2014: A Weaving Year Remembered

Many weavers like to show what is actually on their looms for New Year's Day. That's a neat concept but I thought a review of what you have actually accomplished in the past year makes more sense to me.  So last year I wrote a studio review and its time again for another!  The Year  really flew by....

So here's my 2014  review and you have to know that I'm looking forward to getting back to my looms soon as the doctor says its okay!

January 2014

Just the one project and it was an eight shaft huck lace diamonds in natural coloured French 9/2 linen from Brassards.
Lovely to work with and a fun weave!  They sold quickly and two of the three went all the way to Louisiana!

February 2014

I wove a couple of twelve shaft lattice scarves from a draft that I modified from an old Weavers magazine.  I reduced it from sixteen down to twelve shafts. They had a beige tencel warp and eggplant weft for one, and a fine black silk weft for the second. Its visually very satisfying! It was a bit repetitive after a time. I like the complexity of twills to keep me focused.

I loaded up the big Woolhouse Tools loom with a random striped warp for towels and for a potential new owner of the loom to try out.  It's a great way to use up odd bits and pieces of cottons.  Its an eight shaft pattern called "breaks and recesses" and one of my stand by favourites. So, still on the loom and under way.  { This loom is still for sale by the way...contact me if you are interested SOLD}

March 2014

I had warped up the Louet Spring with a twelve shaft twill pattern that I received from my friend Gudrun. I played around with different versions in my Fiberworks and produced two shawls with a different look. Both have a golden tussah silk warp and one had natural coloured silk yak blend for weft. The second I used hand dyed (by me) silk cotton blend in a soft plum shade. This shawl was well under way at the month's end.

April 2014

We had a trip over to see family and our grandson, Ethan who was turning two.  There was a party to attend!  When we got back I completed the second shawl and worked on the beading embellishment using tiny cream coloured freshwater pearls.
 The cloth is light and airy, but warm. That's the beauty of silk! Perfect spring weather wraps.   It was about this time that I voluntarily stopped using all twelve shafts due to various joint strain and keeping myself to a lighter eight shaft drafts.

May 2014

I tried a twist on the classic drall pattern and wove up two scarves using a variegated yarn.  Then, using bright silks,  more colour play with turned twill blocks for two silks scarves, both of which sold quickly.

June 2014

With the higher humidity of late spring, I decided to weave more of the eight shaft huck lace diamond linen runners in black 9/2 linen, which proved to be a challenge! I had to be very precise with the treadling and hold my breath as I could not see the pattern. I sang out the treadling to make sure I got all five shots to a pattern block.  It worked fine and I got three runners off this warp..... one of which was sold and went all the way to Australia!

I also produced some turned twill yardage of soft 8/2 cotton and later after cutting it apart, I got eight large sized kitchen towels.  My second post showed the finishing of the towels  I just have one last towel left now at Etsy.  I will need to make some more kitchen towels once I'm able to weave again as towels (both large and small) make nice small gifts and lower price point from the scarves and shawls!

July 2014

I went from a black  linen warp to a lovely blue green linen warp and once again, more huck lace diamonds. It reminded me of Wedgwood blue.  I was attempting to get some stock into my shop and get ahead on some inventory before my coming surgery. I wove up three nice sized runners.

We also welcomed guests from far off Michigan for a few days stay and had a lovely visit!  They were on their honeymoon and we didn't know until they arrived!   After they left,  we packed up and  were off to Vancouver to see family and our grandson again for a week away.


August 2014

We seemed to acquire our grandson Ethan's cold or flu bug and so I spent all of August sick and half of September!  I have a compromised immune system and so couldn't fight it off.  (queue the sad music)    And so there was no weaving....    :(

September 2014

But I did manage to get the last red linen warp woven off and finished, albeit slowly. Most likely the last of the  eight shaft huck lace diamonds for some time! (you can get too much of a good thing). These three were with Christmas in mind.... and while they sold quickly last time, this year I still have all three in stock.  New to the studio was my new steam press which I love. It works beautifully with the linen that needs a harder press!

More ever popular snowflake twill scarves featuring variegated tencel  and some show and tell featuring my new Bluster Bay honex tensioned end delivery shuttle.  Shuttles and yarn are your basic tools next to the loom.

Knowing my surgery was coming soon and that we have a new grand baby due in early spring, I tossed a coin and decided to make the baby's blanket now while I knew my strengths and limitations. I just didn't want to be trying to make such a special gift while still recovering and either hurting myself, or producing a less then happy project.  So I went for neutral colours and even now, knowing that the baby will be a girl, it will still work with her mother's dragonfly theme for her room!

October 2014

Quieter month, with mainly the big reveal of the three blankets.  They were a slow weave! One was sold right away as a lap throw for a 'grown-up' who fell in love with the plain striped version.  One is reserved as a gift in the spring and the other is for sale.  By now it was becoming apparent that I have serious trouble with not only my left knee, but also my right hip.  So after a  consult, the Surgeon decided to go with the hip first.....and the knee will wait till mid 2015.

My other accomplishment for the month was a three hour root canal.  It simply had to be done and the gap is still there in our bank account to prove it!

November 2014

I placed a multi silk warp on the Louet Spring and hoped to have it done and woven off before the surgery!   With racing around doing our Christmas prep early and picking up all the necessary items and medical appointments before the surgery, it was not to be unfortunately.  So it sits and waits for my return. They are good at that!  :)

December 2014

My ongoing project is ..... ME.   I imagine my bone weaving together with my new parts and knitting together and healing.   While I'm starting to walk with just a cane now,  my body is still  holding me back right now.  I see my surgeon on January 9th for a post operative check up and get an idea of how things are going.  My imagination is getting excited about getting back to the looms. First to finish the silk scarves and then  ??? I'm flipping through Handwoven's and Vav's magazines and enjoying the eye candy!

So what have you planned for the start of the new year and what I like to call "prime weaving time" during winter months?     Everything and anything is possible.

So to tally finished things up:
2 shawls
3 baby blankets
8 kitchen towels
8 scarves ( and a partial!)
 and  12 runners

That's 33 in total. Not as good as last year but given my physical limitations and lengthy illness this past year, not too shabby!

So wishing you all a Happy New Year and may your shuttle all fly well and your warps be smooth!

If you haven't done so already, be sure to leave a comment on the  December 21st blog post to be eligible to win a handwoven tea towel in the January 7th draw.... one comment per person please and the winner will be announced on January 8th! Be sure to check back to see if you have won.  This will be the 7th anniversary of my starting this blog!

Enjoy the winter to come.....

It All Comes Out in the Wash...

I belong to a couple of weaving groups on Facebook and 'lurk' for the most part. One smart voice there is Margaret Coe  who ably stick handles questions from newbie weavers. Some months ago Margaret recommended a neat trick for when you start a new warp off. There it is shown in the picture above and some of my more regular readers will have noticed I have been using it for the past few projects.  Its the Two Stick Start. It the best tip I have tried in a long, long time! It just works. 

The warp above is 9/2 linen, for a 8 shaft huck lace that I have tied an overhand knot every sixteen ends and then laced on. I laid in three shots of a similar sized 'scrap' yarn which in this case is regular 8/2 cotton. I beat to close the gap and then laid in three more weft shots and beat again. It closed it but there is a slight gap. There can also be tension issues until the weaving progresses further. So I placed a short lease stick into one of the plain weave sheds, changed to the other plain weave shed and placed the second stick. I carried the cotton weft up behind the sticks on the right and started weaving plain weave and you can see how quickly it came together! The sticks provide a nice firm, flat base and from the knots to the top of the gold yarn is four inches! You are off to a real good start almost right away. { ...but it didn't spare me from a denting error and I had to redo some sleying two to three inches on the far right side as I had doubled my ends in one slot.  Geesh!}

When I wound my pirns I ran the weft yarn through a clean damp cloth as I wound them. This tames the wirey linen and you can get a nice tightly wound pirn. The cloth is damp, and not overly wet so the yarn dries quickly. Once you use this on one pirn, all weft for the project must be done the same way or there will be changes in the cloth and the way it weaves up.

I wove six inches of plain weave for my hem allowance and then ladder hemstitched every four ends. I used a slippery synthetic cord doubled as my spacer.  It slips out quite nicely with a gentle tug. Next was one inch of plain weave to frame the lace, then the lace dance begins!

Last time I wove this pattern I used red 9/2 linen and used a sett of 22 epi. It was well balanced when all finished and pressed but I wanted it a smidge tighter so this time I set it 24 epi. Between the coarse linen, the reed marks and the lace five end groupings, the new cloth on the loom has streaks and lines all over the place. You can only hold your breath and hope it all comes out in the wash! (more on this line of thought later...)

I wove two runners using the same natural grayed / beige linen as weft. The runners were woven to roughly sixty inches from the end of one hemstitching to the next at the other end.  There is a small plain weave border down both selvedges and by the time you get to the end of a runner you begin to see the start of some troubled times to come. The plain weave and the lace areas take up differently as the lace centre is more textured and the plain weave is flat.  By the end of the runner you can see the plain weave edges pull down more and then curve upwards to the lace. I didn't experience this effect with the red linen runners. I checked a cone of the red today and it has a much softer touch to it. Perhaps as a result of the dyeing process?  This natural grayed beige linen has a much firmer feel to it... more wirey.  I decided to cut off the runners after each one was woven and retie back on. So the Two Stick Start got a good work out!

The third runner was understandably a bit shorter but I skipped weaving samples this time round and so that twelve inches helped out a lot. I used a snowy white 9/2 linen as my weft and it looked great! There is a nice colour separation on the lace floats so they frame the diamonds. White in one direction and beige in the other.  This type of two colour lace where the colours are more subtle appeals to me. Traditionally lace is woven in one solid colour warp and weft and usually the same yarn as warp and weft. {Beige projects are difficult and boring to photograph and if I used a lighting correction in the tweaking of the pictures, it turned all the colours really weird... so please bear up with the darker shots. I did use the camera flash and had lights on everywhere!}

I decided against using the serger on the raw edges as the serging line can be a tad bit lumpy. I didn't want that ridged line  with a flat hem. I used my sewing machine instead and did a stitched zig zag  which I think you can faintly make out on the raw edge in the picture above.  I steam pressed and measured the hem allowance. I'm going to turn it over by thirds.

The beauty of doing this with linen is that it takes a nice fold with just the fingers pressing. You can double check the measurement. I steam pressed it when I'm happy...then fold up to the hemstitching and press and pin.

As you can see by the close up above, a raised ridge line from the serger would have shown through and I wanted it flat, flat, flat!  The hand sewing was done by a running blind stitch and the three runners were an evenings work by the television.

Things started to get interesting the next morning when I filled the laundry tub to handwash the runners. The first to go in was the shorter white beige blend. I lay the runner on top of the suds and let it absorb the water. I came back a few minutes later and started to squeeze it out. I thought I could see a distinct line warp wise in the wet cloth! Oh crap....   I had used a full cone and part of another to wind the warp, but I had checked the batch numbers and they were both the same! Had someone somewhere made a mistake? I laid it to one side and then 'floated' the next runner on the surface of the water.

Look what happened below.... the side of the runner absorbed water at a much faster rate!

Even when wet there is still a colour difference between the two areas. I gently squeezed water through the cloth but did not wring it out. That would set creases into the cloth, especially the thicker hem allowance. After rinsing, I let it drain well and  rolled into a large towel to absorb the excess water. Once they were all into large towels and resting I sat and did some thinking on the situation. Two cones and two different  reactions.  I had a theory worked out.  Well, there was only one thing left to do and that was to see what happened when they were damp / dry and firmly pressed.

Here they are .... and first up is the white beige runner:

I could see no sign of any colour change! It looked completely even across the runner. This is a blend of beige and white so perhaps it obscures the issue? This one measures 12.5 inches by 55 inches finished.

So here are the all beige runners and both measure 12.5 inches by 61 inches finished.

Again, no sign of any variation in colour! Great!  So what was it?  I think the two cones, while the same batch number, there was a difference in the linen used. It would seem there was almost like a coating on the surface of two thirds of the yarn used.... and not so much on the new cone. It came down to the way the linen was processed.  I hope the washing process took care of this detail for the future. If not, there's no sign of it when dry thankfully. All the reed marks disappeared with wet finishing  and I would have to say the change in sett also worked very well. I would use this sett of 24 epi with this yarn again next time.

So now my Louet Spring is empty and I'm trying to work out what goes on next. Do you ever run out of inspiration from time to time? I know that there is a  ton of different weaves out there to try and so I just need to find one that appeals to me.  I have to clear off the Woolhouse loom and get a shorter towel sampling warp on there so there's lots of housekeeping details in the studio to take care of.   

My left knee has been troubling me and so weaving has been considerably slowed.... hence the long time periods between posts. Sorry about that but it can't be helped. I'm just happy to be able to be able to still weave!

Hubby Bruce hasn't received a surgery date as yet and as of our last check, they are now booking well into March (which is definitely not the promised January). This may end up placing his surgery and mine on a collision course later this late spring or early summer. Apparently there is a shortage of anesthesiologists.   Meanwhile my Dad is still in hospital and the news is he could be there for another week or two before being released.

I'm hoping this will all come out in the wash as well!