Weaving A Gem Of A Life

Doh!

As soon as I say “always” or “never” — as in, “I always do X” or “I never do Y” I’m reminded of how untrue that is. I got about 18″ of the second rayon chenille scarf woven when all of a sudden it hit me. I wasn’t really weaving tabby. Although I almost always have treadles 5 & 6 on my counterbalance loom tied up to weave tabby, I’d changed them for the custom lace infinity scarf I’d woven. Instead of alternately lifting harnesses 1&3 and then 2&4, they were lifting 1&4 and then 2&3. That means instead of going over one thread at a time, I was going over two. Here’s a graphic of the difference.

It does have an impact on structure. Since rayon chenille must be woven tightly for long-term stability, going over 2 threads at a time means that the weft threads pack in more closely. As a result, the weft becomes a bit more dominant than when it’s going over 1 thread at a time. I decided I wasn’t going to change it in mid-scarf. I’d finish this scarf and change the tie-up for the last one.

The turquoise weft I used for the second scarf was also incredibly bright. Although I’m usually what I call a bright-colors-girl, I wasn’t crazy about this weft, either.

So after correcting the tie-up I went for a purple weft for the third scarf. In fact, it’s an astro dyed variegation called Purple Thistle. Hunh. I didn’t really like this one, either.

I still have to twist the fringe and then wet finish these scarves, but when I dropped them in a pile in preparation for that, I was surprised by what my eyes liked.

I am really drawn to that turquoise weft, then the emerald, and the purple least of all. I would have expected purple, turquoise, and emerald in that order.

I don’t think I’ll order this colorway, Gems, from Tammy again. She has so many that I love, why buy one that I’m not so fond of?

I have another special order I’m going to try to get on and off the loom before I have to pack the car on Friday for my next show — a black & white rayon log cabin. I’m going to make the warp for 3 scarves, as usual, and if I need to cut it off after 1 or 2 in order to be ready, I’ll do that.

Your turn: does always or never work for you?

Late Thanksgiving

I’m quite flexible about some things, especially about what day my family celebrates holidays. If it makes life easier for my kids and grandson to get together before or after the ‘official’ day, that’s fine with me. The important part is that we get together and enjoy each other, not that we do it on a specific calendar day.

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving on Sunday. So on Thursday & Friday I was able to weave those silver striped rayon chenille shawls. Next time I’d make fewer stripes and more silver, but I’m happy with them as they stand.

I also got a warp of three rayon chenille scarves on the loom. This green is so bright it hurts my eyes.

I hope someone falls in love with it. I guess I shouldn’t worry – the bamboo-cotton scarves I wove with this colorway sold immediately.

Still, I’ll be looking for alternate weft colors for the other two scarves.

After working at Pfeiffer Nature Center on Saturday afternoon I headed up to Rochester, driving through dark & snow, to get a few minutes with my sweet, little grandson before he went to bed, then be there with him when he got up on Sunday morning.

Dinner was an organic, free range, local turkey; squash & spinach gratin; mashed potatoes with spicy brown mustard; cranberry orange compote; and an entirely delicious brussel sprout & kale salad, all created by my talented daughter. My job was keeping my grandson entertained while Mama worked her kitchen magic. It was a tough job, but someone had to do it–LOL. We played with balls & a slide, read books, ate snacks, watched the dogs, and generally had a grand time.

Here Rusty’s loving his dog, Baxter. Red wasn’t so happy with this type of exuberance, but Baxter’s more patient. He’s had more practice, plus isn’t an old man like little Red.

After that fun Rusty got to try on his new winter boots. They came up to his knees and were so stiff that he walked rather like Frankenstein, but he didn’t mind.

Then I drove back home, again through dark & snow, encountering only one kamikaze deer. The family is wonderful, the drive less so. It is, however, a necessary evil so I grit & bear it. No, that’s not a typo. I’m not grinning when I’m driving over hill & dale in the winter. I’m often gritting my teeth and reminding myself to drop my shoulders and relax a bit. But since I’ve not mastered bending the universe to meet my desires, I do what I must.

Your turn: how was your holiday celebration?

November beauty

Although the people in NYC & NJ would surely disagree, I am so thankful for our November weather. We’ve had way more than our share of warm, sunny days. Sure it gets cold at night, but it might be troubling if it didn’t.

Except for the oaks which hang onto their brown leaves through much of the winter, most of the other deciduous trees are bare…and have been for at least a month. So their beauty rests in their angularity – the straight lines and the shadows.

Some of my trees have really wonderful exfoliating bark, like this Heritage river birch.

Meanwhile, one of my Bradford pears remains in full color. Quite unusual…and beautiful.

My show last weekend was quite the display challenge – instead of the usual 10′ x 10′ my space was a grand total of 48 square feet – less than half of the standard. And most of it was 4′ deep. Yikes! Thanks to graph paper, a mostly sleepless night when my brain wouldn’t shut off, and a terrific sister, we made the space look great. Of course I didn’t take a picture of it, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

The show went well with a reasonable amount of sales. Although if I had my druthers shows would never have Friday night hours. I sold my two Rainbow shawls – both short and long – and also a Silver Linings shawl, all in rayon chenille. Unfortunately I apparently never took a photo of it. Too bad, ‘cuz I really liked it. I also sold my remaining eggshell cotton huck lace shawl. I can’t make enough of these or the Rainbows.

I have another show in about 10 days and want to have more rayon chenille shawls and scarves, but I have limited time and a few special orders to make. So once again it’s prioritize, prioritize, prioritize.

First I wove an eggshell cotton lace infinity scarf, then set the loom up for two shawls. I need a break from Rainbows for a while, so decided on mostly silver with some random stripes of color.

It’s taken a while to get to this point, but now I’m ready to thread heddles and reed. Not sure if I’ll be weaving on it tonight or tomorrow morning — I’m not celebrating Thanksgiving till Sunday (it’s just how things worked out).

Regardless of whether you’re celebrating with a huge extended family or a small gathering of friends, on Thursday or some other day, I wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Balance

Life is all about balance. Balancing work & play, what I want to do and what must be done. When it comes to my weaving, at this point I’m balancing what I must do before the next show and what I want to do before the next show.

So I started by making a warp for three handwoven scarves in rayon chenille, in one of Tammy’s hand painted blends she calls Persian. As usual for me, 1 warp, 3 wefts. From left to right: Persian, mulberry, & lilac.

I haven’t used this colorway since early 2009, and then in a cotton chenille. It’s always interesting how different the same dyes look in different fibers – and how different the finished products look.

After this I figured I’d better do something that absolutely had to be done – repurposing old pillowcases into lovely packaging for my handwoven scarves and shawls. This time I sewed 52 of them.

I’m sure these will carry me through December, and then I’ll need to sew more for next year.

Then I had to weave more Rainbow rayon chenille shawls. I still haven’t finished the fringes or wet finished them, so no photos. But you’ve seen them before. One was already ordered, the other two will go in shows.

Oddly, for reasons I can’t figure out, my warp was 10″ too short. Huh. So the third shawl is 10″ shorter than usual. I’ll have to make the price a little less and hope that a short person wants it.

My paycheck job has been exceptionally busy, dramatically cutting into my weaving time. There are precious few days before the next show. In fact, in four weeks I’ll have three shows. YIKES! So the more I can weave, the better, since I really won’t be able to replenish between shows.

My brain tells me that I should weave some red rayon chenille scarves. My heart tells me I don’t want to. I want to weave some houndstooth, even though I know they won’t be fast since it’s back to two-shuttle weaving.

“Too bad,” I say. “If I can’t weave what I want, why am I doing this?”

So I warped the loom for three handwoven houndstooth scarves in cranberry & black rayon.

White & black would have had more drama, but I wanted to work with red, so there.

Your turn: what’s overflowing your plate of late?

Cabin Fever

Unlike the people in NYC & New Jersey, here in Western New York Sandy didn’t have much impact. Yes, it rained. A lot. And yes, it was very windy. But no real damage was done. Only a few trees came down. I lost power for a few hours while I slept on Monday night – most people didn’t lose it at all. We were very lucky.

So while some folks don’t have a cabin to be feverish in, and others are stuck at home with no heat, water, or electricity, my cabin fever is all imaginary.

That is to say, I don’t have it at all. I’m out and about as much as usual.

I have, however, been making handwoven scarves in the log cabin pattern. Seven so far, and I have another batch of three to come. If you’re a weaver, you know that weaving with two shuttles is time consuming. Takes more than twice as long as weaving with one. And since log cabin requires two shuttles, it’s not a speedy process at all to weave 7 of them. But it had to be done.

First I wove with a turquoise wool-silk blend and black wool.

The turquoise wool-silk yarn came from a giveaway over at Runamuck Weaving way back in January of 2011. I’ve been waiting for the yarn to speak to me, and it finally did. So I went to the Alfred Knitting Studio – my local yarn store – & bought a really nice black wool to go along with it. I only had enough of the turquoise for two scarves.

I also had a bright coral of that same wool-silk. More of it than the turquoise, but decided I’d only make two of these into log cabin, too, so bought just enough black to do that.

Then I had an order for a black & white rayon log cabin. No point warping that loom for just one scarf, so warped for three and set off treadling.

I admit it. Although this isn’t my favorite pattern to weave, I really do love the finished product. My eye gets fooled every single time, even though I KNOW how the illusion works.

Shall I share it with you?

It’s all about using color creatively. Let’s look at the black & white scarf.

Warp the loom with black (B) and white (W) as follows:
BW BW BW BW then switch the order and go WB WB WB WB Repeat. So every 8th & 9th threads are the same color, as are the 16th & 17th and every multiple of 8 and its neighbor. Then use the colors in the same way in the weft while you’re weaving. It’s a simple plain weave structure.

Like I said, it still amazes me.

On a side note, the other day my Missouri Loom manual arrived. I got it out of the mailbox & couldn’t wait till I got back up to the house to open the envelope.

Sure enough, there on the cover was my exact loom – same little indentations in the levers, same lines, it was a dead ringer.

I turned the pages and started reading while I walked back up the driveway. Then I started chuckling.

The manual starts out with a typical weaving glossary – telling a new weaver about the parts of the loom, the tools, and the common terms. It then gives detailed instructions on how to wind a warp, dress the loom, thread the loom, and read a weaving draft. It shows a few different weave structures and explains them.

And then it’s done.

Not one word about the specifics of THIS loom. Not a photo or diagram of how it looks when it’s folded, much less any directions on how to do that. NOTHING that would be helpful to me!

Ah, life’s funny. I had put all my eggs in the loom manual basket, only to be surprised when it arrived.

I’ve posted another question about Missouri Looms on Weavolution but didn’t get any responses. I guess these looms really are pretty rare. I’ll have to do my own exploration and problem resolution.

Update: my son come down to help me with some plumbing & electrical problems. He knows absolutely nothing about weaving or looms, but his brain is very analytical. He took one look at the loom and said, “Well clearly you need to do this.” With one simple movement, the castle was folded flat. Amazing. I tried sporadically for 2 weeks and couldn’t make it work. Yes, during those 2 weeks the loom has been drying out after spending 2 years in a storage unit, but still…

My son is a genius.

Your turn: what have you looked forward to that wasn’t quite what you’d imagined?

Weaving A Gem Of A Life

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