Saturday, March 17, 2007

Break time

My sister is visiting, so I'm taking a break from weaving to do outside projects and visit with her. We hauled in 9 railroad ties yesterday to make a raised bed. Those things are really heavy. We got them off the trailer with the help of a rock breaker bar, but haven't built the bed yet. That's another day - next week.

Then this morning we drove down the road a couple miles and hauled back a trailer load of horse manure. It's still on the trailer, which is unhitched, and covered with a tarp. Good thing to do, to keep the nutrients from washing out of the manure in case of rain, or would you believe, snow? It snowed to beat the band all morning. It's one of those spring snows that won't last long, but the ground is white now.

I have another 4 or 5 tea towels on the Newcomb warp, and I am at the end of the small rug warp on the Hammett. Will have to wind another warp for it. I also have all the ends wound for a painted warp. The first sunny, warm day we have, I'll scour it. Then it will be ready to paint. I still haven't decided on a color way. I haven't had much time to sit and noodle about it. Noodling time is really important for weaving design, I think. I work out most of my design ideas in a "noodling" state of mind.

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Tea Towel Stripes

After the blanket warp, I was ready for some different colors. I don't have another painted warp ready yet, so I went to my stash, pulled out some colors and warped up for tea towels in plain weave. I like making tea towels. It's an excellent way to sample and see how colors or weave structures work and make useful items, too. Tea towels always sell out quickly for me.

For this warp, I'm mixing weights of fiber. I am using 12/2 Cottolin (mix of cotton and linen) at 24 epi, 10/2 Pearl Cotton in blue and deep yellow at 24 epi, 10/2 red at 24 epi, and some 8/2 cotton in light yellow at 20 epi. That means I had to mind my knittin' while threading through the reed, but it went on just fine. And for the record, the yellows are about 15% of total colors used.  The deep yellow is only used between the stripes to set off each stripe.
I am making sets of towels and should end up with 6 sets. Each set will be different. I crossed the first one with the Pearl blue, the second I am using the red, and putting a stripe on each end of the towel. It's fun to see what difference the various weft colors make.

Here are a couple pics. First is a photo of the warp as it is wound on, before being crossed with anything. These are the true colors of the warp. The second is a towel in progress, being crossed with red. And that's my new Bluster Bay end feed shuttle!

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blanket finis

Well, I have the blanket warp off and the blanket sewn together and on my bed. So, that's as done as it gets. After much thought, I am posting a photo of the finished item. I really don't like this piece very much, and wasn't going to post a photo, but I am, for a couple reasons. 1) It's hard for me to get beyond the "I don't like it, so, nobody will like it" mentality. Different people have different tastes, and 2) My public (heh, heh) deserves to see the not-so-good pieces.

One reason this piece doesn't send me is the colors I used, and, thus, I learn the lesson again (how many times do I have to go through this?) to use colors I like and in the values I like. The yellows and brick reds and oranges are all pretty colors, but I typically don't go for those colors used in a value of more than 15%, say. By value, I mean how much of the color I use compared to the whole piece. I think the end result is quite garish, and I'm generally not a garish type person.
Another reason and another lesson learned is that the painted warp doesn't lend itself well to panels that are sewn together side by side. I need to stick to single panel pieces or use larger solid areas between panels.
On the good side, now that I've picked the whole thing apart, it is a wonderful weight and quite warm. I like the way the 3/1 twill worked because the two sides are very different. One is warp faced and this is the side with lots of color, and the weft faced side is very muted. It's my favorite side ;-)

I'll try to post a photo of both sides.

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