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

I finally found some time to do more dreaded photography work, otherwise these scarves would get moved from hanging over the back beam of one loom to another to get them out of my way. Now they're photographed, tags attached and hung with other scarves listed in my etsy shop.

Here is the second echo weave scarf - this one has a red tencel weft. I've been wanting to weave something in echo weave but hadn't gotten to it, always put on the back burner. Our weaving guild challenge this year is to weave something new, the perfect opportunity to make time to try it out. I'll show my two scarves at the June guild meeting.

I put a warp on the AVL for my original Iranian Tilework draft. I love this draft I created and hadn't woven it in a couple years. The iridescence in these scarves is incredible. They all have a fuchsia warp, above a dark teal weft........

..........here a gold weft...........

.....and here a lavender weft.

I sewed a couple more baby quilts for donation via the American Sewing Guild group I joined in March. These are a part of our community sewing. I'm not sure what I had in mind when I bought the sheep fabric many years ago - so far I've made two baby quilts and there's enough to make two more. The polka dot flannel was from the ASG stash.

The train flannel fabric and navy polka dot was also from the ASG stash. I've got a third quilt in the works, a simple pieced top in red, white & blue, but I ran out of my leftover stash of batting so I'll have to finish that one up after I feel like going to JoAnn's with my discount coupon.

There are days when I just don't think I can stand to watch or read the news. It's something new each day with this administration, I use that in very loose terms. And the news is not good, it's disturbing, embarrassing to our country and downright scary. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that 'he' totally implodes at some point but he's such a weasel he might 'do a little sidestep' and get out of it. Yes, that's from a song from the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, very fun movie, hmm, that would be much more fun to watch than the news..........

Pet peeve today - when people say 'you guyses'. Ok, when we moved to Oregon back in 1992 I noticed wait staff in restaurants would always address us as 'you guys'. Then it progressed to a plural  'you guyses'. I didn't realize guyses was a word, is it one of those new ones that I don't pay attention to???  Or is it an Oregonian word???  So, I'm used to hearing it these days in restaurants, store, coffee drive-thru but now I'm hearing it from our local newscasters........didn't they go to college??? didn't they take any English or writing classes???  Am I wrong? Is this really a word and I'm just behind the times?

Photography work........a challenge.........

I think photography will always be a challenge for me. Perhaps/maybe if I took a course in it I'd do better but I'm not sure where I'd fit that course into the limited hours in my life. We can't all be good at everything and photography is one of my downfalls - I can accept that.  I did get these 3 items listed in the shop..........there's still a chenille scarf needs it's photos re-done - instead of turning out hot pink, they turned out red and no amount of editing seems to help so I'll try again.

Here is one of the echo weave scarves. I love it. Since it is so dense warp wise it is heavier than my usual tencel scarves but it is still lovely and drapey and I'm happy with it. I love the iridescence in this scarf, it makes me think of peacock feathers. The other one was just washed this morning and is hanging to dry, I used a red weft in that one.

This is another one of my rayon flake shawls in silver and white. It's been sitting waiting for the fringe to be twisted for a long time. Since the other one recently sold for a wedding I thought I best get to finishing this one up and get it listed in the shop. This shawl makes me think of liquid silver, it's incredible feeling.

And here is a baby blanket - I love the way it turned out with the bright colors.

There are sewing updates but no photos. I went to the American Sewing Guild local chapter's Make It Take It event on Saturday. What a fun day. I was able to take 3 two hour classes for $15 (plus a few small material fees) and it included lunch. Many thanks to the group that put it on.

I took my small Brother machine that does embroidery and regular sewing - I only use it for embroidery so it was a challenge to figure out how to work it as a regular sewing machine going from settings to settings. I didn't want to cart my more expensive Bernina to classes. Looks like I'll need to spend some time learning all the features the Brother has other than embroidery if I'm going to use it for classes........or eventually buy another machine, maybe keep my eye out for a nice used machine to use for carting around.

I took a class on free motion quilting - oh my gosh, it was wonderful. I learned so much from the instructor and I can see doing many projects in the future using this technique..........of course there will be lots of practice before an actual project happens. I took a class called quilt as you go - it was a bit hard to follow as I had no clue what we were doing but once I got my samples made I can see using one, possibly two of these three techniques in the future, especially for the community sews donation baby blankets. And then I took a non-sewing class - a 3D star made from fabric. I have not unpacked anything so no pix.

Echo weave

I finally got back to the loom and started weaving on the echo weave scarf warp. It's very hard to see, especially when I'm looking at it straight on while weaving..........and much attention needs to be paid to the treadling sequence. I don't know if I'll like the hand of these scarves, it's a very close sett, not as many ppi and I'm even doing less than I've seen in other echo weave projects using 8/2 tencel. I feel like these may not be as drapey as I like to weave my scarves but maybe I'll be surprised.

A view from the back..............

A view from the back of the looms - warping in process on two looms

Tencel echo weave warp - many ends alternating purple and teal in the lease sticks.......I did get the heddles threaded on this warp....this was one of those drafts I really had to pay attention to while threading........still need to sley the reed. I haven't woven echo weave before so this is a test to see if I like the feel and drapiness of it for a scarf or if it feels to heavy......I know I like the look of the weave structure.

Tencel warp in the raddle, going through the lease sticks awaiting threading of the heddles and sleying of the reed - these will be scarves using my original Iranian Tilework draft. This color is really fuchsia, for some reason came out looking more burgundy in the photo.