup, that long. in my defense, I did keep my Louet Spring, 'Lilibet' busy as best I could!

So let's start at the beginning: The draft is # 47 'Breaks and Recesses' from The Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns by Carol Strickler (Interweave Press). Sorry but I don't have a draft to post but this book is so common in guild libraries, if not your own collection. Here's a great post on this same pattern. At weaving Carol and wood working hubby Craig's Studio Tupla you can see that even more complex versions are possible. It is a simple straight draw threading and all the pattern is in the tie up. Then you treadle a simple run of one to eight. It produces nice tidy little boxes with a clear plain weave line all around the squares. Little thirsty squares and so perfect for kitchen towels. There are no long floats and its completely reversible. My last effort was in 16/2 finer cottons and they sold quickly. The idea was to use 8/2 cottons this time and do it as a stash reducer ( and I use that term loosely). My sett is 24 epi so there are three squares to one inch. It sure makes planning stripes easy. If you do a single rows of colour, then you get diamonds as shown in the Studio Tupla link

Here are my colours:

It would seem my planning last fall worked out nicely for spring! They are very Easter like, although I'm even late for that now! White, plum, celery green, salmon pink and a yellow. All are from Brassards in Quebec. I wound them in one inch bouts and beamed them onto the sectional beam in my hybrid method. It looks neat all wound on the back beam! The warp is twenty five inches wide. I like big towels.

Then I suspended the lease sticks from the upper castle and started threading, followed by sleying my 12 dent reed, two per dent:

Time to start winding pirns! I'll be using my Schacht 15 inch end delivery shuttle and it uses the longer black pirns:

My loom has a tie up assist and it makes it possible to sit on a stool at the back of the loom and pull the cords I need. Since it's at the back I must reverse the tie up on a new grid, and then since treadle one is now on the right instead of the left I must reverse the treadle order as well! Its easier than it sounds and I save the new 'flipped and reversed' tie ups and reuse them. Here's my grid in use:

I isolate the row being worked on and you can see everything is clearly marked so I know where I am at all times. Here's the reason why!

The long cords hanging at the bottom are for shafts 9 through 12 as they are not being used in this 8 shaft draft. The other cords are pulled and clipped depending on either upper or lower shaft (or x's or o's) on the tie up grid. It takes me roughly ten minutes to pull the tie up above. Now that's a vast improvement over lying on the floor with the foot beam in the way and craning my neck up to do fiddly tie up's for lord knows how long.

As you can see in the picture above, I tied on and have my temple ready to go. I tried out some different colours for wefts as I wove in my header.

I'm weaving six inches for hem allowance, plus a short section of the towel that is plain solid colour, and then do a coloured border which is approximately two and half inches, then weave seventeen inches for the main body of the towel and then reverse my start. This adds up to thirty four inches per towel. I weave a separation between towels using scrap yarn of one repeat and then it starts all over again.

This shows the cloth making it's way down to the cloth beam. You can see the tail end of a green towel and the start and first border of a salmon pink towel......

In my next post, we'll be working on finishing and final show and tell.... in between showing our house, housework, looking for another home and even having company for a few days! I should wear my Super Woman cape but I'm too tired to look for it!

K9 Kindergarten

2011-04-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

This is Calli enjoying a sunrise earlier this week. She loves to sit and watch the birds and squirrels in the trees. I only had my cell phone close to hand so its not as sharp a picture as I would like.... but I got the shot! She and I were up early as she couldn't sleep due to the bright daylight at 5:30 am, so she whimpers and whines. (Yes, her kennel was covered.) Calli is apparently an early riser. Others here, not so much!

So we have moved her kennel into a corner in our bedroom where roll-down blinds darken the room and keep the sun at bay a bit longer. Presto! No more morning whine! That's as close as she will come to our bed as I don't hold with animals sleeping on human beds. You only have to find one tick on your dog to understand the why-not's!

That just leaves the one remaining issue of being 'testy' around other dogs and we've been working on that. We just had our third session at the Intermediate classes at Petsmart. She is good with the basic training and so looks like an ace in the class with the younger dogs. We're there because of the other dogs.. she needs to be around other friendlies so to show her that not every dog wants to charge and challenge her.
So, first up, my apologies for the fuzzy pictures but the session can get to be be crazy with 4 dogs, well, doing a dog pile! None of the subjects stand still for long and you need 4 pairs of hands at times, so perhaps I can get better shots another class.

This little cutie is Hayden (aka Romeo) who has decided that Calli is the love of his life and dances all around her. He's a miniature Schnauzer and must weigh 7 or 8 pounds tops and she weighs 50.

I'm surprised that this picture looks as good as it does and both of them move at lightning speed playing!

This is Baby and she's a St. Bernard and only 7 months old. She weighs 70 pounds. Her companion is Junior and he's also 7 months old but weighs a lot more. I didn't get a shot of him but he looks almost identical to Baby but a bit larger. They move S.L.O.W.L.Y and only do a command if there is a treat at the end of it. They play too but they tend to wait until Hayden and Calli are tuckered out and tired. A successful training moment from Baby and Junior get a round of applause! They have their own personal ramp to get in and out of the car!

It appears that simple repetition and consistency with commands and routine is winning the battle and its been easier of late to get what we ask of Calli each day. When it comes to 'other strange dogs' she still acts up (and sometimes even starts the fight) and so we have an electronic collar for when she lunges and barks. That's the only time we use it and it's a matter of precise timing. (As one trainer said, its the dogs across the street that needs it... I thought the owner might like one too! :)

Spring is in full swing here and we are doing a bit of yard clean up. Seems some critter chewed through the lawnmower cables so its gone to the shop for a tune up and repairs! Bruce's tractor got stuck mid field and sat for a few days until he rounded up some scrap lumber to use to get out of the muck. During this time in the field he found a lone small white rabbit tail and so it seems that little Peter was caught by a cat or coyote.

It's sad but Nature is a revolving cycle of life and death. The fiddle heads are up again..... and the trillium has bloomed again. I can't reach it to take a picture since the deck staircase was moved and maybe that's a good thing. It will last longer that way if it is left alone. I can see the white blossoms from the kitchen window and that's good enough for me.

On the fibre front: I have wound and beamed a warp on the Louet and will share more on this next post. I have been weaving on the towel warp and I think it will be far more interesting for you to see a finished project as they all look the same on the loom. I must admit that I don't get much time on either loom due to a variety of reasons, including back pain on occasion. I did get my CAT scan done this week after 4 months of waiting. We have been wading through documents for annual tax time and such. We also have continued viewings of our place, so housework is almost a daily thing. Then we are searching for a new home to go to and that has meant some re-examination of our wish list and our reasons for staying local or moving a bit further afield. Discussions happen daily but we seem to have found a happy balance and narrowed our search as of today.

So with so many stressful things going on, sometimes you can indulge in a nap.

or just plain old relax!

Clearly life is good!

A Necessary Diversion

2011-04-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

With all that we have on the go around here lately, I was caught a bit off guard by the reminder email for the workshop I signed up for! My first instincts was that if I had some down time, I'd rather stay home and weave, but I started to think about it. It was just what I need right now. Something new and fun and..... a day away from home. Besides, it's another workshop by my friend Alison and she makes them informative and fun!

I had signed up for two of her classes, with the second one is all things 'inkle looming' to be held in May. In this workshop we are learning basics of Kumihimo and in particular, Konga Gumi (which means small round braid). You will want to click on some of these pictures to see detail better!

As usual, Alison had meticulous notes with many clear diagrams, all neatly presented. There was a basic card neatly notched, a weight (a film canister with pennies!) and our warp materials. We marked our cards with the compass points and the direction to turn, then warped up eight ends (four light, four dark) and got started. After an inch, we added in eight more ends of four light and four dark and adjusted to the increase. The basic moves didn't change, just the number of threads we were were working with. Then we altered the colour sequence, sometime by moving only two threads and created quite different pattern.

Here is my braid well under way!

You can see quite a difference between the eight end braid and the sixteen ends by the big jump in physical size of the spiral near the bottom! We worked our way through six pattern changes over the course of the morning. During the lunch break, the sample table up front was a popular spot:

There were twelve participants from all over the southern island. So what are they looking at? It seems that Alison loves kumihimo and its potentials and has been creating samples for years. Apparently there is even an article by her on this subject in a past Handwoven.

That plastic storage container is *full* of zip bags *full* of braid samples, along with short notes on colour and pattern arrangement. (Yes, that's an inkle sample featuring pick up! That's the next class in May....)

Here Alison is showing some of the class the various samples. She is wearing a Japanese vest featuring warp and weft ikat.

There was a selection of her reading materials and sources of inspiration.....

All those samples have been made either on the simple card stock, foam disc or this unique invention! Click on the picture and see..... Its a slide carousel! There's a card stock on top to reduce the size of the centre hole but the notches are perfect for holding the yarn in place. The stand also was a thrift store find and is a round metal ring with four metal legs. In its former life, it held a glass for a candle. Beside this is a marudai that friends gave her, which is not in use as yet. Even her tama's are also unique! Tamas being the weights that hold the yarns.

Normal tama's are hollow and filled with a set weight of lead. These are little wooden 'cups' which I think she said are candle holders from a craft store (now long closed) that she fills with coin. There is a small wooden knob she found that acts as a lid. Smart!

Different coins add up to different weight! I just love the ingenuity.... It seems that fibre artists of any ilk, all have a bit of the inventor to them as we quite often borrow tools and make them our own.

You'll never guess what this is.....

There was no real way to photograph this well! First of all, it a foam kumihimo disc and its upside down. I hesitated to touch it given the delicate warp. The braid is tight and features a spiral and its being made from horse tail hair! Its a bit of a challenge and Alison took it on.

After lunch we got back to work... and this is just a sample shot of other students, Diane and Anna working, but everyone was equally very focused on their cards or charts!

We all used 4/8 cotton 'warps', all had light and dark combinations but below is Cynara's braid with sharp contrast black and white which really shows the pattern! Nice transitions too...

The pace became more relaxed in the afternoon as we all braided away and looked at how to compose patterns. Alison has developed her own system that is quite simple and makes sense. The graph design looks much like the braid. Can't give you more than that as its a trade secret!

Alison passed around some interesting braid projects. Above is a braid she made for a birder friend. The thinner braid has a long red wood thing with a screw in the bottom. When you twist the red wood 'knob' (for the lack of a better word) it makes a noise just like a robin!

This braid was simply beautiful! The picture doesn't do it justice. It was a soft variegated cotton yarn that ranged from violet mauves to a soft green. What Alison did was cut a given number of ends (8) starting at the mauves and an equal number (to total 16) starting at the greens. As the pattern progressed they reach a mid point, the soft pale green with no apparent pattern and then reversed. The blue/purple diamonds shift to green diamonds. I found myself thinking of some nice variegated tencels I have at home when I saw this one!

Here's one that is for my Canadian ~ American friends! A braid that looks somewhat similar to the red maple leaf and then transitioned to the red, white and blue. I thought that she must have added in the blue but Alison said she used a clasped weft technique!

My class mate Barbara brought along her Rodrick Owen book and I recalled that I have a copy of this fabulous book! I mentioned to a friend Linda at Ravelry that I had taken this workshop and she beat me with this!

"Hey! What’s the chance! I spent yesterday and will [be] heading back within an hour or so to a class run by Rodrick Owen. A friend of mine had taken his class a number of years ago and told me that at his age, he’s going to get to the point that he doesn’t travel well anymore….so I needed to take the class! So I took the plunge.

We did 8 strand braids yesterday and will do 16 strand braids today. He is quite old now, and his hands shake so much that I think we all held our breath as he demonstrated finishing the ends with that needle. But he didn’t come away bloody and has such a well of knowledge that it’s just an honor to be in his class."

......Okay, you win! :)

Worth the Wait

2011-04-06T11:30:00.000-07:00

Dorothy in Scotland surprised me in the extreme with a lovely gift! I had sent her a kitchen towel for her birthday this past November, so when I got a 'soft' package, I assumed she had sent something similar... but no....

It's this stunning 12 shaft table runner with cotton warp and soft pearly natural linen weft. Beautiful selvedges, and lovely trellis hemstitching... its beautifully woven! I was gobsmacked!

Here's a close-up of the hemstitching and hem. This is now gracing my dining room table and already some realtors have commented on it. (More on realtors later...)

Does this pattern look a little familiar? I sent Dorothy some 12 shaft drafts so she could have some to hand to chose from for her first time using all her new shafts and treadles. I started my scarves before her runners but she finished sooner. I lost time to back pain and sciatica and waiting for a new weaving chair. But slow and steady does eventually cross the finish line!

Ta Da! Manikin Madge is wearing the scarf that is tencel 10/2 warp and 30/2 black silk, sett 28 epi. By using black along both selvedges it throws the emphasis to the centre of the scarf. There is no doubt about it, its a busy pattern and I think the 'tone on tone' as in Dorothy's runner works nicely and having solid edges in my scarves also takes it down a notch. Here are some 'work in progress' shots:

Here I have two of the three scarves pinned out on my foam board for fringe twisting. This was the first time I had been able to put my new twister from Leclerc to work and I must say that having a quad did make things go much faster. The fringer squeaks and sometimes binds but once you get the knack, it goes quick!

Next up, beading! I found some real nice sparkly Swarovsky beads in black, silver and a smoky gray. Each scarf was beaded at either black side with an accent in the centre.

Click on any picture to enlarge. The hand of the two all tencel scarves was quite thick and dense, with the silk weft scarf being half their weight. All are now soft as butter after wet finishing and a good pressing. If you are new to my blog then you can find links to my older posts on fringe twisting and beading in the side bar under the heading of 'Topic Shopping'.

12 shaft gebrochene / hind und under

There are other posts related to this project but it seemed simpler to post the draft again for you. I found this draft at Handweaving.net as I quite often cruise there looking for 12 shaft drafts or something I can play with and reduce down or increase up. Great web site and a wonderful resource for weavers!

I'm still having to be very careful with my back as at my days end, it aches. So weaving is still important but I can't weave for hours or even every day. I am also looking for ways to maximize my efforts so I had planned to wind up a warp for runners and use the same threading and tie up again. With Dorothy's runner now on my table, I can see how they will look once done! In the mean time, I have started weaving the towel warp on my big Woolhouse loom. My legs must depress down further and so pulls on lower back muscles. So short 10-15 minute periods of weaving. Hey! its all good... I'm still weaving which beats the heck out of not!

On the personal front we have been having showings of our home every other day and three in two days this past weekend. Seems the market is very active! Sadly, the offer we had on another house fell through. There were some issues that could not be seen with a casual walk through and only the house inspector could find.

So we're back to looking once more. Its a tough job as we are looking for some very specific things in a home and in a certain price range...but I'm sure there's one out there for us. So if I seem to go a little long between posts, my apologies but life is pretty darn hectic here! I'll try and post shorter notes and more often.

So Calli has been here two months now. Wonder if she likes it here?

Bruce was lucky enough to capture the tail action with his cell phone camera!

The Cover Girl and the Centerfold

2011-03-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

I guess that post title has you wondering..... then this will add to the mystery!

Yup, we put the house back on the market and crossing fingers and toes that it sells! We need a much smaller yard and a slightly larger house. This way we can fit both our hobbies under one roof! It sure would be nice to get a fenced back yard too so even the dog has a place to call her own. We've had a viewing and another today so there's plenty of primping and 'spit and polish' cleaning going on around here!
The sun has come out, the rain soaked ground is starting to dry out and the flowers are out to greet the viewers:

We have made an offer on another house, which they have accepted, subject to the sale of our present home, so the pressure is on! I'm going to hold off on telling you about the new place until we have a firm deal in place. Call me superstitious. We had another house deal last fall that fizzled out so you'll just have to take your clues from my first paragraph for now. :)

We have had Calli five going on six weeks now and we seem to have settled into a daily routine. She seems to be relaxed with us and sometimes, a bit too much so. We have scheduled her into an obedience class which starts April 3rd for six sessions. We also want her to spend more time around other dogs in a controlled setting. The neighbour has a large mixed breed dog which charged at us on our walk the other day and we had a little 'situation'. Their fence stopped the charge thankfully but it sure set off Calli. Raised my blood pressure some too. Since then we have met other dogs and she now reacts the same way so its a fear/ anxiety aggression thing. So we are going to school to nip this in the bud right now. Hopefully this will work! She came from a home with other dogs and also visiting dogs so this is a new behavior change.

She's really sweet and very affectionate and the house is full of toys again. She loves to fetch and play with balls! Some she loves a little too hard:

Better than my shoes again! I can recall Bruce's Airedale Samson sleeping on his back under the plum tree in the summer time and it seems to be a sleeping pose that the breed in general does! Meet our 'centerfold' gal :

We're trying to watch the TV and she's, um, 'performing' ! Her bikini shave is growing back in since her spaying! She even sleeps in her kennel like this too. All we see is some straight legs sticking out of the door way.

Well, as you can imagine with all this going on, including annual tax time, weaving has taken a bit of back seat, but there has been some progress on that front. A new base 'special ordered' for my weaving chair finally arrived and has been installed. It was a bit nerve wracking to spend a lot of money on something we couldn't take back if it didn't work. I'm happy to report that at the lowest height setting of 22 inches for the Louet.... it WORKS!

I just set it as low as it will go and get busy! No more pile of pillows to boost me up. That foot ring sure comes in handy when it's higher. Here's the full height:

You need a stepping stool to hoist yourself up! This is it way up at the top of 32 inches. All I need for the Woolhouse Tools CM is 27 inches:

Here you can see the old bench and the new seat. My weight depresses the chair down a bit. The soft edge of the chair will mean I can weave here again! Once the scarves are off the Louet, I plan to sit here and weave away on the towels while I wind the next warp for the Spring. I'm still being careful with my back and only weaving for short periods. I am doing my exercises on the big inflatable ball daily to strengthen my core support muscles. The problem is, it's a BALL and we have a dog that is ball crazy, so this is where it's stored when not in use.

Too funny! Meanwhile I have sold my Woolhouse commuter loom bench to a local newbie weaver but I did decide to keep the one that came with my big loom so to keep it a set for the day when it moves on to a new home. But not for a long, long time!

So Covergirl? well, I told you how I was awarded the Founders Fund Scholarship by the Guild of Canadian Weavers this past November. (The GCW is about to overhaul their web page and make it more modern but for now, the basics are there.) I was required to write a brief article on the workshop and send along some pictures to supplement the piece. Imagine my surprise when I opened the envelope with the newsletter and saw this:

Yup, my picture is on the cover! and the story is inside...

There was an additional pleasant surprise when I found a neat article on blogging by Lynnette! Click on any picture to enlarge:

One appeal of being a member of this national guild are the real samples that accompany the newsletter. Each year a group or guild agrees to make the samples, usually with a theme. The Manitoban weavers this year are featuring summer and winter and this one is planned for a baby blanket :

You can read all about the new exchange for 2011 at DustBunnies. You do need to be a guild member to participate but there are loads of benefits. There was also a colour insert featuring the last exchange for 2010. You wove a scarf and got one back! How simple is that? :)

Lynnette did a wonderful job of showcasing everyone's efforts and I will be signing up yet again! Exchanges are a lot of fun!

So this was a real mixed bag of tricks for you this time round.... but with spring here now, it's time for some changes.

Little Big Guy

2011-03-15T20:50:00.000-07:00

I have a new loom! Its a 12" Mirrix Little Guy tapestry/ beading loom. It came to me unexpectedly this week when I friend decided to reduce her equipment after adding a new Louet Hollandia floor loom to her space.

I have danced around with tapestry and wanted to try it in more depth since I started weaving in 1995. I had been doing embroidery since age 14 and so it seemed natural to me to try my hand at pictorial weaving such as tapestry. I was referred to a highly respected tapestry weaver in the region where we were living then and asked her for her best advise. Sally told me to learn 'regular' weaving first and then see how I feel. She had done regular weaving for ten years before making the switch. So off I went to learn regular weaving.

Along the way I did try to keep the tapestry goal alive. At one time, I even acquired a huge Navajo style pipe loom that measured 4' x 6'. It was a great deal and it came along before I was ready. It took a fair amount of room to store and so eventually it was downsized ahead of one move but I kept the hand made tapestry bobbins!

I took a basic tapestry course with my friend and mentor Gudrun Weisinger back in 2005 or so and enjoyed it very much. Gudrun has found a balance between weaving stunning tapestries and 'regular' weaving so it can be done! The issue of a loom was always there. I did research and Mirrix looms looked beautiful and strongly made and it went onto my someday wish list. I saw used Leclerc tapestry loom with a shedding device for sale but at the time I couldn't afford it and had no where to put it. Timing is everything....

So its been on a back burner as nice but someday.... and then I heard of the little Mirrix loom at last weeks guild meeting! I told Bruce and I do have a birthday this month so.... next thing I know, its here !

It uses a spring coil to keep the warp threads separate... and the length of the spring determines the sett. It has a shedding device and you can weave roughly 9 inches by 22 inches. Loom extenders are available and they add another 24 inches in length. You can also get a bottom bar spring kit if you are doing fine close set tapestries or beading.

Here are two other spring coils for varying setts. I'm still working out which is which and there is one missing from a set of four.

Each loom is hand made and quality tested. I was pleasantly surprised by the literature and how to videos available at the Mirrix web site. I've had some questions (most likely stupid newbie questions!) and I get answers back right away at the Ravelry Mirrix group as I build my shopping list to kit this loom out. (If you haven't checked out all the various weaving groups at Ravelry, then you are really missing out!)

My friend had gently used the loom for a couple of classes and so it came along with her work in place. Here's the most recent effort:

Click any picture to enlarge. She had a wonderfully even stitches and no draw in! I should be so lucky....
On the reverse is what she calls her 'accidental Mexican':

It does look like a little Mexican fellow doesn't it? The image is upside down on the back of the loom and so I had to flip the picture.... just in case you are wondering why there is a light on the bottom left and a weird perspective else where! I'll send him to Toni when the warp comes off; she made him after all!

Okay, now I have to think about exactly what I would like to weave and if my stash is up to the new challenge. So it maybe a while before you see show and tell!

So until next time... we'll mosey off into the sunset!

(Nice job Toni!)

Showing Up and Showing Off

2011-03-09T22:34:00.000-08:00

I did something on Tuesday I haven't done all winter long. I went to my local guild meeting! I'm a member of the Tzouhalem Spinners and Weavers Guild (pronounced zoo-hay-lem ). There is a large mountain here named Tzouhalem after one of the early settlers. The guild's main catchment area seems to be as far as Nanaimo in the north and Mill Bay in the south, all on the southern half of Vancouver Island, BC. and we occasionally get guests from the Gulf Islands. Its an active guild and they organize many events all year long: a spinning day for Distaff Day, learn to spin classes, weave study sessions with a guild loom making the rounds and recently even started a spinning study group. They have a month long sale every November which takes a considerable effort to set up, man daily and keep track of sales. In the guild there are active knitters, felters, dyers (mostly natural dyes), spinners (both wheel and drop spindles), and weavers. They are a well rounded bunch!

I wasn't able to attend meetings due to my cranky back and simply not able to sit in old wooden hall chairs without pain for 2 + hours. This month I felt I could manage the time and it was nice to see everyone! Just me showing up was my main 'show and tell'.

I wasn't planning on taking pictures but the appointed 'photographer' had her camera battery die on her so she asked me to snap some with my phone. I have forgotten some of the names of who did what but it was great to see that most all bring something along they have been working on to share. The summer and winter tea towels shown above were woven by Gudrun and the little pin cushions were a collaboration between her husband and herself. She said it can be done with small sample pieces of handwoven and that's another reason to add extra inches to your projects!

So what else was there?

A new weavers second project of a scarf made using two types of sock yarns!

Barbara's silk skeins and all were spun up and plied using a drop spindle.

Valerie's fun and unique bathrobe! The flowers are crocheted onto the fabric.

Sandy, who organised the spinning study group, brought along her samples.

Annaliese brought along her dyed swatches and the colours were lovely!

Jan our librarian talked about the new acquisitions to the library, including two videos on spinning and plying. I personally like the Vav magazine but find it expensive to subscribe to. Being a guild member means you get to borrow them and enjoy. Membership also has other benefits in our community too! Local yarn stores give members a discount on their purchases which is very nice indeed!

Jan was also wearing this lovely knit little capelet (not sure what to call it besides gorgeous!) Her daughter knit it for her and it looked wonderful all draped around her neck. It would have better to see it modeled by Jan herself (oops!)

Lastly, I took along my twelve guest towels for show and tell. (Its been a long dry winter here weaving wise!)

Last April 2010, I took a three day workshop with Alison Irwin on double weave pick up, Finnweave and mock satin damask. This spring she is offering a workshop on kumihimo in April and inkle looming in May and I signed up for both! She's an amazing instructor and I have no doubts it will be fun and well detailed. I had applied for a scholarship with the Guild of Canadian Weavers on the basis of the class last spring with Alison and was granted a scholarship! This means that class was covered and I can also attend these two classes with the proceeds. I'm just thrilled! I have had to write an article for the GCW Bulletin about the three day workshop experience, which I have submitted and will be published, with pictures, sometime in the spring or summer issue.

And another reason to go to guild meetings? Its nice to simply be with like minded people!