Towels

I must be crazy! There was an ad in the paper--a call for artists--to sell items in a handmade/handcrafted bazar near my house in November. I answered the ad, found two friends to join me, and now am preparing to sell handwoven towels!

My goal is to have 30 towels ready by Nov. 14th. Three are finished--woven, wet finished, and hemmed. My two looms are warped, and I'm weaving towels 4-7 on the natural with blue accents warp, and towels 8-13 on the dark pink (red?--nah, it's not a true red)/pink warp. Towels 14-30 haven't even made it to the idea/concept phase yet...but maybe they will come to me while I weave.

This sort of intensive weaving (with a deadline, no less!) is, well, intense. I find that I am tired of weaving by the end of the day. Perhaps that is because I was warping two looms at the same time. I am hoping that by staggering the next set of towels, I will be able to warp for a bit, then weave for a bit--back and forth from loom to loom. Another challenge with two projects hitting the loom at about the same time is incomplete notes. I keep a lab notebook, I do, I do! ....I just keep an incomplete one, sometimes going through pages of notes and calculations only to have the final page be a bit unclear as to what I finally decided to use. Then I have to stare at the notes and read through them a few times until I catch my train of thought and figure out what my bits of chicken scratch really mean!

Ah, well! It's good to experiment, right? Wish me luck!

A Tribute to Fiber Enablers

Thank you, to those of you who taught me to spin. Thank you, to those of you who have taken my designs and made them into functional creations!

This latest creation is a warping mill. It's awaiting its maiden warp, but I think it will work. The stand is from a quilting frame. The triangle/cylinder part was made from materials on hand.

The labor was provided by my fiber enabler, Martin. He took my design, upgraded it, and made it a reality. Thank you!

Purple People

The "Very Berry" sweater for my daughter is done. Whew.

This sweater has been challenging, but not necessarily in the knitting aspects! I did modify the pattern, knitting the sleeves flat and not in the round. It's just been hard to force myself to sit and knit instead of spinning and/or weaving. That and it's been hard to get my daughter and the sweater in the same room long enough to check the size!



I (miraculously!) got her to try on the sweater a second time today before grafting the underarms. After knitting the neck and watching it flop over (ARGH!) I was about ready to rip the whole thing! But the curly neck lay flat on the body! Go figure!...and, Hooray! Now the sweater is done, and it's time for more weaving!





I have been dyeing cotton with Dylon's "Permanent Dyes"--which I think are a direct dye. Earlier in the week I did a blue batch. Yesterday I dyed purple. Three of the skeins are 20/2 cotton (originally a very pale, mint green), the fourth skein is 10/2 cotton, originally a tweedy grey. The bottom pile is cotton fibers to card and spin.

Stadium Blanket

Here are some photos of the blanket in progress. The Huck Lace is showing nicely!






















All four samples from this projects were sitting together tonight. I couldn't pass by the photo opportunity. Sampling is good. Sampling is my friend. ...I will probably sample again. :)