One more way to use thrums

I read lots of really interesting ideas for using thrums (the loom waste threads left over after a warp is done). There are fiber uses and there are non-fiber uses - tying up a package or gift, anything that needs tying really, but I found a new use tonight.
We are finally getting some rain, so when I came home this evening (after dark), I went to the front door to let the dog in, and found water on the floor, coming from the upper door frame. The door opens onto a porch and there's a balcony right above. So I let the dog in, wiped up the water with a towel and left a towel in place, then went up to the balcony. Sure enough, the roof gutter makes a turn at that inside corner, and the caulking on those two pieces of gutter was gone, and water was streaming down onto the balcony, then on down the wall to the porch and door frame.
I drug out my flashlight and step stool and made sure the gutter was clear, which it was, mostly. Then I cast about looking for something to stick in that gutter crack. A plastic shopping bag did nothing. This room opens on to the loom room, so that's where I was looking for inspiration, and happened to see some wool thrums hanging up, just waiting for such an opportunity. I took my little Leatherman tool and the wool thrums back to the step stool on the porch and started poking. I got it stopped for the most part, down to a drip, anyhow. Just for good measure, I tromped out in the yard and dug out a piece of old guttering and propped it up under the drip to work as a funnel. Guess I'll be getting the caulk gun out the first clear day - as well as figuring out why that cleared gutter isn't draining like it should. Gutter work is not my favorite, but has to be done.
I also took the first tea towel off the loom today. This is the Foursquare pattern. I ran a zig zag on the ends and washed and dried it.
Here's Side 1:




Here's Side 2:




It's really difficult for me to see how this is not Summer and Winter. It looks like opposites to me and a dark side and a light side. Maybe someone smart in these things (like Ann) can explain it. But, whatever it is, it's pretty.
I just added another 4 threads to each side in a straight twill for an edge but the edges of the pattern are different enough that the sides are different.




(I stuck a white envelope under the edges so you can see.) So, tomorrow, I'll monkey with those until I like them before going forward! And tonight, I get to sleep to the sound of rain!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Most of the way

I did get the Foursquare warp completely beamed, but it was accomplished between Saturday and Sunday, which is fine. I still haven't thrown that first shuttle, but it's sitting there ready to go.

I have Weaving Guild today! It's my favorite day of the month. Can't wait to see what everyone has been doing.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Next up - more overshot

I have the placemats off and finished. The napkins are done. I picked the blanket up from the cleaners Thursday and it's finished and ready to go.

I decided on another tea towel warp in overshot, so I wound warp, threaded it through the reed yesterday, through the heddles this morning and took the afternoon off from weaving related tasks to walk, visit with weaving friends (I guess that's weaving related but certainly not a task!), general housekeeping junk, etc. This evening I hope to beam the warp while listening to bluegrass music from KMST.

I have a lunch date tomorrow with an elderly aunt, but who knows, I might get a shuttle thrown, too.

The pattern is Four Square from Bertha Gray Hayes' book "Miniature Overshot Patterns."

It looks a lot like Summer and Winter, but isn't threaded like Summer and Winter or woven like it. It will be interesting to see how this comes out and the differences front to back. It's the top one.






I ordered some 20/2 cotton unmercerized for the tabby. Also ordered some more 8/2 Tencel and will start winding warps for summer dyeing when it gets in.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Its Cowl weather!

Took this off the needles and blocked it last night. Wore it all day today. This is Willow Cowl, a free Ravelry download. It's made from one skein of sock yarn.





It's really cozy and we are having just the weather for it.

The blanket is at the cleaners for pressing. Placemats are off the loom and finished.





Not too bad matching placemat fabric with the napkins.

And I'm drinking hot tea and looking at overshot designs for my next warp. I don't like having a naked loom.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

More blanket saga

I'm going to have to start thinking of better names for blanket posts, lest they all run together.

I took Ray's blanket off the loom yesterday, sewed the ends of the panels and washed and dried on hot. Today, I laid them out on the floor, matched up stripes, basted by hand and then machine. I will take them in for a professional pressing before I do the hems. I don't mind pressing big pieces of plain weave, but twill kind of crawls up into itself during wet finishing and some of that will press back out. And, yes, I could do it with my little hand iron, but it's a real pain to get it all just right. And I REALLY don't like the hours it takes to do it well. So, I'll take it to the cleaners. Just call me lazy.

I like the blanket. It's a nice weight. It's soft. The stripes match up. There is, though, on little fly in the ointment. Here's the blanket, before the panels were sewn.





See that darker stripe toward the left of the panel? Yeah. Me, too. Right away. Actually, I saw it while I was weaving, but there was nothing to be done about it. Wall of Troy is one of those patterns that when I'm weaving it, I have to kind of keep my eyes focused on the overall pattern. If I start looking at diamonds and squares it will drive me nuts and before I know it, I'm off, or think I am, and am taking rows out. But, I did see it. And I know what caused it.

Calculations being what they are for yardage, etc. this warp should not have taken as much yardage as it did. And I have no idea why. But, it became apparent that I'd be lucky to have enough of the dual colored yarn for the whole thing, even "going to the stash shelves and finding a cone I bought a while back to finish it up." And there's the catch. A little difference in color, which, if I'd know about it before I put the warp on, I could have interspersed it evenly throughout the warp. Heck, if I'd known it was different, I could have used that whole bout in the MIDDLE of the panel. But, no. It didn't show up until I started weaving, and there was no way I was going to back that whole fuzzy, lint-pill creating warp off, re-thread reed AND heddles and fight it back on.

So, yet another blanket joins the not-quite-right group. I know Ray will never care, and he'll love it, and treasure it because Nai-Nai made it, and he'll have one like Ge Ge (older brother). It will have his name and the year I made it embroidered on it, and it will always be his. And that's really what matters.

But, in case I ever start making blankets for sale, I now have new name/slogan options. Katie's Blankets: Guaranteed Mistake in Every One. Perfection Schmecktion: Blankets for the Non-Picky. Blankets for Error-one: What, You Think You're Perfect?

Sighs. Rolls eyes. Goes up to thread a placemat warp.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Baby, it's cold out there!

High for today was 21 at my house. Add the thin sheet of ice we got last night and it's good day to stay inside as much as possible. And the coziest place in my house when it's really cold outside is the loom room. Lucky, huh? It's upstairs, for one thing, and with the door closed, the auxiliary heater does a nice job.

I come downstairs for breaks - food, drink, etc., watch the birds flocking to the feeder, check email, and then back to it. And the time has paid off. I wove about 2 yards on Ray's blanket. Two down, eight to go. And it's coming along nicely.





Can't really tell, but the warp is a denim and a navy thread twisted together and the weft, for the most part is lighter blue. It will have a stripe at the bottom and top. The first stripe is already wound on so you can't see it. The stripe is a couple inches of navy, inch of white and another couple inches of navy.

I like it. It's Wall of Troy and that's a nice, rhythmic weave that doesn't require too much thinking.

You may recall that Ray requested a blue and red blanket and you notice there is no red in it. Try as I might, there is no way to mix red and blue and not get purple and the reds I happen to have were making the mix rather pink. This is a reduce-the-stash project and if what I have on the shelf doesn't work, I use something else. So, it's blue. Poetic license.

Time to feed dogs, then get back to the loom room for a few more inches before I call it a night.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Back to LOL

That would stand for Land of Living. I've been sick with first a chest congestion and then a bad cold since New Year's Eve and today, (knock on wood, etc) I finally felt somewhat normal. I didn't do a lot, but did not end up on the couch once. Looking forward to an even better day tomorrow.
I did get the remainder of the blanket warp wound into bouts and threaded it through the reed. It's 810 ends, 10/2 cotton. It's a very soft yarn and should make a yummy blanket.




The heddles will have to wait until tomorrow. This is for Ray. I sent a question to him through his parents about what color blanket he would like and he said blue and red. That is what it shall be.
This is a denim/navy blue mix for the warp. I have a couple reds to try out for weft. The design is still in the making on this one.
When my youngest son was little, my step-mother asked what color he would like the crocheted afghan she would make him and he said "Po-Po" and purple it was and he loved it. So, I'm happy to use Ray's color choices.
My oldest grandson, Calvin, likes his blanket, though he didn't get to choose a color. I was making a larger blanket and ran out of weft thread, so he ended up with the two-panel result. It's nice enough and he likes it, sleeps under it every night. Maybe someday I'll make another one for him in "his" colors.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Flying off the loom

I cut these 10 napkins off the loom today, ran a machine stitch on the ends and washed in hot, dried in hot.




They are now waiting for hemming. I crossed pairs in different colors, but all came out pretty, as well as usable, and I'm now weaving the rest of it off in tea towels.

I should have this warp done sometime this weekend, and I'm thinking ahead to the next project. I think it will be a blanket for my youngest grandson. The older one loves his blanket made by Nai Nai, and the younger will be happy to have one, too, I think. I'll be winding warp for that in the next couple days. I'm thinking Wall of Troy. It's a twill so it makes a nice thick, durable fabric out of 10/2 warp, and since it's twill it has a nice drape.

I'm not feeling any better. It's now progressed to upper respiratory as well as a little chest congestion hanging on. I'm wondering if it's two things, caught back to back. I'm at my job until I hit the wall of tiredness, then come home, rest, weave, rest, weave. Drink tea, water, tea, make and eat soup, read Facebook and email, repeat. I'll be very glad when I start seeing improvement.

My times at the loom are shorter than usual, and I needed something to do that's less energetic, so I cast on another Willow Cowl. It's a free pattern from Ravelry, made with a 100 g. skein of sock yarn (of which I have plenty.) I made one while I was in CA but didn't like the colors for me, so gave it to my youngest son.

If you look the pattern up, and think, "What? Her son" believe me when I say you just have to know him. He's quite the individual.

Here's the one I just started:



My DIL will probably think I'm nuts to cast another one on, after the grouching and agonizingly long hours spent on the first one, but I really do like the way it cascades down on itself, and I have enough socks. We'll see if I get it done this winter.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad .

Bang! And the year begins!

I finished warping the cotton napkins today. I took a few photos during the process, so here's a little snapshot into my warping procedure.
To begin with, I came perilously close on the orange yarn.




But, just enough is still enough. And I could still do a repair if I break a thread. This orange yarn has flecks of brown, green, and yellow, almost a flocked look, and this comes through in the weaving.
So, after being threaded through the reed and the heddles, I tied onto the back apron:




I like to transfer my cross to the rear of the loom when I beam a warp. It makes the tension lovely.
So, I treadled a plain weave shed, and stuck my lease sticks in each shed:




Note that they are tied on the ends and they are also tied to the castle.
I clip the ends of the knots to about 2 inches. Then, going to the front of the loom, you can see my milk jugs, about half full, hanging from S hooks to tension the warp. I tie an overhand loop in the group of warp threads, and the S hook goes into the loop and into the jug handle The jugs are put in place before the cross is transferred to make opening the shed possible.




Some people use a warping trapeze, which gives you more yardage before you have to reposition the jugs. My loom is quite large, directly under a ceiling fan, and the ceiling is low enough for me to touch. Someday I may have a studio where I can use a warping trapeze.
Here you can see that I have wound on enough warp that the knots are back to the top, just getting ready to be wound over by the next layer of warp. If I leave these knots as they are, threads will go between and on top of the knots and create an uneven warp.




This cannot be. It will create major problems down the way. So, I cover the knots with a piece of smooth, light but sturdy, wood. This is from Lowes, in their precut pieces selection:




This piece of wood could be narrower and work as well, but this is the width they had. My loom has a nice tray under the warp beam where I keep extra wood pieces.
Meanwhile, at the front of the loom, once the jugs are to the breastbeam and cannot go any more, I take them off, straighten out and brush (with a bristle hairbrush)about a yard of warp, and retie the jugs near the floor, as the one on the right shows.




I use a bristle hair brush because I'm going after the lint on the warp. (I know, I know, you're never supposed to brush the warp.) If I used more expensive warp, I wouldn't have to, but my budget doesn't allow that. Mill ends, and unmercerized, which I like the best, have a lot of lint, and the lint will bind two threads together before the reed, or heddle, and then break the thread when you wind on. Brushing works, so I do it.
The lease sticks at the back of the loom are doing their job. These are tied so they won't go over the back beam, and the threads slide over and under on their way to the warp beam.




Here's the board I put in over the knots. See how it keeps all the threads even?




After winding on a few yards, I put small, flat sticks (I think these are called "screen molding") on every flat edge of the warp beam - all the way around it once. So as I wind on, I'm placing these sticks. When the sticks are all in, it's like you're starting over with a completely flat warp beam. Some people use brown paper to separate the layers, but I like the sticks. Peter Collingwood's "Techniques of Rug Weaving" was the first weaving book I read, and this was his recommendation. I will repeat this procedure once more in this 12 yard warp.




And here is the warp completely beamed. I have removed the lease sticks. Some people keep them in while they weave. I don't.




I don't have to worry about uneven warping. I can just weave.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad