After enjoying the park we went back to their house for lunch and fun. [...]]]> Last week I went to Rochester to spend time at the Lilac Festival with my daughter and grandson. They have more than 200 varieties of lilacs in the park as well as plenty of other trees, shrubs, & plants to admire.

After enjoying the park we went back to their house for lunch and fun. I was surprised to get two Mother’s Day presents, made just for me by the little one.

Some weeks earlier they’d gone to a place where you could paint your own pottery. This is a swell mug I got.

In addition to being colorful, it’s huge, so I can enjoy a really large cup of tea. I was happy. And even more surprised that there was another gift, too – a painting, complete with frame.

I think the color play is just lovely, and the whole thing is cheerful.

How lucky am I?!

Thanks, Rusty!

These shawls are [...]]]> Like most people (I think), I get my creative inspiration from a variety of places – from seeing what other weavers have made, from books, from looking at my stash, from seeing the world around me. The first and last in that list are what led to me weaving two shawls.

These shawls are quite different for me in two important ways: color and fiber content. The color is most significant. I am very used to working with hand painted fibers to create color interest. I’m very comfortable working with solid colors and using weaving pattern to create the interest. I’m gaining comfort with using stripes of different solid colors in a variety of ways to infuse a different appeal.

In these shawls, however, I used many different colors – I think 10 – in semi-random stripes in an attempt to create the impression I want. I wanted to bring a summer sunset to mind, with all the colors it can include, from orange to pink to blue to green to purple to red and an amazing blending at the intersections of them. I think I was pretty successful for my first attempt.

For the fiber, I used 5/2 cotton for the warp & rayon for the weft – I don’t remember ever mixing these fibers like this before. I was a bit concerned that the fibers wouldn’t play nicely together, that they’d cause unpleasant differential shrinkage or crinkling. I tried it because I knew I wanted to soften the cotton, provide more drape than a cotton this heavy could provide. I also set the threads relatively far apart – at 15 ends per inch – and threaded for a huck lace. I treadled only half of the typical huck pattern – I call it huckish. For all you weavers, here’s part of my draft – repeat as needed for width.

So here’s the first shawl, woven with an orange weft.

It’s my fav, for sure. Doesn’t it look nice on Dolly with all that lovely spring green in the background?

For the second shawl I used a spice weft. It’s much darker – probably 20 minutes later into that sunset.

At the show I was twisting fringe and got a lot of positive comments. I think they’ll be attractive to my customers at my next show. Of course, I never really know. I just have to weave things that make me happy, that I like, and trust to the process.

I decided I needed to weave a batch of bookmarks before that little, local show, making sure I had something small and easily affordable. So I warped up the loom and wove 25 bookmarks.

I chose to use mostly bits of hand painted [...]]]> At least sometimes that title is true. This time, maybe not so much.

I decided I needed to weave a batch of bookmarks before that little, local show, making sure I had something small and easily affordable. So I warped up the loom and wove 25 bookmarks.

I chose to use mostly bits of hand painted yarns since my customers tend to prefer the look of the variegations.

I’m sure I’ll use these, and many more bookmarks through the year – last year I sold over 100 of them. But not this past weekend. I didn’t sell any.

The small group of artisans I work with for these local shows learned a bunch this past weekend – like how important it is that we missed getting an article in a weekly newspaper. It definitely showed in our traffic. That’s ok – now we know. And besides, we all enjoy each others’ company.

Now back to the loom.

With that in mind (okay, not really, but it makes for good text) I [...]]]> April and May are generally good months for wind. The weather is changing and with it comes, at the very least, breezes. It’s often time to take your kite to an open field, or go in your backyard with a pinwheel.

With that in mind (okay, not really, but it makes for good text) I decided to weave another warp of four 8-harness black & white pinwheels. They really are eye catching.

It’s pretty amazing how different the 8-harness vs. 4-harness pinwheels turned out.

Now, in addition to having more harnesses to do more twirls with the pattern, and having less contrast in the colors, I had sett the 4H scarves at 21 threads per inch. The 8H scarves are 18 threads per inch. I intended to sett them at 21, but when I pulled out my records from my prior 8H pinwheels I had sett them at 18 and they turned out fine (not too long floats, not too unstable cloth) so I did that again this time. Again I’m happy with them, so if I decide to do 4H pinwheels again I will sett them at 18, too.

Back to my first show of the season for the second day in just a few minutes. Hopefully we’ll be busier today.

The Tencel warp only 3 colors: spice, curry, & gold. In between the solid colors I’ve tried the every-other-thread blending technique. I wasn’t sure I was crazy about it until [...]]]> I don’t recall ‘naming’ a series of scarves before, but this warp of four called its name out to me repeatedly: Fire in the Hills.

The Tencel warp only 3 colors: spice, curry, & gold. In between the solid colors I’ve tried the every-other-thread blending technique. I wasn’t sure I was crazy about it until I started weaving. Then I knew it worked well.

First I wove a scarf with a sienna weft. It created a lovely golden tone across the scarf. I like the fact that it works with each of the colors without exactly matching any of them.

That worked so well I went for another coordinating weft color, this time cayenne. I really love it – everything’s a lovely orange color. I liked it so much I wove two with this weft.

For the final scarf in the run I debated. Would I do another sienna or try something different? I opted to try a darker color. This time I used burgundy.

The sienna & cayenne scarves are relatively true to color; the burgundy looks much muddier in the photo than in real life. I tried several times with different settings and at different times of day. This is the best I could do.

I’m quite happy with my weaving progress during April. At the end of March I was 24 scarves behind the number I’d woven at that point last year. At the end of April I was only 6 scarves behind. Whoppee! Obviously I wove more than I blogged. You’ll see them all eventually.

Spring beauties are up — ahhhh. They are so aptly named. In my woods they come in the stunning variety and a slightly less gorgeous, paler, almost white bloom.

I [...]]]> Yesterday the beautiful spring weather called me off the road and into the woods for my daily walk. I really wanted to see what was blooming there.

Spring beauties are up — ahhhh. They are so aptly named.

In my woods they come in the stunning variety and a slightly less gorgeous, paler, almost white bloom.

I kept climbing the hill in the woods, turned around, and saw this lovely wooded view.

Can you see the roof of my house in that photo? How about that terrific field on the next hill that I like to climb up to and enjoy the view?

No? Don’t see either? Here they are.

I kept walking and found several patches of leeks. They’re a real spring delicacy out here in the sticks. I think they’re a distant relative of the leeks sold in the grocery store, with stems as thick as 3 fingers. These wild leeks, called ramps in the southern states, have a stem that’s about the width of a pencil lead. Their flavor is decidedly not delicate, particularly when eaten raw – which I never do. Lightly sauteed they provide a nice green with an onion-garlic flavor.

On my way back down the hill I came upon this down log that has provided some early food for a flicker or pileated woodpecker. That hole is probably 1.5″ deep and 3.5″ across.

Approaching my yard, I saw that the partridge berry fruits were out. Although the US Forest Service says they’re tasteless, I definitely disagree – these little red gems taste like teaberry gum.

Back in the yard, I had a little chuckle. These grape hyacinth used to be in the flower bed. Clearly when I had the well dug last year the machine moved them & I didn’t notice the small bulbs when I replanted things.

Trust me when I tell you they’re flowering more here in the lawn than they ever did in the bed. They’ll be done flowering by the time I need to mow, so I’m not going to move them back. They can live right here.

I loved the silver & gold twill and thought seeing equal amounts of the two colors would be great.

In real life…not so much. There’s not [...]]]> After those Tencel silver warped twill scarves I wanted to work with that silver gray yarn some more. I thought it would be perfect for that classic drall weaving pattern.

I loved the silver & gold twill and thought seeing equal amounts of the two colors would be great.

In real life…not so much. There’s not enough contrast between the two colors, and for reasons I don’t really understand the silver gray is much more likely to look like gray than like silver. Hmmm.

My second favorite in the silver twills was the olive. So I tried that with the drall.

Better, for sure, but still not enough color contrast to show the weaving pattern at its best.

Ok, move to navy. Now I must say here that what I think of as navy and what is commonly thought of as navy are clearly two different things. I think of a pea coat – so dark navy it’s almost black. Clearly that’s not what almost anyone else thinks of. I’ve gotten ‘navy’ yarn in Tencel, rayon, cotton, & bamboo, and all of them were much lighter than what I had in mind. Nice, but not what I expected.

Enough stalling, here’s the navy & silver drall.

Much better contrast, even though the blue doesn’t send me.

Finally I went as dark as I could with black. This one is definitely my favorite in the set. More so in real life than in the photos.

I’m making progress, but I’ve gotta keep weaving to catch up with my needed stock numbers. As positive responses come in for shows I applied to I’m reminded that I can’t let up, at least not yet.