Adding Things Up

When you are weaving away on 9.5 yards, treadling one up to eight and back to one endlessly, you tend to go on autopilot and you can do a lot of singing along to music or simply thinking.   Things like: how many picks to an inch?

How many picks to 36 inches?

Gee... how many in this total project?

... and the big one.... how many miles have I woven in the past 25 years?  

So when I finally finished my 8 towels woven to 36 inches each on the loom and one runner that eeked out the last of the warp at 43 inches, I sat down and crunched some numbers:

• 8 towels and one runner equals 332 inches or  9.2 yards woven on my 9.5 yard warp.
• I averaged 22 ppi - or a total of  8047 pics total.
• physical weight of finished project : 1.334 kg or 2 lbs 15 oz
• That's 537 repeats of treadling the pattern repeat which has a count of 15
• The only unwoven parts of the loom waste was 3 inches plus knots at the start and 13 inches at end, plus 6 inches for part of the fringe on the runner when I started it.   The final  fringe at the end of the runner came out of the loom waste..... so effectively I had only 10 inches of loom waste for the entire project! 😁 I had factored in 3 inches of take up for every yard woven.
• oh, and half a box of Colour Catchers in the wash water as that red (cerise) wanted to run!

8/2 cotton from Brassard's: 6 colours in the warp and  another 4 used as weft.  Sett was 24 epi.

With black weft. (above and below)

With white weft.

Then I used a kaki green weft and loved the effect! It somehow worked with all the colour groups beautifully. I also used a plum colour but didn't get a picture of it on the loom under way.

Here's the end of the warp right up to the back of the heddles. I couldn't get another half inch !

There was a very satisfying "chubby roll" on the cloth beam, as I like to call it,  but it actually only was 1 1/2 inches. Well, it looked good to me!

Here's the loom waste from the start, plus the knots which is minimal.

....And the final loom waste from the end and remember that 6 inches of this will be fringe for the runner.

So the final fringe length on the runner after twisting was 2 inches plus the tassel and looks marvellous on our dining room table. Hubby was so pleased it was staying.  I'm also keeping a black weft towel and a kakhi green one.

Some one jokingly (I hope!) asked me why I had a jelly fish on my table.

Next are the 8 towels, all were woven to 36 inches and after relaxing off tension, washing, pressing and then turning a hem allowance and hand sewing, they are measured up as 20 inches by 30 inches. They all  pressed up nicely on my Singer press.

Three black ones

Then two with kakhi green weft. Its my personal favourite.

Next up are two towels with white weft. They are crisp and clean, with the stripes adding nice punch of colour, but you lose the zig zag pattern stripe.

Then finally the plum weft with is Hubby's favourite. It melded the colour groups too but not quite as effectively as the kaki green did, in my opinion of course.

I have kept fairly decent records of all my woven projects since 1996 and I could sit and work out some rough numbers and get an approximation of my last question which was of how many miles have I woven. Tempting as it is, I'm not going to spend the time doing that.

I'd rather be weaving new projects!

Bohemian Gypsy

I had seen many woven versions of # 728, from  Carol Strickler's " A Weavers's Book of 8- Shaft Patterns".  It went onto the 'to-do' list, someday.   It seemed the perfect combination of pattern and potential  exploration of colour a weaver could find.  Endless possibilities!

I planned for and wound a 8 yard warp of 8/2 unmercerised cotton on my warping mill and that was a major commitment in itself.  So many cones of yarns, tracking the colour order..... and it took a few afternoons. It was also great for using up small part cones and stash bust as well.    Then it hung around for a couple of months while other projects jumped to the head of the line up as my interests changed.

As a warp just hanging there, it somehow wasn't as appealing. Sort of a congregation of dark broody colours. I had used three shades of purples, a magenta, medium blue and a cinnamon with a dash of off white as the glue between stripe groupings.   Along with the cones of warp yarns I had tucked in a cone of bright raspberry pink as a potential weft yarn..... and that is what saved the day.

I got it wound on along with my trusty helper, Bruce, and soon I was threading away.   Tricky threading to keep track off, plus watching for the colour changes to happen in the right spots! It seems I had the bright idea of making some changes in colours while winding the warp and the next day forgot I had done it. So long story short, I had to flip out 4 ends and hang 4 of the new and improved colours. It meant I had 6 weighted film canisters hanging off the back to adjust.    Reminder to self: make notes and read them!

So, the bright pink raspberry apparently did the trick and transformed this warp into something very special.   Its a party for the eyes!  

I end up with 6 towels (finished dimensions 20" x 29"). Three in the raspberry, one woven with the darkest purple in the warp, one used the magenta from the warp and another I used a soft lime green.  It sort of fades away next to the brighter ones, but when viewed alone and by itself, has a charm all its own.

Soft lime weft:

Magenta weft:

Raspberry weft:

Dark purple weft

... and a bonus table runner with short fringe!

About the time I was hand sewing the hems on the towels, I found this skirt being advertised for sale on FaceBook as 'Bohemian Gypsy".    Well, how about that?   My little kitchen towels are a fashion trend.

Here's my "Patron of the Arts" actually weaving!  Its taken me 23 years to get him to try throwing a shuttle and he did very well. "Over and under" the floating selvedges,  and marching along the treadles.  So one of the towels had a small section he wove and I left it in.  It was simply perfect, in all ways...   💖

Variations on a Theme

So, finally some weaving show and tell for you!  Do you recall the scarves I wove before the move? Well, I wound another tencel warp, this time in olive green and set the loom up as exactly as before. Same 8 shaft threading, same tie up, same sett of 24 epi and even the same type of yarn being used.  The difference was the treadling!   This is what you get when you treadle an elaborate M's and W's in a snowflake (or twill progression) sequence

Yes, that's a warp waiting to be beamed on the Spring.... finally!

This scarf is much nicer in person and its fully reversible. 

Snowflake treadling I used is the basic "X" portion of the snowflake and that is a series of advancing runs to a mid point and then a reversal:

1,2,3,4

2,3,4,5

3,4,5,6

4,5,6,7

5,6,7,8

6,7,8

1,7,8

1,2,8

1,2,3,2,1,

8,2,1

8,7,1

8,7,6

8,7,6,5

7,6,5,4

6,5,4,3

5,4,3,2

4,3,2,1

You could try this with any type of threading, preferably in a weaving program and see what it would look like.  Even look at the back and see if its reversible.  You can mix and match different weaving sequences and create whole new looks!

With the second scarf from this warp, I took a simpler approach. Its a run on the treadles of one through to eight and back again. That's it.  This time with a royal blue over the olive green. Now I will confess that packing was starting to take precedence over weaving and so I had to weave this up quickly and get the loom ready for the big shift. 

Excuse the crease lines. I had the scarves pressed and lightly folded waiting for some sunshine and they waited much longer than expected.   We have had only six days with out rain in the last two months! Of those, only half had a glimpse of the sun.    If you live on the west coast, you have to take the winter rains in stride. I just get on with things anyhow. There's nothing you can do about it anyway!

The iridescence in this scarf is simply lovely!  I also played with the treadling a bit at the start and end to create a star feature. I'm considering adding some beads to play this star up a bit. It depends on my bead stash.... and whether it might be more of an annoyance than nice. 

Another bit of show and tell  for you are my new hang tag cards!   I used my own photograph and a template at Vista Print and created this folded card.  I went for the gloss finish as I figure these represent you out there in the wide world, so make them memorable!

More information on the back side, and I have a small hand held hole punch for when they are being used as a hang tag on a textile. (sorry this one has a fuzzy focus)

I kept the inside simple. About the item on the top, and care instruction space on the bottom. I hand write in what is needed.   If I'm using it like a regular business card, then you have space to write if need be.   I'm very happy with them.    I had a 30% off coupon code which was nice and then I resisted all the add on sales as I navigated my way to the check out.  Just as I went to press 'order' they offered me double my order for an additional $9.99, which was a good deal and so I agreed.   I have a 1000 of these now  but since we aren't moving anymore, they will keep nicely!

How did it get to be December????    I'm so not ready to do Christmas......

Neither Here or There

It feels weird at home right now and I suspect it will for a time to come.  (No matter which house we're in.)  We have started visiting local businesses we frequent and friends in this area and saying good bye.  We went and saw our family Doctor and and caught up on things there too.

In between this we're at home purging closets and cupboards. I'm amazed at what I'm finding as I'm not a fan of keeping stuff and try to  have a relatively clutter free home.  Its like the stuff breeds when the doors are closed.

We sold off our guest room furniture and so now have one (almost) empty room.   We decided to sell our Colonial style dining room set. We bought it second hand in the late 1990's and it was always meant to be a temporary arrangement until we got our ducks in a row and bought something else.  Well, you know how Life is..... the ducks never quite behaved.

Bruce was checking the "Used Nanaimo" web site on line and found a rather unique dining room table and six chairs , and also two hutches / china cabinets for sale.   Some research told us it was a reproduction of a French 1930's Art Deco  model.  (Here's a link to the real deal)  We drove up island and had a look at it.

The table is just over seven feet long and so it will make a lovely set for the dining room.  Gently used and not at new retail pricing!   It will come to our new home in mid October.

We were so excited about this new addition that we stopped at Home Sense on our way home and bought a new rug for underneath.   Now I had some nice comments about the home but a couple did mention the lack of colour.... or vanilla decor.  We may in time add accent colours to some walls but for now we're leaving things as they are.  We'd like get a feel for the place first and add colour by way of  accessories.   So we started with this:

We got one rug that is 5 x 7 and a larger one for under the new table of 9 x 12.    Its made in Belgium and the fibre is lyocell.... or tencel!  Europeans use tencel for bed linens and many other household effects.   I hope to use the smaller one under the dinette.    So we now have an accent colour chosen to liven things up!

I wove off the last scarf on the Louet Spring and they are rolled up and packed. I'll finish them once we are more settled.   I made a big push in the studio to prep as much as I can for the movers.   Bundling up warping sticks and breaking down warping mill and warping boards.   I've taken the loose beams off the Spring and tied the beams up snug.  The studio is an organized mess right now as I work my way from spot to spot around the room.   I think the Megado loom will need a larger take down.

Its my habit to take a photograph of my start of each new project and I do this for a couple of reasons:

• sometimes you simply can't see any threading errors, but the camera finds them. I learned this by sharing a picture with a friend and she gently asked me if I had fixed the error yet?  So with complicated twills, it really helps!
• I also like to work the treadling and create a border and sometimes I create on the fly. Taking a picture at the start is a neat way of recording what I did so I can reverse it at the other end. You only have to forget to write it down once (okay twice), or unwind a whole warp once to find an easier solution!

I have a couple of pictures to share something fibre related with you until we're moved and settled. So remember this?  An eight shaft fancy twill.

I put a new  olive green 8/2 tencel warp on and threaded it just the same as the scarf above. But I wanted to try something different as I have two scarves in this pattern already.  So I worked on some treadling variations and  the first was worked in a snowflake style or twill progression.

On the second scarf, there's a change in weft colour and a change in treadling again.  Just a simple run back and forth across the treadles. There's a slight change at either end of the scarf which will be hi lighted when finally finished. Stay tuned for that. 

So as you can see, you can get a nice variety from one threading.  I demonstrated this once before with this post.

So this is most likely my last post before the move but trust that I will have my camera handy and be snapping some shots to share later on.    See you on the other side!