Box Bag Bonanza

I know I already posted once today, but my husband is home and played with the kids and put them to bed (he's been gone on a business trip this past week), and I got to play!

I am looking for a container for some drop spindles. Neither of them are very large--7-9" shaft length--but they are a gift for a friend and I have been trying to come up with something nice to put them in.

Enter the world of Box Bags. Caro of Split Yarn has some beautiful box bags. I want! I want! But, they are more expensive than my budget for this project, so I searched for sewing tutorials, and found one!

Kelly of Dragon{knit}fly has a nice tutorial about how to make a box bag. It worked great! This bag starts with some 12"x16" rectangles of fabric, and creates a finished bag 7" long x ~4" square. My toy wheel drop spindle (10 1/2" shaft) pokes out the top, but otherwise fits great!

One of the challenges with this tutorial are the inner seams. See how the stitching is visible on the inside of the bag? I'd like to figure out a way to have finished seams. Some folks have used bias tape to cover the seams--it works, but there must be a more elegant way!

Even with my seam issue, I am pleased as punch with my new bag! Hmm! Depending on the fabric that my swap partner weaves, maybe I could make a box bag from her handwoven fabric!! :)

Huck Lace

This huck lace scarf is an 8-shaft pattern from Carol Strickler's "8-shaft patterns" book. Can you see the patterning?

Weaving huck lace with fine threads (the warp is 44wpi, the weft over 50wpi) is a bit like weaving the emperor's new clothes. If I look at the cloth on the loom just right I can see the texture. If I blink it disappears!

Wet finishing loosens the fibers enough that the pattern shows up beautifully--it's a very delicate overall pattern...and I can't see it at all in this picture!

I have a few more yards of this warp on the loom. Hopefully it will weave as beautifully as this did!

What a difference!

Check out the differences in these two pieces of fabric! The top one has a dark blue weft; the lower one a grey. The top one is one side of the fabric; the lower one shows the other.

Such differences--front/back, dark/light weft!

The dark weft fabric is for the Weaver's Swap. The grey weft is for me! :) I wonder what I will make?

More "Happiness Is..."

Happiness is a garage sale find. My children and I often walk to garage sales in our neighborhood. Today there was one that advertised a knitting machine and yarn. I grabbed a bag "just in case" I found yarn.

And boy did I find yarn!

Two boxes of clean yarn in beautiful colors and weights. Most of the fibers are cotton/poly blends and many of the yarns are fine--20/2, 16/2 etc.

I am a happy camper!

And now I need to finish some weaving so I can warp with my new yarns!! :)














One more piece of happiness: the roving I'm spinning is turning into a yarn that looks like flowers!

Dye Strike

Kathleen Taylor's "Yarns to Dye For" has some interesting methods for dyeing variegated yarns. I tried one last night. It didn't turn out quite as expected!

The dye was an acid dye (for protein fibers) and was a mixed color--blue dye and yellow dye mixed to give a deep bluegreen.

The method: wind your yarn in a loose (oops. Mine wasn't loose!) ball and immerse in dye bath. Every few minutes, pull out a few yards of yarn.

The result: My handspun wool yarn is now a beautiful robin's egg blue. It has subtle shading, but no overall variegation. (The idea is that the end that is pulled out of the dye bath first is pale and the end that is pulled out last is very dark.) Also, the blue dye obviously struck first--I added some rovings after the yarn was out of the dye bath and they are more green.

An interesting note: one of the rovings I added was a natural brown. It successfully picked up dye, so I know it can be overdyed. Unfortunately, bluegreen dye on brown looks sickly...it's a very creepy, witchy color to me! The photo below is out of focus but you can see some of the blue in the brown. What you can't see is the green that is also there! Eww!

I think I'll keep that one and see if it doesn't find a use around Halloween time!

Warped to Weave

I love the saying that you 'have to be warped to weave'. It's great because it fits me from many perspectives--that of being a weaver and of being a little off kilter from so many of the people I know. (Yup. You guessed it! I a little strange! But just little! :)

This is my latest warp. It's a 3/2 perle cotton commercially dyed a variegated blue. I really like this color blue. The photo looks a bit grey, but the yarn isn't. I'm weaving a networked twill and point twill variation from "Twill Thrills" to weave a sturdy fabric for the Weaver's Swap I'm in.

My current weft is a dark blue 2-ply cotton that is slightly small in grist than the warp. It's hard to see the design of the weaving, but I like how using the dark weft on the variegated warp hides the pattern....it's still there...it's just subtile.

Weaver's Swap

I am very excited! Dave at The Weaving Studio and Benita of Basically Benita are hosting a Weaver's Swap. The jist of it is that you weave 2 yards of cotton fabric, send it off to your partner, and your partner turns it into a bag for you! The partner gets to keep half of the fabric that you provide.

How cool is that? An excuse to weave, an opportunity to make a bag, and I get a bag in return!! Can you guess that I joined?

The timing is quick--fabric is due to be shipped to partners by the end of July and the finished bags are to be enroute back to the weavers by Aug. 31st--but a little pressure can be a good thing!

Shetland Sampler

A few years ago my husband gave me a wonderful collection of fibers from Amy King as a Christmas present.

These four skeins of yarn were from her "Shetland Sampler". The colors are beautiful. The fiber is soft. It was a treat to spin.

Now to decide what to make and how to make it!

Details (per color):
2 oz. of fiber
2-ply, sport weight yarn
~130 yards

If at first you don't succeed...

Try, try again!
I got this cool sweatshirt as a Christmas gift. It says, "If you aren't a part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate." Yes, I'm still a chem-geek at heart!
But, the sweatshirt was a man's cut--long in the torso, with a narrow waist at the bottom--and that just doesn't work well with my curvy hips! So, off to the sewing machine I went. Off came the excess length in the torso. Off came the 4" of sleeve (that covered my hands!). Off came the neck band (just to make it all match).

I used knit ribbing to cover the cut edges. I like the overall effect, but my skills at applying ribbing can use improvement! I may try washing the sweatshirt before I try again--just to see if the ribbing smooths out any.




The next project for the week is a sweater make-over. A friend gave me this black cardigan. It originally had a "dead skunk" faux fur collar. Not my style! I used some fine black yarn and made an I-cord long enough to go around the neck. I machine stitched around the neck, cut the offending collar off, and hand stitched the I-cord in place. Voila! A 'new', simple cardigan for me to wear! :)

Flax Flowers

Do you remember my empty square of garden? This is my little plot of flax. It's grown quite a bit since I last photographed it! The center of the square (4'x4') is flowering. The edges have a little more growing to do before they flower.
But, look at the beautiful blue flowers! They are delicate and they fold up in the evening as if to sleep!

Holy Handbags, Honey!

Check these out! These are the bags my friend made for me following the tutorial at Pink Penguin. The tutorial makes the small bag, but my friend modified it and made me the bigger one too! See her posts at Baby Steps.

The bags were part of an exchange--my friend "needed" new, cool, handspun yarn and I "desperately wanted but didn't have the time make" these bags. I had fun spinning the yarn I sent (back in February because I was so excited to have an excuse to spin!) and I am just thrilled with my new bags! The absolute best part of this exchange was the chance to work together as friends. Friends are wonderful!

Sling!

This is another one of the baby things I have been busy with. It's handwoven fabric--the yarns were all odd-lots that I think are rayon and polyesters. The rings were purchased on-line at SlingRings. The pleated sling design is from a friend of mine at Stand and Deliver.

I'm going to take this over to my friend's house and let her try it with her new little baby. I'm concerned that it is too long, but if it is I can fix that! I'm really pleased with how this turned out!

Wool--Can there ever be too much?

This is my current spinning stack. My dyed roving aren't selling very well on etsy right now...and that's ok because I like most of the things I have dyed and am (ahem) dying for the chance to spin them. The brown tub is full, top to bottom of rovings. The lid (off to the left) is only 4 or 5 inches deep, but it is full too! As I was spinning the first roving today I was contemplating the most appropriate weave structure to use to highlight it's colors. :)




"Baa, Baa Babydoll sheep
Have you any wool?"
"Yes, friend. Yes, friend.
Five bags full."

Five feed bags of babydoll fleeces arrived at my house today. The first bag has already been opened, skirted, soaked, and scoured. It's drying on my patio as I type. I'm hoping that I can play with it some more tomorrow.

Handwoven Fabric in Cards

The young women at church are having a fund raiser auction to raise money for camp. I put together these two cards for them to auction.

The twill is a new fabric (just off the loom this week!), but the green I had to dig for--deep into the depths of my sample/scrap box. In fact I had to dig so deep I ended up cleaning my craft room!

The cards are tri-fold, with the window panel in the middle. The fabrics were sewn onto a cream colored piece of card stock, then glued with rubber cement to the frame of the window panel. I'm extremely biased, but I like how they look!


I also finished spinning my East Freisan roving that I got at The Fiber Event last month. It's soft and springy, and this photo doesn't do the deep, dark brown (with tiny reddish highlights) any justice!

Toys

I made two animals from a pattern in "Twill Thrills" (Blue Tick Hound, p.8).

The blue one was a test with commercial fabric to see how the pattern went together. Unfortunately, I cut the body too big and my "hound" turned into a "rabbit".

The pink ticking fabric went on the loom Monday morning and came off Tuesday evening. It was a narrow warp (10") and short (3 yards), but it provided enough fabric to make the toy and a burp cloth and have plenty of fabric left over. The warp and weft are 10/2 cotton, unmercerized, sett at 24 epi.

More Bits and Pieces

I've chosen the weft for my multi-colored warp. It's a fine, pale green, 2-ply on an unknown fiber. It is most likely a polyester or rayon or some blend, but it's care should be similar to the rayon warp.

The variegated single in the warp has caused a few problems. There are spaces where the single is thicker and less tightly spun than the rest of the yarn. The tension of the warp and the abrasion of the reed has lead to multiple repairs.

So far, I'm pleased with the weight of the fabric. My goal is to end up with something light and drapeable. If it works (and the fabric gets used for it's intended purpose), I'll let you know. Until then, mum's the word 'cause the final product may be a gift!




















Here is a second pair of worsted weight bed socks. The dark purple (and late evening light) makes it hard to capture the ripple stitch that I used, but they are done. Two pairs down and two to go. Unfortunately the last pair may take a while. My son saw a roving in my stash that he liked and so I need to do some spinning before I can knit that pair!

Learning to Warp with Colors

I have three rayon yarns that I would like to use in a woven piece. The tan, variegated, and red/burgundy. Unfortunately, I'm not sure about the best way to use these three yarns.

Two of the yarns are two-ply (the tan and red), the variegated is a single. The shiney, cream colored yarn is a 6-ply rayon that I've been considering as an extra--either for warp or weft.

One of the challenges in designing this piece is a lack of coordinating yarn. It's gotten so challenging that I just looked in my thread drawers to see if perhaps some of my thread might work. I have a warp faced woven piece with a thread like weft....Hmmm. Any thoughts?

Delicate and Durable

Delicate first:

This is a piece of cotton yardage. The warp is 10/2 unmercerized cotton alternating with a 2-ply handspun cotton yarn. The weft is a handspun cotton single.

The loom is a tag sale purchase that was originally used for making belts (think inkle loom with a texsolv heddle). I've tried to stabilize the texsolv heddles with a row of crochet stitches on top and windings of yarn at the bottom of the heddle frame. The warp pulled in 1.5" when I started weaving, but seems pretty stable now that I have a few inches woven. The fabric is light weight enough for a shirt!

Durable: A new pair of bed socks from 100% acrylic worsted weight yarn. My last two pairs lasted 4-5 years!

Happiness is...

... a set of knitting needles that have been "found".

Isn't it amazing how much joy these moments bring? The item that was lost, that got put on the shopping list, only to be found before I left to go shopping! And then there's the added benefit of having a slightly cleaner workspace--it's not technically "clean", but it's better! I even had an idea of what to do with some of my leftover bits and pieces of yarn!

Ahh. I am grateful for these moments!

Missing Details

Hmm. This looks suspiciously like a bit of dirt. But if you look closely you can see the marks of my rake. This is my flax experiment! The plants obviously aren't here yet, but hopefully they will come and I'll be able to harvest my first flax fibers in August.

The other missing thing is my favorite set of double point knitting needles. I've looked high and low. I miss them! I have a whole family of socks that are awaiting their reappearance! Where are they?

To Darn or Not To Darn

This is my sock. It is a holey sock. It needs to be repaired...or recycled...or???

I made these socks on my knitting machine about 5 years ago. They were knit flat, with short row shaping for the toe and heel, and seamed up the sides. They have short cuffs and loose feet--they are the first pair of socks I ever made on the knitting machine, and maybe my first pair of socks ever (I was terribly intimidated by double point needles for a while!). They have been darned multiple times this last year. Can you see the light blue patch in the upper right corner of the photo? That's a patch job. The heels have patch jobs. But it looks like the yarn is just wearing out all over. Sigh. Is it worth darning these socks anymore? At some point I'm going to have to bite the bullet and just knit myself some new bed socks.

Hmm. Maybe this is a good thing. Bed socks use cheap acrylic yarns from the stash. Cheap acrylic Worsted Weight yarn. Hmm. Worsted Weight. Worsted weight knits up fast. Fast knitting...hmm. Maybe I could try a new sock pattern with my fast knitting worsted weight yarn. Hmmm. I'm beginning to like this idea! :)

The End of an Era (sort of !)

My turn with the little structo loom has come to a close. I borrowed it months ago to do preparations for a presentation on double weave. The presentation is done, the sample warp- that was on the loom for the meeting-has been woven, and it's time to return the loom.

Here are some photos of the bag that the sample warp became. It's based on a tutorial by Doni, with double weave fabric. The long, thin strip of fabric is not cut to make the bag. It's wrapped in a coil (more or less) and seamed.

The pattern doesn't work very well on the bag--I expected the bag to be square/square column, showing just one width of the fabric. Instead it's more of a flat, 2-dimensional piece that is two fabric widths wide.



It would work better to have the pattern line continue across the seam. Doni's bags are all plain fabrics. That's probably a much better way to do this bag! :)

A Little Knowledge

I was sitting in a photography class with the 12-18 year old girls at church. The instructor provided two pages of notes dealing with f-stops, ISO, shutter speed... And all I could think of was, "But I just have a point and shoot digital camera!"

Well, I took the instructor's comments to heart, dug out my camera's manual, and learned that I have lots to learn about my camera!

I have a Cannon PowerShot A400. It's a little old. It's a little slow. But, wow! It can do things I didn't know about! Sepia, black and white, portraits, night scenes... There's even a way to adjust many of the settings the instructor focused on! Wow!

My three year old was a good sport and let me take many pictures of her. I like this "open composition" (see, Kelly! I was paying attention!) of her in sepia.

My asparagus let me play around with the rule of thirds. See how the tall spear in the back is on a (almost!) 1/3 line and the smaller spear in front is on another 1/3 line? Whoo-hoo!



And then, I do have fiber content! I pulled out a tub of spinning fiber to prepare for some drum carding...and discovered a Shetland wool sampler. Off came the spinning that has slowed down, and on went the dark wool. The old bobbin and roving snuggled up beautifully for this parting shot:

Overshot -Pleased as Punch!

Look at this bit of overshot! I am pleased as punch at how it is turning out!

The weave structure is Marguerite Porter Davison's 'A Handweaver's Pattern Book', pg 148 titled "Valley Forge Dogwood".

The warp and tabby weft are a two ply acrylic --about 25 wpi. The pattern weft is reclaimed yarn from a skirt & sweater set. It's mostly acrylic with a bit of metallic sparkle and some mohair.

More importantly, the warp/tabbyweft and pattern weft work beautifully together! I have been able to sit and weave without tweaking, without struggling to get the right number of picks per inch...it just works!

I am so pleased!

More Double Weave

I'm preparing to do a presentation to my weaving guild about double weave. As I wove and watched tv, I realized that I may finally have gotten bit by the doubleweave pick-up bug.

Previous attempts at doing doubleweave pick-up were slow, and tedious--cute (remember Fred the Fish?), but painfully slow.

My new set-up included nice, clean, hand-drawn graphs (patterns from a knitting book!)...and the trick seemed to be watching tv while weaving! Gone was the tedium of the 4-passes-per-square! Most of my brain was elsewhere, and a tiny bit of the brain and my hands were busy!



Here's the set-up:

the loom: 4-harness structo
the yarn: 5/2 mercerized cotton warp, 15 epi (doubled) sett
10/2 unmercerized cotton weft

The graphs are held onto a handle at the top of the loom with a binder clip.

Double Weave Shawl

This doll-sized shawl was woven as a double weave tube (5" wide, on-loom) based on the design in "The Magic of DoubleWeave" called "It's an 'L' of a shawl" by David Xenakis and Ruth Morrison.

Essentially it is a woven tube that has been fulled and cut at a 45 degree angle. The trick is that the angle is rotated by 90 degrees at the center of the shawl, to make an 'L'. (Come to the Wabash Weavers' guild meeting on Friday and I'll show you--visuals are very helpful for this one...but the book has good photos, if you can't join us at the meeting!)

My daughter's baby doll played the model for the finished shawl. :)

I Dyed

Oh, happy day! The school age kids are all well and back in school, the three year old was content to play, and I dyed.

And dyed.

And dyed.

I'm dead (tired, that is!)!

Today's techniques included vat dyeing (over half a pound of beautiful sunshine yellow!), over dyeing (the little bit of yellow and orange next to the yellow), crock pot dyeing (the blues & greens), and painting (the pink/purple combo).

Lessons learned? Hmm. Steaming cheap plastic wrapped wool in the oven melts the plastic wrap. I think I got it all off! Dooh! A dunk in the big pot and a chance to simmer helped even out the color from this particular crock pot batch. And, vat dyeing does a great job of completely dyeing the wool!

Dye Days are great!

Duvet Update

No photos here, just good news. I am much happier with my "Indiana Puzzle" duvet cover since I did some finishing work on it! Hooray!

Overshot Challenges

I've been working on some "overshot as doubleweave" samples for an upcoming guild meeting. I really like the one to the left. Unfortunately, I didn't weave it correctly. Check out the back side--all those floats aren't supposed to be there!















Yarn: warp- 10/2 unmercerized cotton in grey and variegated blue. Weft handspun cotton single.
Sett: 15 epi (doubled--ie. 30 epi)

The biggest problem with these samples--I think the sett is too close. With a smaller sett some of my challenges in getting these square would have gone away.