I've been busy!

Really. I have been weaving a lot since my last post, just not blogging. And, I put many, many hours into redoing my upstairs, which included jerking carpet off the floor and painting ceiling to floor. What a job. I am SO glad it's done. It looks nice:




But, back to the weaving. First of all, before I started on the upstairs, I (and a couple guys from my weaving guild) moved the loom downstairs. And I LOVE having the loom where I can walk by it and ponder the warp, where I can jump up and change the clothes to the dryer, make a cup of tea, etc.

First thing I made once it was moved was another blanket for my youngest grandson. The other one is really more bedspread weight and since he kicks around when he sleeps, it ends up wadded up on the foot of the bed. The new one is a Swedish Lace weave. Warp and weft are 8/2 cotton doubled.




Perfect weight. Heavy enough to stay on the bed, light enough for California.

My Guild Christmas party is coming up and we are doing a Shadow Weave exchange. So I warped up for Shadow Weave. I haven't done SW, in any form except Log Cabin, in a long time. My sample was completely in SW, and I really didn't like it. So, I wove the rest of the warp with just a SW border. These are small-ish tea towels. They're pretty elegant looking, I think.






The warp is 10/2 cotton and I set it at 27 epi, using a 12 epi reed. So, the sley order was 2,2,2,3. That 3 is what makes the occasional thin stripe, which is not constant throughout the length of the tea towel.



It's where, for instance, there were 2 blue and 1 white thread in a dent and the sometimes the white thread showed up more than the blues and sometimes not. At any rate, it's a reed mark. I have dented specifically to get reed marks in the past, but this time it's just the way it turned out. It adds an element to a plain background.

I need to do some serious stash-busting, so next I put on a 12 yd. tea towel warp. Mostly 10/2 cotton. Bird's Eye. 30 epi.






Above are a few of the towels. I loved this warp, and it was nice to just sit down and knock out a bunch of towels. I loved it so much I tied on another 12 yd. warp.








This time in blue, green and natural. The photo is my sample, which is all I have in the house right now. The towels are at the cleaners for a hard press. Then I'll hem them, hand press the hems and I'll be done with tea towels for the year.

I'm working on my next warp in my head. I may get to the warping board this afternoon. It will be overshot and it's a confusing project. That's all I'll say about it right now, except I hope to get the first piece threaded before I go to California in a couple weeks. And, I am making extensive notes. I don't want to come back after Christmas, look at this project, and be a complete blank.

Have a good Thanksgiving and Christmas everyone! Maybe my New Year's Resolution should be to blog more?



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Expectations

I took my latest project off the loom yesterday and wet finished it today. This is a piece of overshot, 10/2 cotton warp, 20/2 cotton tabby and 24/2 wool for the pattern. I used Posey out of Bertha Gray Hayes' book. I intend to make the fabric into a sweater-type garment to wear in the house in the winter. Since I have tried knitting two sweaters and failed miserably each time, I thought I'd try weaving one.

I had sampled earlier on another threading, this one more of a blockish overshot pattern, so didn't sample this one. It's really not a problem except in my expectations. I was expecting this one to act entirely like the other, and it didn't.....quite.

What happens during the intense wet finishing - 2 runs through the washer on hot, then dried hot, is the wool shrinks at a greater rate than the cotton, so you get differential shrinkage. This makes the fabric, which would be fairly flat wet finished as you would normally do anything containing wool, become soft and pillowy. The wool parts shrink so much more that the cotton parts essentially puff up. Which is why I think this fabric will make a good sweater.

What I didn't anticipate was that because this pattern is so much, shall we say, busier, than the blockish pattern, without the larger areas of wool/cotton, is the wool had a chance to bloom more. So, the end fabric is pillowy and soft, yes, and you can definitely see the pattern, but there is a bloom of red wool across all of it.

Here's a shot of both sides of the fabric:





The bloom isn't that noticeable, but you can see the red cast to the whole cloth. It's really not a problem. It's just not what I expected.

Here's a close-up shot of the fabric, with a piece that has not been wet finished.




It really fulled quite a bit! and the pattern is still very discernable. The wool diagonals really make the diamond-shaped posey pattern puff up.

Here's a photo of the unfulled and fulled at full (that's a lotta fulls!) width:



And my toes. Never mind those.

At any rate, I think it will make a very warm sweater. I was thinking of lining it, but I'm not so sure now. I'll be wearing long sleeves under it, and it's pretty soft. The sewing will have to wait, though. It was 95 F today with a heat index of 99 F. Not going to be sewing on wool until it cools off.

End lesson for today, either go into a project without expectations, or sample. You'd think I would have learned that by now.

Next up: more overshot. I have 10/2 cotton through the reed for a couch throw. I am putting a wide piece in the middle and narrower pieces on the sides. First up is the wide piece, then I'll tie on the narrow warp. And I do have enough to sample ;-)

Home is where my loom is

I've been home now for 6 weeks. Amazing! It seems longer, but that's the way time works.

So, I hit the ground running. The gardens, flower and vegetable, needed weeding, mulching, planting, and I got that done. I spread 4 yards of cedar mulch. That's a LOT of wheelbarrow loads. But it's all done and now I am on maintenance mode with weeding and waiting for veggies. The day lilies are starting to bloom, and I have a new bed to plan for fall planting.

Since I was so busy in the yard, I wanted something on the loom that I could just slam on, easy pattern, mindless weaving. I found a painted warp I had painted several years ago on light blue 10/2 perle cotton. I wanted to use it for yardage for a light, unlined jacket - more an overshirt for barely cool fall mornings and there wasn't enough of the painted warp. Evidently I had already decided that a couple years ago, because I found about 400 ends of dark blue unmercerized cotton already in bouts and washed. So I stuck that on the loom in a broken twill, using the solid for the 4 ends of the opposite leaning part of the broken twill.

It was a good warp for me - quick, pretty, and as I said, mindless. I took it off, wet finished it and took it to the dry cleaner for professional pressing. Then last Sunday, I made this:










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It's pretty much just what I wanted. I had to monkey with the sleeves because the pattern was for 3/4 sleeves and I wanted long. I took a friend's suggestion to face it, and I think it came out well.

Now I'm working on this:




Posey Patch from Bertha Gray Hayes. 10/2 cotton warp. Pattern weft - 24/2 wool, tabby 20/2 cotton. I intend to make another garment, this time a warmer sweater-ish thing I can wear in the house in the winter. I will shrink this fabric to make it lofty and soft, and see what I have.

Next, I'm winding a tencel 10/2 warp to be painted and made into a robe.

Now one may think that a 60 year old woman living in rural Missouri with zippo social life wouldn't need a painted warp jacket or robe. One would be right if the operative word is "need." However, I've decided I "want" to wear these things, even if I'm wearing the jacket for a walk in the woods or down the gravel road with my dog. I may as well "kick the slats out," as my dad used to say, and wear what I want, if it looks silly or not. It makes me happy to wear things I've made from the cloth out.

It's good to be home and back to weaving!

Tale of the Avengers

It's amazing to look at my last blog post and see a November date. But, that's what it is.

Living this year away from my house, home, weaving guild, siblings, friends, has challenges all over the place. The challenge to keep weaving fresh is one of them. The year is winding down now. I'm past the halfway mark, and feeling like I'm entering the home stretch. This is all said with crossed fingers and much salt thrown over the left shoulder.

With looking at an end to my volunteer work at Ardenwood, a couple of their naturalists said yes, they would love to learn how to weave on the big LeClerc. I have finished the rug I was working on. Have not cut it off and not sure I will before I start the next one, but I have been busy gathering and preparing weft. I went to a local thrift store and bought 4 sheets at $3.00 each. I washed them, and have been cutting them into strips. I'll sew them together in a pattern, and arrange some training time.

When I look for fabric for rag weft, I try to find fabric that has bigger blocks of color, so nothing with a small print, and it must show color on both sides of the fabric. Turning fabric by hand in the shed so a white backing doesn't show is torturous for me. Ditto on ironing the wrong sides of the strips together before weaving. Yikes. Gives me the heebie jeebies thinking about it. Sometimes it's okay for the while backing to peek through. It depends on the other colors used and how I want it to look. I didn't want it for this one, though.

One of the sheets I found was an Avengers! print:




This is HUGE in my grandsons' world, but the store only had one, and not wanting to start a war over who gets it, I snuck it into the house and today, while both were in school, cut it and the others into strips. They need never know.

Looking back on the last post, I did indeed weave the perle cotton. Haven't done anything with it, as I don't like it much. I also wove a warp of tea towels. We are badly in need of some new ones here. I plan to put on a warp for more napkins next. The kids go through napkins like crazy and we could use some more. After that, well, we'll see how much time I have left in my year. Weaving is slow here compared to the output I have at home. Two small boys in the house and all that entails means weaving takes a back seat.



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Napkins!

These just came off the loom a few days ago. They go with the placemats, which were the first project on this little LeClerc. They are 8/2 cotton, Bird's Eye, varied treadlings.







Lexi picked out the colors. I like the weight and absorbency. It should mop up little boys table wipings admirably. I machine stitched the hems. I wanted Durable.

I bought another couple cones of the 8/2 in different colors and will warp some tea towels out of that, but first...

I hope to use various mercerized cottons in bright colors and make some pot holders. I brought this yarn with me thinking I might get desperate enough for weaving to buy an inkle loom, but this little LeClerc changed that plan, so I have a limited amount of mercerized. Most of it is 5/2. I think one color is 3/2.



The instigator, or shall we say, creative kernel, for this project was when I dropped a pan of quiche in the floor last Monday. Broke the ceramic quiche dish, huge mess to clean up, and of course, the loss of a good quiche. So, I bought another quiche dish (one with a small lip around the edge this time - the first one had none) and determined that I will do something about potholders. Right now there is only silicon or an old oven mitt that burns your hand. The silicon doesn't burn, but it's also hard to grip anything with it - hence the dropped dish.

Usually I would balk at warping with the intention of weaving hotpads. I have so many scraps and remnants that would be great for hotpads - at home. But not here. So, I'm going to hope I have enough mercerized to get the outside covering of several hotpads. I can pad it with several layers of old denim to make it thick enough. They should be colorful and useful.

I do know I can buy hotpads. All that I have found, though, are either really stiff or too thin. And what else do I have to do, right? The tea towels will just have to take a number.



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First project on the New Nilus

I have the first project on this new loom. It's rag placemats. Not fancy, quite basic, a good project to use for troubleshooting and.....sorely needed. My son's family has one set of placemats and napkins which I blogged about, but amazingly enough those placemats and napkins get dirty pretty darned quick. Small kids + food = messy. Just the way it is.

I started this post and took this photo a few days ago. Then the new OS for iPad got really hinky with my blog app. So here's a photo in progress:




They're not really this blue - more gray in there.

Today I wove off the last of the planned placemats. Not exactly sure how much warp is left, but not much. I may do something with that, or not. We'll have to see.

Good news is the little loom is performing well, especially for a jack loom and rag weaving. Pretty tight warp and still room for the rag shuttle. Good true beat - no variance left to right on take-up, and I have 9 rag placemats on the cloth beam and not out of room. So, all is good.

My crystal ball says I will be winding warp for napkins very soon!

Old friends and new

Becky, an old friend, emailed me that her sister-in-law had a loom in her basement (near Seattle) that she would like to get rid of. Would I like to have it? My friend would be visiting said sister-in-law and would get it shipped to me if I wanted it. The only sane answer to a question like that is "yes!" and hope it's small enough to fit into the space my daughter-in-law has for such an item.

Yippee!

Well, yesterday, this was delivered to the house:





Yippee!

Leclerc Nilus, 23" weaving width, 8 shaft, 12 treadle, foldable loom. My (our) new friend! I have it mostly cleaned up. The reed is not the regulation and doesn't fit terribly well, but good enough. I will have to make a couple cotter-pin-type hooks that you use to tie the lams to the treadles, and probably will have to buy another couple hundred heddles. No big deal. Perfect size for the space.

Yippee!

It was warped with a very old chenille scarf, which I cut off, but it looks completely functional. The brake stick has the end broken off, but there's still enough to use. If I had my saw, etc., I could make a replacement, but will probably just make do with this.

Yippee!

My daughter-in-law is excited to have a loom to learn weaving on, and I am excited to have one to work and teach on. We're picking out yarns. First planned project: more rag placemats, and some matching napkins.

Thank you, Becky, and welcome, little loom.

Yippee! (Jumps in air, clicks heels together).









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Weaving and questions

I volunteered at Ardenwood Historic Farm today. They had a nice crowd there and I was pretty busy answering questions/demonstrating, etc. I was working on the table loom outside on the porch, as well as preparing rag weft for the rug on the loom inside and weaving on the rug inside.

Of course, I get questions, which I welcome. I like people to show their interest. Twice today, though, I was asked if I wouldn't like to mount a TV on the wall right above the loom. At that point, I realize they really don't get how much concentration is required to weave. I tell them I can't even listen to books on tape while weaving.

But at least they're asking questions.

I did a little sewing project with my grandsons. They each sewed on a button and then made a little pouch. Nothing fancy, but their concentration was admirable.





Also, my oldest grandson has been doing origami like crazy the last few weeks. His mother does origami, and he picks it up from her and from some cute little books he has.





He made all these different colored birds, and his mom hung them up on a string. Very cute. Here is a closer photo of them below.




Summer continues along. School starts soon.


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Weaving in Costume

I am volunteering at a Regional Park near my son's house. This is a Historic Farm park and it's basically a working farm circa 1900. They had a loom that wasn't being used.....enter Katie from stage right. It's a LeClerc Nilus 4 shaft 45 inch jack loom. I generally volunteer one day a weekend for a few hours. The loom had not been used for 5 or 6 years. June was spent getting the warping materials (they had to order a warping board) and warping. This month I've been cutting weft strips and finally got to weave some this past weekend.






Here's a shot of the loom itself:






It's in a building with not much by way of light - only two regular-sized doors that can be opened and overhead lights. So, when I'm preparing weft, I sit out on the porch, and that way I can interact with people coming by and entice them into coming in to see the loom.

Weaving in costume (long dress, apron) isn't a big deal, although I'm just naturally not as comfortable in a costume, but the weather here is usually mid 70s. I don't want to think about demonstrating in costume in the middle of Missouri summer. No.

So, a few observations:

This is a jack loom, so not the best for rug weaving. Small shed, (smaller than my old jack, even) pushing the shuttle through. Slow.

Weaving for demonstration is a whole different ball of wax than weaving in my loom room. I knew that, of course, but this really drives it home. Still nice to actually work with a loom, though.

I miss my rotary cutter for preparing weft. I have to use period tools, so scissors it is for cutting weft.

I'm putting the strips together with a slit instead of the sewing machine I would use at home. It's slow.

It's all slow, but it's a rhythm and it's enjoyable. I'm glad I have this to do.

Also, they have wild blackberries growing in the park and since I'm a volunteer, I can go pick. Wonderful, huge, sweet blackberries. And NO ticks, chiggers, copperheads, rattlesnakes. I feel like I'm cheating!

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Finding Weaving

Kind of like finding Nemo, but not quite. In between helping with household chores and child care, and going along to gym class and back and forth to school, there's been a small garden project (2 tomatoes, 2 cucumbers, 2 basil), a major puzzle project, clothesline that keeps breaking and is on the weekend list for replacement, vehicle repairs. You know, life, in all it's wonderful complications, and, though I've said this before, in a constant state of busy with two little boys in the mix.

Finding weaving in all this just kind of happens here and there. This time it happened with a book I checked out for the boys on silkworms. I think it is called "The Story of the Silkworm" but wouldn't swear to it. It has great photos, and yesterday Calvin told me they have two silkworm cocoons in their classroom, along with several butterfly cocoons and are watching them hatch out, which is very cool.

The photo in the book of a woman weaving silk, though, caught my attention.





Do you see how she has her warp secured? Not wrapped around the back beam at all, it's been brought up over a high cross beam at the back, and tied onto a high cross beam in the front. And would you look at the length of it in that bag? Jimminy Christmas! And I have to be so careful winding on a few yards to be sure my tension is even. And I'll keep being so careful - I know what happens when I'm not.

But still, her mastery of tension leaves me humbled. I think each time she advances the warp, she has to untie, advance, re-tension, re-tie. And I bet she does it in a jiffy, while thinking what she's going to make for supper.

I'm such a novice.

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A beginning

I will be away from my loom for the next year, while I'm helping family out with some medical issues. Before I left home, though, I did get the Swedish Lace woven off. I knew better than to leave a project midway for a year and hope to have any idea where I was when I get back.

This was to be blouse fabric - natural 20/2 crossed in red 20/2- and, of course, once it was off, I cannot imagine it in a blouse. Here are the two sides of the fabric:
This shows the weft as the horizontal stripes in the blocks:





This shows the warp as the vertical stripes in the blocks:





I like the warp in the vertical stripes best, but still, blouse? Can't see it. I don't any any idea what I'll do with this fabric, but I have about 5 yards of it.

I crossed the remainder of the warp with 20/2 natural, thinking I could make some curtains out of it.

Here are two shots:
First, with horizontal stripes:





And then, the opposite side, showing vertical stripes:





It wet finished beautifully, with the full value of the fabric coming out in the hard press and both pieces have a lovely, light and airy hand. I like this fabric a lot.

I may make curtains out of the second piece. It would be pretty for something wearable (probably not a blouse), but not sure what. It's really more suited to table linens/curtains usage, I think.

I did tie the threading so I can come back and throw on another 20/2 warp in this pattern if I decide I want to. Good to keep your options open.

I have weaving books with me, and am transposing threadings and treadlings to number charts. And, of course, there are patterns and weaving all over the place if I but look for them.

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In-Between

I have this thing called a ganglion cyst on my left foot. I had surgery. It didn't work. The danged thing came back. So, in an attempt to extend time between draining it (gross, don't ask), I keep it wrapped in vet wrap.






Just for information purposes, they sell this stuff at farm stores about half price of what you will pay at a drugstore. It comes in all kinds of colors, plus camo and other designs. In case you want to camouflage your injury, or your horse's injury, I guess.

Anyhow, if I don't wear a sock on that foot, the wrap wads up and makes it uncomfortable to walk, not to mention not doing it's job of putting pressure on the cyst area. This is not a problem in the winter, because I'm wearing socks anyhow, but I wear FitFlops in the summer. FitFlops is a brand of shoe that doesn't hurt my plantar fasciitis. (Foot problems run in my family).

Since I'm away from my loom right now, and have lots of knitting time, I decided to make some socks for FitFlops.




Good things: I can get a pair out of a 50 gram ball. Wool doesn't make your feet hot in the summer. They're uber quick.

Next pair I will use the Kitchener stitch for the toe cap instead of a 3 needle bind-off.

But, all in all, success. I figured out the divided toe, which is a major accomplishment for this knitter. I realize the toe areas don't match, and I don't mind that. Match, smatch. How, I ask myself, can I be so obsessive about pattern balance, which is really matching, in my weaving and not care a whit if my socks match?

Still pondering questions of the universe here in sunny, windy, California.

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The Fine Art of Re-purposing

So, the last Guild meeting I went to, my friend, Dawn, was showing fancy hemstitiching. She brought a table loom, and several shuttles. One of the shuttles was a Little Man shuttle. I really liked it for a several reasons: It has an extra large bobbin area, the opening for the bobbin thread runs nearly the length of the shuttle, and it felt nice in my hand. When I got home and looked it up on www.villagespinweave.com, I liked it again because of the reasonable cost. So, I ordered one.
Since it has such a large bobbin area, the regular length bobbins don't really work. The size I got will take an inch bobbin (really just slightly longer) or two 4 inch bobbins. I had the 4 inch bobbins but wasn't really happy with using them for single threads. It will probably work well for doubled, (using the thread off both bobbins at once). Haven't tried that yet. Dawn had used the paper bottom from a coat hanger for a makeshift bobbin, and that works okay, but I really wanted something stronger.
I've always been one for wandering around hardware stores, poking into drawers, etc. just to see what I can find, but Lowes stumps me. It's just big. I decided to crowd-source my problem. I took a 4 inch plastic bobbin to work, and I must admit, I went to the engineer first. This is a re-purposing project, I said.
Chuck came out to my desk later that morning with the plastic bobbin in hand and said, "Solid fuel line." Buy it at the auto parts store. So, I stopped by the parts store on the way home. They told me they had no such thing, they didn't deal in solid fuel, and asked if my vehicle was fuel injected. Not too many minutes later, they understood that they had an odd one on their hands, they did not need engine size information, and decided what I needed was rigid brake line. I bought one in 12 inch size, since I needed nearly 9 inches.




I went by my mechanic's on the way home, he cut it off to size, took the brass nuts off, and flared the end. It works like a charm. The flare is not very wide, maybe 1/8 inch, but it's enough to keep the yarn from slipping off, and allows me to wind the shuttle easily.




I bought another the next day. It holds a ton of yarn, especially this 20/2 I'm working with now. The Little Man has a nice blunt end, the better to fly through the shed with, my dear, and when, on occasion I miss the catch, I can say, "Come back here, Little Man!"
I'm away from my loom for a while now, but Little Man and Bertha (the loom) will be waiting for me when I get back. Here's what I'm doing until then! Grandkids!



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Sample

I wove a sample of the Swedish Lace to check shrinkage and drape.








I have 15% shrinkage each way, which is about what I had figured. The end width of the piece is still wide enough for my blouse pattern. I'll have to piece the back instead of putting it on the fold, but that's expected.

The drape, as you can see from the second photo, is really nice. That's just held in my hand. It's quite light, and right out of the dryer there are no wrinkles. So, good, good, and good.

The selvedges are a mess. Since this is yardage, though, I'm not going to put a lot of energy into fixes. A floating selvedge would work, but for yardage .... not worth the time and trouble, in my opinion.

I'm using red for the weft in the cloth. Wasn't sure I had enough of the blue. I am measuring weight of weft used, though, for my records. If I had that already, I could weigh the blue and see if I have enough. I'm not courageous enough, though, to chance getting to the last yard and running out.

I think I may have enough on this warp to weave the cloth for the blouse and then cross the last few yards with white to make some curtains for my bathroom. As long as I don't stand next to my bathroom window a lot, I should be okay ;-)


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Progress

I haven't had a lot of free time the last couple days, but I did get the threading completed this evening and started beaming the warp. I hope to get that finished tomorrow morning and maybe, maybe, I can get started weaving on Sunday.
The 20/2 has a lot of twist and I measured it out by twos, so I tried to be very careful when threading to go back to the lease sticks and separate each thread within it's couplet so there was as little twisting around each other as possible. So far, so good. I have lease sticks in the back and in the front, and that helps keep it all nice and straight, too.
It's been a while since I've sewn anything for myself from my handwoven fabric. It's not really much different sewing with handwoven than with anything else as long as the fabric hand is what you want. However, I have been stuck forever, it seems, in the conundrum of wanting to sew something but not really having occasion to wear a fancy handwoven whatever. I don't dress up often, (that's the understatement of the year), and don't want to put the time and effort into something that hangs in the closet.
Then I started thinking about my ancestors. Their everyday clothes were made from handwovens, and talk about taking a licking and keeping on ticking. Those women got a lot of use out of their garments.
So I'm thinking a cotton blouse, or top, for summer wear. Something airy and light. I have threaded this warp in Swedish Lace, and am hoping the 20/2 threads will give enough air flow in the lace areas for comfort, but also give enough coverage for a summer blouse.

Here's what I have in my pattern stash. It will need to be one of these, because it appears decent patterns have gone the way of the rotary dial phone.




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Onward

780 ends. 20/2 unmercerized cotton. 30 epi. 120 through the heddles so far. Challenging.



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Decisions on sleep deprived brain - not good idea

This has been a very stressful week at work. I work at a Public Radio station and it's our Spring Fund Drive - early mornings, long hours. It just helps me to at least think about weaving some every day, even if I can't do much of it this week.

So, I have been mulling and muddling around all week with this painted warp:




It's 10/2 mercerized cotton, 716 ends, 12 yd. long. It is just wide enough for a twin blanket, if I weave the entire length, and seam it in thirds. I've made both my grandkids twin blankets already. Not sure they need another. Don't know anyone else with a twin bed.

I toyed with putting a couple threads of solid evenly throughout to widen it. I worked up an overshot pattern that would work with the # of ends, then talked myself out of doing that. Not before I wound 350 ends of solid, though. I thought about alternating painted warp with solid warp in stripes for overshot - even tried this idea out on some left over painted warp. Which means I wound some other threads of solid, tied it onto the overshot pattern I just finished and wove a couple repeats.






Meh. Don't really like it.

So, I have placed the painted warp and the coordinating solid warp, all of it washed and ready to go, back in the bag. Some day I'll find a use for it.

I'm not sure I've learned anything from all this. It was worthwhile to piddle around with the loom and patterns. I'm absolutely no further ahead tonight than I was Monday.

I've decided that now, in my low brain energy state, is good time to knit.

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When things don't feel right....

they're usually not right. This morning, I finished the tea towel I had started last night, and it just kept fretting at me. I had carefully written down the treadling sequence and made a little cheat sheet, which I tape so I can see it easily when weaving, and I checked it 4 or 5 times with the treadling indicated in the pattern, but it just didn't feel right.

For one thing, there were an uneven number of shots in a full repeat. The threading pattern is for a 70 end repeat, but the treadling showed a 69 end repeat. Hmmmm. What that means, to my small brain, is it takes two full repeats of the treadling to end up on the side I started on. Seriously, that's how I see things. Very basic. This is a muscle memory problem. As I learn the treadling, it sinks into my subconsious which side I am supposed to end up on at certain points in the pattern, and if I get off, things start feeling hinky. This was not lending itself to learning that muscle memory at all.

Overshot patterns start out, work to a mid point, and work backwards to the finish. The first part of the pattern mirrors the second part. So I started looking, and found a treadling error. Here's the treadling from the book, with the offending area marked:




It may be difficult to see, but the right leg of the bracket shows three shots on what we'll call Treadle 1. The bottom leg shows only two shots on Treadle 1. The entire part bracketed is actually the very center of the pattern. So these shots on Treadle 1 should be exactly the same: 3 shots in each place.

Here's the first tea towel, with the offending area marked. The arrow is actually pointing exactly at the problem. You can see there are two shots. Scan down the pattern and you'll see the three shots on the other side of that center-piece-looking-thingy.



And here's the towel I wove with the treadling error fixed.


Interestingly enough, the incorrect sequence didn't really make a difference on the diagonal, since it was not a single shot. There were two shots there instead of three, but still enough to drag that diagonal along.

With the fix, the treadling sequence mirrors itself perfectly, my shuttles are on the correct sides at the right times, and it feels so. nicely. balanced.

I started another tea towel, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I worked out in the yard this afternoon, pruning for a couple hours, and I be tired. And tomorrow is a long day at work. Maybe I'll get to weave a bit in the evening.



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Curiosity becomes a search

I threaded my new overshot pattern "Flowers of Cromaine" (BGH) yesterday and beamed the warp today, which means I was able to weave a couple repeats:




It's a pretty pattern, and I'm looking forward to making some progress on the warp.

But I started thinking about the origin of the name of the pattern. Ms. Hayes put some interesting names on her patterns, like "Gastric Ulcer" and "Bomber Flight" to name a couple, and I was pretty sure "Cromaine" meant something.

This is where I love the internet. What would have taken days at a city library took me a few minutes on the internet.

It turns out that Cromaine Crafts was a part of the Hartland Area Project in Hartland, Michigan. It was one of those social experiment communities popular in the first part of the 1900s. Handcrafts was a big part of their "project" and they built a loom named the Cromaine Crafts Loom.

Here's a link to what Janet Meany has to say about it:

http://www.oocities.org/rugtalk/CromaineCraftsLoom.html

which is quite interesting. I had no idea when I chose this pattern that it was connected to what is The Mannings today! Wow! History is so cool! No telling what the connection was between Bertha Gray Hayes and the Cromaine Craft Project, but I'm pretty sure there was a connection.

I'm very glad I have this warp on the loom and ready to go. Sanity is a warped loom.

Know your weaknesses

I'll just say at the beginning here (at the risk of sounding like I'm at an AA meeting), that I have had a difficult relationship with knitting patterns all my life. To me, a perfectly fine and obtainable pattern is knit 2, pearl 2. I'm good at socks, as long as the patterns is k2, p2.

I knew when I made the cowl at Christmas that the pattern said I should get 5 repeats, minimum, out of a 100 g ball of sock yarn, and I got three, barely. What I didn't know until my sister pointed it out was that I did the yarn overs completely wrong, using twice as much yarn, and causing them to not really look like yo's. They look okay, and I wear the cowl, but still.

So, a friend gave me another pattern for a cowl that has yo's that makes a wave pattern. I repeated the pattern 3 times before I cottoned on to the fact that I was increasing by a lot of stitches when I shouldn't be - like ending up with 401 stitches when I should have 234. (You say seems like I would have noticed it sooner? Shut. Up. ) So, rip out time. I'm back to the first inch of knitting and am forging ahead, but.........I did find my error! And that's really huge for me.

On weaving, at which I'm much more competent, I wound 516 ends this week and have them through the reed. I'm hoping to get this warp through the heddles and beamed before the end of the weekend. I'm getting ready to head into a couple weeks of work hell and having something "shuttle ready" when I come home.....that's important.

I'm warping Flowers of Cromaine. Flowers! Valentine's Day! Spring! Flowers!


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