This and that.........

 Today I worked on another baby quilt for charity. The fabric was donated and was fun to put together, it needed some quilting in the center of the blocks so I quilted a star in each one. Very fun. Think I've done enough charity baby quilts for a bit........need to do some sewing for myself soon.

 Recently I silkscreened discharge paste onto a handwoven chenille scarf. I hadn't done this in a while, I did think to check my discharge paste to make sure it was still good unlike last time when it had lost it's umpf. The paste almost worked too good as it bled through to the wrong side so the backside of the scarf has ghost images of the gingko leaves. This has never happened before......but I'm wondering if maybe it was the different brand of chenille that was the culprit. The scarf is fine but I'm not happy with that happening.

Here it is finished. It's amazing how different brands of chenille will discharge completely different - usually I get a really yellow gold but this chenille discharged to a goldy/lavender.........it's very pretty......just different. This scarf is up for sale in my etsy shop. One of the pictures in the listing does show the ghost imaging on the backside if anyone is interested.

This and that.............

Been kind of in a funk and uninspired this past week - can't put a finger on exactly why.........maybe I'm tired of the news and the damper it puts on each day........going to make an effort not to watch as much unless this administration starts to implode, then I will watch and applaud. It's even affecting my weaving, I sat in front of the laptop for hours/days working in WeavePoint on some new drafts and I just can't get them to look the way I want...........so, what's a gal to do, put it away and play with something else.

Today I decided it was time to frame a few cross stitch pieces I finished up this winter and bought frames for. I'm very happy with all three of them. I've got a couple more to frame but they won't fit ready made frames so eventually I will decide what I want and have Sam make simple frames that I can paint and embellish to go with the cross stitches.

I finally finished up some chenille scarves - not exactly chenille season but it's what I'm weaving when over on the coast. This would make a great men's scarf but would be equally as nice for a woman. A golden brown and sage green in a Fibonacci striping sequence.

This scarf came off the same warp but looks a little different. Both of these are now up in my etsy shop for sale.

I also put on a black chenille scarf warp. This one is solid black but the other two will eventually have discharge dyeing done on them in leaf designs. It's always a surprise to see what color comes shows up when I silkscreen the discharge paste on. Usually with black chenille I get a light golden color but when I did a test piece it's a silvery color this time. It all has to do with how the yarn manufacturer dyed the chenille - totally out of my control.  So, I'll discharge one scarf and see if I like it enough to do the second one in a different leaf design.

A bit of weaving

A bit of weaving happened today........finally. Two baby blankets woven, one to go. This is tough weaving for me - the reach is a bit more than my arms are comfortable with so I can't weave too long. Can't wait to get these off the loom but tomorrow is supposed to be lovely outside so may have to work in the yard instead.

 Recently woven scarves finally photographed and listed in my etsy shop. Above hand-dyed tencel in a twill weave structure.

Chartreuse rayon chenille with a few stripes of novelty yarn in purple, teal and blue. I like this one so much I'm keeping one for myself..........chartreuse is one of my favorite colors if not my all time fav.

Another rayon chenille scarf in two shades of seafoam green. Fibonacci striping in the warp. Half the weft is the lighter shade of seafoam, half is the darker shade. The colors are very close so it's a subtle difference.

Not really the time of year to be listing chenille scarves for sale but that's what I'm weaving on the loom at the beach cottage right now so I might as well put them in the shop.

More chenille.........

I wove off the other chenille scarf warp on the beach cottage loom and put this citron chenille warp on. I love, love, love this color........added some fun novelty yarn in one section, would have added more but this was all I had left of that ball. It was a valued ball having used it several times in other projects but now it's gone and most probably not available any longer. Hmm, I might have to keep one of these scarves for myself.

And Bailey was doing what he does best while on the coast - when not walking the beach he's planted on the couch with his Buster........and Buster is looking worse all the time and is a bit smelly now. I might throw him in the washer and see how he comes out. If he doesn't make it that's ok, I have a brand new back up Buster hidden away.......

Seafoam Chenille Scarves

We spent a long weekend on the coast - mixture of pouring rain and beautiful sun and blue skies. Typical Oregon weather - it was wonderful. I hadn't planned on putting a warp on the loom over there but ended up putting this chenille scarf warp on - two colors of seafoam/teal. I got a bit of weaving done in-between other things we were doing. Last month I took over a load of chenille and decided the focus for the beach cottage loom for a while would be chenille scarves.

Busy week coming up which means no time to weave here at home - might be pretty grumpy in a few days..........

This and that......

After the debacle on Monday of my discharge paste being too old to work I tried again with the new container - success. I buy my discharge paste from Dharma Trading Co.

Here I'm about to silkscreen the gingko design using the discharge paste.....

....the discharge paste is still wet here so it can be seen.....

....after it's totally dry I hit it with a steam iron until I see the amount of dye pulled out that suits me....

....and here's the chenille scarf washed and dried. It takes a bit to get the sliminess of the discharge paste off the scarf but it's not too bad. I wish it were easier to photograph chenille, especially black, it's so yummy. (just noticed I took pix of two different scarves - one of the scarves had large gingkos, the other a medium size)

I wove the first alpaca shawl that I put on the Macomber last week. Black alpaca warp, charcoal grey alpaca weft. I'm thinking the second shawl might be black weft.

And here is one of the popsicles I made yesterday - the perfect afternoon pick me up on a hot day. The white grape juice makes them a little tart but I like it. These get a thumbs up for yummy and also a thumbs up for being healthy.

 

Boring black.....

Today I put a black rayon chenille warp on the loom - kind of boring photo wise, boring to weave but I watched/listened to dvr'd stuff on tv so it was ok - just nice to be weaving. These scarves will have silkscreened discharge designs. In November I'm giving a repeat of my program on surface design to the other guild in our area and need some 'full size samples' to show - I've only got my small samples in my notebook. So, I'll discharge these, will do some more weaving and maybe use some stencils with Paintstiks, dye some silk scarves and embellish them with surface design, who knows what I'll come up with between now and then. I've got many techniques to show, it would be nice to have more than just a handful of finished pieces to show along with my notebook samples.

New on the loom

Yesterday I got a chenille scarf wound, 3 scarves using black as the major color, a bit of taupe and then some fun variegated sparkley novelty yarn in golds and rusts.....unfortunately not only is the lovely texture of chenille hard to capture in a photo but the sparkle is even harder to capture. But here's the start of the warp, got one scarf woven today in-between lots of other chores, not sure when I'll finish with a busy day tomorrow, weaving guild meeting Saturday and 3 days of AVL WeavePoint workshop Sunday thru Tuesday.

Still getting used to the camera I was gifted from my aunt's things. I love it's size but it's a challenge for taking pictures of my weaving. I'm not as happy with the close-up setting, can't seem to get as sharp a picture. The stabilization/anti-shake setting can't be used with other settings such as close-up....doesn't seem right to be one or the other. But I'm grateful to have it and will continue to experiment to get better photos. Sam did figure out how to set it for a much higher resolution which has helped.

New on the loom......

I spent part of my morning putting together more felting bunz kits, this time the regular ones with the primary, secondary, neutral colors.....was getting low on them so figured since I was on a roll from yesterday's new felting bunz I might as well keep going.

After lunch I put a new warp on the loom for some chenille scarves....I needed to get something on the loom so it's not naked next week when the American Sewing Guild comes to visit. Now the hard part is not to weave them all off....I had to force myself to put down the shuttle. If I knew I'd have time to get another warp on before Tuesday I'd weave them off but I have other things on my schedule between now and then.

More adminstrivia....and a reward

More administrivia today.....all I want to do is weave, spin, sew or knit.....but never ending administrivia. I spent time taking pictures of scarves for sale, above is one of the rayon chenille scarves that I silkscreened discharge paste on in the gingko design. Pictures never do these justice. And then after taking numerous pictures, editing them and saving them I got to run the vacuum - red letter day! So, I decided a reward was due, after I dropped off orders at the post office I drove to town (totally out of the way by at least 10 miles each way) and picked us up take-out from Abu's Deli & Oasis.....the entire house smells like lebanese food.....going to be hard waiting for Sam to get home.....