Sample results

I wove a full length sample today for the painted blanket warp. I used some 8/2 cotton, and also did a few inches of 10/2, doubled on the bobbin. Then I cut it off, zigzagged the edges, measured carefully and wrote down the measurements (experience talking here), then washed the sample in very hot water and dried in a very hot dryer. When I re-measured after it was completely dry, I was able to find my shrinkage percent (18 warp-wise, about 10 weft wise). I also have a piece of fabric that I can feel and see how the warp colors are going to interact with this weave structure. I like the weight of the sample fabric. I will use an 8/2 instead of doubled 10/2, since the 8/2 makes a more compact structure. I like the weave. It makes little puffs of fabric once washed and dried, and should make a nice warm blanket with all those tiny places for air.

What I don't like is the color of my 8/2 weft, so, what better excuse to order some more thread? I've ordered two pounds of 8/2 cotton in Alabaster from Webs. This is a light yellow. I decided to keep the weft light. There are a lot of yellow shades in this warp, and I think the Alabaster will tie everything together nicely.

It will probably take a week to get here, so I'll concentrate on rugs. I wound more warp for the Hammett today and have it through the reed and heddles, tied on the back beam and ready to wind on tomorrow. Warping for rugs is so much quicker!

Almost warped

Finally, I have the painted warp beamed on the Newcomb.  Whew!  That was a job.  Here's an in-process photo. 

It's all nicely wound on now, and I'll tie onto the front apron tomorrow.  I'm not in love with these colors, and it's going to be a challenge to find the right weft.  If I use one of the darker colors for weft, it will intensify the piece, and if I use a lighter color, it will dilute it.  We'll see.  I'll try several colors of 8/2 that I have in stock, but will probably end up ordering a specific color for this project.

Beaming this 10/2 cotton for this many ends took me some hours last week and lots of hours this weekend.  It tangles easily and had to be put on front to back because of how it was wound and painted.  A couple things helped a lot to keep my sanity and keep from breaking threads.

After the warp was threaded through the reed and the heddles, I moved the cross to the back, behind the heddles.  To do this, I took the lease sticks out of the cross where it was, in the front, and, holding tension on the warp chains, stepped on the 1/3 treadle, inserted a stick behind the heddles, and then stepped on the 2/4 treadle and inserted the other stick.  I then tied the sticks together and tied them to the castle so they hung at the same height as the heddle eyes.  Another good tip is I lifted and tied the 1/3 treadles so the threads were separated as they went the reed.  This helped keep the threads from gobbing up together and breaking.

It was still a very slow and tedious process.  I listened to radio shows and also to Walter Mosely's book, The Man In My Basement.  I liked this book a lot.  It is multi-leveled, and in a disarming way.

Tomorrow I will tie this warp to the apron and see what I have.  I also am at the end of my rug warp on the Hammett and I'll be winding more warp for that loom.

Change

The striped warp I had on the Newcomb just wasn't catching my interest.  A few days of making myself work on it, under protest, so to speak, and I started planning another warp.  The time I get to weave is too short for working on a piece that doesn't have a future.  So, I chained that warp off and laid it aside.  Who knows what it will eventually show up as?  I am now threading a painted warp in yellows and rust browns through the reed and plan to make a cotton blanket out of it.  This will be for me.   I can too easily put off projects for me until "someday."  I'll continue making rugs for my show stock, with time for my blanket woven in. Heh, heh.
The blanket warp is 10/2 cotton, set at 24 epi.  I am threading it in a Rose Path. I'll have to try out wefts, but am thinking I'll use an 8/2 cotton to give it a little more heft.  I will have to make three widths and seam them together, since my loom isn't wide enough for a queen size blanket, and I'm glad it isn't!  My arms get enough stretch throwing the shuttle as it is.

Molly's closet

I realized I was missing some colors of Pendleton selvege, and thought to look in my loom room closet. There it was - another 30 lbs to add to the pile on the bed, which had been decreasing as more rugs came off the loom.

I'll be putting some worm selvege with the fuzzy selvege in this next batch of rugs, so I started fluffing the worms in the dryer to remove as much lint as possible. It's quite a linty, and lenghthy, operation. I'll have to finish tomorrow. Lovely worms, though - some very nice colors in this shipment.
I also got a couple bibs almost complete. I have to get some velcro for the closures. They're cute and look very serviceable, always a requisite for me.

It's still quite cold outside, but it was toasty inside. I had a nice time winding warp on the Hammett tonight and listening to my friend, Jean Ponzi's, radio show: Earthworms on KDHX. Time just flew.

Ice storm cometh

I've always paid attention to weather.  I love the outdoors and try to get out for a walk several times a week, so I notice nuances of wind and moisture.  Sometimes, though, nature takes front seat and demands more of your attention and energy.

We had a doozy of an ice storm, and now are in the deep freeze.  This means more attention on keeping the wood stove full and wood brought in, thinking ahead to heat water and warm up food on the wood stove because we were without power for over a day.

Thankfully, the power is back on.  I wove off the last of the rug warp on the Hammett and am in the process of re-warping it for more rugs.  I have the Newcomb warped up with the painted warp and wool stripes.  I ran a sample of different wefts, and I'm not sure I'm going to get much collapse, drat it, but it should be pretty nonetheless.

Tomorrow I hope to finish a bib, and see how that project pans out.

Here's a photo of our ice storm.  I took a walk through a field, well away from crashing tree limbs and power lines.

On to the new

Yippee! The bib fabric is done, off the loom, and washed. It has a nice bib-y feel to it. Now I just need to get some bias tape and cut and sew.

I decided to use my blues and purples painted cotton warp for the next project.



I've already used about half of this warp for scarves, so I had 244 threads left in 7 yd. length. I decided to try a collapse weave. I'm threading it in a basket weave threading and using some wool singles with it: 10 threads of cotton, 4 of wool. This is a natural stripe threading and hopefully, the wool will shrink nicely and give me a collapse, or pleated, perhaps, weave. The cotton shouldn't shrink any more since it's been finished in extremely hot water several times during the dye process.

Good thing it's only about 15 inches wide in the reed, since I threaded in the wrong sequence for the whole thing before I caught it. I got to do that part twice today! Tomorrow I'll start through the heddles and possibly get it wound on. It will be a little touchy since the wool singles are fairly weak compared to the 10/2 cotton.

I wove a rug this evening. It helps to feel like I completed one thing today.

New gallery photos

I added some new rug photos to the rug gallery today, and also some photos into the scarves gallery. I'll be posting more photos as I can.
I painted several warps this last year and hope to paint more. It's time-consuming and mind-consuming. When I'm choosing colors and preparing to paint, I go to the color wheel and to my stock of dyes, then to my visual memories of nature's palette that I'm using for inspiration. The fact that the dyes have a mind of their own and mix and mingle sometimes quite differently than I thought adds to the fun. For this warp, I underdyed the warp chains a deep yellow, then painted on blue, which turned to green when it mixed with the yellow, and red, which I thought was going to turn orange. Well, it did have some orange overtones, but mostly stayed red. This first piece was crossed with yellow, the second with red.

Robe finished - on to other projects

I finished the robe today. Two days of intense sewing - not too bad. It's always easier the second or third time through a pattern.

I did get another length woven on the bib material yesterday. I intend to spend some quality time with that warp this next week. It's threatening to become a dog on the loom, and the best way I know to prevent this awful occurence is to weave it up quickly!

I'm starting to consider my next warp on the Newcomb (after the bibs). Some of the ideas I'm kicking around are: a painted warp shawl. I still have some lovely blues and purples, and I might be able to make it into a collapsed weave if my light purple wool will coordinate. That would be interesting. I also have a painted warp in yellows, golds, and rust browns. It was also going to be shawls, but now I'm wondering if I have enough length (12 yd.) to make a double bed spread. It would certainly be bright and cheery. I have made one coverlet -and swore it would be the last - but who knows? I also would like to make a catalogne. I'm probably spelling it wrong, but it's a bed cover made with very thinly cut rags, so it comes out heavier than a coverlet of wool and cotton, but much lighter than a rag rug. This planning and deciding is one of my favorite parts of the weaving process. So many choices! Below is a photo of the coverlet I wove several years ago.

Log cabin lesson

This morning I laid out 8 yards of terry cloth on the kitchen table and cut out the robe for my brother. Eight yards seems like an incredible amount of material for a robe, but he's extra-tall. I ended up with maybe 6 inches full width left, so it was just right! This evening I have marked the pieces and hope to take them to the machine to zigzag all around each piece yet tonight.

Recently, I finished off a log cabin warp on the Hammett. I had put this warp on just before moving this summer. At the time, I kept thinking it was a crazy thing to do whilst boxes awaited packing, but it gave me a weaving focus in the middle of that mayhem. I put on a 30 inch wide warp in sections, with each 2 inch section changing colors across the warp to the middle, and repeating color changes backward to the other side. In this way, I thought, I'll use up small amounts of color left in my warp stash, and it will be perfect for using up most of that big blue tote of blue jeans.

However, I found out with the first blue jean weft that the lovely log cabin colors didn't show up too well. So, to my fabric pile I went, searching for colors to bring out the warp colors. Following are two photos: the first is the blue jean warp. Still a nice rug, but see how the warp colors jump out on the second rug. That warp produced 12 rugs, and as testy as it was to keep my edge sequence straight, I think I'll do it again in the spring - this time with shades of blues and who knows what? to bring out the denim colors in that big blue tote - still full of blue jeans.

Pendleton - it grows on you

Today I piled my complete stash of Pendleton selveges on a bed, arranged somewhat by color, so I can more easily mix and match. I've been making rugs from this pile, using one color of selvege for the whole rug, but I'm getting a little bored with that. With the stash separated in boxes and totes, it was hard to see exactly what I had that would go together. It's much easier now! I made an aqua/teal green mixture today.

I'll be working on these for a while. I'll also be fluffing a 30 lb box of worm selvege, small amounts at a time, in the dryer to remove most of the lint before sewing them together for worm rugs. On the Newcomb, I have yellow Ms and Os crossed in another shade of yellow for baby bibs - a couple newcomers expected in the family soon, and I can always sell the extra.

For the next few days, I'll also be factoring in time to cut and sew a robe for my brother. He designed and made my booth, so it's a trade. I think I'm getting the bigger end of the stick in this one, though!