Weaving A Gem Of A Life

April Towels Bring……

…frustration, in this case.

After fighting with the warp to get it beamed, I fought with it for most of the weaving, too.

I wove one towel & had to cut it off & re-tie because the warp was so poorly tensioned. All will be well now, I thought.

Hah!

I had to weave on the tightest tension I could possibly achieve on my little counterbalance loom in order to have a clear shed and good selvedges, and that meant I had broken warp threads. Pretty much on every towel.

Even so, my selvedges look like a beginner wove them, not up to my usual standards AT ALL.

Then it took me most of a day to do the finish work – machine stitch a single line, make the hem & machine stitch that, hand hem the side of each hem, needle weave in all ends from the broken warp threads.

Finally throw them in the washer & dryer. Whew! I still have to hard press them all.

I used some of that variegated cotton from the baby wrap weft for added interest, and I wove with 4 different weft colors – 2 of each: white, palest blue, medium blue, and palest green.

Then I spent way too much time designing posters for my Community Weaving Project, designing & sending out emails for my show Mother’s Day weekend, and

When I get them all pressed I’ll show you, as long as you realize that the differences are pretty subtle.

Right now I have to take a shower and go to my Guild meeting. Looking forward to spending time with those kindred spirits.

On This & That

For the past 2 days I spent most of my time & energy working a fundraiser for my local library. Took time off my paycheck job to do this volunteer job. Today I needed to do lots of odds & ends of things.

I balanced two checkbooks and paid a mess of bills. I changed the sheets, finally thinking it was time to take off the flannel sheets for regular cotton ones. Hope it was a good decision.

I washed two loads of clothes, including those flannel sheets, and dried the first load on the clothesline – my first of this year.

I made some phone calls, sent some emails, & pressed the two baby wraps (for AT & NHD). I vacuumed the floor & washed the dishes.

The most impressive thing I did was make a loaf of multigrain sourdough boule. As always, I’m afraid it won’t come out of the crock well. It did.

I set up my EZCube light tent and took a mess of photos, posting it for sale on Craigslist.

Amazingly, by now it was 4PM. Where does the day go?

I did get a warp for 8 towels wound on my counterbalance loom. Found it interesting that the unmercerized 8/2 homestead cotton was about 10x harder to beam than the unmercerized 8/2 Maurice Brassard cotton I use for the baby wraps. I guess all unmercerizeds are not created equal.

Darn good thing. If I had to fight with the more-than-double length and width of yarn for every baby wrap the way I fought with the towel warp, I would have stopped weaving wraps after #2.

By the way – the bread is yummy!

Nearing the end

I simply can’t get the colors to be even close to real life. Must be those compact fluorescent bulbs I use. Doesn’t matter what my camera’s set at, the color’s off.

Anyway, N wanted me to change the treadling pattern for 2″ in the middle of her wrap. Not a problem. (Actually, AT did too, but I forgot to take a picture of hers.)

I’m making great progress…only 36″ left to weave on this warp of two custom baby wraps.

Fortunately, the repairman was able to fix a problem with my sewing machine quickly so I have it back to do the essential machine hemming on these wraps as soon as they’re off the loom.

I’m thinking that before I head into the next batch of baby wraps I’m going to put a towel warp on my counterbalance loom to have more dish towels for my upcoming local show. So many ideas, so little time….

Shhhhhhhhh

I don’t want to say this too loudly and jinx it, but you see that floating selvedge on the right side of my warp? It’s the same thread I started with more than 220″ ago. For lots of people that’d be no big deal. But for me, as I reported recently, it’s huge.

It would appear that I figured out what I was doing wrong that broke that thread every 20″. I think I did that when I was weaving HR’s X-patterned baby wrap, since that needed two floating selvedges, too. YAY!!

As planned, I did get N’s wrap started yesterday, although only about 25″ worth. Here’s the end of AT’s & the beginning of N’s.

N’s wrap has a marine weft. You can also see that I’ve started the weaving pattern in the opposite direction. I’d forgotten when I started A’s that this particular pattern is marginally easier to treadle ‘backwards,’ from treadle 9 to 1 then 3,2 as opposed to 1 to 9 then 2,3. Even marginal improvements help; if I save a few seconds every time I have to get those 3,2 or 2,3 treadles, overall it makes things move more quickly. After all, I have to make that foot-dance change (from treadle 9 to 2 or treadle 1 to 3) probably 500+ times in the wrap.

In reality, the efficiency may make at least as much of a difference in my mind as it does on the clock. I find that just as important.

Love is a many colored wrap

That’s a view I rarely get on my loom — looking through a warp that’s fully beamed and threaded through the heddles. I’ve not yet tied it to the front apron so the light is able to move through places it can’t usually. The colors are completely off, but I liked the shot anyway.

Yesterday I was able to get about half of AT’s custom baby wrap woven, despite not feeling up to par. I like the royal weft she’s chosen to offset the many colors in the warp. The brightness makes me happy.

Today I hope to finish her wrap and start her friend N’s. And still get some gardening done in the sunny outdoors.

Weaving A Gem Of A Life

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April Towels Bring……

On This & That

Nearing the end

Shhhhhhhhh

Love is a many colored wrap

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