Spring Cleaning

I've been doing a bit of spring cleaning around the house. It started on Tuesday or Wednesday of last week with a garage sale purchase. This Domestic sewing machine came home with me (a bit unexpectedly)! I've oiled the machine and cleaned it up--but I don't have any experience at fine tuning a machine like this, so I may need to make a call to some experts to make it sew a seam.

The next bit of spring cleaning is without a photo. We moved to this house almost four years ago, and on Saturday I got the last box out of my son's closet. I'd been in it recently enough to know that it had some decorations and nic naks....but I hadn't been in it deep enough to discover our old box of loose change! We had over seventeen dollars in coins, and at least that much again in our children's old piggy banks that were there too!

And, the last bit of spring cleaning... This came home with me yesterday. It was a Craigslist purchase and had been living in a warehouse in Indianapolis. It's a Schacht 8 Harness Baby Wolf. There was a lot of dust and dirt on it and it took me most of the afternoon to get it clean, but it works just fine! Here it is with my test warp.

A "Real" Swimsuit

My now almost 10 year old was desperately in need of a new swimsuit. Her old one was made without a pattern and of odd material over a year ago. It worked ok, but it was odd!

This time, I purchased a pattern and spandex, and am thrilled with the outcome!

The pattern is Kwik Sew #2606 with a racing back. I got it and the swimsuit elastic from Sew Sassy Fabrics online. The fabric came from Spandex World (again, via their online store). Both stores had great service and good prices. I put my orders in on April 5th. The pattern arrived first, then the fabric arrived yesterday, and today the suit is finished!

How's that for fast!

Cutting Error (and Repair)

Nope, it's not mice eating my fine handwoven table linens....it's operator error--I cut into the fabric when I was cutting the napkins apart! Waaaaaa!


This is a set of Atwater-Bronson lace napkins in an unlabled yarn, which I think is a rayon/cotton blend. It's a fine yarn--about 20/2--and they turned out wonderfully soft and fine! They are perfect for a nice set of napkins.


And then I went and worked on sewing them and cutting them apart when I was a bit tired. The fabric is so much finer than what I usually weave, that I hardly noticed when I caught the edge the first time. The second time, I realized that something wasn't quite right, and sure enough it wasn't.

The napkins sat for a day or two. It took me a while to decide how to hem these (I've chosen a rolled hem--thank you internet bloggers who posted tutorials on this little hemming technique!) and now, with two napkins hemmed, I turned to this error.

The easiest repair was to simply make them shorter. I knew that there is some variation in the positioning of the lace that goes across the whole piece, so it would just be part of the variation and these are napkins.....They will never be right next to each other except in the laundry, so no one should notice the extra variation, right!?

I kept the little piece with my cuts in it. I think I need the reminder to focus and pay attention to the details in my work! :)

Two Dye Jobs

I'm playing with dyes again. I used to do a fair bit of dyeing and would sell my dyed rovings on ebay. Then I hit a bad spell where most of the things I dyed felted...either that or they just looked awful!

So, after taking a break, I'm at it again! Pictured here are two variations on the same theme dyed with acid dyes. The outer two rovings are the initial dye job, and I felt that they were too pale. The inner two rovings are a repeat with 3x the amount of dye. Definitely more color there...I'm not sure about beauty!

It's time to take a dye class!

A little bit of Inlay

Check out these little pictures! Starting from the left:

1. The original warp design with green stripes at the sides.

I tried to weave with this and discovered that the bumps in the green yarn made weaving impossible. My husband asked, "Didn't you notice that when you were warping?" To which I answered (with a sheepish grin), "Well, I noticed it was challenging to get through the heddle, but I didn't know that it would be impossible to weave! :)"

2. The mess. After having problems with green stripe #1, I tried replacing the bumpy green with a smooth green yarn. It made an awful mess. I wasn't careful as I unwound the warp and ended up having to cut of the green stripes and the extra yellow.

3. The yellow warp. Whew! The green weft was just a thick yarn that I used to get things started.

4. The finished flower. Look, Ma! A Flower! It wasn't terribly hard to do... it required a bit of focus, but otherwise it was ok! The background is all plainweave. To make the inlay patterning, throw a pick of plain weave, pickup the threads where you want the inlay color and pass the inlay yarn into this shed. Change sheds, throw a pick of plain weave, and do the next bit of inlay.

PS. Check out what is sitting by my sewing machine! It's my grey dots fabric--it's off the loom!

Plans for Inlay Weaving

Our community garden is in need of some flags. The entrance to the garden is off a busy road and the drive is just an access drive to a field. We would like to have some bright flags there to remind gardeners of the entrance, and to let other drivers know that there is a reason why people put their turn signals on at that point!


I have some BRIGHT yellow and pink-ish orange yarns that I thought would make a nice flag...the trick was figuring out how to make it look nice (as well as extremely visible!).

Swedish Weaving by Thelma M. Nye has instructions for a window blind (called "Sunsmoke" by Peter Condu) that caught my eye. The weaving is a tabby ground weave with the pattern/design thread laid in with the ground by hand.

Other references use cartoons or drawings to determine where to put the inlay and I've warped my rigid heddle loom to try it. I have the bright yellow as the background (warp & weft) with some green stripes and will try to inlay some tulips in the center. I'll use the bright pink-ish orange for the flower and two greens for the leaves. Wish me luck! This is new for me!

Here are some pictures of inlay work by others. Seeing their work gives me hope for my project!


This is a simple inlay done on a Weavette loom. It looks easy, right?
It was part of eLoomanator's Square Deal Weave-Along in 2008.










Here is one done with a "cartoon" to help create the inlay pattern. It's the Diaphanous Leaves scarf from Sally Orgren's WeaveZine article.









And this is the piece that sold me on trying this for my garden flags--Isn't this beautiful! It's by Lynette Glass. Here's the link to her website. Check out her gallery! She makes beautiful work!









And, last, but not least, LOOK! The knots at the end of my warp are visible! This is terribly terrific! How can I weave only 8" a day when the end is so near!!!!!!

Actually, my shoulder has been doing better and I have been getting 8-12" a day, but I am still being careful, and slow...and I just want to weave and weave and get this done, but I don't want to be in pain, so I'll take it slow.

4 Harness Loom for Sale

I can't believe I'm doing this! I just posted my "baby" for sale!

This is a 45" Nilus Leclerc 4 Harness loom with 6 treddles. It's a great loom! I'm including the loom, the bench, a warping board, and some books. The loom has a 12 dent reed (hmm. That's the short reed in the photo...I'm selling this with a full length 12 dent reed) and inserted eye heddles--roughly 300 per harness. $800 for the entire package--local pick-up only.

Why am I selling this loom? Perhaps, like Bilbo Baggins, I'm feeling like "butter spread over too much bread" and I need to thin down the amount of physical space my weaving takes (physically and psychologically). Perhaps, I just want the room and means to get a new toy.

If you are looking for a loom, this is a great loom! If you are local (or willing to spend some time here) I'd be willing to throw in some lessons for free.

Double Weave Bands

I've been inspired by Laverne Waddington's blog about backstrap weaving. She has some nice tutorials on the blog and a great article on WeaveZine. I wanted to try the double weave technique, but didn't want to figure out a backstrap set-up, so I wound the warp on my inkle loom. It took a few tries, but by the end I had an idea of what I was doing and was enjoying the process!














My inkle/backstrap double weave band lead to the desire for more band work. Out came my pattern book for double weave tablet woven bands by Linda Hendrickson. I started with a 48 card pattern, got lost, and decided to back up a step or two. The squiggles (they look a bit like blades of grass) are the hair from KokoPele's head. The upsidedown triangle thing in the dark green rectangle was the "something more simple" that I created on the fly. I think I'll be making a few more "simple somethings" before I try the charted patterns again. I'm still excited about this. It's taken me months and months to even try these patterns and I'm finally getting there!









And, last but not least, I am making progress on my grey dots fabric. I'm over the halfway point in the warp. I get 4-12" woven each day. I've added a weighted binder clip temple like this paper clip one due to the loss of four warp threads on the left side (I've only lost one on the right). I decided not to repair the broken warp threads since they are in the selvage...and I expect they would just break again if I repaired them. Inch by inch I'm moving along!

Plant stand, card weaving prep, and progress!

My husband came home the other night and needed a project--something that he could make in one night and complete. I had already drawn up a sketch for my plant grow-light stand, but together we got real numbers, and he went to town! Isn't it great! Eventually I will move it up onto a table on the porch. :)












I've been winding warps. There are 11 card weaving/tablet weaving warps in this shoe box. The girls are church are going to make friendship bracelets.

The warping method I used was one Linda Hendrickson uses--continuous warping. The pack of cards are threaded as one, and single cards are dropped as the warp is wound. Sound confusing? It's not as bad as it sounds. She has a video on youTube to help.









And, last but not least, I am making progress on my grey "dots" warp. Between my sore shoulder and a jammed little finger I am making slow progress...but it's still progress! I'm glad to be able to weave, and I love to pet the finished cloth as it's woven!

The Journey Continues...

I am almost done warping my 1000+ thread cloth. The heddles are all threaded and the warp is beamed. The first knots are holding the warp to the front apron. It was about at this point that my tummy declared it to be lunch time, and my clock said that I had other work to get done before my house guest arrives!

I'm hoping to get the warping completed and the weaving in progress this evening!

Heat Set, Shibori Style Pleats

A few months ago I wove a scarf with 3/1 vs. 1/3 twill stripes as an experiment with collapse weave. It was moderately successful, but I wasn't thrilled by the results.

Since then, I've read Catharine Ellis' Woven Shibori and a couple of web posts (Yarn Bits, Aug. 2, 2009), and tried a new experiment with one of my samples.

This sample has a mystery yarn (probably a polyester blend) alternating with a 10/2 unmercerized cotton as the warp with another mystery yarn, most likely an acrylic, as weft.

I stitched gathering threads into the sample every 3/4" to 1" and tied them tightly.







Once stitched and gathered, I steamed the sample for 20 minutes.









The resulting pleats were amazing! Oh, wow! This is what I was hoping for!!! Really, the pleats are wonderfully elastic and I was thrilled with the way this worked!

Some things to note: the imperfections in the gathering remain in the set pleats...see the little blue "bubbles" near the bottom of the piece? See how the piece curves up near the fold between the pleated and un-pleated sections? I'll need to be careful to have the piece gathered smoothly.








One last experiment. I had to see how permanent these pleats were.

A twenty minute soak in lukewarm water did not change them.

The iron set for acrylic (lowest temperature setting on my iron) easily flattened the pleats when the sample was still damp (see section marked with two arrows).

The same low temperature setting also removed the pleats from the completely dry sample (see section with single arrow).

So, my exuberance at seeing pleats is tempered by the knowledge that these are quasi-permanent. They can be washed, but the need to be line dried. My guess is that running this through the drier would remove most of the pleating. I can't wait to try more!

Color with Perler Beads

I ironed this perler bead creation for my oldest daughter this morning and was amazed at her use of color.

In person it has an overall brown look, but the spots of color really jump out and shine!

When I grow up, can I create color combos on the loom like this?

Index Card Case

I'm taking a break from my 1008 thread journey. I'm still threading and my shoulder is complaining and sore.

In the meantime, my oldest daughter is starting her first research project. We purchased 3x5 index cards for her to take notes on, but didn't think that the typical hard plastic box would work for carrying the cards back and forth to school.

This little envelope-type pouch will hold over 100 cards and only took a little bit of research (on-line of course! There are lots of free tutorials available! :) and 30 minutes of sewing time.

The stretchy loop is from an almost dead hair rubberband and the bright yellow button belonged to my grandmother. The fabric is from the stash of quilting fabrics a friend passed along my way.

A Journey of a Thousand Threads...

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Lao-tzu

This warp has 1008 threads. It has become a journey and a challenge.

My plans started with the desire to weave yardage to make a skirt. It sounds straight forward enough, right? I did a sampler before Christmas and got an idea of what my sett should be, only to decide recently that I didn't like the idea of plain weave or twill for this fabric. I wanted something more interesting--something I couldn't buy in a store.

It took a lot of searching to find the right pattern. In the end, I chose a set of somewhat irregularly spaced dots that uses 7-shafts. I wove some tea towels as samples. The exciting part of the sampling was that the dots showed up even when the warp and weft were the same color yarn! Yea!

Now, I have 1008 ends threaded through the reed on my loom...3 per dent in a 10-dent reed. I've had problems in the past with three threads tangling, so I took some extra time and wound the warp with two threads at a time, but made a 1x1 cross (I even made a teeny tiny warping paddle to make this easier!). Then I threaded the reed in single thread layers. I am currently at the point of threading the heddles. It's not moving very fast, but I'm still working on it!

Here's to an interesting journey!
1008 threads through the reed




















three layers of threads














tea-towel sampler

Pirate Patches

A couple of weeks ago it was my turn to teach preschool. The letter of the day was "P" and we went with a pirate theme. These cute eye patches are made from felt and some knitted "i-cord". They were a big hit!
















Arrrgh, Matey!

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