On the wheel.......

I decided to start spinning something new when over on the coast and hopefully not leave it sitting on the bobbins for years. Someone gave me this fiber and it's lovely to spin. it's 40% angora, 30% wool, 15% silk and 15% alpaca. The color is actually a bit prettier than this photo of the bumps.  I can't remember if I have 8oz - it's at the beach cottage so I can't check. 

This is what it's looking like on my Lendrum wheel although this picture doesn't represent the actual color - it's beautiful. I think it will make a lovely scarf or cowl. 

I'm in the process of warping up my table loom for a workshop in around a month......more to come on that. 

 

Bits & bobs.......

 Finally the quilt top I started a couple years ago made it to a long arm quilter in January - don't ask me why it took me so long to get it to someone. I took it to Sew Cute Quilting & Fabric Boutique in Dillard, OR - we pass it on our way to and from the coast. If it hadn't been that convenient it may still be sitting in the basket with the backing and batting.  This morning I got the binding sewn on - I love these little clips - so much easier than using pins on something like this.

 My mitered edges turned out great - I cut the corners  off the quilt so it wouldn't get stepped on as we walk around the bed. Here the binding is turned to the back ready for the final hand-stitching. Yes, I could stitch in the ditch and catch the backside of the binding but I really like not seeing that machine stitching in the binding. Once it makes it onto the bed at the beach cottage I'll take a photo again. It's hard to see in the pictures but the quilting is a sealife design with shells, sand dollars, starfish and kelp.

 I spent some time sewing yesterday making some snap bags. The tops have metal measuring tape inside the casings so the tops can be pulled out and snap back closed. These three go with a tote bag I made a couple years ago. I also made 4 more small ones in various stages of construction. I'll be leading our neighborhood American Sewing Guild group in how to make them later in March. I took photos along the way so I can give each person written directions too.

This painted silk warp went on the loom the other day but other than auditioning wefts I haven't gotten back to it. This is a dye job gone awry. I mixed that purple dye with varying amounts of gold dye hoping to get more of an ombre feel but it didn't come out as expected. So, after sitting for 2 years on the shelf I decided to just put it on the loom and get it woven. I've got enough for 3 scarves - I'll vary some wefts and also vary treadlings. I'm hoping once woven I'll like them better than I am right now........I could easily take that purple out of the warp, not sure I want to do that though.

Finally.....the alpaca and silk handspun

I spun this black baby alpaca and dyed silk yarn a while back. I started 2 different knitted shawlettes and took them out because they just didn't look right, then I started a crocheted scarf and didn't like that. Today I decided it needed to be woven, finally I got it right - it's going to look beautiful woven. It was close on having enough yardage - I only put aside a tiny bit in case of any broken threads which did not happen. I just wove it in plain weave to show off the handspun.....although my first choice would have been some sort of twill but I didn't have enough yardage since a twill needs to be sett closer, which would mean more warp ends. For the weft I'm using some commercial merino/tencel yarn I had gotten from Webs a while back - it's perfect. I can't wait to cut this off the loom and get it washed......it's not finished until it's washed. I'm thinking this will be for me as I've been wanting a black shawl to wear with many colors. It's a shame I couldn't capture the sheen of the silk in the photo..........

Here are what the batts I spun it from looked like.  And here's what the handspun looked like (3rd photo down) - I plied it with black thread.  This is pretty good for me - less than 2 years from batt to handspun to finished project........usually it sits in some form or another on the shelf for a while before being finished.

Now I'm looking at 2 different novelty handspuns that have been sitting on the shelf marinating for a few years thinking I'll weave some scarves out of them. I do need some new items made from handspun for our county fair display this summer.

More ice dyeing.....

Just a bit more ice-dyeing - love the hot pink in this.......

.....love the subtle lavenders and blues in this one......

.......and this one with the lavenders and grey blues has really caught my eye......I've listed it in my shop but am still giving thought to keeping it..........if it sells soon then it wasn't meant to be but if it sticks around it's definitely mine.......or may end up being mine anyhow........

So I decided to try out ice-dyeing on a warp (for you non-weavers, a warp is the lengthwise threads that go on a loom for weaving). Usually I paint (dye with brushes) warps for weaving but thought I'd see what happens with ice-dyeing. It's not what I expected. I guess I thought it might be more mottled like ice-dyeing fabric. There are some color differences but not much. This warp is just for one scarf as it was an experiment. The fiber is a blend of cotton and rayon. So, I'll put it on the loom soon and weave it off and see how I like the effect - will it have a watercolor effect? or just look almost a solid shade of green? How it turns out will determine if I ice dye a warp again.

I have more silk/rayon shawls to dye - some ice-dyed, some with ombre effects but I need to set those aside until sometime next week as I've got other things that need attention first.

I'm coming down the homestretch on the gingko shawl. I took it to work on at my spinning group yesterday - big mistake as I'm down to the lace rows which include a gingko leaf. I ended up backing out two rows, last night here at home I reknit those and knit one more row so not much to show for my day.

Ice dyed scarves ready for sale

Ice dyed scarves for sale in my etsy shop. More to come after being rinsed out and photographed in the next few days. There are a couple that have caught my eye.....will be thinking on if I want to really sell them or not........

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

I finally got the fringe twisted on these 3 scarves recently woven - they have a hand-dyed silk warp and tencel wefts. The center one is listed in my etsy shop for sale - the other two will eventually make it in the shop, if anyone has an interest in one of them please contact me......takes me a while to get the photography work done to get them listed in the shop.

This felting landscape kit is available in my other etsy shop.  I grabbed a kit before I went to my spinning group yesterday, grabbed my blending board and started making rolags using all eight colorways. I've got 5 other colorways of felting landscape kits available for sale, bet they would be fun to make rolags out of on the blending board too.

 Here are a few of the rolags........I've got a total of one pound ready to spin, can't wait to see what the resulting handspun yarn looks like.

 It started out as a nice walk on the inlet beach looking for seashells and seaglass until that danged log showed up........

 .......Yikies - it moved - better back up fast.......

 .....whoa, that thing is alive......

 

.....better watch it carefully and definitely not turn my back on it........such are the perils in the life of a beach dog......

A test of my patience......

Yesterday my patience was tested. I'm really a pretty patient person but this silk warp almost did me in. It's an 8 yard warp I painted last fall that somehow got tangled in the dyeing/rinsing process even though I choke tied the bejeezzes out of it. I'm not quite sure how the tangles happened but they did - I've never had this issue in the past with painted warps but a few I dyed that day got tangled. I did have to cut the cross out of a couple sections - hopefully that won't come back to bite me in the butt as I'm weaving.

I eventually got it untangled so I could get it on the back beam but then I had to deal with halo'ing. I tried to capture a picture of it but it was tough - it's the fuzzy section you see. What happens is as the warp is coming through the lease sticks fibers fuzz from one thread grab the thread next to it and stop it from moving like a log jam. I could only advance the warp a foot at a time before dealing with 'un-halo'ing' the threads from each other - ack!  All I kept thinking is if I dressed the loom from front to back it would have been worse to deal with going through the reed and heddles which would have already been threaded....one of the many reasons I'm a back to front warper.

Finally the warp is wound on the back beam and I'm ready to thread the heddles - I'm almost to the end and realize there are extra warp ends.........well, I always leave extra warp ends hanging from the back of the loom on a painted warp in case of a broken thread....only I forgot after the fiasco of dealing with the tangles.  So, I pulled the warp out of all the heddles, pulled those extra threads to the back and rethreaded - ack again!

At the beginning of the day I thought I'd get that warp on the loom in no time and be well on my way weaving but instead it took all day to get it on the loom. If it had been $5 worth of tencel I wouldn't have spent the time on it and would have sacrificed it to the weaving goddess but it was around $50 worth of silk so I wasn't willing to give up on it.

Finally on the loom so I could audition wefts (above) - hoping to weave today. And yes, you weavers out here may spot a few errors in the weaving, I had one tie-up hook that kept falling out as I was sampling - I replaced it several times with others and finally got one that would stay put. This is not a problem I usually have with my Macomber but it seems like with this warp I'm having all kinds of issues.......hopefully today I'll weave away with no issues at all..........

A bit of time at the loom.....

We decided to go over to the coast for a few days in spite of the forecast.  We did get a beach walk in Friday afternoon in-between the rain squalls but after that there was torrential sideways rain, lots of wind, soak to the bone rain. We came home earlier than planned on Sunday due to the forecast of the river reaching flood stage later in the day - 42S along the Coquille River was starting to flood as we drove through, the road closed this morning - we were really worried about rockslides on 42, so glad there weren't as that detour would have added 1 1/2-2 hours to our drive home.

Back to that painted silk scarf warp - above is scarf #2 - I used a deep red weft.

 

Here is scarf #3 which I only had time to get started today - a wine weft is being used.

 

I did get some time to work on the knitted felted intarsia tangled mess bag project but I've run out of the blue wool just short of the final strap - ack. I bought exactly what the pattern called for and I knit tight so there should have been plenty.  I found a skein online - it's on it's way to me now but has put this project on hold for a while......dyelot will not be the same but hopefully close enough. Next up is to knit the tulips to felt - I read through the directions and decided I need lots of fresh brain cells before starting to work on those - they look to be a challenge to say the least..........as in I don't understand the instructions at all.........

 

Pure torture today shopping for Christmas Eve dinner stuff, forgot the lettuce for the salad so back to the store for me tomorrow along with waiting in line at the post office for 2 packages - ack. Think I'll need some chocolate to compensate.......but that means I'll have to remember to buy some when I pick up the lettuce.......... 

 

 

 

Back to weaving.......

It's good to be back at the loom. I hate to complain about selling so much roving as it's great income but my weaving time has been suffering the past few years, this year much more. I desperately need to weave scarves - I've sold so many the past 4-5 months and haven't replenished a single one. This is a start.........I got this warp on the loom this afternoon and the first scarf woven.

This was one of the painted silk warps I dyed a few months ago. Unfortunately I don't have many colors of silk to choose from for the weft so I'm using a tencel weft, many more color choices in my tencel stash. This is the first scarf using a fuchsia weft, 2nd and 3rd will have different weft colors so each scarf is a bit different.

I think this scarf makes a lovely Valentine's Day scarf.........yes, I'm trying to think ahead although I'm probably already late for that upcoming holiday...........

Corkscrews tamed........

The corkscrews were tamed somewhat in the finishing of that scarf. But look - even after washing the fringe is still kinky - it's like the steam during the dyeing process put permanent kinks in that silk - it's crazy. Even after ironing it still looked just as kinky - good thing I was planning on twisting the fringe.

Here it is finished, fringe twisted and ironed. I couldn't come close to capturing the sheen....the feel and drape is incredible with the silk warp & tencel weft. I tried a different technique of hemstitching which is actually knotting - it makes for a less obvious hemstitching. I visited the Webfoot Weavers Guild over on the coast last week to hear a presentation by Nancy Hoskins of Eugene. As an extra little tip she showed this knotting technique which, I think, is in one of her books. I tried it - I like it.

Love it........

When I went downstairs to the studio to start weaving on the scarf warp I thought "let me audition some other weft colors" I just wasn't sold on what I had sampled so far. I decided to pull out a rust color - in this pic it looks pretty orange but it's a beautiful rust. I realize this color combination isn't for everyone but I love it.......and I'm not weaving it for anyone else, I'm weaving it for me.

I like this draft I found on handweaving.net and would love to tie a painted warp I dyed last fall onto this warp but if you remember back to my post a couple days ago about warping from the dyed knitted blank it you'll understand why I'll pass on tying on - just can't deal with the corkscrew kinks of the warp once it's not under tension.

I don't think I talked about my colors during the dyeing process. I started with purple dye in one cup, then gold dye in another cup and set 5 more cups in-between and started blending varying percentages of the purple & gold dye to get the shades in-between the two. In hindsight I wish I had toned down the purple a tiny bit with a little gold but I'm still happy with it.

Corkscrews.......

No, I don't mean corkscrews as in we're opening a really wonderful bottle of wine.  I mean in the kind that come from unraveling knitting - yikes - what a challenge

Here is half of the knit silk blank I dyed in a class by Nancy Roberts at the NWRSA conference a week from Friday.  The blank continues on to the right with the colors reversing. I was a little skeptical that I could actually wind the warp straight from the blank letting it sit on the floor and unravel as I wound around the pegs. It was a little bit of a challenge but not too bad.  

 

 Here it is after I've wound it on the back beam, it's spread out through the raddle and you can see the warp going through the lease sticks to the front of the room. Winding on that corkscrew warp was a little challenge, but once again not too bad.

 

But next came threading the heddles and reed - it was beyond challenging. I was so frustrated that I forgot to take a picture of all those little corkscrews hanging out of the heddles and then reed.....and popping out of the heddles and reed........

 

After taking 4 times as long to warp as any other scarf warp I finally got to tie on the front beam and spread out the warp ends (lime thread) and then audition some wefts. Right now I'm leaning toward the red-purple but I'll see what else I've got on the shelf to try out. Look at that mass of curly cue corkscrews in the right bottom corner where I've tied on the front beam - argh.

It's hard to tell in these photos but I love the way the warp blends from color to color across the warp. Another option with this dyed blank would have been to put on a warp and use the dyed blank for the weft and have the colors blend the length of the scarf. Once again, I would wind it into a skein and wash it before using it for weft - would hate to fight those corkscrews with every shot I throw.

Would I do this knitted silk blank dyeing for weaving again - yes for myself or for gifts. Will I do it for items I sell, probably not as it takes more time to deal with the corkscrews or to wind it into a skein to wash and let dry before warping. I will definitely wind it into a skein and wash it to get rid of those corkscrews next time.

Silk and Tencel Devore Sample

Here's a devore sample on the silk/tencel warp. I am so glad I'm doing samples on each scarf warp before burning out the cellulose fiber on the real scarf. This is the first sample where the edges have been ragged after the burnout - that's the tencel fraying. So no burnout on the actual scarf off this warp. Of course before I did this sample I put another warp on using tencel - this time with wool. I just finished weaving it, maybe will get to the devore sample of that tomorrow - will see if it's a repeat of fraying edges to confirm that tencel is not a good fiber choice or was the above sample just a fluke.

What I'm current spinning.........

Here's what I'm currently spinning - it's a blend of 80% merino/20% silk hand-dyed by Shelley of Butternut Woolens. The colorway is absolutely beautiful and it's a dream to spin. Shelley always had a booth here in Oregon at fiber events but moved to Montana this past year.