This Happened Today....

So after a month of total upheaval, paint cans, drop sheets, along with vacuum cleaners and floor mops, we are finally back to normal!   There are a few pictures to re-hang but the worst is over.   The six rooms look great and really freshened up... visibly brighter with fresh painted ceilings.

Its taken time to do a thorough cleaning of the rooms, and then the rest of our space since everything was crammed every available spot and then some!  Think spring cleaning but late November instead.

Then we had to catch up on life, pay bills, see doctors, dentists , write Christmas cards, get gifts for the grand kids ready to mail away....  and get back to weaving again!

This is 9/2 French linen for some runners. The colour is new for me and is called brick. Its a coppery red and quite smooth and shiny.   The  eight shaft draft is a new one and I'll show you that later when I have some weaving actually going on.

The rearrangement of the studio has given me much more room in the sunny alcove.  Its much easier to load a warp or lift the loom up for the tie up's.

I lost my sewing table and my serger and sewing machine are tucked away into an overflowing closet. That's a challenge for another day.... sorting out the closet into a more manageable mess!    I use the serger quite often and so that presents a problem.  My old desk was a cheap particle board thing that has been around since the late 1980's  and has been recycled.   I bought a gently used desk and even with my Handwoven collection across the back, there is oodles of room. I'll just bring out the serger and set it up on the desk when needed.  I also inherited the family's file cabinet. It makes sense though for when I do up bank statements and such.  I can put my iPod tunes on top and my printer too.  (looks much better than our bed there in the last post)

By the end of this afternoon when I left to go and have supper, after Bruce helped me beam on the warp, I had 25% of it threaded.  Feels real good to be back in the saddle again!   This Christmas thing might slow me down a bit.   🎅🏻🎄

Long Time Coming

Back last November I placed a silk warp  on the Louet Spring, wove in a header and then a few inches to see the pattern develop.... then I stood up and walked away.  I thought about it for a time wondering about what was ahead for me before I could sit down here again and pick up where I had left off.   Through it all, I kept one thing as my end goal.  To be weaving again! (That bit became a sample as I went with different colours)

Besides a "pat on the wood" a couple of times, my first time sitting to weave was six weeks post surgery where I wove for about 10 minutes and I had about an  inch to show for it!   Go me!

It was a busy time with physiotherapy and doctor visits and all the other things that had been put on hold for the past six weeks.   I would weave a bit but gradually increasing the time as muscles and even the bones adjusted to the new activity. It didn't help that the silk is quite fine and so there's a lot of treadling to get some mileage to show!

Then one afternoon I enthusiastically put in a long session and the following day, I had some serious pain difficulties and so had to take a week off to rest and heal. Then I started slowly all over again. Live and learn huh?   :)

So with a new understanding that this was simply going to be a slow process, I just wove a bit every day or every other day.   There was a huge victory cry when the scarves and samples were finally finished!!

Fringe twisting got under way the following day as well as adding some fresh water pearls to the plum paid version.  Nothing added to the black scarf as it could be either masculine or feminine. How do I know this? My husband did some serious 'jonesing' for it until I pointed out he has several scarves in a drawer!

They got a gentle hand washing in the laundry tub and a night to drip dry.  Next day they pressed up nicely with some steam and I nipped off the excess fringe from the twisted tassels with a rotary cutter.

Then came the beauty shots...   some project details for you.  I used 30/2 bombyx silk, tussah silk, and silk yak blend, all approximately 30/2 in weight as my warp. The sett was 36 epi. I used a twelve dent reed and three ends per dent. The black weft is 30/2 silk commercially dyed for a deep even black. It showed off the "boxes" nicely!  The second scarf took on a different look with a cotton silk blend I bought from Treenway many years ago and hand dyed it myself. It was an uneven dye job so the colours vary from soft plum to a touch of eggplant. This effect created an almost plaid like effect in a soft way.

You can see both sides of the scarf in these shots. One side favours the cream and the other the silver beige of the silk yak.  So you can choose depending on your outfit and mood.  :)

The black scarf is 7 by 68 inches  and the plum plaid is 7 by  72 inches and both are very light in physical weight as the silks used are fine.   (Both were woven to 74 inches so you can see the shrinkage in the length.  They lost half an inch in width.)  I even managed some samples for my files as well.

The next warp or two have been planned and one is well under way.  I discovered that standing still at the warping board really hard on both my new hip, but in particular, my left knee which has been complaining loudly of late.   I would stand and wind like a fiend for a few minutes, then sit down to rest and repeated the process. This seriously hurts my bones and so I turned to the internet and started looking for a warping reel.

Schacht has a horizontal model for $399.00 USD .    *gulp*    Too rich for my budget.  I looked for Canadian alternatives and drew a blank. Then I realized I was staring at the Woolhouse Tools Loom and then turned to their web page to see what they have!   They are winding down their business and so if there is an empty blank line after the product name, it means its sold out and not being replaced.  Well imagine my surprise when I saw they have a two yard vertical warping reel and it was on sale!
My lucky day...  

From ordering to arrival took three days and its now assembled. It can hold up to twenty yards +/-  which is six yards better than my existing warping board.   I completed my ongoing warp on the warping board, but I will give the reel a whirl for the next!

A chuckle for you:  I got the next new warp set onto the lease sticks at the back of the Louet earlier today and was getting ready to spread the warp in the raddle...... and then noticed I had forgotten to take the apron rod up and over the back beam. Oops!   Four months since I beamed a loom and I'm back to square one!   :)

I would also like to announce that Handweaving.net has just relaunched their web site and it's a tremendous improvement over the old. Fast, colourful and just plain fun to go and play with the drafts.   I left a small donation via paypal to help with the web fees to show my appreciation. Its a wonderful resource for weavers of any level!

A Reversal of Plans....
We had our realtor in place, downsizing underway and even a possible interested buyer but we soon realized that we simply don't have enough time.  I had a call from my surgeon's office last Monday and it seems that they want me to start my pre-op tests as early as  first week of April and I see the surgeon the third week of April.  My knee replacement can come as early as June...or... as late as October.  We had a discussion on the news and we decided with a time spread like that, a move is not a good idea right now.  (Too much stress as well.)  Another year here will give us time to get things better prepared, and hopefully sell the big loom and a bunch of other stuff!

It does mean I will be coming home to a flight of stairs which doesn't thrill me too much but we'll figure a work around.  Might just move the looms to one side and sleep in the studio?

Quietly Waiting

So this is part two of the baby blanket project! In my last post  Weaving was under way and it was a fairly slow weave. You might want to back up and read that first. We'll wait for you...

 If there wasn't a bobbin change, colour change or yarn change, then it was time to move the temple. That happened every inch or so! It was rather busy for a simple design. After a while you do develop a routine and it quickly adds up.

I decided to cut off the first blanket as one of the 8/4 doubled cotton dividers was pretty darn tight on the loom.  I retied on and got things under way again and there was no further difficulties with cranky cotton.

The cloth beam filled up nicely... a bonus with chunky yarns!   I wove the second planned blanket and took a serious look at what was left for warp. I decided to forge on and see if I could get a small little blanket for a car seat or ?   It meant no samples for my records but that's okay at a time like this.

The bonus third blanket was woven in plain weave only and no extra colour other than the beige cotton weft. It was only 7 inches shorter than the other two full crib sized blankets!  I must have been very generous with my calculations on warp length!

I used every inch I could squeak out.... see below!

That's the back of my warp and the ruler is right up against the heddles on the sixth shaft with only an inch and a half to spare!

Once off the loom I carefully serged the edges with the threads set closer together to protect the cut edge better. The little tufts still came through! Then I sewed a straight stitch through the serged stitch!  I also ran a straight stitch a quarter of an inch in from the selvedges to ensure that the weft changes stayed put through the numerous washings to come.

Once those steps were done, I soaked them in warm sudsy water and then a gentle cycle. Then tossed them into the dryer!  I wanted all shrinkage done and over with before the final finishing treatment:
Satin binding...

I found these little clips a couple of years ago in the quilters section at the local fabric store and they sure are handy. I was able to position and use them to hold the slippery satin in place.   I was able to replace them with long straight pins for the final trip to the sewing machine.

This is my Huskystar 207 sewing machine. It doesn't have a great deal of fancy stitches and is rather basic. It has all metal gears and can handle thicker fabric and it certainly worked well with this thick cotton.  I'm not much of a sewer and just keep to really basic things. One thing I discovered with this project is even a straight-line is beyond my capabilities!  Its really embarrassing ...

Not sure what happened with the lighting in this shot but you can see that sewing is under way and I'm using a stitched zig zag and took it slowly.

Here's the binding after sewing.... and below is after a pressing!  I decided to go with a beige binding as the purples and green bindings would be too much 'in your face' with the bold colours.  It might be nice to use bolder colours for babies but I went with what felt right for me.

I had tried machine sewing one end closed and butting it up against the fabric but it would always shift and  never sit just right no matter how many clips and pins I used. So I opted for leaving the ends open and then doing a fold and press near the end and folding the ends like an envelope and pressing and  pinning.  Later after zig zagging, I would hand sew the ends closed with very tiny stitches that actually nearly disappeared into the satin weave.

There were two blankets woven with the windows and lace. The final dimensions are 29 inches by 60 inches and 29 inches by 53 inches on the second.  The larger one is for the new baby.  The dimensions on the loom was 34 inches in the reed and woven to 64 inches and  58 inches on the second.  That's a lot of take up and shrinkage!  I had pre-washed the warp yarn to try and prevent some of the inevitable.   It was funny trying to dunk the skeins under water as they floated like marshmallows and later, even being spun out in the washing machine, they still took 4 days to dry!

I tried different lighting effects to show the lace.

This grouping shows the bonus blanket that I wove in plain weave. It turned out rather nice too! It measured 29 inches by 53 inches too.  A friend has bought this one for her cuddly lap throw for TV viewing the chilly winter nights to come. 

The bear is Spike and he's mine. He's handmade by a friend from German mohair. Eileen made hundreds, all by hand and one by one when she was in business. 

 All the blankets had tags added, but for one of them I wish it said "made with love by Nana"

Medically speaking.....

While I'm scheduled for a new knee, I'm also in need of a new hip too. Next week I'll know if which joint is best to do first and we'll go with that. The hip is complaining louder but we'll have to see what the x-rays show and the surgeon recommends.   I have medical appointments lined up all through out November  for just about everything you can possibly think of from a root canal this Tuesday to a mammogram and everything in between! 

I'd much rather be weaving....

I do have another project in mind but its in mid-wind on the warping board.  All natural silks and 36 epi.   Meanwhile, my loom is Naked!

Thanks for your patience as its going long between posts now. Weaving and spending time in my studio is what is keeping me sane right now and so I'll be weaving when ever I can. 

One Step at a Time

While I'm embarrassed to say how long this project has been going on, I'm also happy to crow that it's finally  finished now!  Do you ever have a project that you are happy to start but it turns into the longest 'short' warp ever?

So what happened? Well, I love the big loom... my Woolhouse Tools countermarche, but she needs a full leg extension to treadle and that can aggravate a lower back problem. So what happens is that what ever is on the loom must wait until I can treadle again comfortably.

Then add my left knee into the mix and a right foot as well and it complicates the issue.  While I complain about health issues, I rarely go into much depth on this topic but this time I will explain what I do know. I need a left knee replacement and waiting to see a surgeon. Then after that is done and healed, my right foot needs a mid foot bone fusion.  That requires a full three months to heal properly with no weight on the foot.  I drew the short straw when it came to the family's arthritis gene pool! None of this will be happening for at least a year

I share this as I'm not producing as much finished weaving as I used to and so things here at the blog will naturally reflect that. I'm continuing to weave regardless, but just not that fast.  

Baby Boomers are getting older and with that comes health problems such as worn out joints. It makes good sense that loom builders consider some modifications to their looms or at least have them available as options.  The 20+ tie up assist on my Woolhouse was one of those adaptations  and its very name means "twenty plus more years of weaving". I added mine after my hip replacement in 2001. It sure made life easier not having to crawl under the loom for tie up's.

Enough of my woes and lets get on with the towel project...

The draft came from Handweaving.net and is threaded like a turned twill. Its the tie up that adds the twist! The draft above shows the two variations I used separated by a black stripe. More on them later.

I used 22/2  cottolin that I bought way back when from Nordic Studios when it still resided in Canada. (It was later sold and evolved into the Lone Star Loom Room ).  My sett was 24 epi and my warp was 8.06 yards for seven towels. (see what I mean about not that long??) The idea was six towels for sale and one for us. I like large towels and so they were 25"  in the reed and a total of 618 ends. I literally had enough cottolin left for one floating selvedge only and the second had to be 8/2 cotton. The two pound cone was barely enough for the warp. I haven't come quite this close before!

My weft was 8/2 cotton from Brassards that I have on hand so this project was helping with stash reduction. 

I found the treadling of simply going from treadle one to treadle twelve the easiest on my joints. The work was evenly shared by both legs and so after one towel woven  turned twill style, I went back to the simpler version and did the other six towels the same. I made each of them a different colour and once off the loom and edges secured by the serger they looked to be a happy bunch! (see the very top picture)

I enjoy hand sewing the hems. I also find there is no obvious stitch line like a sewing machine produces. It hangs smoothly with no buckling along the hem line. The sewing holds up nicely and I have a combination cottolin and cotton towel that was hand hemmed back in 1998 that is washed regularly and still looks great. Remember that sewing machines are a 'modern' invention and for many hundreds, if not thousands of years it was just the simple needle and thread.

They were washed and hung to dry out doors on my drying rack. I brought them in for ironing while still a touch damp.  The final measurements were 23" by 28" so generously large.

lime

cinnamon

peach

royal blue

bubblegum pink

moss green

plum

I also managed to get an additional square measuring 24" by 24" in plum which I'm turning into a table centre and crocheting an edging. I'll show you that when its all done. Then were even some samples for my records which is always nice.    This project was hard work but I took it one step, literally, at a time....