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It happened again

Once more, weeks have gone by without a post from me. And this time I can’t even claim to have posted things on Facebook; I haven’t.

Some days I feel remarkably unproductive. How did I ever get things done when I had a full time job? Other days I’m totally caught up in doing lots of mundane, routine tasks. But there it is. I can’t change the past. So here’s an update on what I have done in the past few weeks.

I took an online class through our Weaving Center on deflected doubleweave. I’d done a bit of it before but had limited experience with the structure. Plus I really wanted to see how it all worked, classes on Zoom, and how the Center might be able to support more of our teachers doing more online classes. I, for one, don’t see myself taking in-person classes for the rest of this year.

The class met once/week for 3 weeks. On our meeting days, we had 3 meetings, each an hour or more. And we were to be doing things in between meetings and weeks. So I spent a lot of time on that. I learned a lot, but I’m not sure how much of it I will use. The instructor is a big fan of collapse weave, using yarns that will shrink differently – for instance a wool and a cotton – and that’s just not my bag. But here are a few shots of my samples, showing measurements before & after wet finishing. Note that the pink warp & weft was tencel, the dusty rose, when used, was rayon. Their shrinkage differentials were surprising.

deflected doubleweave samples

Then, since I had enough warp on the loom, I decided to weave 2 scarves with these techniques. My opinion of them? Meh. If you would like one of them let me know & I’ll give you a screaming deal.

This one is woven partly with colcolastic thread/yarn. My intent was that the plain weave sections would really ‘pouf out’ from the colcolastic sections. The effect wasn’t as dramatic as I’d wanted.

handwoven scarf with tencel and colcolastic

I kind of liked the ‘bubble’ effect with the wool in the sample, so I dug out some baby lace-weight alpaca I had and wove the second scarf with that. I may have over-fulled the alpaca a bit; lack of experience. In any case, here’s that scarf.

handwoven scarf with tencel & alpaca

Here’s a closeup of those bubbles. And what appears to be a treadling error I didn’t see until just now.

closeup of tencel & alpaca bubbles

So with all of that it was taking forever to weave the next batch of Safe At Home towels. I finally have them off the loom, but haven’t begun to press or hem yet.

handwoven towels awaiting finishing

Unrelated to weaving…strike when the iron is hot, right? Well, it’s berry time. A woman who lives not too far from me has a cherry tree. With her permission I picked quite a lot of fruit in 2018 and made jams and more. Last year almost no cherries developed. So this year when I saw her tree and again got her permission to pick, I did so. The cherries were mostly really high, much higher than I could reach with my ladder, and not so great. I only picked about four quarts of cherries, ended up throwing out about a quart of them, and got one batch of jam. One of those jar went to the tree owner, of course.

cherry jam

Then my son found some wild black raspberries near his house. He’s picked, I’ve picked, and we’ve picked together. Here’s the first of three batches of black raspberry jam I’ve made.

black raspberry jam

Then my second online fiber course started. This one is on painting two warps and using them in one project. I’ve done this before, too, but again wanted the experience of the Zoom structure. Working well ahead of the course plan, here are photos of my warps just after painting, and then when they’re steamed, rinsed, dried, and chained. It’s all 20/2 silk.

The first warp is purple, orange, burgundy, and reddish-fuchsia.
handpainted silk warp 1

I had already partially wrapped this one before I took my photo. It’s gold, avocado, blue-green, and light indigo.

handpainted silk warp 2

I’m very happy with the results and am looking forward to getting these on the loom.

2 handpainted silk warps

I think I’m going to go outside my personal comfort zone and do random stripes, with a simple straight twill. (Random???? For someone with my control issues?? Oh my!!!)

6 comments to It happened again

  • Gail

    Those are beautiful. Where can one find this online course?

    • Peg Cherre

      To this point, all of our online courses are taught in real time. They are not recorded for later learning. Sorry!

  • Charlene

    Glad you are back. What an interesting time you have been having.

    • Peg Cherre

      Thanks, Charlene. It has been interesting. I’m REALLY going to try to get back to my regular posting, even if I don’t feel like I’ve been very productive.

  • Alma

    The bubble effect is pretty interesting, and pretty pretty. I like the one that’s all bubbly rather than the one with the scattered bubbles.

    The dyed fibers with the greens are great to my eye.

    And so are the jams, of course.

    I continue to marvel at your resourcefulness!!

    • Peg Cherre

      Thanks, Alma. I like the bubble effect, but for a whole scarf I find it overwhelming. I’m very happy with all the dyed yarns, and can’t wait to see how they will work up. And who doesn’t like jam?!

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