Stash Yarns: The Game All Weavers Play

It seems that you are a brand new weaver one minute, nervously buying your first yarn for your first project. Mine was wound off into a cake as I couldn't afford the whole cone. What does the 2 in the 2/8  stand for? why does every type of yarn have its own measuring system?  (cue endless questions here!) ..... then suddenly twenty years (+)  has gone by and you basically have a yarn store in your closet, or bedroom, basement or where ever you have it squirrelled away!

Every yarn purchase was accompanied with a wonderful vision in your mind's eye of how the project would look, or could be. (well, in my case it was!)  It was tucked away and was waiting on the right time, the right weft yarn, the right draft and then forgotten in a bin.  The picture above was taken at our last home where my stash was pretty much out in the open and on display. That's just the tencel and a small portion of the cottons. There are also silks 3 bins, linens: 2 bins and a shelf, bamboo,  and exotic blends.  There's alpaca, and wools as well but not so much, and also some acrylic / cotton blends,  chenilles and.... well you get the idea.

I like to bead some of my hand wovens..... so that started the bead collection.  Now there's a dangerous stash!  They are so pretty, come home fitting discreetly in a purse and fit into a small drawer or case. The cases even stack together for convenience as they magically grow.  You are ever on the search for the right shade of red, or the new Japanese Delica seed beads.

I'm also a spinner so there is a fibre stash but that appears to be under control and I haven't made any purchases for that . Oops, told a lie.... I bought some Gotland fleece last May.  Oh, and a second wheel.....  Let's move on okay?

Then there are the Temptresses of Colour! The women who paint warps in gorgeous vibrant colours, all ready for beaming and you to create a masterpiece.  They call to you, much like chocolate or wine does until you give in.

painted warps from Blazing Shuttles

Since we moved  in late 2016, my stash is neatly tucked away in a walk in closet.  Acquisitions have slowed to a few  several  many additional cones of 10/2 cottons, some silks for commissions but over all there are much more that I can use in my lifetime.  

So I have been culling....

When you are new to weaving, any yarn enhancement opportunities are fabulous and eagerly attended.  Yarn swaps are great for this and from time to time, a weaver sells off their entire stock, or sadly has died and the yarn and equipment being scattered where ever it will go.  I have been culling yarns for the past 4-5 years now and it frees up space in the stash,  provides money and also feels great  to have only  the 'good stuff' you like left.  You have to be clear in your mind that the yarn can move on because replacing it will be expensive. 

Even with culling and reorganizing, the fact remains, eventually you have to start using the 'good stuff' over buying more.  😳  (sorry)

I'm a Ravelry member and belong to some weaving forums that have carved out niches there. One is Warped Weavers  and shortly after the start of the year someone suggested a weaving stash moratorium for 2018.  I read all their comments and it seemed like a good idea and so I have agreed to do my absolute best to use only yarns from my stash for this calendar year. 

There are some 'loose and fast' rules.

• if you have a project in mind and you truly do not have anything suitable, then you can buy.
• if you need a particular colour or are low  on the right one, then you can buy
• if you are running out of weft (or warp) yarn chosen from stash then you can buy
• if you are overwhelmed  and held hostage in a LYS, you can buy your way out! 😇

Okay, so there are no real rules or repercussions if you back slide...... but its simply group support to encourage you to focus on the commitment  and use what you have on hand first.

So, I'm going to give it try and my end of the year review will include a count of what came from the stash and where I fell down and succumbed to some yarn. 

If this sounds like fun, or is timely for you.... come and join the group. We'd love to have your company!

Silk wall at Diane Sanderson's Silk Weaving Studio

Retail Therapy

I have a confession to make.....

I have indulged in some retail therapy in the past couple of months when in recovery mode.  I may not have been able to weave but I was indulging in some mental future plans! I had some Christmas money, and some sales at my Etsy store burning a hole in my "digital pocket".   Browsing, I found some nice deals on line..... and some pretty things

So here's some show and tell....

Here's a painted cotton and  rayon warp I got from Blazing Shuttles. I can see two delightful scarves coming from this!  Great colour combination, and the rayon shiny 'blips' will add some interest!

This is another one of Blazing Shuttle's painted warps called "Black Opal" and was based on an actual fire opal's intense colours. I see it paired with black and.... well, that's top secret for now!  Let's just say I have  big plans for this!  It's 10/2 rayon and so quite fine.

 So with that in mind, I went looking for my black weft. This is Bambu 12 and in colours Onyx, Truffle and China Red. The black is for the Black Opal project, the truffle beige I thought would be lovely paired with cream silks  and the China Red was an attempt to find a replacement for a lovely deep red shade I had in 10/2 tencel called Persian Red. They don't make it any longer and my searches for any residual stock somewhere have failed.  China Red bambu is lovely but its not the same as the Persian Red.   Bambu 12 is 6300 yards per pound.  The three colours together would make a lovely turned twill arrangement wouldn't it?  

Cotton Clouds also sent along a colour card for the various colours they carry. I can see a few colours I would like to get in the future..... and three I wish I had now!  

I love the three colours on the bottom right: willow, blue mist and blue mist.  The double asterisk means "available seasonally"..... but which season?    I'll be asking soon!

This was actually a "get well gift"!   Nice huh? Deep purple and a colour called Algae silk hand dyed by Dye For Yarn at Etsy. The algae is like a bronze and I think I will pair these colors together. The 20/2 skeins are 50 grams each so there's enough for warp and weft.  Silk is lovely to work with.

  Now this is my "new" old, gently used Royal 500 gram ball winder.  I found it on a sales page. I had another large wooden ball winder but the handle for turning was set horizontally and I found it hard to use with my arthritic hands. It was awkward on the wrist as well.  So I put it up for sale and it went to a new home to a happy new owner.  Then with the sale proceeds I bought this used winder that has a vertical handle, and even has a tension device to boot to give you a neatly shaped centre pull ball, up to 500 grams (or just over a pound).  I have a Royal ball winder for smaller amounts but if you are tempted to push it to its limits, the ball come flying off and goes across the room!  Well, I guess if I ever push this one to the limit, it might be spectacular!

So I've decided if equipment fails me in some way, then move it along and find one that works!  This swap came out dead even $$$ wise but I feel like its an improvement and so I'm happy!
(There was a couple of bits of equipment added to the sale page as well.)

Weaving: well,  I over did it one day last week and so had to take a few days off to rest and ice some tender muscles.  I'm happy to report that as of today I have finally finished the fine silks scarves on the Louet Spring.  I have to weave some samples for my files and then it will be cut off and finishing will begin. So I hope to have some actual finished weaving to show you next time!

I have some projects 'pre planned' on paper and the warp winding will be begin in earnest soon. Standing still in one spot for any length of time is a problem so I will have to do it in stages.  There will have to be a tie up change which will also be a step by step thing too.   I'm learning the limits of my new inner metal bits!

Since I last wrote, we have also had a fast trip to Vancouver as my father has been quite ill and it seemed touch and go for a time. Three hospital moves later and he's now in good hands at St Paul's in downtown Vancouver. BC's premier heart hospital.  Now we wait...

Speaking of waiting.... our daughter in law is due March 10th so not too long to wait.  We hope to go over soon, if not for the birth, then shortly after to meet the new addition to the family!

In the mean time, we continue to go through closets and our 'stuff' and downsize as we prepare to list the house for sale.

Nothing  like a quiet recovery huh?
Now you know why I indulged in some calming retail therapy.   :)

  Happy Valentine's Day!    

New Play Things!

So my cold lasted a week and generally was your normal, usual miserable cold and cough where you feel like crap. During this time I held down the couch and didn't accomplish much. I did have time to read my new books!

I have been waiting for this rewrite for many months! The Scandinavian weaving book is lovely as well. It does seem to take two books to qualify for the free shipping at Amazon. That's a great hook isn't it?

 So in the (lonely) studio, I have threading under way on the Louet for guest hand towels:

On the big loom, I have the towel warp which has been waiting patiently for my lower back to get better so I can treadle (depressing the treadles can aggravate a lumbar pinch!)

I did manage to get myself upright, dressed and more productive and cleaned the house just ahead of a fast flip visit from Lynnette and her hubby. They were here to pick something special up and all the details of that, I will leave to her!   :)  We had a couple of grand days and the sun shone for our trip to see the fall colours. The last day we woke to rain and Michael said it was obviously time to go home.
Lynnette gifted me a lovely blood wood shawl pin!  Now I have to make a shawl for me.

So when a weaving friend comes to town, you *must* take her to the local yarn store (LYS)... right? So we went to The Loom which is just south of Duncan. Don't let the name fool you as there are only a few cones of weaving yarn and some bits and pieces of equipment parts. The store is crammed (I mean crammed!) with knitting yarns, and some spinning fibre... but mainly knitting yarns. We both found something to bring home... how could you not?  I found some interesting yarn to try my amateur hands at knitting this winter in the evenings.

This meant I had to buy these... which are a rare sight in my home!

I'll let you know how this experiment goes!

So I did promise to show you my loot haul from the Kelowna spin in (since I have no weaving news for you) My first goal was to look for a quad fringe twister and I scored! Hopefully this will help speed finishing up...

A friend loaned me a wheel to spin on (which apparently used to belong to a dear friend who passed away some years ago) It was much appreciated and so I had to buy some top to spin!

It has a hint of raspberry, peach and sage green. Lovely with 20% silk and 80% merino!  Andrea of Aurelia Wool and Weaving brings this yummy stuff in from New Zealand.
Next...

I recently wove using bamboo as my weft in combination with silk and loved it! I was happy to find these four  8/2 cones and snapped them up. (Security at the airport scanned them twice and for a time I thought she was going to keep them. Apparently yarn is a dangerous weapon!)

Gudrun also gave me a small hand towel for the kitchen. It was the tail end of a towel warp and its now a handy hand wipe, complete with its own little hanger.                                                                                   

The little tape hanger is handwoven! Gudrun said she wanted the tape to match. How cute is that?

So there were lots of little door prizes and many took one home... but there was only two raffle prizes. Two baskets: one had three local bottles of VQA wine and various cheeses, crackers. The second was this one:

It had a fibre theme and was due to a generous donation by  Kelowna's Ponderosa Guild member (Thanks Margaret!).
So with me having to fly home with weight restrictions, no one was more surprised than me when I won!
I can't really describe it too much as some if it is being gifted shortly, but an Ashford drop spindle, hand cream and some "The Wheel" spinning magazines and at the bottom was a lovely woven tray cloth:

A lovely plaited twill!  I spent some of my sick time researching plaited twills and one may be in my future!

No the basket didn't come home with me.....

* Please note that I have added a new page to my blog at the very top and will be adding books and equipment there for sale here as I sort through my studio and pare down! Check often   :)

Susan



A Box of Bling!

We've been working pretty darn steady around the house and yard (okay, mainly my hubby) but I supervise! We decided on Monday to take the afternoon and go to Victoria for some shopping and just take our time and enjoy the day. I had gone through my entire bead stash and I only had one green bead type and that's not enough to make a choice for beading a scarf, and I have two scarves coming up to bead. Desperate situation indeed! Hubby wanted to go to Lee Valley Tools who opened a new store in Victoria and he had a list in hand of things we *need*.

So after a slow leisurely browse, we left Lee Valley with a torch for blasting weeds along the driveway and sidewalks ( nicer than weed sprays), some hand tools for furthering the efforts in the gardens ( post to come on this soon) and something called a hitch for our tractor and the riding lawn mower to be able to tow garden carts and even the larger trailer. ( A really big deal in the man's list of neat tools he *has to have*. I didn't take any pictures there... I simply forgot!

Next two stops were for me! We were heading by this shop on our way to the bead store so naturally I had to stop in. Knotty by Nature is a cute little store and they carry fleece , fibre for spinners, knitting accessories and knitting yarn, spinning wheels, some small looms, and weaving yarns. They carry 8/2, 8/4 cottons, boucle cottons, some linens.... *lots* of really neat stuff!
Here.. have a look!

I sent this one to my daughter, Carrie, via my iphone to 'share' my fun time.... she dyes her own colourways and braids them up just like these below for her Etsy shop.

Around every corner you turned, there were more goodies and such vibrant colours! It's a nice place to have a good browse and look at other brands and what they are doing for colour and different put-up's. Great music playing when I was there as well.

Another corner and here's the weaver's corner, complete with Ott light and sample books. In the second picture you can see the smaller cones in behind the Ott light, these are specialty yarns from Habu. They even had Korean paper yarn for weaving and knitting. Those are the bulky skeins on the right of the table.

I bought two half pound cones of bamboo in off white and a richer cream. I have some silk scarves in mind and these will be the wefts. Helps to stretch the silk and still be a soft yummy scarf! The balance of my small bamboo stash at home are all bright colours and I wanted some neutrals.

I took this picture above and it wasn't until later at home that I realized that I hadn't really checked these particular skeins out... so I obviously will have to go back and remedy that! (maybe that was a good thing?) Great colours!

They had a Saori loom set up and they welcome people to try their hand at it. They have other small looms and rigid heddle loom they rent out as well. It certainly introduces the whole world of weaving and spinning to knitters. They have diverse ways of persuing fibre depending on their interest. A great little shop!

Just a short hop up the road found me at the Johnson Steet Market. It's a neat ring of brick buildings with a courtyard in the middle that is open, bright and cheery... and you walk down a flight to the lower portion, with little shops everywhere. You could spend a whole afternoon drifting from store to store in this one location alone. For the men who might tag along, there is a neat old camera store that handle modern, recent and antique cameras, plus a little Mexican restaurant where they can have a coffee or a bite.

I ignored all these lovely distractions and went straight for my goal! Bead World. Its huge and has beads of all kinds, of all colours, and all accessories you might need. I was there for 'greens' and hit pay dirt! Come have a look and tell me you could take less than an hour in here!

The hanks on the walls behind the ladies are semi precious stones all prestrung on fine cotton. I leave those alone as they are a little rich for my tastes.

I head to the tables with a tray for the neat little funky accent beads and the basic seed beads are in the little containers on the shelves. All sizes... from smooth to irregular cut, metallic, antiqued... and in a rainbow of colours!

This area is where I spent much of my time and it didn't disappoint! After an hour or so, I left with my little bag of goodies and called Hub to see where he found parking. He was just up the road from where he dropped me off and parked outside of *another* bead store "Bead Works". He was visiting the book store next door and had found some golden oldy magazines. Now isn't that convenient? So a quick look around in there and I found some fine Japanese Delica seed beads in a soft twinkly violet that I have been trying to find for ages! They also carry Thread Heaven which I use all the time so its great to know where I can get more when the time comes.

This is part of the lower courtyard at the Johnson Street Market and you can see the bench seating for the music stage. The shops are on both levels and face into the courtyard and some the main street.

Lots of hanging baskets of bright flowers. In fact, Victoria is also know for all the hanging baskets they hang every spring all through the down town area.... over 1600 annually and probably closer to 2000!

Here's the drinking water fountain in the upper levels, with flowers in behind. Then I stepped back to shoot the baskets hanging in behind...

The message board is just outside a kids store for funky toys and gadgets.... and the message is advertising 'bacon' flavoured dental floss! Anything to get them to clean their teeth I guess!

So here's the picture of the loot that followed me home:

These should tide me over nicely doncha think?

We had supper out and a leisurely drive home..... it was a great day!

Holiday Part 2: the Loot!

I managed to do some 'stash enhancement' on our recent trip to the Okanagan. Seems Kelowna has a new yarn store called 'Art of Yarn'. My first trip out was on the holiday Monday, except I forgot the holiday part. I met with closed doors and had to press my nose up against the glass and window shop. On a little kid, it's cute... not so much on a (ahem) 'mature' woman. I went back a couple of days later and bought these skeins. They are silk and mohair blend in amazing colours. The pictures don't show the deep shimmer. I couldn't decide between the deep mauves, lavender and smoldery pinks.... or the earthy tone, green shimmer and copper gleam. So I bought both. They are yarns by Hand Maiden.

I went back to the store on my last day with Lynnette and Ngaire and this skein of fine merino said 'crock pot dye session' to me. Or maybe not: lace weave in this cream would be lovely too.

While in Vernon, we went to the local yarn store (LYS) and visited 'Never Ending Yarn'. These skeins are baby alpaca and 50 grams each. They two shades are of equal value and looked so nice together. What ever the project finally gets to be, it will most likely use both colours. I also bought some fine (000 or 1.50 mm) circular needles for some beaded knitting I'm doing at night while watching TV.

My friend and weaving buddy, Gudrun recently had visited Germany and Austria in July to see family and friends.
Then while visiting with Gudrun for our lunch and (too short) visit, she gave me a little gift. Inside is a nifty sley hook tool that was made in Germany. It's quite thin and used on finer reeds but apparently they come in all sizes depending on the reed being used. There also was a special needle for hemstitching: on the point there is a small ball. I have yet to try it but Gudrun assured me that it would be my new favourite. I tried to take a close up picture of the needle's ball but my camera wouldn't cooperate... or focus!

I also added to my linen cupboard and brought home these snowflake and fancy twill runner and four mats woven by Gudrun. They have a fine cotton warp and a fine black linen weft. If I recall rightly, this linen is newly home from Germany. I sampled some on a cone and it was so smooth, and fine and amazingly soft. I would have thought cotton but just *really* uber linen.
Gudrun said she should have brought back a suitcase full of it. I agree!


Lynnette showed me her bead storage system while I was there. She has these little clear 'cuppettes' with snap on lids and so you can see what's inside and they are stackable and secure. Fantastic! So, once home, off I went to Wally World and while no cuppettes appeared, I found these nifty storage cases.

There are many (37?) of the little boxes in two main sizes, plus two larger ones. It came with a spoon for dishing up the glitz and a pair of fine, cheap tweezers. I hate to say this but my bead stash filled three cases and I spilled over into two back up units of these cups. But its way better than those little baggies and all stuffed into a heap in a soft carry bag and stuffed again into a drawer. Now they are more accessible and I can colour code the boxes and take out only the ones I need.
My husband has his eye on these cases below but the pink clips are a theft deterrent! Thinks the guys will laugh at him when they come for railway modeling sessions.

I've been home a week now and there's been a fair amount of business to tend to and so I have been around our little town running errands. I stopped into a local book store and found this gem:

I used to live in New Zealand for five years and so have an appreciation of the Maori and their culture. I'm looking forward to studying this book more closely.

Anything I missed this trip, we can catch next time and that appears to be coming a lot sooner that I had thought! Looks like we'll be going back again this Christmas!

I have also been busy working on Elena's shawl and it's hanging to dry as I write. I got the fringe twisting done ( 2 full afternoon's) and then the beading ( another full afternoon) Next post should be the big reveal!