Retail Therapy

I have a confession to make.....

I have indulged in some retail therapy in the past couple of months when in recovery mode.  I may not have been able to weave but I was indulging in some mental future plans! I had some Christmas money, and some sales at my Etsy store burning a hole in my "digital pocket".   Browsing, I found some nice deals on line..... and some pretty things

So here's some show and tell....

Here's a painted cotton and  rayon warp I got from Blazing Shuttles. I can see two delightful scarves coming from this!  Great colour combination, and the rayon shiny 'blips' will add some interest!

This is another one of Blazing Shuttle's painted warps called "Black Opal" and was based on an actual fire opal's intense colours. I see it paired with black and.... well, that's top secret for now!  Let's just say I have  big plans for this!  It's 10/2 rayon and so quite fine.

 So with that in mind, I went looking for my black weft. This is Bambu 12 and in colours Onyx, Truffle and China Red. The black is for the Black Opal project, the truffle beige I thought would be lovely paired with cream silks  and the China Red was an attempt to find a replacement for a lovely deep red shade I had in 10/2 tencel called Persian Red. They don't make it any longer and my searches for any residual stock somewhere have failed.  China Red bambu is lovely but its not the same as the Persian Red.   Bambu 12 is 6300 yards per pound.  The three colours together would make a lovely turned twill arrangement wouldn't it?  

Cotton Clouds also sent along a colour card for the various colours they carry. I can see a few colours I would like to get in the future..... and three I wish I had now!  

I love the three colours on the bottom right: willow, blue mist and blue mist.  The double asterisk means "available seasonally"..... but which season?    I'll be asking soon!

This was actually a "get well gift"!   Nice huh? Deep purple and a colour called Algae silk hand dyed by Dye For Yarn at Etsy. The algae is like a bronze and I think I will pair these colors together. The 20/2 skeins are 50 grams each so there's enough for warp and weft.  Silk is lovely to work with.

  Now this is my "new" old, gently used Royal 500 gram ball winder.  I found it on a sales page. I had another large wooden ball winder but the handle for turning was set horizontally and I found it hard to use with my arthritic hands. It was awkward on the wrist as well.  So I put it up for sale and it went to a new home to a happy new owner.  Then with the sale proceeds I bought this used winder that has a vertical handle, and even has a tension device to boot to give you a neatly shaped centre pull ball, up to 500 grams (or just over a pound).  I have a Royal ball winder for smaller amounts but if you are tempted to push it to its limits, the ball come flying off and goes across the room!  Well, I guess if I ever push this one to the limit, it might be spectacular!

So I've decided if equipment fails me in some way, then move it along and find one that works!  This swap came out dead even $$$ wise but I feel like its an improvement and so I'm happy!
(There was a couple of bits of equipment added to the sale page as well.)

Weaving: well,  I over did it one day last week and so had to take a few days off to rest and ice some tender muscles.  I'm happy to report that as of today I have finally finished the fine silks scarves on the Louet Spring.  I have to weave some samples for my files and then it will be cut off and finishing will begin. So I hope to have some actual finished weaving to show you next time!

I have some projects 'pre planned' on paper and the warp winding will be begin in earnest soon. Standing still in one spot for any length of time is a problem so I will have to do it in stages.  There will have to be a tie up change which will also be a step by step thing too.   I'm learning the limits of my new inner metal bits!

Since I last wrote, we have also had a fast trip to Vancouver as my father has been quite ill and it seemed touch and go for a time. Three hospital moves later and he's now in good hands at St Paul's in downtown Vancouver. BC's premier heart hospital.  Now we wait...

Speaking of waiting.... our daughter in law is due March 10th so not too long to wait.  We hope to go over soon, if not for the birth, then shortly after to meet the new addition to the family!

In the mean time, we continue to go through closets and our 'stuff' and downsize as we prepare to list the house for sale.

Nothing  like a quiet recovery huh?
Now you know why I indulged in some calming retail therapy.   :)

  Happy Valentine's Day!    

International Trade Deals

Its been eighteen months since I opened my Etsy shop "Thrums Textiles" and you must put in time to learn the ropes in order for it to be a success.  Its like anything on the internet and has its little quirks and the learning curve.  Listing items doesn't look too difficult but as you click on one small box.... more suddenly appear that need your attention.  Then there are the support groups and teams to join and participate in and how to get yourself seen among over half a million shops. The secret is to make connections using the groups and to be very, very patient for the first year.

Yikes!

You eventually learn and repetition helps. Slowly but surely things start to move and suddenly you wake to find that some one on the other side of the world has sent you money while you slept!  That's a great feeling...   as in today when I discovered a sold a shawl to Switzerland!  This one in fact...

I had decided to participate in an art gallery sale by the Shuswap Guild in Salmon Arm, BC and I was astounded that even with an almost empty Etsy store, I still managed to sell five items. Seems the Christmas rush is upon us!

You also spend time looking at other shops that are selling similar items to yours. Hey, it pays to know the competition!  It helps you with pricing as well. Then there's ideas for taking pictures to show your work to its best advantage.   Its all part of the homework...

Then while you are doing your 'research' you find some nifty things to tempt you into buying and you know where this is going...  It seems that Etsy store owners end up buying from other Etsy store owners!  Nothing wrong with it and a sale is a sale!

I found less expensive beads and crystals, even freshwater pearls for my hand weaving embellishments. I found custom thank you notes for my buyers in Hawaii,  printed labels to seal parcels from eastern Canada. I have also found yarn.  What a surprise!   :)   Silks, painted skeins, and linen. (oh, I shared the fun with Bruce: he got  hand painted miniature figures to 'people' his passenger trains from Greece!)

I also found Heike's shop "All the Pretty Fibers" and her lovely hand dyed yarns.   I have bought some yarns from her over the past year or so and we have come to know more about each other. Heike lives in Rothenburg, Germany and produces beautiful hand painted fleece for spinning as well as hand spun yarns. She has a keen eye for putting colours together and she is able to get rich deep colours out of the dye process.

I bought some dyed silk alpaca yarn in a colour way called Yorkshire Moors from her a few months ago:

I decided to use it as warp to keep the beautiful colours together in the warp and chose a simple turned twill or Drall weave. My weft?  Hazelnut dyed 100 % mulberry silk, also from Heike's shop.

You might recall this project....  it actually starts out with much the same photos!

Heike saw what I had done with her yarns and bought the scarf.... so the yarns made the long trek all the way back to Germany! Heike has included the scarf as part of an exhibition of what has been made from her yarns and fleece! I'd like to invite you to go and visit the amazing things people have made with the yarns and fleece she dyes in her home high in the German forest and send out to the world. The skill and imagination of some of the contributors is wonderful.  The website  is called "Needleworks- Pleasure" and please click here to visit.

Onto other news....
Sorry I haven't been as front and center with posts as per my normal posting schedule. I'm dealing with setting up and transferring data and files from my elderly Dell laptop over to my new HP laptop that has Windows 8.1 and its been quite a learning curve. I'm been using Chrome and Vista on the old one.... and the new computer's systems will take take some getting used to. I'm working on it daily.... but it will take time to get all my extensive picture files shifted. So for now, making a blog post needs two computers to get the job done!

I have also been dealing with an infected tooth after a substantial filling was done. I have antibiotics 'on board' and working now and I'll be getting a root canal in early January to start my 2014 off. Its hard to be productive when your jaw is banging away at you!

This is also a very busy time for everyone right now with Christmas almost upon us. In the middle of all this, I must leave hubby and the dog at home and go help a family member for a week.  Recovering from an operation is tough at any time of year but Christmas brings its special challenges. Ferry rides, hotels and travel arrangements when the whole world is on the move!  I'll have quality time with my Dear Dad for week.

So I hope to get another post up just before Christmas and in the mean time, I wish you all well with your weaving for gifts, and planning for time with friends and family!

Black Baroque

I like to play at planning future projects on paper and then winding up the warps ahead of time. Its satisfying to have another warp ready waiting and you can beam it right away. Then, I'll divide my time between threading and sleying on the loom and doing any finishing work on the newly removed cloth. I must multi task to avoid stressing my joints and its probably a good idea for any weaver with a healthy body!

I had an all black warp pre-wound and it was intended for a project on the big Woolhouse loom, but with the loom being advertised for sale, I want it cleared off and a smaller cotton sample warp to be placed on there. Right now, the loom patiently waits for me to sit and finally complete the ongoing project.   So the black 8/2 tencel warp is now homeless !

I double checked how many ends there were and decided to add about twenty four more to the warp and I loaded it onto the Louet Spring instead. I have the twelve shaft tie up in place and now know the basic pattern off by heart after weaving the recent two shawls. It would be a nice twist on the current theme and also not waste the black warp!

It beamed up quickly. Bruce holds and tensions the warp while I wind and it goes very smoothly!  I love the system Louet has devised for their looms as it give consistently beamed warps every time. Oh, and the practice of beaming consecutive  warps also helps! I also used the two sticks at the start again, and it worked beautifully. I think this will be a permanent change for me!

This time its not about colour blending to create iridescence but something more simple and elegant. I had visions of a black wool winter coat and someone wanting to have a scarf to really set it off nicely. Of course the customer may have a completely different idea of what it will do for them!  Many of my tea towels have been turned into table centers, and one wider scarf even became a skinny table runner!

A towel of mine on a table top in Michigan!

I wanted one to be a nice rich red. So I searched the stash. Lots of burgundy, pink reds, and so on but not what I had in mind. Finally I found a small part cone of 10/2 tencel in a colour called Persian Red. A deep colour but a touch of coppery orange or that Turkey red you see in kilims.   That was what I had in mind!
My stash of 10/2 dyed tencel is getting smaller and smaller as they no longer dye 10/2 tencel in large quantities any more.  The American weavers market is huge and they collectively decided they prefer the slightly larger grist of 8/2 and so 10/2 dyed tencel faded quickly away.... You can get it undyed now and dye it up yourself, but there is something nice about reaching for a full cone of colour, especially at a time like this.

Reds are hard to photograph.... but this one is very close!

Being a finer weft yarn, it took longer to weave and compacted the pattern a bit. A different slant on the previous projects, but nice all the same.  I also started and ended the scarves with a run of black silk to give them a more finished look. I'm still seeing that nice black wool dress coat or  dress suit!

This time they looked like they needed a bit of something extra .... so I decided on small bead and Swarovski crystal accents in the corners only. The "less is more" concept.

It never fails to amaze me how the tencel looks flat, even lifeless after washing, even a little lumpy in texture.... but once you give it that hard steam pressing, it comes alive!

Then I had to wait for some sunshine to photograph them as they are dark enough as it is!   I loaded them into my Etsy store as from recent activities there, people are Christmas shopping!   The silver and black scarf sold in less than 24 hours.... and is going to Switzerland! Given the winters there, perhaps it will be paired with a black coat!

The loom is reloaded and the final project using this draft and tie up is about to start. These last three magenta scarves will take time ( and one is presold!). I will be more than ready for a change on the loom once they are done!

In Under the Wire

Its been a busy week and I have been trying to get to a blog post. My goal was to get another done before the month was over.... and so here I am just squeaking in under the wire.

First of all, I have been working on setting up a new online store front at Etsy.com and after a steep learning curve I'm happy to announce the opening of ThrumsTextiles.  Its still a work in progress and I'll tweak it as I learn the ropes but the doors are open.  I'll post a link to it on the side bar shortly.

We have been busy at home with getting the gardens trimmed down for winter and putting things away. Its being done a month early this fall due to hubby's knee surgery this coming Friday. In fact we have been tying up a lot of loose ends (and one was waiting on us for nearly 30 years!) Feels liberating to be crossing things off a 'to-do" list.

We also did a fast and fun trip up to Comox and had a lovely dinner and overnight stay with Lynnette and family. We did take our cameras along but we got to gabbing and such and clean forgot to take them out.
They have done a marvelous job of landscaping their front and side yard and the new trees and shrubs looked wonderful.  There is also a custom built garden shed and pergola and plans for much more. They will be harvesting veggies from their planned garden in the next year or so and shaping the yard for their needs.

Despite the light rain, we stopped at Goats on Roof in Coombs. We had a nice lunch and browsed the store for all kinds of goodies and I *loved* the British Foods section and loaded up on some of my favourites.

It was such a nice diversion from all the ongoing work around here, and the inevitable worry of a surgery!

So weaving news? Well, I'm hemming waffle weave towels right now. I have six for the inventory and one (with the only treadling error) for us and our kitchen. Anyone who looks at the towels in my kitchen drawer will think I 'm a lousy weaver as they all have a mistake!

The project was roughly eight yards long and so the view was the start (above) and then for many days, this:

8/2 cotton sett at 24 epi.... and its an eight shaft version. The start up details are here.  Then finally....

...finally I saw the knots come over the back beam. You put a big push on when when they appear! Apart from running out of my royal blue and having to order more yarn (forced to in fact!) it was uneventful weaving. Of course the new blue did not match the old blue but I had placed markers in where the change occurred.

How's this for maximizing my mileage?  The cut ends on the loom waste measured  six inches, plus the tie on portion and it came to twelve inches total. That's the best ever! I  budget 21 inches for loom waste in the planning so the extra inches woven was a bonus.

You know, its hard to convey in pictures or words the nice hefty bolt that came off the loom! I could run it down a hallway and try to photograph it, or make it into a nice roll like the one above. I wish I could share with you the weight of it and the evenness of the  pattern when it  runs continuously. You just want run a hand over it.

One spot that was visibly different was the colour change:

The white markers show the transition line. The new yarn was a darker blue, and actually I liked the two blues mixed together like that. It was richer somehow.  The plan was to pull a couple of threads every 34 inches and then cut the towels apart using the serger. That had to change when I pulled a couple of threads and couldn't see where I had done it! The long floats of the weave structure camouflaged the line. So I resorted to measuring and snipping the edge where the line was. With the nice tidy rows and boxes, I had built in guide lines!

Once serged apart, I folded and pinned the hems. On the towel that is for us (the one with the goof up) I machined sewed the hem. I discovered why I don't sew or make my own clothes! Even with tidy guide lines in the fabric, I can't sew a straight line to safe my life.  :(     The other six are being hand sewn and I'm half way done. I'll post a quick show and tell in a few days when they are ready.

Here are two close up's that seems to show the weave structure nicely....

Okay, now that the warp is off the loom, I raised the treadles that were used in this project and then weighted them down from above.

Its only the eight treadles and eight shafts used  that need tweaking. The treadling has stretched the active working cords. Not all of them, but some, and that's enough to be a big pain  when weaving the next planned project. (and no, I'm not telling yet!  :)

I purposely chose a darker colour for this warp so it would hide possible skips as the shed was a bit wonky in some places. It can be for a time until you have worked out the kinks. Its a hassle but  well worth it for the  5 to 10 minute tie up's!   The towels warp was a break in project!

As you can see  the shift is as much as one whole hole, and there was even one cord that shifted two. One hole equals one centimetre (or roughly a quarter inch) Those differences add up at the shed zone. I would remark the spot and snip the old tie off. I only checked the actual cords used so it didn't take long.

So show and tell in a few days time.... I'm off to crack a whip over the unpaid help!   :)