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I finished that warp of 3 scarves shown recently on the loom. I used an undyed ring-spun bamboo warp and 3 colors for weft. Above is my favorite, an olive tencel.
I had wanted to keep the scarves all bamboo, but don’t have much in my stash (and am not buying more yarns, remember?), so first tried with a bit of hand painted bamboo left over from a project.
IMHO the variation in the weft detracts from the lace pattern.
It’s unusual that I re-thread the loom in the middle of a run of three scarves, but I decided to here. The threading and treadling were things I had adapted from a draft in Strickler’s 8-Shaft Patterns book (#625). I was proud of myself for figuring out to to change the draft to a skeleton tie up, since Strickler showed it with 12 treadles and I only have 10. With a skeleton tie up you have to step on two (or more) treadles at once for each pick. Anyway, after 2 of these lace diamonds I wanted to thread and treadle for the original, which was more triangles or steps of light and dark lace. For this one I chose a sienna tencel weft.
 This scarf has some unintended ‘design elements.’ I saw the first when I was already half way through the weaving. I had left out a 6-unit treadling sequence! 🙁 Here’s a close up.
The red arrow shows how I’d been doing it wrong, having a maximum of 4 units of white lace showing. The black arrow shows how I should have been treadling, working up to 5 units of white lace showing.
Once I discovered my error I thought about it for a while. No way was I going to unweave almost 40″, and I didn’t have enough length on the loom to simply start again. I decided that I didn’t think it would impact on the fabric’s stability, and since I had been entirely consistent, I’d keep weaving it ‘wrong.’
The second unintended ‘design element’ was that the sienna tencel bled into the bamboo fringe a bit. I’m calling it an ombre effect. 🙂
Marlene asked me how I threaded the loom for my green & white scarf, so I’m providing photos of the two different threadings here. If anyone would like a wif file (for weaving software), let me know and I’ll email you directly.
 On the rodent front, this morning I poured about a pint of white vinegar down the hole, with no noticeable impact. Tonight I’ll do the rest of the quart. Next I’ll probably try buying moth balls and putting them in the hole. I really don’t want to use poison, because it’s passed on to whatever prey animal(s) end up with a poisoned carcass. Trapping? Possible, but I’d sure hate to catch a neighborhood pet in a rat trap. Hav-A-Heart trap? I don’t know, but I’d have to buy/borrow one. If I believed it was bunnies, chipmunks, or even squirrels I’d just look the other way. But I can’t bring myself to do that if it’s a rat, possum, groundhog, or skunk. (I highly doubt the last as there’s no ‘perfume’ around.) Your ideas on convincing the critter to move on?
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This hole appeared in my front garden. Jack didn’t do it. Squirrels live in trees so I they didn’t do it. I had millions of chipmunks in the country and I think their holes were smaller than this. So my guess is bunnies. That they see all the veggies and figured they’d live close by to be the first to get the stash.
Anyone else care to chime in with your opinion?
UPDATE: There have been several ideas of types of rodent it might be. (PLEASE not a rat!) But regardless of what type of rodent this is, it’s not good. This hole is about 18″ from my foundation. So what do I do about it?
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 Why was rayon chenille calling to me during a warm spell in late May? There are, in fact, good reasons.
- I’d purchased many cones of the luscious stuff over a year ago when it was on sale. I couldn’t do anything about it when I was weaving baby wraps pretty much full time.
- Almost all my yarn is stored in clear plastic bins. The colors of this chenille are so saturated, so rich, that looking at them for more than 12 months was almost torture. Now that I have time to do something with them, I just had to.
- I am committed to stash busting. I’ve been doing a pretty good job of it, emptying some shelves and/or bins so that I can see what’s there and use it up. I’ve been exercising my will power not buying more to, for instance, do more rep weave with that filler I did buy recently, even though I was really tempted.
- Although I do have some rayon chenille shawls in my stash, they’ve been here for a while and aren’t calling to either me or my customers. I have a few shows in the offing where I think I can sell shawls, even though it’ll be summer, if they’re stunningly beautiful. At least that’s what I’m hoping.
So I warped for three shawls and wove them all. Each a bit different, as is my custom. I’d love to do three more, but I’m trying something else now. More on these later….
Meanwhile, I felt better about those braided twill scarves when I realized that I dyed them in the first class, when I didn’t really know what I was doing in terms of color choices or length of the colors. I’m hoping they appeal to someone, although they are not my best work.
I’ve also been enjoying my garden. My veggies now include potatoes (less than 1/3 sprouted), peas (first flowers now appearing), kale (recently thinned well), carrots (thinned yesterday, but poorly), yellow beans and green beans (one of which the bunnies nipped already), tomatoes & peppers, yellow straightneck squash, sugar cube melon, and latest planting – Brussels sprouts! Never grew many of these veggies before, so am excited to see how they do this year.
Gave Jack a short haircut, which I think he really likes, am figuring out how to keep him and my house cool without using the air conditioning, loving doing laundry and hanging it on the line, watching/playing with my grandkids, and generally living the good life. And you???
Does the scarf in that spread look familiar? It’s my cityscape scarf, published in the new Handwoven magazine. This article was 11 months in the making, from me watching a webinar on how to submit to the magazine, to having the scarf accepted as a concept, to having it published. In between, the USPS lost the scarf in the mail for a month, making me crazy. But it all worked out in the end. If you can’t bear not reading it, here’s a PDF of the article.
I also just got notice of my acceptance in this year’s Clothesline Festival. Now that I live in Rochester I wanted to get into this well-respected show, so was holding my breath that I’d be accepted. I think this will be a predominantly new audience for me. You can get details on this and the other shows I’ll be doing this year on my website.
A few weeks ago I showed you a braided twill scarf on the loom. It took a while for me to get them fringed, wet finished, pressed, and photographed, but here you go.
I thought I’d done a better job of color changes on this warp…they’re still too long. And that pink is garish. Sigh.
Anyway, from left to right the weft colors are red-purple, medium blue, and forest green. The blue is by far my favorite of the three. The close ups of these scarves, showing the front and back of each, are pretty dramatic.
I also finished the baby blankets. Although I’ve previously done a polyester satin binding because I know babies like that smooth & silky feel, I’ve been told by others that it can tend to reduce the perceived value of a handwoven baby blanket. So this time I used a cotton weft for a rolled hem, putting a ‘tag’ made of that binding material at each corner for baby’s fingers to grab and rub.
Closing with color….here are the appetizers I made for my daughter’s Memorial Day party. Green & red peppers topped with a ‘stuffing’ of neufchatel cheese, lemon juice & lemon zest, black pepper, & almond meal, finished with toasted slivered almonds.
I spent much of today on that little project. Went to the nursery as planned, and spent quite a bit of time looking for and then choosing the plants I wanted, thanks to the helpful greenhouse manager at Grossman’s Garden Center. I bought more tomato plants than I’d intended. Oh well. So I dug out a space to plant them all…18 feet long and 18 inches wide. Then I worked in five 5-gallon buckets of leaf mulch. Next I planted the tomatoes and mulched them in. They’re being watered with my drip hose as I type.
I don’t know my grandfather’s method of planting by moon phase. I don’t even know my husband’s tomato planting rules, although I seem to think that the roots had to face north…or maybe south…or west. Obviously I don’t really know so paid no attention. I do, however know a little bit about companion planting, so put a marigold between every tomato.
Let’s stay outside for a bit and check out some other blooms. I’ve been surprised by these parrot tulips. They started almost all white, moved through half white and half red, and are ending by being almost all red. Never had a tulip do that before. Also a nice long bloom time for a tulip.
The flowers on my tiarella (foam flower) are just sweet.
I’ve got some nice irises. The golden yellow was here when I arrived, the other three came from my country home. My daughter wanted them but never got around to planting them last summer, so in the fall I stuck them in the ground at my house. I’m glad I did.
I spent a little time at my loom. I’d planned out a rayon chenille warp for 3 shawls. As always, it’s a challenge to get it on the loom, and then to tension it completely evenly. It’s now on the loom, threaded, and sitting for the night. Tomorrow I’ll work on tensioning. Again.
Last week I wove a few new baby blankets to replenish my stock. The warp is mostly cotton with a bit of bamboo; the weft is cotton flannel.
I got my sewing machine back (cost me $100) so did the hemming on these and finished sewing my packing bags. The motor was seized, apparently caused by a poor design that has so little tolerance in the ?bushing/gear/bearing? (can’t remember what the man said) that lint – a constant reality when sewing – gums it up completely and freezes it. I’m going to talk to them, and I’m currently assuming that if it happened once it’s likely to happen again, in which case I’ll probably choose to buy an old, reconditioned Singer or similar.
Unrelated, I have a Jack question and am hoping that maybe one of my readers can help. I believe that he can’t regulate his body temperature well. He gets both cold and hot really quickly. Our current heat wave is hard on him. I’m not turning on my air conditioning for the dog. I can give him another haircut, but I don’t know if this will really help. I put an ice cube in his water bowl, but it doesn’t last long, and he doesn’t like to chew or lick them if they’re not in the water. Any ideas what might help Jack be more comfortable during the summer?
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