All the Pretty Things

Don't you just love dahlias? They are the one flower that I enjoy having in the house. The rest I leave outside and enjoy them there.

Simple pleasures...

When it comes to weaving, I have been exploring the ever complex twill and after a while, you start to wonder where to go next. Still mulling over my options, but for now I'm still with twill but less complex in the draft, threading and treadling. It makes a nice change actually!   I've offered you glimpses of them under way here and here.  

I wove Swedish 'drall vav' kitchen towels (or turned twill) as my first project when I got my Woolhouse Tools loom brand new back in the summer of 1998 and it was time to revisit it again.  This time I'm using 8/2 (or 2/8) tencel in deep teal, sett 24 epi.  I'm using 8 shafts and so have two blocks of 1/3 and 3/1 twill.

The weaving was fun and not complicated. No 'cheater sheet' to keep track was required and I wove away till I have roughly 72".  I think the hardest part was choosing the colours for weft, which were also tencel.  :)

Here's the purple one on the fringing board. I left about 12 inches for fringes as I like lots of room to move.

Coral looks rather peachy here doesn't it against the teal?

Next up was adding some sparkle. I  didn't want it to overwhelm but just be there  in a subtle way. That's the magenta weft below:

I like to get out my beads and look at all the options available but usually settle on 2 to 4 types and  make it up as I go along. The first couple I play with and then go with my final choices the rest of the way across..... and the other end of the scarf  of course! I have fun with this part  and it didn't take too long to get them all done.

Next up was hand washing them in the laundry tub, a spin out in the washing machine and hanging to (nearly) dry. They were still damp when I gave them a good hard pressing this afternoon and then trimmed up the fringes neat with a rotary cutter.  I think they turned out great!  What do you think?

I think the magenta weft is my personal favourite....

The purple / teal combo sure had drama and is quite iridescent.

... But its the coral / peachy weft scarf that has been left on Madge Manikin for visitors to the studio. Simple little boxes stacked in rows...

Enjoy the last flowers of summer.... I have the vase in my studio and thought I'd share them with you.

Weaving as Therapy

 Bruce and I want to thank you all of you who left comments to my previous post about Connor. Each day is a little bit easier but we are now discovering just how much love and life that little dog added to our home and lives. In the mean time, our frog is back (Pacific Tree Frog) and he brought friends. We're finding them everywhere this fall! I also disturbed a toad hiding under foliage by the front door. I'm hoping our rabbit 'Peter' has found better digs for winter as we haven't seen him in some time.  We also have a blue jay who follows us window by window around the house, finds a branch or railing and tells us loudly his opinion on everything! Construction of the deck is all complete now, with just some handrails to finish things up.... and a general clean up will get under way soon ..

So lets get back to weaving!  I was feeling the need for some bright colours and I wanted to play with iridescent effects again. To get that, you must have some key points at play:  balanced plain weave, colours of similar value, finer yarns work better.  My pattern is for 12 shafts and 12 treadles. Next, I chose 10/2 tencel in Persian Red, sett 24 epi, as my warp and Antique Gold as weft for my  first scarf. The colour for the second scarf was undecided at this point. I thought I'd try some sampling and see what I like.

I beamed the 6.5 yard warp onto Lilibet, my Louet Spring. The tencel was particularly shiny and slippery!  I made a decision to lace on over tying as I knew there would be problems with tie slippage otherwise. Lacing seriously reduces loom waste which can be handy on some warps where you are using expensive yarns. I lace it all on and then used painters' tape to secure the left end of the cord down, then I pull out all the loose tension , working from right to left.

Here I am working quickly and I even added a bit of tension on the warp using the braking system as I moved along.

By the end, I had a lot of extra cord!  I  reapplied the tape and did it all over again. When I'm happy with the overall tension, I simply tape the end down or you can secure with a knot. In this case, the tape was the better option.... let me explain...

This warp is only 6.5 inches wide and just under 200 ends; the threading is fancy M's and W's twill progressions, and some how I made 3  threading errors which I found one at a time. I would fix one and then find another. In fact, I even made yet another as I fixed number 3! (so that makes 4 mistakes then). I had no idea what was going on for me to mess up like that ( I'll spare you the list... but I think preoccupied is a good one.  :) Below is a piece where I thought I was free and clear and then spotted that the last little diamond was suspiciously small. The pink thread has the suspects corralled for the next and final repair. I was sure glad to have used tape on the lacings! Bruce heard me muttering rather rude things.... and all I said to him  was "don't ask!"

I have tried various angles and lighting to show the colours. Its a tough one to show you accurately as it looks orange, but its not. There are two blocks, A and B, to weave as one repeat and at the end, do the one last A to balance. The pattern produces circles and diamonds all within squares!

I found this pattern at the wonderful web site Handweaving.net and you can play there for hours! If you have a weaving program then you are free to download WIF files to your program and then convert to what your program uses. I heartily recommend a visit.  It features patterns for any number of shafts and treadles!

Here as the cloth turns over the breast beam, you get a hint of the iridescence! I played with several colours for the second scarf and none appealed to me, and the black is what I finally went with. It has a sombre Victorian elegance especially next to its brassy cousin!

So here you can see the black version that I'm prepping it for fringe twisting. Have you ever found that your warp allowance for fringe is different at both ends? I measured for 12 inches allowances but sometimes one end is shorter, one longer. I fold the scarf in half and pin the ends as shown above and below. See the difference?

I like to even things up but placing ends under a cutting mat, holding down with a ruler and zipping off the excess with the cutter.

A crisp clear edge and both ends of the scarf have equal length for fringes. That way my fringe twister workout becomes the same number for each warp bout. Just seems like a smart thing to do and thought I'd share this step for those of you trying out my fringing board style.

Below both scarves are now pinned out and ready to be worked on. Hard to believe they are from the same warp huh? 

Below in this picture,  I've twisted a bout and pinned it to the line. I release the bout and the excess energy in the twist springs it free. It will now be just a tad longer than the line. I simply count my turns in one directions, combine the two groups and then count as I turn in the opposite direction. If you repeat the same action each time, they should all be more or less the same length. Just some minor variations.

{ I have seen demonstrations of a free and easy style done with one leg crossed over the other and a simple twisting done by fingers and then knot the two and let them twist on themselves. This is great if it works for you, but I have issues with it. First my arthritis won't let me cross my leg over, especially my hip replacement! Second my arthritic fingers would be toast doing all fringes by hand  and finally I want to control the over length, location of the knots and length of the tassel as I like a more even and polished look. All methods are fine if they work for you so try them all out and make your own hybrid! }

The next two shots are to show the iridescence before they even have been wet finished!

I added just some beads to either side of both scarves... just a light touch this time round.  I found the super shine of the red tencel was very pretty on its own with its regular twists and fine fringe. Here are the final  scarf results!  Blogger turned two of my pictures sideways but you can handle that I'm sure.   :)

Click on any to enlarge...

and now the amber scarf...

... and yes, the loom is full again! Weaving is so wonderful for healing broken hearts....

Lilibet Lace: the Big Finish

Ta da! Ready for a close up?

I love the sheen and silky drape that come with tencel. If you haven't tried tencel, try some of the cheaper undyed. It runs about $15 for a whole pound! By the way my next manikin is going to have arms since I like to weave shawls. I'll be keeping my eyes open for one next Okanagan trip as there is a used fixture store I like to visit there.

So let's back up a bit... the weaving went well and below is a picture of the shawl mid way. Notice the blue bow on the right hand side. I measure from point to point and keep a running tally on a sheet. I find a tape or pins too annoying while I weave but a slip of soft yarn is just fine. I'm methodical enough to keep a running count so it works for me. The centre handle on the Louet Spring makes a neat shuttle rest.

Once the shawl ( and small tray cloth) came off the loom, it was set up on my styrofoam board for twisting the fringes. See my post "A Good Twist to the Yarn" for details on on my method of fringe management. In this case I decided to add a little pizazz to the work and alternated warp ends between groups like this:



Sorry this second picture is dark but you should be able to see the effect across the shawl. It added a 'softer' touch to what is a very feminine garment. I'm a huge proponent of not rushing the finishing. In fact it should take as much care and attention as planning the project did in the first place. Why go to all the trouble to weave and then cut corners at the end?


Then I dug out my bead stash bag and settled on three sizes of beads. One is a regular seed bead but has an opalescent quality, the larger one looks like a mini pearl and the the third is a mini seed bead.I start sewing but quickly realize that due to the fancy fringe twisting, the beads won't float to and fro and be seen from both sides when worn. So this means doing a row of beads on both sides, on both ends. Oh, well... better get busy.


Here is the 'raw' cloth with one side beaded. You can see how open the plain weave areas look. I crossed my fingers and pressed on.




Here is a close up of two rows and after washing/ pressing. The plain weave closed up! YEAHHH!



I threaded my beading needle and pushing through the actual tencel, I sewed beads on the cinch points of the Danish Medallions, all three rows and worked front and back at the same time. I used the opalescent mini seed beads. Some kind of silly huh? Can you see them? They are there! They add a sparkle.


Here are both beaded areas and fancy fringe. All in all, the beading took two full days to complete.Then I soaked it in warm sudsy water and let it sit for 20 minutes, then squeezed it gently to help work the lace into their little groups and hopefully tighten the plain weave! I spun out the excess water in the machine and then hung to dry over a pvc rod suspended in the laundry room. Excuse the mess...it's doubling as a storage room for paint cans while we do windows and other home projects. {Lynnette: I have a confession to make. See the small section of green hanger? That's yours... apparently we stole it last visit. It's coming back okay? :) }
I pressed it when dry, using steam and the sheen popped out! I fell in love and couldn't stop fondling it.

So here is the overall effect:

And here's a close up of the lace:

I think Ms. Hammel did a great job in designing this lace! I'll be using this draft again... I hemmed the tray cloth and it looks fabulous too. There is a single row of lace that I brought the hem line up to and blind stitched. Beyond that is a single row of Danish Medallion and the lace blocks after that. The turn under isn't as obvious as this picture shows. I guess the camera flash caught it just right.I'm really pleased with how this turned out and for some reason see it as a bridal shawl. Someone will feel special wearing this.... I loved making it!