Three Shawls almost finished

Ok, so now that I've got these 3 pictures up here I see there's really not much difference in the photographs, there is in person, but not much here. I finally got back to the shawl warp yesterday.......spent Tuesday with my spinning group and a day trip to the coast on Wednesday. Above is one version of the rayon chenille shawl using another rayon chenille for the weft only it's one with tiny little dots of color. This is actually the third shawl which is not quite finished. I love the look of those tiny dots of color - I picked up a huge cone of this chenille years ago and haven't found any again, it's very fun. Usually variegated chenilles have repeats anywhere from 4" -12". As weaving this one I was thinking maybe it shouldn't become a shawl for sale but fabric for a vest for me.......in reality I probably wouldn't want stripes this wide for a vest - maybe I'll have to put on another warp at some point for a vest and use the same tiny dots chenille as weft.For this shawl I used a black rayon/cotton for the weft - it's hard to see it in this picture but it makes for a very nice effect.

This shawl I used a variegated purple rayon novelty yarn with tiny loops as the weft.

I woke up in a panic this morning realizing that the Pacifica Winter Arts Festival, where I'll have a booth on December 5th, is only 4 weeks away. I have plenty to fill the booth but there are a number of items I would still like to finish up by then.........not so sure they'll all get done.

New chenille warp.........

This is the rayon chenille warp I started winding yesterday and got on the loom today - have started weaving the first shawl. For the first one I'm using a novelty rayon in shades of purple, very subtle colors, very small slubs, I've used this type of fiber before with chenille and love the results. I'm not sure what I'll use for weft for the 2nd two shawls - definitely a black weft for one of them but I'm undecided on if it will be black chenille or a pretty black rayon I have.......will decide when I get to each of them.

Thought I'd show the pair of socks I'm currently working on - there always has to be at least one pair of socks in the works for taking with me to work on. These are called slouch socks - I love this pattern. The yarn is from one of my hand-dyed sock blocks - you can see it in my Sept. 21st post - it's the sock block on the right in the picture. Usually I'd knit both socks at the same time directly from the sock block but this time I decided to wind the yarn into separate balls. Both socks are in process, the other I haven't started the heel on yet.

New Ashland Bay roving available

I got another shipment of Ashland Bay rovings in - it's like Christmas opening the boxes to see what the colors really look like in person as opposed to the small examples in my sample book. As I pull each color out of it's plastic wrapping I think about what fun it would be to spin and what I could weave or knit from it........but where will I get all that time?! Reality sets in - I know I can't spin them all so hopefully those that buy the colorways I can't get to will share a picture of what the fiber looks like spun-up and then in a final project. In addition to the three types of multi-colored roving above I also got in some more solid colors in Merino and Colonial wool as well as some Shetland Moorit which is a light brown.

On the loom now........

Here's what's on the loom now. Yesterday I put on a random striped warp in rayon chenille. I used black, light blue and a variegated blue. It's so hard for me to just go to the warping board and start winding randomly - I usually plan out all warps but I decided to try and step out of the box yesterday - what a challenge for me!

This scarf I'm using a novelty rayon sparkley black yarn as weft. It's a fiber I've used often weaving chenille scarves - adds just a bit of sparkle without looking metallic. This is actually the third scarf on the loom that will hopefully be woven off today........I've also got an Ashland Bay order that arrived yesterday that needs to be weighed out and bagged for sale and a weaving guild newsletter to get out by tomorrow at the latest, preferably today.
I used a blue rayon chenille weft for this scarf adding a black accent at each end of the scarf -

the striped border is a bit different at each end. This scarf I used black chenille as the weft.

I love weaving chenille - it's so yummy feeling and is a fast weave which is needed to add more stock for sale with the holidays fast approaching

On and soon to be off the loom........

This is a chenille warp for 3 scarves that went on the loom yesterday afternoon, finished it off and am ready to go cut it off and wash the scarves this evening. I decided being dreary weather (which I'm loving at the moment) that I wanted bright so these scarves have a scarlet red and hot pink rayon chenille warp with thin stripes of a novelty sparkley yarn as an accent. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this novelty yarn, which was a bit stretchy, won't be a problem in the finishing.

Decisions, decisions........what should go on the loom next! It's between one of my hand-dyed bamboo scarf warps or some commercially dyed bamboo - 2 solid colors and a variegated.......oh, and then there's more chenille calling my name, not to mention 3 different piles of cones of cotton sitting on the floor waiting to become towel warps. I may have another day to think on it - may be heading out for a shopping day tomorrow.

Latest spinning & weaving.......

Here is the latest project on the loom. I'm weaving a special order of a very long table runner to coordinate with some commercial placemats. The green body of the runners is 5/2 perle cotton woven in plain weave, the yellow 2/2 twill stripe is 3/2 perle cotton. The first runner on the loom had the center yellow stripe and a yellow stripe on each end which is the idea the customer gave me for a possible design. After weaving that one I took out 8 green ends one inch in on each side and replaced them with 8 ends of 3/2 yellow threaded in the 2/2 twill. I wanted to give her another design to choose from so I wove this one in the window pane design. It might be too busy with the already busy and colorful autumn placemats but it's another option. Still need to wash and hem these. I wove enough for the two long runners and another one approximately 36" finished.

This is my latest handspun. I had a bit of my hand-dyed rovings (approx 3 oz each) of Merino in my Violet colorway (on the left) and Falkland in my Very Berry colorway (on the right). I then plied the two together and came out with the skein below - it's on the blocker now. Not sure what project it will be used in - will depend on how many yards I have.

Even though I andean ply when bobbins end up uneven in plying it's always a challenge to come out even. This time I had only 10" difference at the end of plying - my best has been 3".

I'm working on a cute Christmas ornament for gifts but can't post pictures until after the holidays so no one sees them early.

Jennifer's handspun & life......

Life gets in the way sometimes - not enough fiber time this past week which is why there haven't been any posts. I did get the loom warped up with a runner warp, one of which is a special order to coordinate with some placemats. Hoping to get time at the loom to weave tomorrow......... I have gotten a bit of spinning in and a bit of knitting but not much.

So, I have pictures of Jennifer's handspun to share. Jennifer is in my spinning group when she's not away at school like she is at the moment. She came over last month one day while I was dyeing roving and helped out. She brought some blue-gray roving to overdyed - here's a picture of it spun up - it's beautiful!

And here are pictures of her handspun out of my hand-dyed merino tencel in the harvest colorway - isn't it beautiful! The sheen of the merino tencel really sets off the colors. Thanks Jennifer for sending this pictures to me. Unfortunately this colorway in the merino tencel is sold out at the moment - very popular. I do have some of this colorway left in the Falkland wool and the Blue Face Leicester wool. The recent convertible mittens I knit were spun up from the BFL.

New Dyed Rovings

Here are pix of the roving I dyed last week. The top row is over-dyed Black Blue Face Leicester.
The second row and first 3 (reading left to right) on the third row are Colonial Wool. And the 4th in the third row and fourth row are Superwash Blue Face Leicester. I dyed over 34 pounds total. I can't wait to spin up some of the SW BFL - it feels so incredibly yummy........will have to wait, other fiber in the works right now.

Carol's handspun

This is handspun from a relatively new spinner, Carol, who works at Websters (a very cool yarn shop in Ashland, OR). She spun approximately 600 yards from 7.6 ounces (18 wpi plied) of my hand-dyed Corriedale Cross in a non-repeatable colorway. This is one of the dye day surprises that come out of leftover dyes in the squirt bottles at the end of the day. I think it turned out wonderful - great spinning Carol! And many thanks for sending the picture of one of your finished skeins on to me to post.

Spinning BFL

Here's what I started spinning earlier this week - it's Blue Face Leicester in my hand-dyed Very Berry colorway. I had a small amount left (approx 3 oz) after weighing out the rest for sale so it's perfect for me to sample with. So I have enough to do something with, like knit a pair of sox, I'm going to ply it with another small length of my hand-dyed, Merino in the Violets colorway.

Yesterday was a roving dye day - 17 pounds! I dyed 13 pounds of Colonial Wool and 4 pounds of Black Blue Face Leicester. Will post a picture once completely dried and braided for sale. Tomorrow will be another dye day - another 17 pounds in Superwash Blue Face Leicester........will be touch and go on if I finish up all 17 pounds in one day again. Need to get it all done since we have a break in the weather, great days for being outside all day dyeing.

2nd tencel scarf

So, finally back to the loom to finish up that tencel scarf warp. Here's the 2nd scarf on the warp - I'm using the rust 8/2 tencel for the weft on this one. It's just as beautiful as the first scarf using the red weft............oh, which shall I keep???

Painted Warp Scarf

Here's the beginning of the first scarf on the painted warp I tried out sample wefts on (previous post). I love this scarf! This may end up in my personal closet. It's finished - second scarf will be woven using the rust weft. Not sure when I'll get back to it since tomorrow is a National Spinning & Weaving Week celebration at Llamas & Llambs in Jacksonville. I'll be there spinning all day. Unfortunately the weather is looking iffy for this outdoor celebration - a bit too cool and possible showers. Thinking I'll take my drop spindle instead of my wheel - less to worry about getting wet while walking from the car to the shop.

Sampling on the loom..........

Here I am sampling on the loom for what color weft to use for a painted scarf warp. It's hard to tell in this little swatch what colors I painted the warp - it's gold, orangey bronze and silver gray. I've decided to use the red weft for the first scarf........am still pondering on the second scarf; either the rust brown or the gray (the top two samples). This warp is 8/2 tencel. Weave structure is a 2 block twill.

Much of yesterday was spent taking pictures of scarves & towels to soon be listed in my etsy shop. It takes so much time to do that chore, and then there's all the editing.....which is still in process. Picture taking is a struggle for me but someone has to do it and I don't remember hearing Bailey volunteer.

Back to the loom............

Flock & Flea

Friday morning I left at the break of dawn for Flock & Flea (as Sam and I call it) - proper name is OFFF.....Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. Several carloads of fiber friends from this area drove up to Canby for the 3 day festival. Friday my vanload's first stop was Bronx Bagels in Sutherlin for breakfast, then Trader Joe's in Eugene for goodies for the weekend. Then up to Bridgeport Village on the south side of Portland for shopping at The Container Store, Crate & Barrel and various other stores. I told my friends no way was I going in Origins.......they went looking for me, couldn't find me because I was in Origins finding products to make my skin look like it did 30 years ago!

Friday night found 14 of us at the Sushi Track in Wilsonville for dinner - what great fun! Saturday morning we had to do the traditional ferry ride across the Willamette River from Wilsonville to Canby (very small very - 6 car max) to spend the day at the festival. Each year there are more booths to see and spend money at. I didn't spend much this year - some goodies I found are in the bottom picture. I didn't need the tote but I just couldn't resist at a bargain price. Saturday night found us at a tiny little Thai restaurant - this time 17 of us, hopefully we weren't too loud for the handful of tables of other diners.

Sunday morning it was back to the festival until mid-day......we then headed south to the Corvallis Fall Festival where I found these two glass pieces, I just can't resist gingko leaves. Then to Trader Joe's again for groceries and a case of wine and home.

What a fun and exhausting 3 days it was. I really wasn't going this year to buy so the best part was having fun with all my fiber peeps, those that went up from here and those from other parts of the state, Washington and British Columbia that I only see at conferences and festivals. What a great weekend of fiber bonding it was.

Bamboo scarf warp & mp3

Here's the same scarf warp I posted yesterday only this scarf I'm using a navy weft instead of black. Thought I'd add to the picture my new little mp3 player that Sam surprised me with last week. It's not the kind of thing I'd usually use but I thought it would be great for listening to podcasts while weaving. So far I've listened to two of the Weavecasts, I'm starting with the newest ones moving back in time. Today was on computers & weaving - it was great, especially since I'm thinking about buying an AVL 24 harness compu-dobby loom in the not too distant future, I hope. So far I've learned how to download the weavecasts off the site, Weavecast a part of Weavezine, and load onto the player......eventually I'll have to learn how to put music on it. Sam put a few albums on so I rocked to Foriegner after the weavecast.

Back to my first love..........

It's time to start spending more time at the loom, weaving is my first love. The dyeing is great fun but sitting at the loom with feet dancing on the treadles and the shuttle flying to and fro is what makes my heart sing. I put one of my painted warps on the loom today and got the first scarf woven (above). It's Bambu 7 warp & weft. This first scarf I'm using a black weft, the second scarf I'll use a navy weft. The weave structure is an advancing twill.

These 3 scarves are from the rayon chenille warp I just cut off the loom yesterday and washed last night. I wish pictures could convey how soft & yummy chenille feels. I still have to twist the fringes - those will wait for a time when I need a break from something else. I did get weft ends trimmed and pulled the waste yarn out of the fringe today.

Dye Day Results

Here are some results from yesterday's dye day. Above is some Falkland roving. I decided to play with semi-solid dyeing yesterday - I really love the way the two left rovings turned out - the top makes me think of buttercream. The bottom left was supposed to be a different color (I've dyed it before) but who knows what happened in the steamer - it came out very different but I love it.

Here are some of the devore silk scarves I dyed. Another whoops in dyeing process here. I usually dye them using fiber reactive dyes - much more vibrant results. This time I was thinking silk so used the acid dyes but I forgot that these are silk and rayon. So, the dye did not take on the rayon. Not the effect I was looking for but beautiful just the same. I also dyed two shawls and some 100% silk scarves.

These are two sock blocks I dyed using up leftover dyes in the squirt bottles. I'm going to start a pair of socks using the autumn color one very soon - will be very fun to see how the socks knit up.

I did finish up a chenille scarf warp today, need to get them cut off the loom and washed, will post a picture once that's done.

Temps are very high here today and will continue for most of the week. Two very scary fires burning, one in Ashland, the other in Medford. I checked on some Ashland friends and they're doing fine but am concerned about a fellow weaver who lives in the area of the Medford fire. Smoke from those fires is in the air over here already. The rains can't come too soon for me this year.

Falkland Hand-dyed Roving

Here are pix of the Falkland roving I dyed yesterday. Various amounts of each are available for purchase. I have a little piece of the center bottom roving (loden colorway) to spin up as an example. The bottom left is my harvest colorway that I spun and knit the convertible sox out of in blue face leicester. Tomorrow will probaby be another dye day, the rest of the falkland, some silk scarves and a couple of sock blocks.

I so enjoy playing with dyes, I'm getting good at predicting color outcome except the bottom center roving - it looks nothing like what I expected. When I painted the dye on it was 8" of forest green alternating with 3" of dusty purple - it's like the colors did something strange on their own in the steamer!

Canine Angels Dog Walk

We are just back home from the Canine Angels Dog Walk in Grants Pass. Such a worthy cause to make a donation to. We got there around 8:30 to register to walk around Reinhart Volunteer Park (formerly All Sports Park). It's a beautiful park with a foot bridge crossing the Rogue River. We then saw a duck herding demonstration followed by JD Platt and his world famous K9 Kings doing tricks and frisbee retrieving (he was on that reality tv show Greatest American Dog, we don't watch reality tv but did catch one of these episodes because it was dogs). With our donation we got a few goodies and a couple raffle tickets. And wouldn't you know it - we put both our tickets in for the grand prize, a dog bed filled with goodies, and we won! Bailey is beside himself sitting in his new bed surrounded by his loot.........and napping now after such an exciting morning. He met Pumpkin, one of the canine angels in training, and new friends Gracie & Jilly Jean.

New Roving..............Value of Money, not related

This is the merino roving I dyed on Monday - the light dusty peach and yellow are the only braids of those colors, they were from playing with leftover dyes. The others are repeatable colorways - 4 pounds dyed Monday of each color. These will be going up in the etsy shop for sale shortly.

On another note - how do you teach a dog the value of money??? Today we bought a cute little stuffed pig dog toy, it lastest maybe an hour.......triage at the ER for dog toys loaded it right on the stretcher and pulled the sheet over it's head, no amount of stitching will revive it. So, why do some toys die a painful death a short time after being adopted and others last years??? The lambie has been around for as long as we've had Bailey now, he was pretty yucky and went through the washer & dryer recently and is back to looking somewhat decent. And then there's the tiny little lamb Bailey's foster mom gave him - no legs anymore but he's still around too. Bailey is a little depressed this evening after losing his new friend the pig..........maybe next time he'll be a little gentler so he can play with the new toy a bit longer before ripping it's guts out!

Chenille Scarves

Here are the 3 rayon chenille scarves that came off the loom yesterday, got them washed, now they need the fringes twisted. It's too bad one can't tell how yummy they feel from pictures. Am considering getting another chenille warp on the loom today - there's nothing like quick warping and weaving for instant gratification.....then I'll go back to longer warps for towels and more painted warps for scarves I have waiting to be woven.

Convertible Mittens

Last night I got the first convertible mitten finished out of my handspun blue face leicester in my Harvest colorway. I still need to sew on a button that the little loop hooks over for when I want the mitten top back so I can use my fingers. The palm part is a bit bigger than I would have thought but they fit just fine. I'll get started on the second one right away. I was thinking I need to spin more of this colorway for a hat & scarf but now have decided rather than both I'd make a wider scarf that I could pull up over my head - that way there's no hat head! Will probably weave it rather than knit it. Guess that will have to be the next roving to be spun so I have the scarf to wear this winter. Oh, forgot - the book this pattern came from is Not Just More Socks by Sandi Rosner. It's a pattern book for using self-striping commercial sock yarns for items other than socks, some very cute projects.

New handpainted roving for sale

Here are some pix of the roving dyed at the end of last week - some colors are limited, others I have up to 4 pounds of at the moment. Above are pictures of the blue face leicester. Below are pictures of wensleydale. Worked on cleaning up the loom room, piles were everywhere...roving and such. After clearing some floor space I warped up the loom with 8 yards of rayon chenille for three scarves in teal and olive, first scarf woven, hopefully will get loom time tomorrow to finish up that warp so another can go right on.

Yo's handspun

Yolanda just sent me the pictures of her handspun from my hand-dyed roving in the Rainbow colorway which she plyed with some Ashland Bay Merino, Blue. I just dyed more of the Rainbow colorway in Blue Face Leicester this time - just put more up for sale in my etsy shop. And the Ashland Bay rovings are available in my other etsy shop. I love seeing pictures like this and hope others enjoy looking at them. When I spun some of the Rainbow colorway I plyed it on itself and knit some socks out of it - so very different looking. The post showing my socks is October 8, 2008. I love Yolanda's version plying it with blue - it's lovely.

Katie's handspun

This is Katie's handspun from some of my hand-dyed roving. Katie is a newer spinner, she took my drop spindle class earlier in the year and then a wheel class at Black Sheep Gathering in June. I think she's doing great!! It's so hard to imagine what a roving will look like when spun up - I think this one turned out beautiful. This particular roving was a dye day surprise - I painted the roving using the leftover dyes in squirt bottles at the end of the day. There were only two braids - both sold. I wish I were able to spin up samples of every single colorway but I just don't have the time, when I get some spun up I include them in the listing in my etsy shop. Thank you Katie for bringing your skein by yesterday to show me!!

What I've been up to.......

Here's what I've been up to the past 2 days - dyeing roving - around 30 pounds of it. Above there's a bit of superwash merino for Lynne (white with black & red spots) in the Abalone colorway (formerly dalmation until I saw it spun up). The rest is all Blue Face Leicester.
Below is a bit more of the Blue Face Leicester and the rest is all Wensleydale. I love the luster of the Wensleydale - sure wish it were a softer next-to-the-skin wool. It's great for rugs, wall hangings, saddle blankets, people blankets and socks - makes great socks......would probably be good for a vest since that's not right up against the skin.

More handspun color blending samples

Here are some more of the small skeins of color blending samples I spun up. These are all made from combining blue, red & brown in various combinations on the drum carder. I have one more small bag of samples to spin but they will wait a bit..........have a pile of small samples to spin up of Ashland Bay Merino/Tussah Silk, Merino Multi-Color, and Merino Solid rovings. These are all from an order recieved this past week - it helps so much for customers to see what a particular colorway looks like spun up so I'll do samples whenever I have the time and extra fiber.

Towels finally off the loom

The simple towels are finally off the loom - even though it's my first love I'm not getting as much weaving time in these days, much more time spent dyeing and spinning. But the 12 towels are finally off the loom, washed & dried awaiting hemming. Some are striped with a border, like above, others are uneven checks following the same sequencing as in the warp. I don't usually use 6/2 cotton for towels, most the time it's 8/2 or 10/2, I really like these for a change, the 6/2 weaves up into a nice thick absorbent towel. I have a number of cones in what I'd call southwest colors so those will go on the loom after a few scarf warps.

Carding & Spinning Color Studies

I took a fiber blending class with Jill Laski, owner of Ashland Bay Trading Co., at Black Sheep Gathering in 2008. I spun up samples for my notebook but had extra that I decided I wanted to play with now. We spent a day blending wool on our drum carders using the primaries - red, blue, yellow and the printer's primaries - magenta, turquoise, gold. What a fun day, and what fun color combinations we came up with - the colors have so much more depth being blended; for example a purple has so much more depth to it being combined out of red and blue rather than being dyed solid purple to start.

The samples above were a study using 3 colors and blending them in different ratios: blue, purple and chartruese. The Ashland Bay official color names are Colonial Wool 'Bluebell', Colonial Wool or Merino Wool 'Purple' and Merino Wool 'Dijon'.

The samples below are a purple color study. The original purple (no sample) was made from Merino or Colonial 'Red' plus 'Blue'. The samples below show it carded with white, with grey, with black and with it's complement yellow.

I'm not sure what I'll do with all these samples yet - have yet to measure yardage on them. I'll combine them in a small project like socks, hat or fingerless gloves - if I need some more fiber I'll spin up a solid to coordinate with them.

In in the evenings I'm working on some other colorway samples - will post them once they are spun.

Oh what fun this could be since I'm a dealer for Ashland Bay Trading Co. and have a multitude of colors here in stock ready to play with - all the possibilities! I sell them in one of my etsy shops.

More handspun

This is some more handspun that I was working on at the fair last week. Janis of Dyelots gifted me with this ball of roving she created (the picture of the roving isn't great, took it at the fair, small camera wasn't set correctly). All kinds of fiber in it including some glitz. It spun up into a fun novelty yarn full of lumps and bumps, so totally unlike what I normally spin. I plied it with a black quilting thread. Still needs to be washed & blocked and then I'll see how many yards there are....will probably put it on the shelf for a bit to wait for the right project.

I'm back..........

I've spent the past 5 days demonstrating spinning at the fair - what a fun time although exhausting. I'd love to stay home all day today but need to get back to the fairgrounds this morning to help take down our display. This is some of the fiber I spun this week - my hand-dyed blue face leicester in the Harvest colorway. I spun a 2 ply fingering weight for socks. I think it turned out beautiful. This is one of the favorite colorways I dye - stock is currently available in the blue face leicester and a merino/tencel blend. I did some other spinning at the fair - one bobbin waiting to be plied with some thread, and then some blended colorways which I'll post when I finish up the small skeins.

Finally weaving, for a bit..............

I got a bit of time at the loom in this afternoon - worked on the towel warp after I sleyed the reed and tied on, it's been sitting for over a week partially warped........time at the dyepots takes away from weaving which is my first love. Anyhow, love the way the towels are turning out - the colors in my photo really don't look anything like it - they're very muted colors. So, 3 towels down, 9 to go........but it will be a while, county fair starts tomorrow so no loom time.

Corriedale Cross Roving

Here's the newest hand-dyed roving - Corriedale Cross from Friday's dye day - have anywhere from 8 oz to 3 pounds of a colorway for sale. The dyepots have been put away for a bit - starting tomorrow I'll be spending 5 days demonstrating at the fair..........no, not political demonstrating but spinning..........no, not on a stationary bike with sweat oozing out from every pore on my body.........a spinning wheel and drop spindle! Will get back to the dyepots sometime after the fair when the temps permit. Today........most of it hopefully spent at the loom.

Merino Tencel Harvest handspun sample

Last night I spun up a little sample of the merino/tencel in the Harvest colorway - this is what it looks like. Unfortunately the sheen of the tencel just doesn't show in a photo - it's beautiful. It's going to be very hard not to stash some of this away for my own personal spinning pleasure. But first I'm going to spin the same colorway in Blue Face Leicester.