A Tale of Two Shawls : part 1

 Last  autumn I had an order of  six cones of various yarn from Webb's arrive and when I opened the box there were seven cones. It seems I inadvertently ordered two cones of fuchsia 8/2 tencel. Oops!     I thought I might as well jump right in and do something special with it then. 

Two shawls, all with fuchsia as warp.

The 16 shaft draft below really appealed to me as you can have a decorative border all four sides.  It's also reversible which makes it ideal for shawl or scarf wearing, or even a nice table runner. 

The first shawl was woven using amethyst tencel as weft and I wasn't too sure if it was the right choice but I kept on with it.   Then Hub wandered in and saw it and said "its kind of blah" and I immediately jumped to its defence and said not everyone wants to strut around like a peacock. Besides, fuchsia is not exactly a quiet colour!   Quietly elegant is what I had in mind.

This picture taken while still on the loom shows the leading border. The centre of the whole draft is goose eye twill diamonds and so I settled into some steady weaving. Except for some  abrasion issues with my floating selvedge on the right hand side. I had to do some repairs on the fly.   The next issue was some softening of the tension in a spot or two. I kept going but had decided to cut off the first shawl and then re-tie back on and hopefully eliminate my tension problems. 

In these two pictures I was preparing the fringe allowance and getting ready to twist the fringe. The cloth hasn't been washed and just as it came of the loom and you could see the potential already! These two pictures were taken by Hub and he had revised his opinion already.

So after a good wash by hand and a night drying on the rack, it was given two pressings. The first with the steam press, and a second by hand iron to smooth and bring out the shine.  The steam press helps me a great deal as I have arthritis in my hands  and I'd rather save them for shuttle throwing!   You pick your battles as you get older. 

The sun finally reappeared and it sure does feel like spring on a day like this. I've seen a few robins, and a whole flock of red wing blackbirds this morning, and there are some shoots coming up for the start of a new growing season.    

Below you can see the borders.

The drape is just lovely.

I was trying all angles to get the best view. When viewed inside the house, the pattern sort of blends into the background and is not as obvious until the light hits it.

The second shawl is under way and the tension is much better. I'm also using a temple this time and so the tempo is a bit slower.   No one is going to call this one blah..... here's a sneak peek!

Buttercream

There has been some weaving going on here. Its just a bit less and a lot slower than normal.  It summer after all and so we have been out more and also enjoying the garden and patio.

We also had some days away visiting the family and grandchildren.  That was a lot of fun and we had many rounds of playing Go Fish, and I discovered that my grand daughter Madison (age 4) cheats at it, and just flashes a smile when caught.   Ethan (age 7) was awarded a new strip for his belt at his Brazilian Jujitsu class and was so proud that his Grandad was there to see him get it.   They are growing up so fast!

Back to weaving....

I decided to revisit an eight shaft draft which features twill progression diamonds. It was a fun weave and I enjoyed it. I thought why not try it as a shawl and be more neutral with colours.   So I wound a seven yard warp for two shawls using undyed 8/2 tencel, sett the usual 24 epi.

My weft choice was a new fibre I haven't tried before. A 50/50 blend of modal and green tea.  The colour is a natural soft pale gold tone.  I thought against the white it would gently pick out the pattern.  Sort of a play of light on the cloth to bring out the diamonds.

Trying to get the light just right to see the pattern!

Modal is made from processed beech wood. Exclusively beech wood.  (Tencel is made from a mix of tree waste). How this changes things, I'm not really sure.    Green tea is the by products of making green tea for consumption and this is all the little twigs and branches that are normally disposed of.

Its all cellulose when it comes right down to it. Its ground and processed and turned into a slurry and then extruded through fine holes to make the fibre, then its plied and can be dyed.... or not.    They use the cotton size index to help simplify things and so that's why you have : 8/2, 10/2, 20/2 and 30/2 in tencel.   Then 8/2 is the most popular size produced and sold, all due to the many American weavers who set the  bar for what is more popular and so they produce the yarn  which will yield the most sales.  I love the colour variety of 8/2 but if I could choose what I prefer, I would use 10/2.   A twill sett is 28 epi which is only four extra warp ends per inch but 24 epi was as far as the general average of US weavers were willing to go.   It was a sad day when all the dyed 10/2 disappeared from the market....

Weaving with the modal green tea yarn wasn't as straight forward as I hoped for. The yarn is plied and seems to be a bit over energized and so it wanted to twist up on itself.  So I found I had to be careful to only draw out enough weft off the EDS's pirn to fill the pick and not a lot extra.   Then I had to be vigilant to catch any twisted bits that made it into the cloth regardless of my new shuttle throwing technique.

I don't think this issue is with every cone sold but perhaps with this particular batch made. I have labeled it 'weft only' as I can't imagine trying to cope with an over energized warp bouts and trying to beam it.  It has a lovely colour and good strength, plus soft. So lots to recommend it really. Its not a high demand yarn as yet so it tends to be spendy to purchase.

you can really see the pattern in this shot! 

The drape is lovely!

I found slowly twisting all this fringe very soothing as I waited for news on my friend Wayne last week.

So the neutral gold beige of the modal seems to have completely taken over the white tencel. Heck even the white fringe looks cream now.   Its a colour I'm calling butter cream.

I started to have some slight tension issues so this shawl was cut off early and I re-lashed on and started weaving shawl number two. This time I'm using silver tencel. So staying with a neutral tone but perhaps better pattern detection?  So that will be my next weaving post in due course.....

Meanwhile, a house tidy up is underway as I have all the ladies from the local guild coming here next Wednesday for a spinning afternoon. I have some baking to do!

Ethan being awarded his new red strip for his belt while his Grandad watched.  😁

Little Lochmaben

Back in 2006 Lynnette and I enjoyed a little getaway and we attended  a weekend retreat for weavers and spinners on Quadra Island.  I'm not sure of the number of attendees but lets say a  hundred women at least (and a couple of men too!)  We spun on our spinning wheels and chatted by day, enjoyed meals and seminars together and then there was the fashion show on Saturday night!   It was a wonderful time! Lynnette and I had adjoining rooms and the lack of TV sets in our rooms didn't phase us a bit and we talked non stop the whole time.

Well, we are  planning on attending the retreat again, this time in beautiful Parksville the end of March and there's the Saturday night banquet and  fashion show. Better get something under way for it!

I've been planning a shawl and a certain friend was the inspiration for me. Hence this shawl's name. "Little Lochmaben"

Its  tencel (of course :) but with her favourite colours of turquoise and with amethyst purple stripes with a variegated sections that has colours that run from soft turquoise to blues and then into plum tones. Centre of each major stripe grouping is a dash of yellow gold. I had my Itten Color Star out and got my colour choices firmed up in no time. What took time was finding a suitable pattern which I located at Handweaving.net, and then arranging the colours using my PCW Fiberworks program.  I twiddled and tweaked it...then wait a few days and tweak some more.

Finally I wound the warp and beamed the warp. The colours seem to work together nicely.  Threading went well and I took my time and checked each section. I *hate* fixing errors after I've started to weave so this part I pay close attention to.

I also decided to lace on this time over tying bouts around and over the rod. Tencel is a slippery yarn and you could be endlessly fiddling with knots that won't stay tight and I didn't want the aggravation. It also reduces loom waste which is a nice bonus  and that little bit extra is added to my planned sample allowance!

In the picture above I have the cord laced through the half inch bouts and on the far left is the end tacked down with some painters tape. I'm working out the loose tension and shifting it leftwards. When I'm happy with the results, I secure the tape around the cord over tying it as I *may* want to undo it at some point and make a correction. This way, I unwrap the tape, unstring the bouts to the one I want and usually I snip off the knot and make my fix, reknot and restring again. Yes, I do like lacing on and I'm wondering why I moved away from it?  Variety is a good thing I guess and helps you to understand what works for you when there is so many choices in techniques. Its good to try new things and learn from others.

Here I am, all set to go....let's look at what has happened here....

Okay, the lacing cord starts on the right but I like to add some tape to secure the small end. It can shift on the rod otherwise and make your weaving start a bit awkward awkward. So its a quick fix that saves trouble later.  The dark thin thread around the rod is my floating selvedge thread. It goes through the reed but not through a heddle and is weighted off the back of the loom.    Then there's the waste yarn that's been treadled in.  Someone years ago told me about a snazzy trick to close the gaps in your bouts and get weaving sooner with only three shots of weft (okay, in this case it was six...) I used a non slippery 8/2 cotton yarn in a light colour and threw three weft shots *with no beating* until the end. Then tap then gently down and into place. As this is a 12 shaft project and slippery yarn, I threw three more shots and tapped again. You can see where I have done this and then wove in the balance of the six shots to the end.

It tightened up nicely! So if you look back to the previous picture you'll see that I hooked my waste yarn around the rod on both sides and then wove more shots after. I picked that trick up recently from Laura Fry's blog and thought I would give it a try.  Well, the selvedge went from curling slightly to straight! It holds it nicely until the rod and warp drops down and around the breast beam. I like this neat trick and will use it from now on. Give it a try for yourself!  Thanks Laura!

From the knots to the end of my scrap yarn is four (4) inches! I would have used a lot more than that to do the normal tie on.  Also my lighter scrap yarn revealed no threading errors!  This 12 shaft, 12 treadle pattern  is warped up in 8/2 tencel, sett 28 epi in the darker stripes and 24 epi in the solid turquoise bands. It sits at 22 1/2" in the 12 dent reed and has 576 ends, and is 4.5 yards (shawl, fringe, samples, take up and  loom waste etc)

So I'll end today with giving you a peek at the sample section that I decided to weave first this time. It gives me a chance to double check for errors and get familiar with the treadling, which is 'tromp as writ' (or treadle the way it is threaded). I think I'm going to enjoy weaving this gebrochene twill!

Part two and the big reveal will come its fully finished with fringes twisted, beads added and washed and pressed.....and that will be a little bit yet (sorry). If it helps, it did come off the loom today and so it won't be too long to wait.