Getting my Ducks in a Row 🐣🐥

 Just a quick post to let you know that things are moving along here.     Lots of things to take care of outside and inside.    We are just about winterized , except for leaf clean up of course 🍂🍂    Halloween will soon be here....🎃   The cosy time of year is upon us....☕️     Starting to make batches of our favourite soups and...... oh, wait !   Is that a Bear Butt going by the fence???    Yup......

I took all of my tencel cones from Webs out of their storage closet and took an inventory.    A couple of colours that are really low and so I have to make a decision about them. Do I order from Webs?   Or try to find similar colours in Canada?    When "that man" interferes with our yarn purchases, he's really crossed a line!   🤬

That job crossed off my 'to-do' list  and so I thought I'd inventory my Brassard 8/2 cottons..... and blend in the new order that had arrived.    I spread them across the large dining room table and  put them into colour families ..... and then loaded them all back.   It was kinda nice to find that reorganizing them neatly meant I actually had more room in case I feel the need for more! 

I have also been winding warps that I hang waiting in the queue for their turn on the loom. All part of my 'no naked looms' policy. It means I can leisurely plan warps and have them ready, and can chose what I feel like doing next with no pressure.    Except, my poor shoulder complained as I use the warping mill.  It's a vertical Woolhouse Tools model that I stand  on my desk and wind it seated.  7 or 8 yards has me reaching at the top end and I was feeling it. 

My dear Hubby said "do they make them lying on their side?"

Of course!   A horizontal warping mill !

So a few enquiries.... all in Canada of course.   😉   🇨🇦    Next thing I know I have a large box delivered to me from Catherine at  https://www.tisseetfile.com/en and my Schacht horizontal warping mill has arrived.   (Now Schacht is American, but owned by Louet of Holland.... and I have a Louet loom. Close enough for me)

It was interesting putting it together and I finally had to ask for help as it needed more hands than just mine to hold things in place while attaching bolts..... but we got there in the end.  When you give it a spin, it floats around for days!   I'm back to planning another warp so I can give it a try (soon).     Here's a brief video on how they work....    Using a Horizontal Warping Mill

Across the back edge of my large desk is a solid row of Handwoven magazines in storage boxes.   I have to work out where they will go as I need the entire desk for the new mill.    Its an (almost) complete collection from 1978 to 2026 so a lot of desk real estate. Yes, I know you can access it all on line now.... but I like opening a real copy and browsing.    Decision time....

I went and gave a half hour chat at the weaving course being held by our guild every Saturday for 5 weeks.   I talked about record keeping, Fiberworks and Handweaving.net.  I took along my records, samples and life sized handwovens.    They left with drafts for the herringbone twill kitchen towels with the doubled colour stripes, and a sheet on how to calculate a project's  width and length.    There are seven students and they are all so very serious as they work their table looms. Two have already expressed their intent to buy a floor loom !     There is a second class scheduled for January....    

New shiny weavers!  

Doncha just love it   😁 💕

A Sad Day Indeed 🍂

 A sad day for weavers.... We have lost a great lady and wonderful weaver, Marian Stubenitsky. Her books grace our shelves. She will encourage weavers long into the future. She was just shy of her 80th birthday. Pictures from Les Tisserin (FB)

Books By Marian Stubenitsky

• Weaving with Echo and Iris
• Double with a Twist
• Stubenitsky Code
• Weaving Max8

The Story of the Bon Bon Scarves 🍬

I have done a thorough break down of my weaving journey' across 3 scarves .

I had seen scarves woven with ladder yarn on the internet and thought it looked lovely!  I have some balls of ladder yarn ( from now on, known as LY) and wanted to use it.

So I set up a 8/2 tencel gradient of 200 ends with LY every 25th end (total of 7). I used a sett of 20 epi. I wound it in with the warp. This did not go as planned. Of the warp for 2 scarves I only got one, and that I sat with tweezers and tried to gently tugged all the LY squares out.

Some conversations with 2 other weavers who have done this successfully and I end up with a new warp, a **sett of 18 epi, using a 12 dent reed ** Its sleyed 1,2, across. I always left an empty dent for the LY and finessed the sleying to have a '1' before, and after the LY. Giving it room to move.

The Italian Berlini LY was hung separately off the back of the loom in empty old film canisters (yes, I have a stash of those) BUT empty is too light so I end up adding one small stainless steel nut. You may have to play around and come up with what you have on hand.

Length of the LY: I used a 4 yard length for a scarf of 75 inches plus fringe of 10" x 2 and it wasn't enough! I would easily use 6 yards next time for one scarf. A safe bet is to double the warp length for the LY to the main warp. 

I had to do some some fancy addition of paper clips to new lengths to eke it out to get my scarf done and fringe allowance .... not for the faint of heart!

The scarf with the magenta weft: woven to 75 inches plus fringe allowance. I had some issues with tension that wouldn't respond to my tweaks, and so I'm not happy with it. Plain weave will show off uneven beat and tension issues. I also just let the LY sit and go where it wanted.

The scarf with the dark teal weft: woven to 75" plus fringe allowance. I would weave 4-5 inches and then using a blunt needle tease out every second LY bump to make it pop more. I liked this effect best, and this was my favourite of the three and the best effort.

It's plain weave.... and I spread it over 8 shafts so I didn't have to shift any heddles around, which on a Megado is a royal pain.

I hand washed these scarves and used the spin cycle only to get water out. I worked them with my hands to smooth and flatten and then laid over a clothes rack to dry.  

I pressed them using a wool setting and light steam to smooth the tencel portions. I folded the scarf in half and holding by the fringes, I 'wapped' in against the edge of the bed to soften and make the LY squares pop again. An old technique for de-crunching silk scarves after washing.

So I'm all done working out this out and moving onto new things....but since I have more LY in the stash, I will do it again.

Now I will add notes below each picture.... you may need to refer back up to the three sections on notes on each scarf for further clarity.

Initial warp wound with LY as a part of it.  Bad move.

The take up pulled on the LY and so it became tight in the cloth. I tried to tug some of the  colour buds out.   It didn't go well as I hoped. 

Scarf finished but looks blah.

I learned that the fringe needs to be tightly twisted.

Some colour nubs show now after working it, but its nothing like the scarf I saw on line.

So, I would another warp for two scarves.

This time in blues and the LY is hung separately..... with a small steel nut in a film canister.

Tencel 8/2 in Royal, Blue Ming and Azure

Berlini ladder yarn in colour 135 "Bon Bon"

Sett is 18 epi in a 12 dent reed; empty dent for the LY

The film canisters contains the extra warp length, which is good as its slippery stuff!

First scarf, I used red purple tencel and then struggled with tension issues on the right hand side.  I tried extra weights etc but I was too far in to cut off and start again, or unweave. 

.

The colour buds as they happened naturally during weaving.

Here you can see the issues with the selvedge. Its not truly bad but it bothers me.

With the magenta over the blues, it shows as rather purple.

So onto the final scarf, and my favourite. I used 8/2 dark teal tencel.

Now despite being on the same warp, and I did not cut off and re tie on, the tension issues disappeared!

The weaving went well and no problems with the edges.  Plain weave, to a pattern weaver, is sort of monotonous, so I found something to occupy my time. 

Every 4 inches or so, I used a blunt needle and teased out every second colour bud to to make it more prominent.  It shows nicely in the photo above.

The colour buds look great in the fringe too

So that's a wrap on this weaving adventure.   I'll make some more in time and have ideas for a different look.   I still have more balls of Berlini ladder yarn to use up!   But time for something new. 

Now, for the back story and credits:

It seems that the first known use of ladder yarn in weaving was recorded in April 2015 by weaver, Mette Froekjaer in her on line blog.    Kelly Paul of Berkshire Handwoven saw this and was inspired to try her hand.   This is her result:

It's beautiful and inspired me on my journey.  Kelly used 16/2 bamboo along with her Berlini ladder yarn.

We all had to loosen up and use less normal setts, leave an empty dent for the LY,  hang the LY separately and allow almost double the warp length for the LY.    So you can use what you have to hand, but be sure to follow the basic guidlines.    I recommend you re-read my mistakes and how I found a way forward again.   It seems something simple.... isn't.  😊

Edit Oct 11th 2026:  Since I posted this story about the ladder yarn scarves I have received a lovely message with more information that may appeal to some of you, especially if you weave with finer yarns or weave one sided yardage such as pillows etc.

Sandra wrote:

 I just read your post about LY and have an idea to share.

About 20 years ago, I used LY for yardage treating it as a supplementary warp (in weighted film cannisters).

My notes say that the base fabric was a 20/2 cotton with a sett of 30.5 epi.  

The LY shared a dent with the base warp yarn.  So no extra space for the LY, and the coloured specs just sit on the surface.

The LY elements were kept aligned horizontally, with alternate columns on separate shafts to stagger the spots vertically.

This idea was based on an article by Diane Mortensen in Shuttle, Spindle & Dyepot, Summer 2002.

Here's a closeup of the fabric.  

Cheers,

Sandra

In another email, Sandra added:

One thing to add: being yardage, I wasn't concerned about the reverse side, so the ladder "rails" just float on the back and the "treads" float on the front.  Without thinking about it too carefully, it seems intuitive that a reversible fabric should be possible.

A big thank you to Sandra for sending this to me and agreeing to let me share this with you all. 

Taking Another Path

I like to check in with the new owner of my old Megado and see what they are up to to.  Some months ago Jessica had some happy bright towels on and the pattern was very pretty!   It resembled a flower and she shared the draft number from handweaving.net with me.   16 shaft twill as shown below.

So I worked up  a draft in some colours to hand and was quit excited about the project.  612 ends, 24 epi and approximately 8 yards long.  A big commitment!   (colours below are much brighter than the actual ones used. I get lazy and use something 'close enough' and don't fuss about in Fiberworks)

 

# 79714

Once I got started I noticed an issue right away with a very long float, coming from shaft number 5 and about 10-12 pics long! 😳   I immediately checked the threading and all was correct.  I checked the shaft to see if it was floating.... nope.  I checked my dobby to make sure all the solenoids were firing as they should and all was working well.      

I thought about it for a few hours and decided that it simply wasn't worth the time and aggravation to track it to the source and so went looking for another tie up to use.    A year ago when my loom was brand new I wove up the draft below # 79912.    I did a test run and it looked great and so that's what I went with.

I used the threading from #79714 and the tie up from #79912 and went down another path entirely! 

                                    I used only the tie up only of #79912

A test run to see how they meld together....   All 8/2 cottons from Brassards, of Quebec.  Sett 24 epi.

And after a time, 8 yards came off the loom.    I had woven all 7 towels differently in some way.

This one with the window panes is my favourite.

This one I wove colour in the small stripes and white elsewhere.

Here a colour block followed by a same sized white.

Next up I simply wove all white weft so the warp stripes are more dominant.

The window pane effect was colour and then white for all small cross stripe.

This towel has alternating colour blocks in sequence and no white weft at all.

Then all white but with a border at either end: periwinkle, turquoise and salmon

Same again but this time with: periwinkle, pink and salmon.

So my kitchen towel Christmas war chest is nicely full!    I have a total of 23 towels on hand now.  I'm still planning another 8.5 yard herringbone twill towel warp though as they are very popular.   Times are going to be hard and money tight this next year or two.....   I'm trying to check the crystal ball  and read the tea leaves here....  Results may vary!