Weaving A Gem Of A Life

Busy weekend

I was very busy this weekend. I finished those rayon chenille shawls, did the billing, took some finished photos and got them packaged up for mailing. I really struggled with the photos for these pieces. Either the purple was way off or the green was. Mostly the green looked like black in the photos, and it doesn’t in real life. This is the best I could do.

I love how when I just draped it on Dolly it looked like a shawl-collared swing coat. Wouldn’t you love to wear that coat? I sure would!

Then I decided to get that other custom order woven. I needed to clear my brain, and my plate, so I could move onto more hand painting and weaving for my jury photos.

I decided to wind the warp just for the one ordered scarf, a very unusual thing for me since it is not time efficient. But I knew I wouldn’t use this piece for jurying and had to get those things done.

Here I am at the beginning of the weaving. Spice tencel for the warp, black tencel for the weft.

All is going well, although my knee does not like weaving this pattern. I have one treadle that requires that I lift 7 harnesses – that’s heavy. If I reverse the tie up so I only lift 1 treadle, I pay for it with all the other treadles, having to lift 5 instead of 3. Not worth it.

So I’m weaving along, making good progress, feeling positive.

Then I notice that one of the hooks fell off the 7-lift treadle and it’s only lifting 6. My leg always knows and alerts me immediately if one falls off if it’s lifting 3 or 4 or 5 treadle, but apparently lifting 7 was heavy enough that it couldn’t tell the difference when it was ‘only’ lifting 6. And the visual for this difference only shows on the underside of the cloth, so I didn’t notice it when it happened. In the photo the orange drawn lines point to the last correct treadling and the first incorrect treadling. See the missing dark horizontals?

Ok, so I have to do some un-weaving. No big deal. Examine the cloth to see how much I have to remove.

AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH! 27 inches?!?!? Really?!?!?

If I’d done my ‘usual’ and warped for 2 or 3 scarves I would have simply called the length I’d woven so far waste and started the custom weave anew. But I’d only warped for 1 scarf so that option was closed to me.

I wasn’t going to un-weave 27″, but I did have to cut and remove the weft from those 27″. Then re-weave that many inches again.

Anyway, being the stubborn person I am, I decided to just keep going, moving forward. You can bet I paid very careful attention to that 7-harness treadle. I also changed the tie-up so that my right leg lifted it instead of my left leg with the funky knee.

I also committed to not weaving this pattern again, or other weave structures that require such a lift. Re-confirmed for me that although I do have harness envy, loving weave patterns that require 12, 16, or more shafts, I will never purchase a loom with that many harnesses. Period.

So I finished the weaving last night.

Today I will cut it off the loom, twist the fringe, and do the wet finishing. If all goes well I’ll also have time to plan and wind a warp or two for hand painting.

2,500 picks

Every endeavor has its own language. In weaving, a pick has 3 components:

Step on a treadle to open a shed (moving threads up and down – presumes a floor loom; table looms are a bit different);
Throw the shuttle, sending the yarn through that shed ;
Pull the beater bar forward, packing in the yarn.

According to my calculations, I wove about 2,500 picks yesterday. Whew! I could only do that because I did no volunteer work for the Weaving Center, no babysitting, no posting on blog or Facebook, no grocery buying, no cooking.

After I got the two shawls woven I had a bit of extra warp and decided to weave what I could for length and see if I could make a cowl. I got about 22″ woven, and this is how close I came to the end of the warp.

This morning I cut the woven fabric off the loom. Then there are several steps to be done. First is a visual inspection of both sides of the fabric, looking for any treadling errors or skipped threads. I only found a few, thank goodness, because I hate needle weaving. Here’s what it looks like when I have to do it.

Then I have to pull out my sewing machine and sew a line of stitching close to the edge of each piece to stabilize the threads before cutting them apart.

Although I machine hem my towels, I hand hem all of my wearables. First pin, then hem.

After that it’s into the washer & dryer. Then, with most fabric (but not rayon chenille), a hard press finishes the weaving process.

I’ll try to get a few pix of the finished shawls in natural light tomorrow.

I’m loving it!

I had a bit of tie-up issue at the beginning and had to take out about an inch of weaving and restart, but I am loving this warp!

amethyst to iris side of the shawl

So much so that I wish I could have warped for four shawls, not just the two I’ve already sold. 😉 I would have used a few different wefts just so that they’d not be identical, but the colors look terrific together.

hunter to blueberry side of the shawl

Maybe I’ll have to do another similar warp. After I get the other custom order woven. And some warps painted, beamed, and woven for the professional photographs I need to have taken for this year’s jury photos. Where does the time go?

Amethyst to Emerald

Although I’m still doing some off-loom work on those baby wraps, I decided my brain needed me to wind the warp for my next order. This started with an order for one rayon chenille shawl, but I have subsequently added an order for the second one on this warp. I’ve learned through experience that when I’m working with rayon chenille, I’m happiest when I warp for only two shawls at a time; with three my brain and my back get too distressed.

This is the line up of yarns I’d started with, and what both customers saw, although this shot has better lighting.

As I got to planning the exact layout, no matter what I did that aquamarine, the brightest color, 4th from the left in the line up, stood out like a sore thumb. All off, not good. I tried it in different locations in the line up, didn’t matter. Just wrong.

I laid out the yarns without that color to see if I liked it.

Yep. Makes me much happier. It is all a bit darker than I’d generally choose, so I figured I’d wind the warp with those colors, and then as I was threading, if I thought I needed a bit of lightness, I’d hang a thread or two of the aquamarine from the back beam and just substitute on the spot.

I wound bout one – amethyst to iris gradient with a touch of navy thrown in for even more depth. Isn’t that amethyst just wonderful?!

Then solid iris, still with a bit of navy, to a gradient with iris combo, to solid iris combo. Iris combo is a space-dyed variegation that is no longer available.

Bout three is iris combo gradient to blueberry. Ahhh. I like this. In fact I wound some extra threads of blueberry and will decrease some of the iris combo. At least that’s what I think right now.

Last but not least, blueberry gradient to hunter. Nice look.

I am appreciative of the fact that both of my customers trust my taste and my eye to choose the colors and layout well. I’m looking forward to beaming and threading this warp, but that won’t happen today. I’m going to go hopefully to finalize the grant submission for the Weaving and Fiber Arts Center, and then do the remainder of the off-loom work on the baby wraps.

80 inches of snow

Unlike people in other parts of the country, the 80″ of snow I saw today were only in my weaving studio. 🙂

I finished weaving the last few inches of KY’s wrap this morning. Then I had to change the tie up and weaving pattern. I have a touchy left knee, and I’d strained it trying to add Zumba to my life. (I really do need to lose some weight, plus the few pounds I added during the holidays.) Zumba and my knee did not get along well. And then more than 240″ of weaving hearts, with my left knee simultaneously stretching and pressing down, did not help the healing.

Since I don’t have a taker for the sister wrap, it was the ideal time for me to create a new pattern. This only takes 8 treadles, and lifts a smaller number than hearts, plus I arranged the tie up so I only work 3 treadles with my left foot instead of 5 for hearts. My knee is so much happier!

So I wove 80″ of snowflakes today. I have obligations out of the house tomorrow so won’t get this finished till Thursday, but I’m confident it will proceed well, without me needing to take anywhere near as many knee breaks.

Weaving A Gem Of A Life

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Busy weekend

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I’m loving it!

Amethyst to Emerald

80 inches of snow

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