knitting......

The shawl I started last week to work on while watching tv in the evenings is coming along, the lace sections won't show much until it's blocked. According to the directions this is where I'd start the lace edging but that makes for a small shawl, a shawlette. I want a larger one so I'll do another 22 row repeat and see where it is at that point to decide if I want yet another repeat before starting the edging.

the official start of summer....

 ...and the theme for the weekend was relax, and we mastered it.....

.....only energy expended were long walks on the beach collecting cockle shells, in 10 years they'll be pointing at us calling us that old  odd couple who has bottles and bottles of shells overtaking their place....did find my first piece of seaglass on Saturday.....

....Sam says purple makes his head hurt but I have snuck in some pretty lavendar pieces....friend Pat giftted me with the lavendar glass starfish....

 ....just loved this little stand when I saw it a couple years ago, the color is perfect.....it has a bee printed on the middle of it....

 ....a little more lavendar snuck in.....

 ....love my white walls....the sun shines in this place and just lights it up.....I could never feel bad here....

 .....more seaglass inspired treasures.....

.....and I leave you with this......it's what I live by when over on the coast.....

so-so......

That's what I think of this - it's just so-so..... I hated working with this sheer fabric, I thought I didn't enjoy the last sheer fabric but at least it had some body to it, this was like working with gauze made of the finest silk, sett very loose. And no, this sheer is not silk - it's some sort of synthetic which I found out when I had the foresight to iron on a scrap piece. It immediately melted, iron needed to cleaned off, temp lowered. Can't remember where I saw this hint for cleaning off an iron, on someone's blog, website, tv, magazine.....use one of those Eraser Pads for cleaning, just iron on the pad with steam, works like a charm. Funny thing, the armholes are larger than the version with set in sleeves but they're pretty tight once I put it on. I'm usually not much of a 'blue' person .....lots of blue on the remnant tables lately. It will look fine with a black tank top underneath and black crop pants, might even look good with all white. Hmm, looks like there's a school of fish swimming across it in the photo - no fish looking on it in person.....

On another note - I think I like this shower curtain as a backdrop in the studio bathroom better than my felt gray backdrop I use for photos for the etsy shop. I don't know if it's the off-white color or the great lighting in the bathroom. Since the mannequin lives in that bathroom I may make it easy on myself and take pictures in there next time I have items ready to list.

On the needles.....

I decided last night I needed to get something on the needles to work on. I've always got socks going but save those for riding in the car or sitting in meetings since they're portable. I want something to work on while we sit and watch tv in the evenings. I've knit several lacey shawls, which I love, they do give a little warmth but I really want a shawl that's purpose will be to keep me warm. I saw Shaelyn on Ravelry and thought it would work perfectly - a little lace but lots of stockinette. I knit the first repeat last night - tonight will start on the next lace section. The yarn is my handspun, Ashland Bay's Merino/Tussah in the Del Mar colorway.

I cut out another top pattern yesterday, it's for a sleeveless version of the gingko top I made this winter. I'm working with another slippery sheer. Was struggling cutting out the pattern and then thought, why not use the rotary cutter so I slid the mat under the fabric and it worked perfectly. Of course after I got it cut out I realized that I had cut out the front and back for the version with sleeves, stupid me didn't look at the pattern closely and realize there were different front and back pieces for the sleeveless version. I walked away from it but will go back to it later this afternoon - I think the only difference is a lower neckline, if so I'll fix that and be on my way. I sampled sewing on this sheer and figured out a nice way to make a super narrow hem. I do have to make or use bias tape for the neck & sleeve edges though and I'm concerned with it looking good - will definitely make my own bias tape from the same fabric so it doesn't show too much. This should be a super quick sew - we'll see if it really is with my slippery fabric choice.

On the weaving front...nada, nothing, zilch! This week and next are crazy busy and I'm not sure if I'll get to the loom or not.....makes for a grumpy me after a while.

Spent the weekend on the coast and didn't pick up the knitting needles or drop spindle once. I painted a couple pieces of furniture...many more to be painted in the next few months. We walked on the beach and relaxed. Didn't even start my book, just read a couple of magazines. Had a great dinner at The Gallery at The Lodge at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort. Impeccable service, yummy food.

I did pick up two more inexpensive otter prints for the otter wall. I already have others by the same two artists. When I have time to get to Michaels (in the next few weeks) I'll drop these off for framing using one of their 50%+ coupons.

Bailey has something new to add to his scrapbook - he made The World newspaper over on the coast. That's him 4th column from the left on the top, I tried to put a pink arrow pointing to him. Unfortunately he didn't win the contest, we really thought he should have, he was the cutest. I think a cat person was judging since 2 of the top 3 were cats. Not that there's anything wrong with cat people (we are dog people) we are not cat people because we're both allergic, if we weren't we would have a cat in addition to a dog. The one cat did have a great caption - "He's a male siamese, he likes nothing, nothing at all" - and he did look pretty grumpy in his picture.

Not sure how much will happen here fiber wise this week - many things on the to-do list....first off is to get the weaving guild newsletter started, finished and out of here - it's my last one - whoo hoo!

Phew......

Phew.....I thought I'd knock out this top yesterday but it wasn't happening, looks very simple, actually it's not a terribly hard pattern just not very clear directions. It doesn't look like much on my mannequin which is probably a size 0 and my top is not...so it doesn't drape nicely. There are things I'd do differently next time like the front & back neck bands - those can be a part of the bodice, no need for extra pieces, the curved areas were hard to get to lie flat in the sewing process. Of course, working with a slippery sheer fabric could have been the issue. Next time I'll alter the pattern so the front is all one piece, I'll like the continuity of the pattern in the fabric better. If anyone has tips for working with slippery fabrics please post a comment. This one was especially hard to work with because it wouldn't hold a fold when I pressed it with tons of steam. For the sewing process I pinned the bejeebers out of it.

This pattern is from Suede, he was on a reality show, can't remember which one now since I never watched it. I bought this because I saw it made up and being worn at the Sewing Expo by the Simplicity gal that was working with him on his fashion show. I found him very entertaining and I liked many of his patterns. After the show all these ladies ran over to the Simplicity booth to buy patterns at full price.....I waited and bought it at JoAnn's for $1.99.

I had to make some spaghetti strap sized ties for the front of it so I thought I'd share what I use for turning tubes of fabric. The Fasturn Tool has been around for quite a while. It was designed by a retired engineer right here in Southern Oregon. The company sold but is still owned by someone local and the tools are still being made in the US, I'm not sure if they're still made here or not though but am assuming so since they also have a nice fabric store and teach classes where they were manufacturing them before.

The kit I have has 6 sizes of tubes with accompanying thin wires. I sewed the lengthwise seam of my fabric and slid it over the metal tube. I then caught the end of the fabric with the thin wire which has a little curly cue at the top just for that purpose.

Then I started pulling the fabric through the tube. At this stage if I wanted a tube with cording inside of it I could just get it started in the end and it would pull right through putting the cording in the fabric tube at the same time it turns it right side out.

Here you can see the turned fabric coming out of the bottom of the tube.

And here's the turned tube. Easy peasy. If you sew much and don't have one of these you NEED one.

soon to be.....

For lack of having anything else to show for my time I thought I'd show something.......anything.......13 colors of Cascade 220 wool yarn I'm auditioning for a granny square afghan. I have some other colors but I think this is the final selection....I think. I started out wanting sand/sea colors but needed some accents to add to them hence the rose/pink/lavendars. Not sure when this project will get started but buying the yarn and picking colors is a big accomplishment.

On the weaving front - finished that one supplementary warp scarf from the end of last week and the ribbon started shredding - argh! So, out comes the ribbon, I thought I'd just weave them plain, wove around 6" and decided the supplementary warp (ribbon) is what made the scarves so I walked away from the loom. Will ponder what to do next.....in the meantime I blinged up 6 t-shirts with blingy rhinestone designs - usually so not me but I love them. Today was my spinning get together, brought sock knitting which I made a mistake on so need to frog around 6 rows....will work on that this evening. Am thinking of sewing this week.......will sleep on it.....

no weaving once again....

Once again a day without weaving....there was laundry & vacuuming, boxing up & shipping of orders and then the dreaded photography work in order to sell more. This is one of my hardest jobs, I'm just not good at it. So, I spent the better part of the afternoon photographing 14 items for my etsy shop....now I'll spend a good deal of time editing and resizing them....not to mention gradually listing them. Where is that photography department when I need it, oh yeah, I don't have one....come to think of it I don't have a shipping and receiving department either.....

On another note - I'll be starting to dye roving again soon so I'm putting some older colorways in my etsy shop on sale - 6 went on sale today....shameless plug.... 

no weaving today.....

...have weaving on my mind but it's such a beautiful day I decided it was time to add some color to the deck....3 nurseries and a stop at the grocery store in the am.....planting early afternoon....6 hanging baskets, 4 deck planters, several round pots later and the deck is looking much revived....just wait until it fills in, will be a real show then. So for the rest of the day that swing with a view of the flowers and my book are looking pretty inviting....the loom will still be there tomorrow.....

more supplementary warp.....

Today I decided instead of putting a warp on the AVL I wanted to weave another set of supplementary warp scarves...in tencel again, with a variegated ribbon. Not as much ribbon as I would have liked, those little balls really don't have much yardage on them, especially when it's a warp  for 4 scarves. I've picked out the weft for 3 of the scarves, thinking on the 4th one still. Trying to weave with colors I might not usually pick, after all I sell these and not everyone wants to wear only the colors I wear......like chartreuse and yellow. As I'm weaving I'm giving thought to one more supplementary warp but maybe this time with the ground fabric in a twill.....will give it thought.....

shadow weave workshop

My samples from the round robin shadow weave workshop this past weekend. The ones from my loom are on the left - bottom one original treadling where I was playing with color combinations, upper sample two alternate treadlings.

more scarves

wish the camera could catch the sheen of the tencel.....

.....and the sparkle of the novelty rayon supplementary warp....

....I'm sure there's a way, I'm just not a good photographer.....

Supplementary warp

Sharon asked what supplemental warp is. I quickly looked in the indexes of a couple weaving books but didn't see a definition right off the bat so I tired of that and thought I'd give my own. Supplemental warp is a warp end that is in addition/supplement to a ground fabric. If the supplemental warp ends were cut out a viable fabric would be left, plain weave in this case. If you're familiar with overshot you can think of that as a supplemental weft - the pattern threads in overshot are in supplement to the plain weave weft ground fabric.

The above diagram shows the draft I'm using for my current scarf warp. I threaded the plain weave sections for however many ends as I wanted, then when I wanted to put in a supplemental warp I threaded those threads (novelty rayon in this case) on either harnesses 3 or 4. You don't have to use both 3 & 4 supplemental warp ends, you could just use 3 - using both gives you supplemental warps that raise at different times.

Then I treadle randomly repeating the different sections how ever many times as I'd like. I like the changes in the lengths of the supplemental warp but you may choose to weave the same over and over to have it consistent.

Going beyond this you can pretty much use any kind of weave structure for your ground fabric - twills are especially nice. You can also have as many different supplemental warps on different harnesses as you like to have them lift at different times. You are only restricted by the number of harnesses you have on your loom.

Back to overshot - if you know anything about turning drafts, if you turn overshot your pattern threads become supplemental warps.

Oh, I almost forgot. Sometimes as your weaving progresses your supplemental warp ends may become looser in tension than your plain weave sections because they're floating more, less intertwining, so there is less take-up in them. I haven't found this a problem with my 12 yard warps but if it becomes a problem all you need to do is slip a dowel between those ends and the rest of the warp and let it hang off the back of the loom with a little weight on each end. Or if you have a double back beam you will beam the ground warp and supplemental warps on separate beams.

Ok, so did this sound confusing? I'm probably not so good at explaining in print. If you're interested just give it a try using the above draft, experiment with it.

Scarves on the macomber today.....

....the cross.....tencel and novelty rayon for a supplemental warp.....

 ....12 yards on the warping board......

.....the first scarf.....weft auditions already made for the next three.....