Simplicity

Yes... a weaving project to share with you! I finished the eight yard warp the day before we left to see our new grand daughter.  I cut it off and I must say that there is nothing as satisfying a a big fat roll of cloth sitting heavy in your lap as you enjoy the results of your labours!

Our time away was great but physically demanding for me with a deteriorated knee. I'm afraid it was bit much and so on returning home I went to take a step from the driveway to the path to the house and I felt something go in the knee and a jolt of pain.   So rest, ice packs and anti inflammatories have been the order of the day. X-rays showed no damage to bone so they suspect a meniscus tear.  So while it settles I worked on finishing the towels....

But lets back up a bit to the start....

I found the pattern in the Design Collection 16 on Kitchen Towels and its shown there as a bread cloth. There was something about it that really appealed to me. It must have been all the Vav magazines I have been scanning lately, especially one on stripes.  Scandinavian linens have such simple clean lines, bold colours and simplicity in their weave structure. Its uncomplicated.   So I entered the draft into my weaving program and modified it to suit my needs and searched for yarn in the stash. 

I have an interesting dilemma with my 8/2 cotton stash. I have one cone of this and a part cone of that.  Maybe two full cones of this colour but nothing to really go with it. A lot of yarn still but not really working together either in quantity or colour.   I had a lot of snowy white and natural beige. I felt that white would be too stark a contrast and so went with the natural.  My next choice was royal blue as I have a Denby dish set that compliments that shade.  The third colour was a khaki / green/ beige to be a soft intermediary between the two.

I used a 20 epi sett as that's good for both plain weave and the Swedish lace and made my warp twenty five and a half inches wide in the ten dent reed. Each towel was woven to a length of thirty four inches in total, so I had to work out various measurements of borders, striped cross section and the lace area in the centre. Its kept me busy keeping track!

I found that the draw in was quite pronounced right from the start and so quickly added a temple to the warp and I had to beat *very* firmly.   The cream plain weave actions went quickly with a nice fast pace and the cross stripes slowed me down to a crawl.   A nice balance!

After planned towel number seven I found I was looking at the back of the warp and not much of my planned twelve inches for samples and in fact not much of my twenty inches of loom waste either!  I had allowed for three extra inches for every one yard woven for take -up but it was much more than that in reality. I managed to eek out a small sample (with the only treadling error in the whole project no less!)

I serged the raw edges and washed in my washing machine.  Once out of the dryer I continued to serge them apart into seven separate towels and then steam pressed them.  I was double checking them for errors and such and to my surprise I found two of them had some strange stains on them.  See below: (it was hard to photograph but much darker and larger in reality!)

I had no clue as to what it was or where it had come from!  I never take drinks near my loom when I'm working. The dog (unlike cats) has not the slightest bit interested in the loom and I have no small children with sticky fingers here (yet). My Maytag washing machine has a stainless steel drum and my dryer is clean inside.   Bruce instinctively said "it wasn't me!"   :)

I kept them separate from the other five towels and thought if I couldn't get the stains out, then we would have two new towels for our kitchen instead of one.

I pressed and pined the hems with a neat double fold over  and did a running blind stitch to hem them. It gave me something to do while I rested on the couch, leg elevated and with a gel pack on my knee!

So here are the beauty shots.... and I must say I love them!  The plain weave turned out nicely and is a 50/50 balanced weave. The plaid sections are (mostly) squared, well, close enough for me!  The lace section in the middle is more of a nubbly texture which would make for great absorbency. Its also a nice contrast if used as a table centre or tray cloth. The lace doesn't pull and make little holes as in huck lace, being only four threads.

The lightness of lifting four shafts was easier on my knee.  It brought home to me that the simplicity of a four shaft project has all its own complexities to balance: even beat to maintain, selvedges that show up even more, uneven warp tension is less forgiving etc.....  so you still have to 'weave well'.

What's next?  I have decided to go with another four shaft project next to take it easy on the knee as it settles down but still keep it exercised.  My eight shaft project was bumped to next time if all goes well.

weavers knot

As a closing 'gift'... here's a simplified diagram of how to make a weavers knot. I found this on a Pintrest board and no identifying source to quote.   It looks much like a bowline I struggled to learn back in my sailboat days in the 1980's.  We used to say: The rabbit come up from the hole in the ground, goes around the tree and goes back down the hole.... but its exactly where it goes down that counts! In the wrong spot, the knot will fail and you can't undo it..... and in the right spot, it holds tight and can be undone.   Much like Life huh?

Oh.... The stains came out by the way.....no trace of them left and no fading of the three colours.

Yippee!

Taking Her Out for a Spin

... Or "driving Ms. Daisy"....

I have a new tool in the studio!  A warping mill or warping reel.  It has a two yard diameter and can hold up to 20  yards. I suspect that would be rather fine stuff!   The yarn in the pictures is eight yards  of 8/2 cotton for a future  plaid project.  It was a bit awkward at first and by the end of two full bouts of my four to be done, I was a whirling blur and landing the sweet spots on each corner!

My desk is a bit too high for the mill and keeping it on the floor was too low. So it was very handy to score the large carton you see in the first picture as its the right height now.  That box had Bruce's recent birthday gift of a new skookum Sunbeam  table top mixer.   He wants to make his own bread and I think that's a marvelous  idea. { 'skookum' is a Canadian term for something that is wonderful!}

What's on the loom now? Well here's a sneak peak.... yup, more 8/2 cotton.   Approximately eight yards of it for seven towels. Half dozen for the Etsy shop and one for us, plus some samples (or a bread cloth if there is enough warp.... fingers crossed!). Weaving is under way now and of course, the knee sets the pace. My right side feels fine now and its like nothing was done three months ago!  Just a wee bit of swelling late in the day but it doesn't hurt. 

So this was my last warp wound on the warping board for some time.  It was peculiar  and long time getting it done.  The 600 +/- ends were done in short sprints where I would stand and wind like crazy and then sit to take a break and rest my knee.  It took many days to get done.  I ordered the warping mill on day one when I saw the difficulties.  May I also add that the warping mill is on sale at Woolhouse Tools so that was a nice surprise!  

Nana bought a new frame for the latest picture of our favourite grandson, Ethan.  He will be three in mid April.  Where has the time gone?  I actually bought two new frames.... as our new grand daughter and Ethan's sister will be born tomorrow by Cesarean section.   Her spot is there next to her brother already...    Yes, you can expect baby pictures next post!  Her new blanket is wrapped and waiting for her arrival. 

Speaking of time, here's another picture.  (click to enlarge) That's my son Chris (who is Ethan's Dad)  and my recently newly engaged daughter Carrie,  with Bruce and I back in  approximately 1987. Yes, I'm wearing a pair of 'high' high heels and so not normally that tall next to Bruce. We were at a family member's wedding.

Yesterday, Calli went and got her spring haircut and came home with a girly floral bandana. She had 100% more energy and raced around the house.  She's coming up to being five years old this spring. 

Our weather has been unseasonably warm and so she had to get all the long hair off.  (Sorry if you still are surrounded by snow banks, or heading into winter down under).  Our part of  Canada has enjoyed a mild winter with only one or three small snow falls and only one serious cold snap.   

Our quince bush is blooming....    Have you considered moving? Its truly beautiful here.....

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. 

Starting Early for a Late Finish

Shortly after I started weaving back in 1996 I found a big stash of soft Monte Cristo cotton at my local yarn store. I bought some skeins and again in my future visits, I would add another skein or two.  I wasn't sure what I would weave with it but had some thoughts of trying my hand at the  boutonne  technique. Roll the clock ahead to 2014  and I still have a bin with eleven skeins of this soft plushy cotton.  (I'm still going to try weaving boutonne style!)

Its been a yarn stash waiting for a project and that day has finally arrived. I'll be the first to say that in the intervening years my yarn selections tended to the finer end of the scale, so this is like 'rope' to me now. Its lovely soft cuddly 'rope' and perfect for a baby blanket. (Henry's Attic sells it to retailers)

Yes, I'm going to be a Nana again in the spring! 

I have lots of time and I also don't. I'm looking at a total knee replacement and recovery period sometime this winter and then throw Christmas into the mix and .... well, time is short!   I'd rather not be trying to make something that *special* with a recovering knee as I don't know the healing time frame.   So I'm starting on it now.

I looked at all my drafts, then my samples .... then I googled Monte Cristo and determined setts. Its thick and fluffy and I was beginning to think that plain weave was all there was to choose from. Then I found a baby blanket project by weaver Sally Orgren that was perfect. Sally is an amazing weaver and its worth checking out her projects at the link.  The blanket is a combination of plain weave,  five thread huck and window panes.  So I changed the colours of the window pane outline and modified the huck lace to add a second style of lace blocks.  Its a six shaft, eight treadle draft. Sally also had it set for direct tie up and I changed that too.  Then it occurred to me that I would be weaving it on my Louet Spring 90...and it would be the full width!

So first order of business was to wind all the skeins into balls..... and that took some time as you can imagine... I would stand and wind the warp for a bit, then sit and wind a cake on my rest break.

I used a Woolhouse ball winder for making the larger cakes. Doesn't get used much around here so I even had to dust it. I normally use the smaller Royal brand for the finer yarns.

Wound the warp using four full skeins of cotton (plus five ends of a new cake) and got it set up on the loom for beaming. I had pre washed four skeins in advance to help reduce shrinkage. It was like trying to duck marshmallows under water! They also took four full days to dry! The colour brightened up to a soft cream.

Bruce helped me wind on the warp and it took a while for a few reasons. Its thick, its full width, its thick, and its stretchy!  Below you can see the bow in the lease sticks.  The stretchiness of the cotton made it akward. Do I pull the stretch out now or endlessly deal with it later?  I felt like a newbie all over again. I opted for being consistent and we took our time.

Finally we got it all done. It was a slow process with the cotton binding in the raddle. The 8/4 cotton (doubled) was also behaving weirdly too. It was acting slippery. I'd never thought I'd say that about 8/4 cotton!

Before I could thread, I had to tie back all the extra heddles out of the way. I think you'll understand my subtle message when I say I used PINK cotton ties.   I don't know anything concrete but its a suggestion!

As you can see from the pictures above and below, I used just about every dent except for these seven! I used a ten dent reed and sleyed one per dent. Lots of wriggle room there.

Normally I like to lace on but somehow that felt like I would be playing with the warp like a bungee jump and I opted to tie on. The 8/4 was tied separately as I didn't want them 'quarrelling'.

I must say that I loved the look of the warp from the back. All straight and orderly. It also shows just how full the loom is! My widest warp on it to date.

I ended my day by winding several pirns and loading up the bench with my tools for the next day's start!

So yesterday I tightened and closed the knots and then laid in 4 shots of scrap 8/2 cotton to bring the groupings closer together. Then I placed two thin warping sticks and then  threw four more shots of cotton.  As you can see from the close-up below, it really works to get things neatly braced up and ready to go. This cotton is soft and spongy and if you ever needed a "two stick start", its on a project like this!

I wove approximately five inches and then started with the coloured divider.   Then weave ten shots of plain weave and then weave block A lace, ten shots of plain weave. Repeat and do block B lace in the centre of the next window.  Its hard to see the lace as its cream on cream. Actually, I don't really expect it to behave like my recent lace projects at all and form tight groupings. The Monte Cristo is too fat and fluffy to allow crisp definition. It will be more of a central grouping of texture to break up the plain weave, with a touch of colour. The ends will have beige satin binding to secure the edges.

In the picture above and below there is lace in the centres but the flash brightens the warp too much....

....so I turned the flash off and you can just make out the lace below.  As I said, this will be more texture than anything!   I started to wonder if I should just treadle plain weave for the entire length but Bruce says it looks better than these pictures show.  

So that's where I finished.  It will be a slow weave as I'm using a temple against the inevitable draw in, moving it frequently and I'm using a larger 15"  Schacht EDS shuttle and having to give it a real good throw to cross the warp. I may switch to a heavier AVL and see if that helps!  

There is warp enough for two blankets so this will take awhile!  Good thing I started early then huh?