If at First You Don't Succeed.....

We had a nasty rain and wind storm recently and the next morning as the sun broke through, this fine fellow came and sat on a branch near our house to fluff up and dry off.  Its a sharp shinned hawk and the first one that we have seen here. He stayed for over an hour warming up and having a major preening session.  I guess if we put up a bird feeder they would visit more often..... as it eats other small birds that eat seed off the ground.  Ah, we won't be doing that....

If we could roll the clock back a few weeks..... okay, a couple of months at least!  I had wound a fine linen warp of 40/2 of approx 10 yards in length. I was looking forward to weaving up some guest towels and enjoying that crisp look that comes with linen and hemstitching! This was the very start and a test bit to check the threading:

The sett was 36 epi and I had used this before with great success but this time it wasn't working so well for me. The warp threads were literally binding on each other.     Okay, so I resleyed to 32 epi, thinking the reduction of four warp ends would give them more elbow room.      Apparently not....

So a third sley and the sett is now 28 epi and now only some were grabbing each other where they were in the same dent and the tension was all screwy on the left hand side.  I also really didn't like the way the warp threads were bunching up  and producing very heavy reed marks.

So I sat and considered my investment of time and yarn:  its been threaded twice,  I fixed two threading errors, resleyed three times and its still not resolved.   I wanted to have this project on, woven up and off the loom before I  went for my surgery the end of September.  The goal was to be able to hand sew the hems while I recovered. I also wanted to get a new warp on the loom so it was all set and ready to weave when I was ready to get back in the game.

So out came the scissors....     Yup, all of it, in the garbage.    No regrets.

So I adjusted the project to work with 10/2 cotton and got busy winding a warp of natural colour mercerized cotton.  Bruce helped me wind on the eleven yards. This time everything went just right! There were no threading errors, no sleying errors, nice even warp tension and the 24 epi sett worked beautifully.

*Big sigh of relief!*

I wove my hem allowance, then hemstitched every four warp threads. Then I placed a thick cord and then started on the border.  I pulled out the slippery cord out and then hemstitched the top edge.    Complete the lace detail in the border and then hemstitch the top edge.   Place the cord again and weave the initial plain weave shots for the main portion of the towel. Pull the cord again and hemstitch the final edge using what ever colour of weft is being used for the towel.     {If you give this a try yourself, be sure to leave  five times the width of the project for the hemstitch yarn. }

Virginia West's classic book  "Finishing Touches for the Handweaver"     This book is a real treasure if you wish to have your work beautifully finished. It was a game changer for me when I got my copy nearly twenty years ago!

I had purchased some cones of yarn in a series of soft neutral colours in a fine bamboo (6300 yds/lb) and decided to use them as my weft. The Bambu 12 is soft, has a great sheen and and would give the towels a lovely hand. They would be naturally anti microbial and anti fungal which is a nice property to have in a small towels that might sit wet after hand washing.

I'm weaving an eight shaft huck lace that makes a repeating diamond pattern. Its something I had played around with in my Fiberworks program.  I planned to make half the towels with the diamond motif and the other half would have a design I'm calling lattice and flower. I played around with the treadling options to find a pleasing pattern.

I had a project plan guide beside me:  three inches for the hem, a total of eighteen inches for the main part of the towel (including the fancy border), then three inches for the back hem. The hems and border were done with white against the natural, with a colour for the main part of the lace.   I used white for the back hem as well and did full hemstitching where they changed.  {be sure to use seven times the width for this style}. See below and remember to click on the pictures to enlarge:

So that was five rows of hemstitching per towel and over a dozen towels that totals 60 rows altogether.   What the heck was I thinking??   Do a fast project and get it off the loom and reloaded before my surgery date???   I also had to warp up and load the Megado and then we decided to re-assemble the tapestry loom over leaving it as a pile of lumber on the floor.   Timing was going to be tight!

The tapestry loom was re-built, and the Megado loaded. That would be the first choice of loom to weave on thanks to the one treadle and light action so it made sense to get it done first.  After that, I worked away on the towels and got my speed in hemstitching up to new world record speeds!    It was tight for time but the warp came off and a new one went on the same day which also included being hoisted up on crates to change the tie up!

I measured and pressed the hems and pinned them .   It was a nice stack of hand work waiting for my return!   Then, I indulged in a studio cleanup too which I must admit felt real good. My creative work space was all set for when I would be ready.

Anaesthesia does funny things to your head. It makes you fuzzy minded and clumsy for a time. Its surprising how long it lasts in your system. Then there's the pain meds after surgery which add their own complexity to the mix.   I guess it was nearly 3 weeks after my surgery that I was interested enough to try sewing hems.  The cloth was quite fine so good light was necessary but I slowly inched my way across one hem after another.  

Last week I placed them into a gentle wash cycle  and once spun out, I trimmed off any tails and let them line dry over night.  Next morning I lowered the ironing board and pulled up a chair.  I steamed pressed them and I'm very happy with them!  I found only one that had a treadling error, which we politely call a second.

Its a tough time of year to photograph anything.... its so darn dark!  But with every light on in the house and using the 'brighten' function in my editing program I got some nice pictures.  There are six towels with the diamond pattern....

There are five towels with the lattice and flower pattern:

They measure thirteen inches wide by nineteen and a half inches in length. The colours are a soft butter yellow, green tea green, snowy white, a light beige called water chestnut,  and a blue green. The sheen from the bamboo is lovely and the fine cloth has a nice weight to it.   If we do get a bright sunny day, I might try re-photographing them, but this will have to do until then.

So this project was all woven before my surgery (on a wonky knee no less) and I'm happy to report that I have made a start on trying to weave again this past week at six weeks post operative!

I did do some work on the Megado, where I used mainly my right leg for 30-40 treadlings then I would do 10-15 with my left leg and so on. I took the next day off to see how it felt and it was fine.

So yesterday I sat down on my bench and tried two treadling repeats at my Spring loom:

In the case of this treadling plan there is an even division between left and right leg so they both got an equal workout. It didn't feel too bad at all!  I did only two repeats.  My physiotherapist has given me the go ahead to weave and called it a "great quad strengthening exercise" and asked if I had a spinning wheel too?   I said yes and she she told me it was okay to use it as well! 

I'm not 100 % as yet and still a lot of inner healing and more exercises to go, but I feel like I'm finally on the way back!

Bookmarks: The Important Little Something

While not every one is an avid book reader, those who are, *love* their books!  They read them on Kindles and other e-book readers and even the old fashioned paper variety!  They (who ever 'they' are)  thought the paper ones would go out of style with the advent of e-readers but sales are even better than ever!

The coming summer is traditionally the reading season.  Kick back on a summer day and read a book! (these people must have maids, gardeners and a terrifically organized life is all I can say)

I have a love affair with books too and we have them scattered through out the house and in various stages of being read.   I had never given much thought to book marks other than you need one over turning down the corners of the pages which is BAD form!

Then last year I participated in the Guild of Canadian Weavers exchange where book marks were being featured and I wove off just enough to fulfill my requirements and a couple to spare. ( There is a copy of my 12 shaft draft there at the older post) It was quite an eye opening project. It made me consider miniatures in general and what type of pattern makes a good miniature or reducing a draft to bare minimums. Fine threads and close setts. What type of yarns would be best to use? I didn't want a limp book mark that flopped about so I chose fine cottons and linens. It was a great project where you had a lot of things to consider!

It took very little time to wind the warp, beam and thread it. A nice  little project and done in a snap. The resulting book marks were little works of art and the spare ones I had became much treasured gifts.  I decided to make some more  and wound this warp some time ago.  Other projects squeezed it out and it hung patiently waiting its turn in the roster.

After all the baby related items were woven off and gifted, it was time for the book marks. So I went from weaving  a wide warp of thirty six  inch wide warp down to a two inch wide one. From twenty four epi to fifty epi! The warp length this time was about four and a half yards and I planned on roughly nineteen or twenty bookmarks. I had increased the sett from forty seven epi at the last time, to fifty epi as my materials were a bit finer.  I used 20/2 black mercerized cotton and 40/2 Belgium natural linen as warp and the cotton also served as the weft (except for one where I tried sewing thread as an experiment... that one is mine!)

I got a nice fat cloth roll that looked as cute as it was satisfying! I was proud of getting the most from the warp as I had laced on and woven the warp right to the nubs! This is the back view behind the twelve shafts.

When the warp was unwound, it was a surprise as to how many I had as I had lost track. I played around with treadling variations and kept on going!  The result was twenty three book marks and one 'novel' sized for a total of twenty four.   

So what did I get? Glad you asked....

A bunch that are woven as threaded!  Dorothy says a gallery owner in the UK says this pattern looks like a 15th century reproduction textile!   Cool...

Then I started playing around with the treadling...

Here I abbreviated the treadling a bit....

This one is my favourite... I focused on one section of the treadling and repeated it...

Then I tried doing doubles of some portions!  I'm having fun now...

This is network treadled which is a twill progression. A lot of to and fro on the treadles and no interruptions!

This pair look more masculine for the men out there....

My husband admired (and got) one of these!  I hope he remembers which book he's left it in!  :)

I would like to mention that if you like any of these, I have placed them for sale on my handwoven sales page (see tab at the top below the picture).  I have been sorting through my studio and as a result I also have set up another page for gently used books and equipment for sale. I swear the stuff breeds and there is only so much room for it all!  I place the refresh date up there when any changes are made, either additional uploads or removals after a sale. The book marks are limited in number and I will keep a running tally of what is available.

From Babies to Birds, to Bookmarks!

So our new little man, Ethan is 4 days old and now settling in at home. We are hoping to go over and visit him and his parents very soon. I have no doubt that they need a few days to themselves.  I'll be sure to get lots of photos then!  In the mean time, here is a precious picture taken the night he was born with a mobile phone. I have this one printed out and hanging in my studio.

Lots of fresh new starts... it is spring after all!  We seem to have a pair of last years hatchlings back trying to work out how to build a nest. We have an open beam roof above our front door and I guess it looks like a condo to them and they can't decide which one to settle into!   I say 'they' as I haven't actually seen which species of bird is doing this! They don't actually get much of a nest made and then move onto the next spot.

Then three times a day, we sweep this:

There is a huge pile of twigs and grass off to one side from several days worth while they run to the 'store' for more!

Okay, while we are outside: we are having revisit the front garden bed where they dug through to install the water to the house in our new well escapades last fall.  There is a green junction box that we can't bury and it looks stupid sitting there in the middle of a flower bed. So we have a large pot to hand and we bought a new miniature Japanese maple. Just need to get the bag of soil tomorrow. Its a start. I'm going to hang baskets everywhere this year and just waiting on better weather and bigger baskets to show up!

Okay, lets shift to fibre / weaving stuff!

The big loom sits and waits for all the undressing and spa treatment. I thought I had a full bottle of my oil and apparently not.  In the mean time my box load of texsolv cord from Woolhouse Tools has arrived in the mail. All 288 of them!  This will not be a fast job as I'll tackle it in stages. I will be wearing knee pads when the cords go on as you spend several days down on the floor.  *sigh*

Another start is the finishing of the third shawl  and I waded through one side of fringing and just set up today to work on the second side. Beading will also follow... so a bit more time is required before its ready for the big reveal.

I've been listening to an audio book while weaving some bookmarks.  Remember them from last year? I'm making more as the last batch was for an exchange. They are quite narrow and quite fine with 20/2 cotton and 40/2 natural beige Belgium linen. Here's one with 20/2 black cotton weft, woven as threaded:

I planned for 19-20 of them and have 9 or 10 done. I lost count.  Today I got a bright idea and pulled my pirn off the Schacht EFS and plunked on a spool of quilters mercerized cotton sewing thread on the pirn shaft  and as of late this afternoon, this is what it looked like:

I'm just trying the one with the thread and back to the 20/2 cotton....  {That's the endangered Canadian penny which is being eliminated soon. Its costs almost two cents to make it!}

So lots of starts and much to do, but no rush.... when the sun comes out, I've been slipping the chair and spinning wheel outside on the deck and take a break there. I'm going to smell the flowers more this year.

Blues Review

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.