Cabbage Rose Shawls

I had a  long painted warp from Carr Park Artisans  patiently waiting for me to bring it out to play.   It's called "Cabbage Rose" and what you see below is all that's left of it.      I finally found a pretty draft that I thought would do justice to the soft pastel shades. 

It's this 16 shaft one by Rebecca Logan and you can find it at Handweaving.net #81232.   Rebecca has 4 shaft point twill in the middle section and I modified that to 8 shaft and played a bit with the far left and right borders.

Both of those were solid 8/2 tencel Ecru.   The green section was 8/2 olive and portions are alternating olive and lemongrass.   Sett is 24 epi.

The centre section is all the painted warp and I used ecru as my weft yarn for both shawls.  No other colour did it justice. White just bleached out the pastels even more.

 

Some pictures of the project underway.  The transitioning was a very interesting effect!

Here's a close up of the green border on the top side.

Photographing it outside was not a good option with the high intensity sunlight.  So I tried in the studio and then again in a brighter part of our home.

This one on the mannequin was sold very quickly to a houseguest.   I was glad to have woven up two!

Here it is again in more natural lighting.

The pattern simply supports the  soft pastels and the border frames it.  The border in the picture below is the reverse side .   Its pretty either way!

Below you can see the pattern's 'x's and o's .

So I think it was well worth the wait.....

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We have been having a quiet summer at home.  Very grateful that we are not directly affected by extreme heat domes, drought (although we do have water restrictions) and wildfires (though we did have lightening strikes start some up island).  Our new heat pump we installed last December was the best investment ever!

We have been doing a lot of small improvement projects around the house.  Replace this, paint that, plan to get carpets and furniture steam cleaned and...... we bought all new appliances.   It was time and actually beyond time.  They were all dated 2006 and so 20 years old.  The dishwasher worried me the most as when they fail, it can be a devastating 'inundation'.  😳 The washing machine was plain annoying and I had to babysit it through the wash cycle as the dial got 'stuck' and the machine would grind on and on.....   The dryer was more like a cool fluffer.... not much heat at all.    We got a new fridge as well as the other was either too warm or too cold and froze our (expensive) veggies. Frozen lettuce anyone?? 

My new LG washer and dryer set are apparently smarter than me and I may set the cycle I want but then it jiggles and weighs my clothes and adjusts the water level and  then locks me out to do its job.    The dryer insisted the dryer vent was not open.    We called in a company to check and apparently, the dryer was right and it was 80% reduced by lint.   Not a good thing!    So AI in my dryer helped to prevent a house fire. 

Gee Whiz....      Go check yours now....... 🏠🔥 😳    

First Anniversary! 🎉

 My Megado 90 arrived in boxes one year ago today! I think we have bonded nicely and been making some nice cloth together and in that time we have made:  

• 4 shawls, 
• 7 scarves,  
• and 20 kitchen towels in the last year. 

I'm also 4 towels into another set of 6 or 7 ... so

It took me about 7-10 days to put her together and I only needed some help with the bottom rails due to back issues.  Nothing helps you to understand a loom, the parts and how they work than putting one together!

Do I miss my larger 110?  yes.... there are some project widths that push the limits of the 90.  Maybe one day my 'future' living space will allow for a larger loom. Until then Maeve and I will continue together.

Handweaving.net :: A Weavers Resource

 Such a wonderful resource for weavers of any level, and any number of weaving shafts!

As featured in the summer issue of Handwoven 2026

Handweaving.net draft #78116, original design by Ingrid Boesel

16 shaft, 28 epi,  20/2 silk warp and tencel weft, 

woven by Susan Harvey on a Louet Megado floor loom 

Painted silk warp (centre) by Carr Park Artisans (on Etsy)

Solid dyed silks by Treenway Silks

8/2 tencel from Webs

A warm thank you to Kris Bruland of Handweaving.net for inviting me to submit photos!

MacLaren Tartan : a multi country experience 🇨🇦 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🇺🇸

 I just discovered today that I have yet to post about a finished weaving project. Clean forgot all about it with all our summer activities! 

Every so often I get the urge to weave a tartan and go cruising at Handweaving.net for inspiration, along with a list of available colours in my stash. This time I was wanting to use some of my 10/2 cottons.  A tartan with not too many colour changes .... and this time I chose Maclaren.   Now the draft below is much brighter than the authentic tartan would be.  Also brighter than my actual cottons but I just quickly went for 'close enough' colours for the draft.     I also spread the draft over 8 shafts from 4 so I would have enough heddles per shaft.   Moving heddles on a Megado is a real bear!

My sett was 28 epi and I used a 14 dent reed.    The colours used were all Valley cotton:

• nautical blue
• porcelain green
• autumn blonde
• red
• black 

I put on 8 yards and got 7 generously large towels.  Rather than weave each towel separately, I wove continuously for the full length and would cut apart later.   I felt it gave me less to consider other than to keep weaving and not worry about where an ending could be. 

Here's the warp being beamed and it was  bright and cheery!  I found that the warp used most of my stash of the blue and green. I got another nautical blue from Webs but they were out of the green.   I put out a call on Ravelry's Warped Weavers Marketplace and had  Nancy from New Hampshire come to the rescue with a cone of porcelain green.   It would work nicely as the warp was all from one cone and the weft would be from another.  They would blend together just fine.   *phew*    Same thing for the blue cotton.

Here's a picture of the weaving underway. I was able to carry some colours up the side, by wrapping when switching shuttles, and some I had to cut off and change.    There was very precise number of pics so I was counting constantly.  No doubt about it, it a slow weave..... but once you get into the rhythm of it, it moves along. Not having a boundary set of a certain number of inches for a towel length meant you didn't need to keep track of that..... just keep on working to the next colour.    I just kept going until I saw the rod at the back of the loom come over the back beam.

Here's the freshly cut off the loom warp all laid out.... all 8 yards. There was very little yard waste.

And a closer view. Not that its relaxed, the squares all look square!

I found that 37  or 38 inches (can't recall which right now) occurred at a regular spot in the pattern, so serging apart was straightforward.   No big table for me but a cluttered desk will do.  It works and I just take my time as I go.

They were washed and dried and here I'm about to snip all the tails off prior to steam pressing them.    Hems were turned, pressed and pinned. I had a few evenings where I hand sewed all hems. I quite like the hand work and you feel productive as you watch the telly.

Now for some beauty shots....

They measure 22 inches wide and approximately 30-32 inches in length . Yes, there was a lot of shrinkage plus the hems.

A nice satisfying stack of softness.   Once again, thank you to Nancy of New Hampshire for the cross border assistance. Weaver are wonderful everywhere!    🌎 😊

Just Playing.... 🌈 with Colour!

I like to play with my Fiberworks (for Mac) program and try my hand at  creating colour gradients. I know what colours I have on hand, and what I feel looks nice when paired together.   I even like winding it up on the warping mill thread by thread. Weird huh?   😁

This is mineral green, greyed teal, blue Ming and royal  8/2 tencel (from Webs) when blended.   This is the draft I used to wind the colours.  Looks different  but that's because I need to see the colour changes clearly or else go blind trying to see what is next!

I wanted a large open feeling pattern; not so much grids and lines that can occur with some drafts.  This 8 shaft crackle weave suited nicely.   This is draft # 79248  at Handweaving.net

So for the first scarf I used coral 8/2 tencel as my weft. I felt it would pair nicely with the blue's and green's and it didn't disappoint !

But what really woke things up was lemongrass!   It adds "zing"   🍋🌱 and is my favourite of the two scarves!

It was an enjoyable weave, interspersed with Life chores and summer outings.    Fringes twisted up and wet finished.... pressed and trimmed and then time to snap some pictures. 

Coral weft and look how it turned out between the blue and greens!   It's a real chameleon!  The coral looks orange near the greens and pinkish near the blues.

Then it's lemongrass ..... which also changed the under tone colour depending on which side of the scarf you look at.    

It turned out even better than I had in my mind's eye and I can also see other future projects for this draft.   Hard to believe it's just 8 shafts huh?