High Days of Summer

Its been beastly hot here.  There's been no weaving going on and not much in the way downsizing in the last few days either.  Its entirely too hot and I don't do heat very well.  It actually makes me feel ill and so I camp with a fan and an iced drink  and wait it out.   Fortunately tomorrow is supposed to be 3-4 degrees cooler.    My 'cool' basement studio was 82 degrees F.  I hate to think what the upper level was.....

I took all these pictures about ten days to two weeks ago and so everything was at its peak of perfection.   Not too hot, not too cool and all the baskets and gardens were lush with growth.

Well, roll the clock forward and add a heat wave and now the leaves are turning yellow and dropping off, and everything is parched.  More telling is that its getting dark much earlier now and the bracken fern's stems have turned bronze gold. This means they are starting to shut down and die.  Despite the heat there are clear signs that summer is about to come to a close. 

These two scarves were woven on the same 8/2 tencel warp, a new colour called "birch". Its a lovely soft silvery pale green.  Its an eight shaft fancy twill that I found on handweaving.net and adjusted till it met my needs for scarf width.  I used 8/2 tencel in the colour "slate" for a softer more muted look. I carried on weaving but wondered if it was too soft a colour?

This picture shows the scarf's length.  I woven them to approximately 74-75 inches on the loom. After wet finishing they both measured 72 1/2 inches in length.   My standard length unless a client requests either shorter or longer.

This picture shows the pattern and its fully reversible. Its very much like a twelve shaft fancy twill I wove a couple of years ago but lacks well defined reversals in the pattern . Four extra shafts makes quite an impact to detail like this.  I know, I know.... it always seems to be about more shafts, a bigger better loom.  If you are into the weave structure and pattern work, then more shafts was always in your future anyhow. 

The drape is lovely and a good hard pressing brought out the tercel's shine and set the pattern.

I had a harder time deciding the second scarf's weft colour. I auditioned a few options and went with deep burgundy or "eggplant".  It crisply defined the pattern!

There's enough length to do a double wrap and wear outside of a dress coat.   The green looks more grey here. 

I enjoyed weaving them, so much so that I wound another warp and and started some more.  These are now waiting my  time and pleasure.   As soon as the weather takes a turn for the cooler I plan to get some time in on the loom.   They may well be my last project until after we move as we have a lot of work to do before the trucks roll up.

And now for something a bit different....

We have always had a small rabbit on the property.  Small and dusky brown with a snowy white fluffy tail.  We know that it not likely to be the same rabbit (we have found bunny bits, including a fluffy tail, in the meadow one spring) but we always call it Peter and assume he's male, after the Beatrix Potter tales.

Here he is:

We had just pulled into our driveway and he stood up and checked us out.  It seems we arrived at an awkward time as he was trying to impress someone:

Isn't she sweet?  She was over in the edge of the tall grasses ignoring him and us for that matter. 

I suspect the new owners will find there will be more than one rabbit this fall and who knows how many next spring!

Sudden Summer

I have a fan running in the kitchen to cool me while I work. My naturally curly hair has connected with the overall humidity and springing back to life after being blown dry straight. What a wasted effort that was!     We seem to be "enjoying" a heat wave here. Summer arrived.   Suddenly.

Just last week, it was cold, a bit of rain and wind and I was wearing woolies to keep warm.

The yard has been full of swallowtail butterflies and they fly (flutter?) right up to windows like they want to come in...    Bruce took these lovely pictures of them feeding. He could get very close!

There were three of them on this one basket but these two ran it off!  It also seems I choose flower baskets they really like too as we have three of these.    We also have many dragonflies and damselflies flitting around.  No luck getting pictures but here's one from two years ago:

The basement is cool and I can even get a hint of breeze through there between a fan and the patio door.   I just pulled a completed warp off the loom just late yesterday and have one of the two scarves pinned out on the styro-foam board for fringe twisting.  I should have them done and ready shortly. They certainly will dry quickly!   Hubby is ready to assist with beaming another warp.  (what a guy huh?)

Here's a peek of the completed project:

Yes, snowflake is back.... its like an old friend!

I have one more picture for you.  I know I posted about being in Cathedral Grove last post and how huge the trees are. I found one that helps give perspective....

So there's the merry little band walking through the trails. Me in the red coat (it was cold and windy!) Daughter and SIL (who is 6' 8" tall!).... and look at the girth of some of the *younger* trees that are approx 300 years old.  It amazes me that this island used to have trees like this all over it at one time.

As Joni Mitchell sang: " you don't know what you've got till its gone..."

Shuttle Diplomacy

That's a Bluster Bay send delivery shuttle with a honex tensioner.   Curly black walnut wood.  I decided recently that I did not like the Bluster Bay shuttles with the cup hooks. Simply too much fiddle faddle for me. Drop the yarn through the slot and adjust the tension once and get going!  Much more my style.    So I sold off two of the 'cup hook' models and bought this one.  I used it for the entire new project and so have a good feel for the shuttle now. Its lighter than the twelve inch Schacht EDS and so was fine for a narrow warp.  It uses tapered cardboard pirns (which I think come from Louet) and you have to learn to build the end up, not have it collapse and then do the inch worm winding across. Takes a bit of getting used to but my weft was tencel and so slippery. (That's where the tensioning device on my AVL winder really came in handy!)

The shuttle worked nicely but my one pet peeve was how the shuttle felt to my hands when catching and throwing. I  throw and catch palm up and so the thumbs use the bottom end of the rounded area where the pirn sits to throw and catch. That edge is smooth but still what I would call a 'sharp' edge or angle.  The Schacht has a softly rounded depression that the thumb slips into.   Its a small detail like that that makes all the difference in the world to the operator, especially when you consider the thousands of throws you make in a project. So the honex tensioner is a big improvement.... shuttle design needs a tweak.    The exotic woods are beautiful and its well made otherwise.

So what's that on the loom I can hear you ask ?     Well, I had a cone of 8/2 variegated tencel called "Sapphire Blue Combo" from Webs and I decided to give it a try.  Very pretty colour way and any thoughts I had of trying to get colours to pool disappeared when I saw the short increments of the repeat. To work it out would take more patience than I possess right now and so I decided to embrace the 'heather' look of  flecked colours.  (what the heck eh? :)    I decided to use a bolder weft colour of eggplant  after seeing how navy blue simply disappeared and I wasn't happy with other colour choices pulled from the warp.    I used a sett of 24 epi with my snowflake twill.   The 'X's" would not be so squat if I had resleyed to 28 epi, but it was okay and I went ahead with my sample.    {Resleying to 28 epi would have increased the angle of the edge threads and breakage.... the tencel was softer spun than the normal tencel and it was not something I wanted to deal with.  Choose your battles!  :)  }

After my sample was all woven up,  I looked to my notes to see how much length I allocated for fringe ..... and there was none!   I had calculated for two scarves seventy four inches  each, twelve inches samples, then my take up allowance for the woven areas......then I had added in my loom waste of twenty inches  and then  forgot to add in the fringes!   My sample was only six inches and then I reduced the over all woven length of the scarves and I hoped the rest would come out of the loom waste!

I left six inches for fringe allowance at the start and end of both scarves and at the end I got finished scarves of  seventy inches plus four inch fringe and a second scarf of seventy three inches plus four inch fringes.

Phew!    I had to laugh at myself as I had never in 20 years of weaving ever left the fringes  out before so it seems you are never too old to learn new tricks.  I had to play "mental gymnastics" with the warp length and fudged myself up an answer!

Here are the beauty shots:

I had planned to do more blog posting but simply put, I have been ill with walking pneumonia and so my energy has been a day by day thing.  That flu/ cold bug we had in August evolved into another situation entirely and I can't seem to shake it.  The cough just goes on and on! That's the problem with a compromised immune system when you have SLE lupus.   Until I finally get rid of the bug, my surgical date will be 'on hold' unfortunately and that will have a trickle down effect on Life. 

I am enjoying the cooler temperatures and watching the wildlife around the house. The squirrels are busy in the trees again, and the deer don't even move out of the way of our car when we're using the driveway anymore. 

This little critter still has spots on its haunches and Mum is showing them the 'all you can eat smorg" at this nice house with the friendly people!   Don't forget the yummy hydrangea in the front of the house. There's still one bloom left...

Then we came home the other day (driving past the deer that barely moved) to find this fellow on guard duty at the front door.   He didn't move for us either!    :)