Weaving A Gem Of A Life

Dolly Gets A Leg Up

Doh! Sometimes my dopiness just amazes me.

My wonderful sister, who gave me Dolly, read my post about her and called me. Why did I need to fashion something for her to stand on? I explained that she wouldn’t balance on the 2″ diameter circle at the bottom of the pipe.

When she bought it, they said the base came with it. Didn’t I get the base? She emailed me a picture of what it should look like. Nope, not here.

But wait. The box Dolly came in is still quite heavy. I did note that when I took Dolly out, but my brain said, “Hm. They must have used heavy cardboard.”

From 90 miles away, my sister said, “Um, check the bottom of the box again.” And sure enough, hiding in its own piece of cardboard that looked just like the bottom of the box, was the metal base.

There were the three holes that perfectly matched the three screws in that 2″ pipe base. Doh!

So now Dolly can stand on her own. Hell, she can pirouette!

Amazing how I didn’t really look in the bottom of that box, despite acknowleding that it was heavy. Sure glad I hadn’t taken it to the recycling center yet!

Rusty’s O

Here’s an adorable picture of my new grandson. I love this little O face!

Bamboo Cotton Scarves

Here’s my next batch of three scarves. All were woven with a variegated weft handpainted by Tammy at Yarntopia Treasures in a colorway she calls North Shore – greens and purples. I’ve used this blend before in rayon chenille and in bamboo, and always liked it. This time I ordered it in her bamboo cotton blend.

The first scarf I wove had a solid purple weft.

I liked it, but didn’t want to do the next one the same, so I used an emerald green rayon. I wasn’t at all worried about mixing the fibers, since rayon and bamboo are made in the same manner.

Although I don’t often use this color green, I liked the way it worked with this scarf. I used a simple diamond twill for the purple weft and a more complex treadling for the green weft.

For the third scarf I used the same variegated weft as warp. It’s my least favorite of the three. It’s also the only one woven in tabby, since I think it often looks the best with variegated yarn used as both warp & weft.

You might notice that these pictures were taken before Dolly straightened her dress. Hopefully she’ll make herself more presentable soon.

Rayon Scarves – Not my favs

I tried three wefts to make this interesting warp shine, none were great. I tried many arrangements of photos to show the scarves to their best advantage; none of them were great, either. Do the scarves somehow know that they’re not one of my favorites and they’re purposely being obstinant? Of course not, but I can imagine that they do.

Anyway, when I was at MAFA I bought a bunch of yarn from vendors there. Obviously I liked it all or I wouldn’t have made the purchases. But somehow this one looked better on the cone than in a completed item. No clue why.

One more thing before I start sharing the pix. My sweet, amazingly supportive and generous sister bought me a mannequin for my birthday. It can stand independently (although I need to craft a base for it to do so) or hang. The purpose was to give me another alternative for taking photos for my website. I figured I’d better get some experience working with Dolly (I’ve decided she should have a name) before I wanted to get really great website photos. Doing so has convinced me that I need to have 2 photos of a bunch of items on the website. More distant shots showing size, drape, and a few wrapping options, with closeups continuing to show the detail of color, fiber, and weaving pattern.

Ok, enough talk, here you go. The weft is the same for all 3 scarves, an attractive blend of a few shades of blue, light green, and a bit of purple. I wove the first scarf with a navy weft in an extended diamond point twill.

I’d learned that old saw – black intensifies, white washes out, and gray muddies. So I figured (for this and some other recent pieces) I should choose the darkest weft color to bring out the warp variations. Trust me when I tell you that the pattern & color show up better in this picture than they do in real life, where they all sort of blend together in one indistinguishable, shiny swath.

Because I wasn’t thrilled with the dark weft, for the second scarf I chose an icy-colored green.
It was okay, but didn’t send me. Again, a bit too shiny, and now too light.

So for the third scarf I said the heck with it, and choose a rich, royal purple, one of my favorite colors, even though it’s just occassionally in the warp.

Since the scarves weren’t behaving as I wanted them to anyway, I decided to change things up a bit for the final scarf. I wove each end in the same extended diamond point twill diamonds as the first two scarves. I then transitioned to a regular point twill for the majority of the length, inserting a modified diamond twill in the center of the scarf. Again, the pattern variations show up better in the photo than in real life. I find that so odd, since the colors didn’t photograph well at all.

Careful observers will see that Dolly’s dress isn’t hanging straight in the 1st & last photo – the waist is hitched up oddly on the left side. Of course, I didn’t notice it till I’d taken most of my photos of these and other scarves you’ll see in the next few days and uploaded them to my computer. Since I was only doing this for practice, I decided I wasn’t going to go back and re-shoot. Now I know that’s something I should pay attention to before I click the shutter.

I’ve completed nine more scarves you’ll see very soon, and am working on yet another new pattern. Stay tuned.

Lullaby Handwoven Baby Blankets

Early this month I got a repeat order from one of my customers. She wanted me to make her a baby blanket, in blue and white, out of bamboo cotton. Some months ago she’d purchased one in pink and cream for a baby girl. She loved the look, and the softness of the fiber, and now a baby boy was coming. I’d woven the pink and cream blanket from hand painted yarn I purchased from Tammy at Yarntopia Treasures. So I went back to Tammy and decided on one of her blends called Lullaby. Not only was it a nice, bright blue and white, the name of this colorway is just perfect.

Tammy dyed what I needed, for the baby blanket and for more bamboo cotton yarn I ordered from her at the same time, and sent them off to me. It arrived while I was up with my new grandson. So immediately upon arriving home I planned out the little blanket and got the loom warped up to make two blankets. This particular customer wanted a small blanket, carriage size, so I could easily weave a straight twill on my counterbalance loom, since doubleweave wasn’t needed. (I don’t generally like to weave baby blankets in plain weave, because I want them to be a soft as possible.)

It didn’t take long to make those two small handwoven baby blankets. I made them slightly different, and gave my customer her choice. She picked this one, which was woven with the same variegated weft as the warp.

At her request, I finished this blanket with just a rolled hem. First I sewed a both a straight line and a zigzag stitch along both ends before I cut the blankets apart. Then I rolled and hand hemmed the blanket. I decided that this one was woven a bit more loosely than usual, and because I expected that it would be machine washed and dried, I’d be more comfortable with it wearing well if I followed up with another row of zigzag stitching along the edge of that rolled hem, so I did that, too.

As with most of my baby blankets, I finished the second one with a polyester satin binding. I also wove this one with 5/2 white pearl cotton so it looked more stripey than plaid-like.

I have 3 or 4 skeins of this yarn left, and with just 2 basic colors, my plan at this point is to try preparing the warp so that I can make a false ikat. (Here’s a site about real ikat.) However, I know myself; I have lots of plans that don’t reach fruition, often simply because of time. I always have more ideas for cool woven stuff than I have time to weave.

Your turn: how many of your plans never see the light of day?

Weaving A Gem Of A Life

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Rayon Scarves – Not my favs

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