....And the Winner Is....

So as of the close of January 8th, 2013 there were 293 "Regular Readers". I want to thank you all for being  readers of my blog. I started writing and hit the publish button for the first time on January 8th, 2008 and some of you have been here from the beginning with me.

You have learned about the goings on in my weaving studio and looms, our dogs (Connor, and now Calli),  you endured our ongoing renovations (kitchen, dining room, stairwell, interior painting through out) Who could forget the ripping off of all the old decks and the rebuild? Trees being cut down and a new well being dug and pipes being run 300 feet to the house?   Ah, the joys of home ownership!

As warps came off the loom, you were there for the show and tell's and  also our road trips, health woes,  vacations and additions to the family. Many of you have become friends I hear from privately and I feel like I could drop by for tea if we lived closer together. (Now wouldn't that be a great road trip? Traveling across Canada or the USA staying only at cyber fibre friends homes?)  I hear regularly from Scotland, Australia and now even Taiwan!

Pushing the publish button that day was a leap of faith and look what it has added to my life!
So same process as last year... I wrote out all the names on slips of paper and placed them into a large turned bowl we have. A good stir up and one name drawn....

I'm happy to announce that reader the Reverend Wayne Nicolson or  'Padre Wayne' as he is known at Ravelry, is the grand winner of the kitchen towel.  He gets to choose between one of these:

OR

I will leave a message for him at Ravelry and so expect to hear back soon! (Edit: Wayne chose the turned twill)

I also decided to do a 'runner up' draw and reader Dawn Sare will receive a random assortment of weaving samples.  (Edit: Dawn is getting three actual woven samples and drafts for waffle weave towels, Ethan's baby hearts blankets, and the recent Gothic Silk scarves)

Now to alert the winners and get some mailing addresses.... back again soon.

We Now Resume Our Regular Programming....

Wasn't that a crazy month??

This time period last year, my husband was quite ill and in and out of hospital. Christmas happened but it was a diversion. This time, Christmas was front and center and demanded my full time and attention. Hubby couldn't handle the walking around stores, due to still recovering from his knee surgery, so I did the shopping. I can well understand why some people shop through out the year and stash things away.

Well, the crazy time is done and we are starting a new year. We just got home yesterday from spending time with family and Ethan our grandson. He's eight months old now and a going concern. He never stops moving, exploring, and trying to talk (or 'babbling '). He's sporting four new teeth and more on the way.

Opening gifts

Waiting for supper

Sitting with the big boys on the couch

He's growing up so fast! It was fun spending time with Ethan and his parents and also my other family members. Its really what this time of year is all about.... Before we knew it, we were heading for home.

We had our first New Year's eve out in some time visiting with friends . We normally stay home and stay up just long enough to welcome the new year and then head for bed. We had a great time chatting and laughing and before we knew it, it was 2 am + and we headed for home. I felt like a kid sneaking home after curfew!

So now we start a new year. A report on the studio:

• the big loom, the Woolhouse, is empty but there's a warp half wound to go on.
• the last project, the snowflake twill scarves are done but being 'finished'.
• The Louet Spring has a second runner underway, with a new project being formulated in my mind.
• The Megado still has the book mark warp with only one done  *must* do more!
• I have built a list of more items to de-stash and part with (so watch for the coming sales)

I'm looking forward to getting back to the loom benches once I have my house back in order.

Santa left me a new iPad 2 for Christmas and one new app I have treated myself to is iWeaveit  but have yet to try it due to lack of play time but it will be fun to play around with a different program in a more convenient sized and lighter tablet.

So there is just a week to go before the draw for a tea towel! The winner will get a choice between the recent turned twill towels in muted colours... or the royal blue waffle weave.

I hope the coming year for you  is one filled with much happiness, good health and time to explore with your looms! There is much to look forward to...

Grandad Bruce and Ethan, taken December 30th, 2012

Merry Christmas...

Just a note to say hi. 

 I guess you are all in full Christmas preparation mode like we are!

This is post is to cover a couple of topics.  I recently had a request to add some way of subscribing to my blog posts. I looked into what is available and it seems that Blogger has a 'feed burner' which I have added to the top right hand corner of the screen.  You simply enter your email address.  They send you a confirmation email which you must click on to activate. What happens then? Well, when I post, you will get an email to tell you. That is only when you'll get an email.  Its a neat service feature and I hope you will take advantage of it.

Edit: I subscribed to my own service and I got a full copy of this blog post, with pictures, on my iPhone and also on my laptop. This was neat! The only thing is, it doesn't give you anything else. You still have to visit here for the other older links to various topics and to visit other blogs listed here. Just letting you know how it works...

Secondly, I have a count down clock on the right hand side bar for Thrums Blog celebrate another year. That's coming up on January 8th, 2013.  I like to do something special to mark the occasion.  So the one way I can track who does read my blog is through the "Regular Readers" (currently sitting at 277 as of today's date). So if you haven't signed up before now, this would be a good time. Who ever is signed up as of January 8th, 2013 will be eligible to win a prize of  a handwoven tea towel.  

• If you have signed up as a follower more than once, I'll enter your name one time only.
• Once I have announced the winner, I'll contact you via your listed email on your profile (and/ or) your blog. I will wait a week to hear from you. So please check and get back to me.... because.....
• If no response by January 15th, I will draw again and a new winner will be announced.
• If you opted to follow privately, I can't access your name or info... sorry!

I have 'met' some great new friends through my draw: DebbieB, Martha , Dianne, June, and Charlotte who is north of the Arctic circle in Tromsø,Norway ... they are all former winners of my draws. 

It will be a busy time here for a week between Christmas and New Years.... and there will be snuggle time with the grandson too. I'll try to get a post up before all the festivities begin!

Gothic Diamonds

I have been resisting climbing onto the Christmas merry-go-round this year. It just  seems far too much hype this time around. From carols being played *before* American Thanksgiving dirty dishes were washed and put away,  to ads running on the television showing perfect homes and holiday decorations and the (well dressed and coiffed)  Hostess pulling the perfect roasted turkey from a spotlessly clean oven. I'm not trying to be a "Ba Humbug"  but it seems like we have all gone slightly bonkers.  This topic could get quite socio-political, so enough said for here.

There have been just grown-ups in our immediate family for some time and while its great fun to visit family, the real sparkle in Christmas comes when there are small children. That puts the fun back!  I spent an interesting time at a Toys R Us toy store a couple of days ago shopping for our grandson who will be eight months at Christmas! We are looking forward to seeing him and his parents during the holidays.

Someone asked how my hubby was doing since his knee surgery?  Well, for the most part, he's okay but he seems to still have pain and swelling with his knee. Its a slow recovery this time round, and this is his third time for this procedure.  He's not a very patient 'patient' but has been writing his railway stories.  He's soon to publish part three of a story of a tourist train on which he was he was the engineer during 1999-2000. I had a lot of rides on that train and had a hand in some of the shenanigans!

Another person mentioned that Calli hasn't appeared for a while... well, she's doing just fine. She is well settled into our lives and has us wrapped around her paws. She is a real creature of habit and certain things MUST happen at certain times of the day, and she's quite the "Supervisor of the Day's hours".  If you are late with something (usually food related), then you get The Stare until you realize your terrible error:

Most afternoon's she stays with me in the studio in this pose:

I had the Louet Spring up on crates for a new tie up and she was close by. She really is a sweetie and is very gentle. She hardly ever barks and when she does, the squirrel was asking for it!

Weaving has been slowed by the impending Christmas prep and I didn't have anything to show you but  I do now!  Some time ago I saw a scarf somewhere on the internet where the weaver had used clear lines or borders to divide a double pattern. It seemed to throw more emphasis onto the pattern and was quite effective. Granted they had used a variegated warp which added to the drama but I thought I would give it a go myself.

I found this eight shaft twill pattern in Carol Strickler's  "The Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns" and played with it to make it fit my needs:

I used a cream 20/2 silk and a hand dyed muted violet 20/2 silk that I bought in 2000 from Treenway Silks. I used a 30 epi sett and a 15 dent reed. The 245 warp ends measured 8.16" at the reed and was 6.3 yards long.  As you can see there is something of a twill progression here and so close attention was required.  While I don't have it memorized as yet, portions of it run nicely one into the other and make sense as you treadle.

Here is the first scarf under way (all silk) and the colours here are very close to the actual scarf. I've discovered that this violet shows more gray than anything!
I quickly realized that between using some of the violet for warp and then weft, I was running short and there was not enough for scarf number two. It's a difficult match but somehow I wasn't worried (for once!)
Scarf number two was woven using an orlec yarn (yeah, I know...) but the colour was a dead match! That seemed more important this time round...

Here's one on the fringing board and with the slightly yellow halogen nearby, the scarf turns more gray. Of course that nicely demonstrates that purples and yellows are opposites on the colour wheel and where they meet is gray.

Next up was adding some glitter. It seems to be my trademark feature. These scarves have a lovely soft hand to them. You can't tell the difference between the all silk and the one that has orlec but I *know* the difference. I changed the beading arrangement so I could keep track of which is which for sale purposes.
I used 11/0 Japanese Delica beads in a soft violet that are lined with silver so they sparkle, creamy seed sized fresh water pearls and rich purple Swarovski bi-cone crystals. There's fifty six pearls per scarf alone.  Its totally feminine.

In this picture above, when you enlarge it, you can see the natural pearls, wispy little strands of silk made by the caterpillar, all along with computer made beads from Japan. Quite the amalgamation!

We had some brief sunshine this morning and so I set them up on a white background, all the lights on full and flash on the camera... but I think they are too dark. There's nothing like real daylight to show something off naturally.  (Hurry back sun!)  I think I will re-shoot them another, brighter day...

This is the all silk scarf  (above) There is cleaner colour definition between the cream and violet.

This is the orlec weft scarf. It has more of a purplish cast to it. The yarn seemed finer too.

I'm in the middle of threading the Louet Spring to weave two table runner in the same pattern (but no stripes!)  Its a slow go with all the Christmas running around going on right now but I suspect many of you are having the same difficulty.  The snowflake scarves are still under way on the big loom and calling loudly.

I just keeping thinking that weavers 'down under' don't get interruptions in the middle of their prime weaving season. Their winter is in July!

Snowflake Twill: One Step Back and Four Steps Ahead

I think there's no point in hiding the fact that I love twill. I love the complexity, the convoluted thread paths and watching them grow as I throw the shuttle.

I hadn't been weaving for too long when I found some old material at a second hand store. It was just a scrap in a basket of old doilies and linen hankies. The pattern was amazing! I bought it for a dollar and later found out it was snowflake twill in off white and beige cotton.... with an orange stripe down one side. I didn't like the orange line but some weaver long ago placed it there and had a good reason to do so.  I was going to photograph the fabric to show you and have been taking my studio and linen cupboard apart to find it but no luck!  ( If you click here... this link will take you to a post where I show the antique cloth and also more snowflake scarves more recently finished )

Then came a blizzard of snowflakes!! Weavers Magazine issue number 13, 2nd quarter 1991  and before too long issue number 18,  3rd quarter 1992 and then issue number 20, 1st quarter 1993.   Seems I wasn't the only one who liked the pattern work and there was a demand for more! They featured more projects in Weavers issue number 35, Spring 1997 again.  Even the recent fall 2012 Handwoven magazine featured a reprise of snowflake once more. Its like "eye candy"!

Over the years I have woven endless yards of snowflake twill in scarves, shawls and table runners. I have never used it for kitchen towels as that would seem sacrilegious somehow, but there's no reason why it couldn't be done. It would be a lot of work for a towel you wipe dishes with!  It seems to be a draft I turn to time and again. So much so, I can recite the entire treadling by memory... forward and backwards!

Its known as snowflake twill, or Swedish snowflake twill, which is interesting since Guild of Canadian Weavers Masterweaver Jane Evans wrote her thesis on Latvian weaves. It was later published as this (sadly) out of print book:

It seems the Latvians trace it back as one of their traditional patterns. Well, who ever invented this pattern has my eternal thanks!

So what is snowflake twill? Its technically a twill progression. A ever progressing twill run to a mid point and then mirror reversal. This detail (below) shows a typical 8 shaft run that creates the "X" formation:

Notice the zig zag runs below the threading

There is a whole world of  twill progressions out there, so if this inspires you to look further, then great!

 In the best of Weavers "Twill Thrills" they show a lovely heart shaped motif so once you get the concept, its fun to play with and see what you can come up with. (Granted, a computer program makes this much easier and I use Fiberworks-PCW.)

Fair warning! It seems to gently lead you further, deeper into the next weaving world of Network Twills like the rabbit diving into the hole in Alice in Wonderland! (The best guide introductory guide for network twills, and theory on most weave structures,  is Madelyn van der Hoogt's "The Complete Drafting Book for Handweavers")

Then you link the motifs together with either satin threading (note the beautiful cross style pattern created between the X's):

My favourite method is to use a point twill threading in between. Jane Evans had a lovely runner featuring this method in Weavers Magazine issue number 18:

It certainly adds more drama!

Table runner, in fine mercerised cottons, 36 epi.

Smooth yarns really show the pattern nicely and square the pattern better, and I have used various weights up to size 10/2 (or 2/10) cotton but anything larger in grist would have a float problem.  Having said that, I have seen a lap throw in medium sized wool and it looked stunning! The wool has the ability to hold the twill floats in place, particularly if fulled a tad. Its produces a nice balanced pattern if you use the same size yarn as both warp and weft, otherwise the X's become elongated and just look weird. 

I also tend to use soft neutral colours as the pattern can get rather busy visually and even more so with bolder colour. Again, some years ago I used cream silk as warp and black silk as weft and it was snapped up at a sale! The woman buyer had what I would like to call, an "exuberance for fashion and flair." Back in 2005-2006 I was commissioned to weave an all black snowflake twill shawl. It was hard on the eyes but it was stunning! I didn't have a digital camera then unfortunately.

I like to use one matte yarn and one shiny one to get a beautiful play of light on the cloth to reveal the pattern. This way it looks great on a table with the wood :

This is the table runner I gifted my son and daughter in law this past spring.

I personally haven't woven a four shaft version but I did venture into twelve shaft territory for my sister's shawl. ( all details are fully covered in three posts on "Melinda's Shawl" are shown on the sidebar, under "Topic Shopping") I used a fine off white tencel (shiny) and used a silk seaweed blend weft (semi matte). The X's get to be rather large as you can see from this picture. That's a six inch ruler for one repeat:

As you can see this twenty one inch wide shawl has the room for the larger pattern. I could only fit three repeats across the shawl.  I've run my limit on shaft size though, unless I go to really fine yarns like 20/2 cottons and sixteen shafts, otherwise the float lengths will become a problem. Might be fun to try it sometime on the Megado!

So does it always have to be an X?  No... you can get a squared O from the same draft! With the regular threading in place, simply treadle the reverse of the threading: (can you spot the mistake?  :)

Here's another twist on this. The threading and treadling are reversed...... and it produces

.... you get X's! Reverse one direction, either the threading or treadling and the O's are back.

So time to move onto the snowflake scarves on my big loom and a progress report. Its still under way as I had put on warp long enough for three scarves. I had a few set backs.  I was weaving away and had enough done so that I could now see the underside as it advanced almost to the cloth beam.  So roughly twenty five to thirty inches...then I  saw the  white line!

This picture was awkward to get and then Blogger turned it for you, but you can see the line. What caused it? One warp end that didn't get threaded through the eye of the heddle, but just below it. If it had been above the eye then the line would have appeared on top and been caught right away.  The top looked just fine!

There are some threading lines but they tend to coincide with the three ends per dent in my twelve dent reed. I'm not going to tell you how many inches of silk yak blend I cut and pulled out. I wanted to save the warp and not get the fuzzies.  I let it sit for a few days after fixing the warp thread. The warp and I needed a time out.

The warp is bleached camel and silk blend and not overly shiny  and the (now scrapped) silk yak was not all that shiny either. Now I had a chance to change up the weft (notice how I'm looking for the positive here?)  I used a 20/2 silk for the first scarf for a tone on tone. The lines are quite visible but they are not errors.  They are three thread groupings through the reed that coincide with the pattern groupings. Believe me, I double checked!!

The second scarf is currently under way and I'm using a beige silk and camel blend and it has a beautiful golden sheen. Its a finer weft and so the pattern repeats are smaller... and there's a whole lot of weaving to get the inches in!

I also have a scarf warp going on the Louet as well and so took time out to weave a scarf there.  This project needs my close attention as well when treadling ...yes, its another twill. Are you surprised?