Lilibet Lace: The Start

It sure is nice to have my laptop back and things reasonably set up again. Oh, there are email addresses that are 'gone' ( sorry Peg) and it will take time to restore all the little details that personalize a computer. That was a very long month and during that time so much happened here. I'll share it all but you have all been very patient waiting for something weaving related so I'll start on the lace shawl. The shawl is one of two that I planned to weave for the Victoria Retreat at the Oceanside Hotel in Cowichan Bay on April 3rd and 4th. I thought I would make a start on them early and be finished in plenty of time. It's a good thing I did given the home reno's that happened here. Today will be the first of two posts on this huck lace shawl.

Below is the tencel warp being spread in the built in raddle on the Spring "Lilibet" It is 10/2 undyed tencel and this yarn came some years ago from Textura Trading. The various sett guides I have to hand here all say 18 epi for lace, 20 for plain weave and 24 for twills. I thought 18 epi sounded way too open and so went for 20 epi. Even that looked too loose and I did consider resleying to 22 at one point but held my breath and went for the 20. This particular 8 shaft huck lace pattern came from a Complex Weavers' compilation CD and was designed by Christina Hammel. I'm doing that from memory as my Fiberworks program is still not set up again to double check. (I'll edit a correction later if it's not.) I also have yet to work out how to import a weaving draft to here for posting. Got to learn that soon.

All set for beaming...


It sure does roll on smoothly. A real treat actually.

Here the threading is under way for 6 lace blocks and plain weave over 8 shafts. I decided to have only half inch plain weave borders as I wanted the emphasis to be on the lace.

Sleying all completed at the agonized over 20 epi.

Here is the start of the shawl. Notice how open it looks and you'll understand why I considered resleying. I wove some small blocks of lace and then did three alternating rows of Danish Medallions. That was actually a fun thing to work with and good practise!



Then I started on the lace repeats and then the weaving simply became a wonderful process as I found the 'zone'. What also helped was my new ipod and I listened to music as I wove. The inches flew by!


What also helped was no floating selvedges to watch and no temple to shift. I used my end feed shuttle and the edges just took care of themselves. Over the days I wove off roughly 80 inches not including the borders and left warp of 16 inches for long fringes at either end. The warp length was only for the one shawl but somehow I had added a bit too much of 'something' as there was a lot of warp left. Too much for just samples and so I wove off a small tray cloth as well. A much welcome addition to the sale box. But to be truthful, it's so pretty I may just keep it for myself if I can find the perfect spot for it in the house.

I go the iPod Classic by using my Airmiles points. It will hold 30,000 songs when full in 120 gigs of space. That's larger than the computer I'm using right now! I also got a player/ radio docking station so I have more options and can recharge it faster. I might be a late comer to this technology but I'm glad I found it. I still recall the large bulky walkman's of the 80's and we thought we were so cutting edge then. Quite funny actually.... I'll be downloading Weavecast podcasts once I learn the ropes on how to do that. One of the main reasons for getting the player actually. Incidently it will hold pictures, entire e-books and videos... probably a movie too. Amazing.

So next post will show the shawl off loom and finishing techniques that I used. It feels good to be back and thanks for hanging in there!