A Small Token of Appreciation

This is Karen, our realtor who helped us find a new home. She was amazing!  When we were all caught up in the emotions of the whole affair, she kept a calm steady hand on things. 

When we got flustered by things, she patiently waited for us to regroup and get back in the game. 

Negotiations?   She knew how to navigate through those!    Early mornings and late nights, through many house viewings with us, in several communities.  More than a few miles. 

 We wanted to thank her for what she did so well,  so I gave her what I do well... a silk and tencel scarf and she loved it! I think it really suits her colouring.

So, a few pictures of our new home to-be. Bear in mind these furnishings belong to the present owner!  Ours are not so grand as these.  These pictures were  on the MLS listing:

This room above will be my weaving studio

Our goals were to eliminate as many stairs as possible and this is a rancher, so no stairs at all now. To reduce square footage and we did. We now have no guest room and we are trading bedrooms so I can have a weaving space. It looks larger because of the vaulted ceilings.  Lastly, to reduce the property size and we went from 2.12 acres to 1/3 of an acre and easy maintenance.   So the third house we made an offer on, was the charm!  

A Class Act

I'm weaving classy "classic Drall weave".... in between tax prep, yard work, window cleaning,  and catching up on Life.  One side effect of deteriorated joints and surgeries is that sets you on the sidelines and you watch other people doing things and going places.   Like you used to do.

Well, I'm feeling stronger and more myself again and I have some serious catching up to do! Some decisions to be made.

Like what colour weft to use with grape 20/2 silk?  How about mint fine bamboo?    These are going to be nice once washed and pressed up. You can see the silk's sheen coming through already as it turns the corner on the breast beam.

Next scarf? I'm staying with fine bamboo and either an old gold or ??   I'll show you what I decide next post.

I'm losing ground on the stock situation as my neighbour came over and bought two scarves for his mother and aunt both turning 90.  I'm very pleased he thought my scarves worthy of a special gift like that.   I'm going to have to keep plugging away and try to get my sales chest built back up again!

I need towels, runners and shawls  so check in from time to time and see what's being dreamed up and made real.  

That's what we do you know.... take an image from our mind and make it real.

With help from your friends of course....

Its only fair as I helped him at his job some years ago....

This is how I spent two weeks over Christmas 1984. The Via  passenger train.  The engineer, my husband Bruce,  sits on the right hand side. Everyone thought I was running the train and I was happy to let them keep thinking that!

... And Sometimes More is Better!

That last project was fun.... and I *loved* the results. So why not do it again?   Some changes to the project this time round:

• I increased the size of the 'boxes' width by four ends per box. The overall width went up by half and inch to 7.5 inches
• I added an extra black warp thread to the selvedges, so when it gets compacted its still the same size as the central dividers. Nit picky I know....
• I changed two colours to brighten things up, but left three as they still complimented the colour scheme.

I'm like this when I follow a cake or main dinner recipe too. I follow the rules and recipe faithfully the first time, then I make adjustments to suit me.   It works....

This was not a complicated weave to treadle but this one took time as I had hurt my new knee and so I had to be more careful and weave only in small timed sessions.  After months of pain and recovery, I do not want to mess it up!   Spring has also arrived here and so we have been tackling other jobs such as taxes, yard work,  spring cleaning in the house and our ever present "downsizing stuff".   Its an energetic time of year and the outdoors beckons again.  The calendar is also starting filling up with plans for trips,  house guests and summer events.   

Finally, the scarves were all done, the fringes twisted, hand washed and dried over night. A good hard pressing and fringe trimmed up neat.    I dragged Madge back outside again and she and I did some poses.  She's a rather wooden and stubborn model but the only one I have. Next gal will hopefully have arms!

Hanging straight to show over all length.

Then some flips and folds for flare....

... and in this one below, I turned the centre to show the opposite side. Its fully reversible.

Then I got my own private black  rain cloud and so we dashed back inside and shot a few more.  I used every light I own, a white back ground and a flash so sorry if these are a bit dark.

They do show how rich the colours are! Tencel is super for the rich deep shades they have, plus black does make the colours pop.

Here you can see the reversing twill more clearly. 

These two (above) show the finishing details: small neat hemstitching to secure the edge threads and tight twisting.   No beads this time as they are busy enough as they are.

So now what?  I have some 20/2 silk just beamed on the Spring loom and I'm two thirds through the threading for classic drall.    Here's my other studio helper, Bruce.  He's right there when ever a new warp needs beaming or loom needs lifting. That's the  drall silk in the picture.... a nice grape purple!

An upgrade in computers means the Megado is waiting for  reloading of USB to serial port drivers... again.   So that's on the 'to-do' list and will be done shortly.

I'm slowly working through more family photos and work on them at night as we watch the TV.  I'm somewhere in the range of 1500 scanned now and probably as much again to do.    "Eating the elephant one bite at a time"   I must state for the record that no elephants are harmed here and I personally like them.   🐘

Ebb and Flow

There have been some glorious days here!  The grass is growing three inches a day (okay two ... at least!)  Trees are leafing out and spring flowers  are in full force.

Perfect conditions for a..... Road trip!  (okay... its just one day but still fun!)  This map is neat as it will show you the island and just how large it is.

We headed north and enjoyed our ride in the sunshine on our way to visit Dust Bunnies Under My Loom: Lynnette and family.  Using the map above we are driving from Duncan and up to Comox about 2-2 1/2 hours drive north of us. (that's driving at speeds of 110 km's most of the way too.) As you can see that's still only half way up the island with lots more to see another time.  It's a very pretty place with views of snow capped mountains on the island and across on the mainland.

Comox, with the Island's mountains.

Comox harbour

Lets face it: Vancouver Island is a pretty darn nice place to live in the World!

Then there's the sea and wonderful beaches.   It is also home to a Canadian Airforce Base and Canada's finest Snowbirds Demonstration Team . I could see them doing fly pasts in close formation through their house windows while we sat and caught up on news! Nice to have a display put on for our visit!

I got to see both Lynnette and Ngaire's latest projects on the loom.  I'll leave it to Ngaire to share her latest project but I will say its lovely!   Lynnette's Lynch family tartan is going to be spectacular once completed.  I can attest to all their garden work as their yard is in prime shape with lots of early colour and much more to come.

There was a delightful lunch and wicked pavlova dessert. I haven't had that since 1974 in NZ!  There was even passionfruit drizzle over the whipped cream too. I was in heaven!

We sat with tea and chatted about the New Zealand trip and how much things have changed since I used to live there many, many years ago.  There was even a small cake of lovely merino possum yarn from Dianne for me! What a lovely surprise... thank you Dianne!

 Then, it was time to go.... the time had simply flown by!

One nifty thing that came from our chat together is that we three amigos are going to a two day retreat in Powell River, BC in March 2015 together!  Two happy days of all fibre talk, spinning weaving, food, jammie parties and plain out right FUN!

I do have some weaving to show you...

I have voluntarily reduced the load on my knee while weaving and will be doing only eight shaft patterns (or less) from now on. So with this in mind I chose a favourite Drall draft and then decided to do something different with it.

I have some 8/2  painted tencel warps and so I wound a scarf warp so that the 'windows' would be the painted warp and the bars in between would be a solid colour tencel. The variegated warp has magenta, plums, blues, a touch of green and bright turquoise. I chose magenta for the 'bars'. The sett is 24 epi.

The first scarf went along quite nicely. Not a complicated treadling and I used magenta to complete my windows.  Then I started wondering what to use for the second scarf?   Turquoise and some of the blues just didn't work.... and so finally I settled on eggplant.

The darker weft really popped the other colours!  Its my favourite of the  two on this five yard warp and I found I was wishing I had thought of it sooner.

So I steadily wove away a bit each day and next thing I was twisting fringes and wet finishing as per usual.  No beads on these as they are busy enough...   The sheen and drape is just lovely.

With eggplant 8/2 tencel weft

close  up

8/2 magenta tencel weft

... and its close up. 

There is another warp on the Louet already and I'm using the same tie up again.  So I'll be plodding away on that for now. 

One last shot for you..... a studio view: (looks tidy huh?   oh, that's just the camera angle..   :)

Slipping into a new Season

There is a nip in the air in the mornings now, and even a whiff of smoke as our neighbour lights up his wood stove to take the chill off the house.  A bit early as its still August!   Then you notice the bracken ferns are turning gold, some trees are already making the shift, and geese are flying over head in "V" formations!

I love the richer golden colours that come with Autumn and so when I was digging around in the stash I pulled out some autumn tones.

pictures credit: Heike Rische

alltheprettyfibers 

I was waiting for a yarn order to come from Brassards in Quebec and thought to weave off a single scarf real quick (well, as quick as I can go right now  :)    I used the lace weight alpaca / silk blend as warp and it sort of self striped itself as I wound. A regular colour pattern  repeat.  I wanted to  keep the colours in the warp lengthwise. So for a weaving draft, I used an 8 shaft Drall which was quick and easy to thread up and even tie up.

The weft is 20/2 silk in a nutmeg brown and the weaving was much different to my usual fare. I had to gently press the weft into place and be careful of the edge threads and drawn in. The end delivery shuttle was crucial with its adjustable tension. I also used  a wider 8 dent reed to minimize rubbing but I did have some some breaks. So my intent to "whip a scarf off" turned into a slow motion press and change sheds.

It was quite different to anything I have woven in some time! Especially the colours...

Then it was done and I decided to leave a fringe over twisting to show the original colours. No beads also as this could be for either gender. Hubby was eyeing it and checking his closet for something to wear with it (seriously!)

Excuse the light spots.... it decided to rain today and I had to turn on all lights and use the flash.

Here you can see the traditional squares of the drall pattern

The yarn order has arrived and I'm busy winding the fine 16/2 warp for the commission order and doing some weaving on the big loom. I've also been 'paper' planning some projects to come: more lace and more of the recent 12 shaft magenta project (again) as I have sold both scarves and three of my four on hand shawls! I'm not sure what is going on, but it seems the Christmas shopping season has begun.

In other news...

We have begun our usual fall chores: windows cleaned, doing yard tidy up, and have booked our annual hedge trimming for October. Tonight we had our first really drenching rainfall since last June. We actually turned off the television volume to check out what the noise was and realized it was rain drumming on the roof!

I'm also officially on the wait list for a full knee replacement and my name should come up in 6 to 9 months.

What shall we talk about then?   Hope you're not squeamish!   :)