It's all the ducky's fault (I think)

Tuesday (of last week): While shopping for buttons for my handwoven vest, I caved to my almost 4-year-old's desire for "ducky" buttons. There were three of them on the button card. They were cute. They were yellow with orange beaks. And, they had entertained her for the 20+ minutes while I debate over my buttons. How could I not say "yes"?

Tuesday night, trying desperately to make use of this frivolous purchase (they were purchased with the caveat that they would be used on her birthday cake, but really...what does one do with ducky buttons?), I decided to make a handwoven jacket.

It would be perfect! A use for the buttons, a use for some stash yarns, and to top it all off, the girl needs a new jacket! Woo-hoo!

Wednesday: Calculations-check. Warp measured-check. Ten inch sample woven-check. Things are going great-opps! I started to get distracted. I tossed the sample into the wash without measuring it first. I didn't like the look of the stripes, so I swapped them out for a different yarn. The new yarn was too bumpy to go through the reed. Removed new yarn. Resleyed the reed to try a tighter sett. Noticed a threading error in the newly resleyed warp. Forget it! At this point it's just a sampler. I can deal with a threading error.

The sampler is ugly. It feels like cardboard (even wet finished). The color combos don't do anything pretty. It visited my weaving guilds on both Friday and Saturday because it was so awful!

Saturday night: Inspiration (or desperation--the child's birthday is Wed!) hits! I'll weave this thing as a twill shadow weave piece. If I'm careful with my packing, I can avoid the cardboard effects of the sampler. Worst case scenario, it will end up like my sampler! Also, it's not going to be a real coat. It's going to be a play cloak. Now I don't have to worry about it playing in the sand box or in the mud. Whew!

300 ends, half pale yellow, half shiny white, measured and threaded on the loom. I wouldn't have made it without my husband who read the threading to me. It was slow going, but we only were 1/2 an hour late to bed.

Sunday: my day of rest. Really. I looked at the loom. I woke up knowing how to fix a problem from the night before, but I waited.

Monday: Let the weaving begin. I fixed the threading problem--the right hand threads were running into unused heddles. I shifted the reed to the left about 1". Problem solved! The warp got tied onto the front apron, and I wove like the wind! I probably got a solid two hours of weaving done before lunch. (Many thanks to the electronic babysitter!) After lunch, I got to weave in 30 min. bursts. Even so, the piece was off the loom and wet finished by 2pm.

The cloak was cut out and ready to sew before I went to bed that night (and I wasn't even late for bedtime! :)

Tuesday: I sewed the hood first. It turned out to be too small. I cut a new hood (in a different style than the original) and continued on. The cloak was all together and on the hanger by 2pm. I let it rest and stretch overnight.

Wednesday (the birthday-day): Took down a load of laundry. Snuck off to iron the hem. The birthday girl requested a movie. Brought the cloak with me and handsewed the hem and attached the "ducky" buttons as closure at the neck. Tried making a crocheted loop for the buttons. Didn't like it. Got out the kumihimo stand I had made. Took it with me to play group. Made my braid and the button loop while the kids played. Came home. Sewed the loop on to the cloak. Gently, but quickly, folded the cloak and put it in a gift bag. Taped it shut. Breathed a sigh of relief!

Why do I do this to myself?!?

For the record, I am pleased as all get-out with the fabric. My stiff-as-a-board sampler is only 5" wide. My fabric was 30" wide on the loom. What a difference! I knew I wouldn't be able to pack it as tightly as the sampler, and I didn't want it to be like the sampler...but who knew that it would turn out so nicely!

The shadow weave pattern I used is from Strickler's 8-Shaft Pattern book (I think it's #301) and makes me think of leaves. Even though the contrast of the yarns I used isn't great, I can still see the undulating lines that look leafy to me.

And better yet, my now 4-year-old daughter likes her "Hobbit" cloak.

Buttoned Vest

My local vacuum supply/sewing store sells buttons, so I stopped in and picked out these hexagonal, decorated buttons with shanks.

I used an old "simflex folding measure" to determine the position of the buttons (it's an expanding positioner...it can evenly space up to 8 buttons).

The buttonhole loops were a bit challenging. I ended up crocheting them out of some 100%wool sock yarn. I'm curious to see how they will last!

--I got to wear my vest all day today. The temperatures got into the mid-40's and the wool/acrylic vest was just the right second layer. :)

Vest!

My striped fabric has turned into a vest! I'm really excited about this, even though it still needs buttons!

Most of my original plans got de-railed when I discovered the fabric was narrower than my pattern. Dooh! In some ways, that's the way it goes when you use rough calculations to plan your fabric! I will have to try the pattern from One Skein another time!

The pattern I ended up using is a modified commercial vest pattern. I'd quote you pattern and number, but really any commercial vest pattern can be used! It is two front pieces and a single back piece. The back piece is solid tan (no stripes) and the front has the stripes that I wanted.

Now, to figure out what sort of closure/buttons/clasps to use!

More Knitting Content

I've been knitting more mittens. This pair is for my oldest. Her hands are as wide as mine, but her fingers are still short. It was amazing to make almost-full-sized mittens for her...it seems that it was just a few days ago that I was making little things for her!

The yarn is all handspun. The purple may be Cotswold wool;I think the green is Romney. The green was left over from the last pair of mittens I made and it just looked really nice with the purple.

These were knit with 2 strands together, at 4 sts/inch on US5 or 6 dpn's.



Just for kicks and giggles, here's a peak in my knitting box. My favorite dpn's are there on top. They are a purple, plastic needle made by Lion Brand (I think). They are size us5 or6 and I use them often for my worsted weight projects.

I recently added the orange handled scissors (I got tired of walking to the loom to borrow the pair that hangs there!). And the short tape measure --it's only about 25" long--is really nice. I also have a box of smaller dpn's in there for when I am making socks with fine yarn.

Let's see...also in the box are all sorts of left over yarns: from the upper right corner, light blue handspun wool--my socks; marron/pink handspun..the last of some fiber my mom gave me early in my spinning career; under the handle of the scissors is a swatch from the latest mittens;the purple handspun the the bottom left corner is from this last pair of mittens; the coiled piece in the upper left is a hat band with a cable up the middle. It's knit in the maroon/pink from the opposite corner. It's really pretty...but I don't have enough yarn left to make it into a hat, and it's too loose to wear as a head band, so it just lives here in my knitting box until I come up with something better for it!

Train of thought / 2010 Goal

The train of thought in creating cloth is pretty amazing sometimes! This piece of striped fabric started it's mental journey as a One Skein, knit Tank Top. The basic idea is to knit two identical pieces and seam them together with the seams in center front and center back. One side is seamed with the knit side showing; the other with the purl side showing. Cool idea by Leigh Radford!

The first change in the mental road was the realization that I weave faster than I knit and I'd like to work on making handwoven clothing this year (I'm still 3/4 of the way done making a muslin of the vest that I eventually want to have in handwoven fabric). Ah-ha! Two or three pages of calculations later, I had an idea of what I would need in terms of finished fabric, and I headed off to Handwoven.net to search their archives for interesting weave structures. I found one or two (or eight or ten!) patterns I liked and the rest, they say, is history.

Except, that history has a way of being written and re-written even as it is happening. What I thought would be an ideal warp yarn turned out to be chock full of knots and thin (moth eaten?) spots. This yarn came from my grandmother, so I think the damage was inherent in the yarn before I received it (I hope!)....there were too many thin spots deep inside the cones of yarn for me to think it was recent damage. At any rate, I had to pause winding the warp, take the yarn to the ball winder and wind it into usable balls. Deep breaths help at moments like this!

My calculations showed that I might be able to squeak the entire piece out with my one ball of colorful weft, but reality sunk in after 4 or 5 inches of weaving...I was packing the weft in one thread tighter than my calculations. There was no way I would be able to finish the piece. I tested my two weft yarn patterning (pictured...it's one shot of colored weft and one of the tan warp yarn as weft), and un-wove it all. Gulp.

It was a good thing I un-wove...I discovered that my stretchy weft yarn was pulling my selvages in significantly! Funny how I couldn't see it as I wove, but un-weaving it was really obvious! Once back to weaving I made sure to let the stretchy yarn relax or bounce back before I packed it in.

What a long story for a single photo! It will be fun to see what clothing I can create this year. I have high hopes of doing a stellar job of beginning! (Which translates to lots of beginning stuff that may or may not be very useful! :)

Best wishes for 2010!
Jessica/aka.Fibertwist

Surprise! Knitting Content!

This was a great photo shoot! My six, almost seven-year-old was thrilled to get new mittens (especially wool ones--they are good for keeping the hands warm while playing in the snow!). Here he is expressing mock surprise. I haven't knit for months!

The yarn: hand-dyed, handspun wool, Navajo plyed into a three-ply yarn.

Gauge: 5 sts/inch
Pattern taken from Ingrid & Inger Gottfridsson's The Mitten Book. (I used their directions for making the mittens, not any of their beautiful two color patterns.)

:)
Happy New Year!
Fibertwist

Introducing Emilia

Here's my newest little loom: an Emilia rigid heddle loom by Glimakra.

These first few weeks of our relationship (is that the right term for a human/loom interaction?) have been bumpy, but seem to be resolving.

The biggest challenges have been the way the uprights sit (or don't sit) on the table...see how they are resting on the point, not flat on the cut angle? ....and getting a decent shed.

The shed issue has been mostly resolved by increasing the tension on the warp. The angle of the uprights on the table hasn't been resolved yet, but they work and don't mar my table, so it will be ok.

The warp on the loom? That is my next attempt at collapse weave. It's stripes of mercerized cotton and handspun wool singles. It's completely experimental--I'll let you know how it works out! :)

Mittens

I was needing to make some mittens (fast) and went searching for an old humanitarian aid pattern...that I couldn't find in the wonderful, many towered, layered space (aka mess!) I call my craft room!

Google helped and provided a link to a webpage that had a link to a pdf file of the pattern! Hooray!(if you want to find it, here's the link!)

I added a step to my mittens by putting a layer of quilting fabric on the outside and quilting two simple lines down the center to hold them together. They turned out cute...a few quirks, but cute.

Quirk #1. While I can get my hands into the mittens (size L pattern), they are a bit tight. The next pair I make will have the quilting cotton on the bias to give it a little more stretch. These fit my 9 year old just fine.

Quirk #2. The thumb gusset got caught oddly in the side seam. It's not uncomfortable, it just doesn't lay pretty. I'll need to play around with that seam construction a bit before I give any away.

Coils

Jacey Boggs has an article in the winter 2009 Spin-Off magazine on making coiled yarns.

I've tried this sort of thing before--the basic idea is to spin a thick/thin single and ply it with a thin single--but I really enjoyed Jacey's detailed instructions.

More than anything I liked her instructions on re-training our hands. Here is one of her quotes: "It reminds hands that are so used to drafting and spinning evenly that they are doing something different." I appreciate built in reminders that I am doing something different!

My yarn is nice. It's slightly over twisted, but not too bad. It's slightly more lumpy than coiled...the last technique along these lines that I tried was a lump technique and old memory plus a weak plying single (poor thing kept getting unspun and pulling apart!) lead me to do more lumps than coils! That's ok though. This is a learning experience!

And I got to spin cool yarn! That is awesome!

Sampling

Two bits of information landed in my brain at just the right time this week. First a WeaveZine interview with Sharon Alderman, where Sharon mentioned her method of sampling with different setts. Second, a post on Fibers of Being called "Silk Chenille Sampler" which also made use of various setts in the same sample warp.

I am getting ready to do some weaving with my "yard sale yarns". This particular yarn is a 16/2 cotton/poly (50/50) blend and it is finer than my typical 10/2 cotton warps.


I needed to sample, but I was not looking forward to putting on multiple scarf type warps to play with appropriate setts, etc.

The answer, from the above mentioned sources, is do use multiple setts in the same warp! Go figure!

Based on an estimated sett from the measured wraps per inch divide by two, I chose a sett looser than the estimate, one at about the estimate, one at the estimate plus 1/4 and one at the estimate plus ~1/3.









I'm weaving tabby--one for each sett--and twill. The sections are threaded for both straight twill and point twill. Hooray! I'm learning lots and will have an amazing sampler to keep when I'm done! Thanks, weavers, for sharing your techniques!

Pleated Scarf Journey

This is a journey in reading a printed project draft and modifying it to use with yarns on hand. I tried weaving the pleated scarf from a recent Handwoven magazine, and learned a few things:

Thing #1: Hairy crosses are annoying. This draft had a total number of ends divisible by three. I planned on using three ends per dent in my 10 dent reed. Unfortunately, the color changes were not divisible by three, so I cut and tied new ends across the entire warp to keep the colors in order.

Thing #2: Thinking about details: After I had 3/4 of the reed sleyed I realized that I could have used my 15 dent reed, sleyed at two ends per dent, had an easier time winding the warp, and sleying the reed! I will pay more attention to "little" details like that in the future!

Thing #3: Perserve. I intentionally wove two sample sections--one to wash and one to keep in off-loom condition. The pleats are formed by the natural curvature of 1/3 vs. 3/1 twill. My off-loom sample showed only a tiny bit of curvature. My washed sample showed a little pleating, but not much.

It was hard to return to the loom after seeing my samples fail at pleating. I debated cutting off the warp, changing the threading to plain weave, and a few other things, and finally decided to try weaving the scarf as planned.





Thing #4: Success is sweet! The real scarf pleated when I washed it! Wow! I was amazed and thrilled!

The fabric has less drape than I would have liked, but still, it pleated!!

The cream yarn is 10/2 unmercerized cotton. The blue is an acrylic (of some sort. I did a burn test!) and is a little finer than the 10/2. Weft is the 10/2 cotton.

Red Towel Soup

Check out the dye off these red towels! It's like soup or red gelatin! (Ewww!)

Migratory dye issues aside, these towels look good! Tomorrow it's on to the finishing touches--ironing and hemming!

Alpaca Roving

A friend of mine won 4 oz. of alpaca roving at the fiber festival in Greencastle one year. She invited me to do some spinning for her and share the fiber.

It is a super soft fiber, with a slightly orange-y, tan color.














This is the yarn for my friend. I plied a single strand of the alpaca with two strands of a blue silk yarn.

I'm excited to see what she will weave with this!

I Can Count

Check out this warp. It's going to be a red towel with black accents that make squares. Note how uneven the empty dents are spaced in the reed?

I wound the warp with three ends together, and as I put the first set through the reed I counted. 3, 6, 12....24! Great! That's just how many threads I need!

And then I decided it would be a lot easier to just count 1,2,3...etc. and treat each group of three as one. No problem! I finished the first bit of warp threads, made a correction, and continued on.

Halfway into the last group of warp threads I realized something was a miss. I had miscalculated! 24 divided by 3 is eight...not six. Oh dear! Time to re-sley the reed!

In this photo I have about half of the first set of warp threads re-sleyed. The whole fix has been made (including fixing a later error...probably caused from catching pretend marshmallows that my 3 year old was toasting over a pretend fire....hmm. Maybe I shouldn't be trying to count when I'm playing with my kids! :) and I'm working on the threading!

Play after Work

I've just finished weaving two towels on a honeycomb warp. The first one I wove was actually a monk's belt pattern on the honeycomb threading. I used the dark green warp as a the background weft and cream perle cotton (5/2) as the pattern weft. It looks classy! The second towel was woven with the honeycomb pattern. Dark green weft for background and a slubby, cream yarn as the outline weft.

And now, with the two "real" towels done, it's time to play!






Many moons ago I overdyed a light blue cotton yarn with yellow. In many ways the result was a sickly color--not a true yellow, not a strong green...but look at it with the dark green warp! Isn't that great!










Now I'm trying to find a good outline yarn (and yarn color) to make one more towel with honeycomb and the sickly green yarn as background weft.

I'm leaning towards the brown/tan chenile. I may need to walk away for a while and see how I like the colors later!

Bazaar or Bust

This weekend was a hand-crafter's bazaar here in town. I like to set up a display, just because it's local.

Attendance was low this year, but there were some good conversations and lots of interesting art connections!

Thanks to all who came out!

Kumihimo Stand

After a presentation on kumihimo (a Japanese form of braiding) at the Wabash Weaver's guild this morning, I came home and made my own stand. My nine-year-old daughter 's hand is in the picture. She's holding the cardboard "disk" that we practiced the technique on. The raisin box is my stand. The finished braid is pulled through the hole by some clamps that are acting as weights.

The stand was much faster than the card!

Thanks, Ryoko, for introducing us to this craft!

Feast of the Hunters' Moon 2009

Here I am in my "Feast" costume. The Feast of the Hunters' Moon celebrates the fall trading periods of the 1700's in this part of Indiana. My weaving guild has had a booth at the Feast for over twenty years.

This was my third year participating. I have typically demonstrated weaving on the guild's loom--weaving and talking to those who stop to see what we are doing. Last year I wove all morning and into the afternoon before I had to stop to get to another meeting.

This year I wove and wove, and talked and talked....I love being at the loom and talking to people! We had a range of interest--everything from the guy who wanted to see how the heddles were attached to this loom (because he is refinishing one), to the gal who is opening her own fibercraft business, to those who were hoping to take their first weaving lessons soon, to those who knew nothing about the craft!

At some point I realized that I really ought to give up the loom and go home. I didn't want to leave, but I had stayed much longer than originally planned. One of the other gals was walking towards the bus line, so I packed up my things and headed off with her. If it weren't for her, I might still be weaving at the Feast!

Many, many thanks to the hardworking guild members who make it possible for us to participate in the Feast. It's work, and stress (especially with all the rain on Thursday & Friday!), but it turned out so well!

Roving Rugs

I switched gears for a bit...instead of bags, I'm making RUGS!

This idea came to me Sunday morning and I had to get out of bed and take notes on it (before I went back to sleep and forgot it!). The warp is 4/2 cotton, doubled and set at 6 epi per doubled thread. The weft is some of my hand-dyed rovings that have been sitting in a box waiting, and waiting and waiting their turn to be spun.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Their turn will never come! Their purpose in life has changed!




This yellow roving shows off the point twill (rosepath variation) weave structure really well. I made another rug with a variegated roving and it's harder to see the diamond patterns. Unfortunately, when I wove this rug I didn't pay close enough attention to the note on the draft (this is #164 from A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, ed. by Strickler) to "use tabby". Check out the floats on the reverse!







I'm not sure what I'll do with the floats yet. One thought is to cut them, knot them together and call it done. Another option is to leave them and cover them with a non-skid pad. Option number two is more likely to happen at this point!

Now I have to decide how to finish these rugs. Any thoughts?

Plethora of Products?

1. Overshot Bag, 2. black on grey, 3. Merino twill, 4. "babysling" bag, 5. Bird's Eye Bag, 6. Wine bottle bag, 7. sachet, 8. blue twill, 9. overshot towel, 10. twill lunch bag, 11. dolls, 12. sachet, 13. Stuff to do