Posted in weaving on May 4, 2011| 3 Comments »
We’re in the final stages of preparing to leave on {gasp!} an actual vacation, so there don’t seem to be enough minutes in the day, these days. But I did want to put up a picture of the blanket-of-the-week. I really like the colors in this one, and it may be the one that goes to the ANWG 2011 Conference with me at the beginning of June.
Posted in weaving on May 1, 2011| 2 Comments »
I finished the fourth fulled lap robe last week, this time in shades of green in the warp (Shetland wool) and a beautiful blue-green in Harrisville Shetland for the weft. I think it may be my favorite so far:
off the loom but before fulling
the finished blue-green lap robe or throw
I moved my plaited twill scarf weaving down to the loom that I keep at the guild room. This is “Mother Mary’s Loom” that we bought and restored 2 summers ago (blogged about here). I am using 8 of the 12 harnesses, but the real bonus is in having 16 treadles. Now I can reserve 2 treadles for true tabby or plain weave (which raises 1-2 on one treadle, and 3-4-5-6-7-8 on the other – for the double 2-tie threading, same as with summer & winter – in other words, every other thread is on either harness 1 or harness 2).
I put on enough warp in my Autumn colorway to weave 5 scarves:
I got into the guild room several times this past week, and finished off the 5th scarf yesterday. I have had some fun trying some new weft colors and a new pattern, too.
Here it is with a tencel weft in a color called Tussah:
Here is the new pattern. It required 12 treadles and I only had 10 on the smaller workshop loom I was using at home for these scarves. I used tencel in a color called Shale:
Now that I have enough treadles to do a complicated pattern plus tabby (plain weave) I am weaving a small header in plain weave at each end and doing hemstitching. I think it will be a much nicer finish than going straight into the twisted braids (although I will still braid the ends as before).
Dare I speak it… Spring may be on the way! It is supposed to be sunny and in the mid-60’s this coming week, for the most part. We went for a lovely walk up Wolf Creek Road this morning, enjoying the sun and the bird songs.
Posted in weaving on April 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »
This one came off the loom before we left for California, but I didn’t finish it until this week (twisting the fringes, then fulling it in the washing machine). I agitated it for 8 minutes this time, after the initial 4-hour soak, and it came out about 34″ x 57″ exclusive of fringe. It is nice and soft and drapy.
The yarn was, once again, Shetland wool 2-ply knitting yarn – leftovers from previous knitting projects, plus yarn bought at a de-stashing sale at knitting retreat. I had quite a bit of a heathered grey with mauve overtones, and not enough of the actual mauve colors to do all the warp, so I alternated the grey with the mauve colors every other thread in the warp. The same grey was used to weave the blanket as the weft. I used the broken twill treadling but it doesn’t show up as much as in blanket #1. The use of the grey yarn in both the warp and the weft tended to mute the tones overall, but I do like it – just another variation, and a learning experience!
Posted in family & friends, travel on April 20, 2011| 1 Comment »
I couldn’t write about this in advance, for fear of spoiling the surprise – but last week we flew down to southern California for a long weekend and 60th birthday celebration with best friends. We had air miles to use and figured, why not? It was planned out in advance with her husband, who picked us up at the airport and dropped us in downtown Redlands where they were going to dinner at a wonderful restaurant, “The Farm” or Farm Artisan Foods. So we were waiting when they showed up for dinner, and she was really, truly surprised and delighted.
The weather was gorgeous all weekend – low 80’s, sunny, a nice break from the still-chilly Methow Valley.
On Friday we had a lazy morning, then headed out to the beach at Balboa Peninsula. We walked on the sand along the shore, then took the little ferry across to Balboa Island on the way back:
On Saturday we headed off to Palm Springs for brunch (not a long drive from Redlands), then spent the rest of the day up in Joshua Tree National Park. It was rather hot there, in the 90’s, but we managed a short hike at the southern entrance at Cottonwood Springs. There were a number of things in bloom – ocotillo, various cacti, yellow bushes all over the place (sorry, my plant id skills are lacking here). All sorts of flora and fauna.
fauna - Western Chuckwalla lizard
more fauna
beavertail cactus with blooms
hedgehog cactus with blooms
As we drove north through the park, the day lengthened, and when we came upon this wonderful patch of cholla cactus, the light shone through their fantastic forms in the most striking manner:
We stopped for another short hike and a beer at the fabulous White Tank campground, named for the rock formations there. What a great place to camp, amongst those rocks. We hope to go back some time and see more of the park and camp there.
Posted in weaving on April 13, 2011| 2 Comments »
Not a lot to report today, but I did finish the second fulled lap robe:
I agitated this one a little longer after the initial soak (11 minutes instead of 7), and it is definitely a little more dense, although not overly so (not felted).
I am really pleased with the colors – seven shades of Shetland 2-ply across the warp, plus the red stripe down the middle of each of those. I really had to work out the number of ends in each stripe ahead of time, because not all the colors were a full skein. A good scale is the weaver’s friend! The weft was a heathered green with gold overtones. I used a twill-and-tabby treadling this time. You can see it better in the close-up of the fabric before fulling:
Lap robe 3 came off the loom last night and I should have it finished up sometime next week.
Posted in knitting, weaving on April 5, 2011| 1 Comment »
The Methow Valley Spinners & Weavers Guild has an annual “challenge” project, due in April of each year. Usually the challenge is to weave something in a particular weave structure (2 years ago it was “overshot”). This year it is more of a fabric type – wadmal. This is a woven fabric that has been felted so the weave structure is no longer apparent. Often it is used for apparel (jackets etc) or it can be made into mitts or slippers. Usually it is woven as yardage, loosely, in plain weave or twill and it is the color choice and final treatment of the fabric by machine felting that gives it the final appearance.
So I set out to make a small blanket using miscellaneous colors of 2-ply Shetland knitting yarn, because I also wanted to make a gift for some friends who have recently had their first child. I got some of my ideas from a project in the Jan/Feb 1996 Handwoven Magazine: Cloud-Light Lap Robe by Sharon Alderman. I liked the braided fringe, and her instructions for machine fulling leave the fabric dense but still soft and drapey, not stiff as a board (soak in hot water with detergent for 4 hours, followed by only about 5 minutes of agitation plus a couple of gentle rinses and spinning out).
I used 5 colors of Shetland 2-ply for the warp (a total of 8 skeins at 150 yds each), but the weft was a New Zealand DK-weight wool I got in a fiber exchange a couple of years back. It was sett at 8 epi (that’s ends-per-inch for the non-weavers out there). I threaded it as a 2/2 twill and treadled it in a broken zig-zag pattern, trying to maintain 8 picks per inch. To maintain the openness of the fabric, the weft needed to be nudged into position, not beaten, after changing sheds – another tip from Sharon Alderman.
Here’s the fabric before fulling:
After fulling:
It was 41″ wide on the loom and I wove about 2 yards, maybe a little more. Off the loom before fulling it measured 37″ x 64″ (excluding fringe). After fulling it measured 30″ x 57″. I still need to trim the fuzzy ends of the braided fringe, but otherwise it is done:
I am really pleased with how this turned out. Maybe it isn’t exactly “wadmal” (not felted to jacket fabric consistency) but I love the feel of it. I am tieing on another warp already and will try a different treadling pattern on the same twill threading.
Hey, what’s that peeking out from under the blanket in that last picture? I finished the Notre Dame de Grace Pullover designed by Veronik Avery!
Posted in knitting on March 18, 2011| 3 Comments »
Warning! Knitting lingo-intensive-post ahead.
For several months now I have been working away on this sweater, “Notre Dame de Grace Pullover” by Veronik Avery. It was originally published in the Summer 2007 Interweave Knits magazine. I’m using Rowanspun Tweed in a color called Fig, which I have had in the stash for quite a while.
I don’t know why, but it has seemed like a star-crossed project. First I decided to work the body in the round to the underarm, instead of 2 separate pieces worked flat and then sewn together as specified in the pattern. I was well along before I took a good hard look at it and realized the fabric was biasing terribly. I’m not sure if that was because of the stitch pattern (double seed, or moss stitch) or the yarn, which seems to be a bit twisty. Or both! Anyway, ripped it all out and started over. Finished the back and started on the front. Then I realized I hadn’t read the directions for the selvage stitches correctly, and the pattern was placed so it wasn’t centered in the middle of the front and back. I had to finish to the underarm to make the side seams work out, but had to futz around with re-positioning the pattern for the center front placket.
But wait – I noticed I had cast on one too few stitches for the left front placket and now the edge of the placket was going to bother me. So I ripped back to the beginning of the left placket and re-knit it. Then I finished both sides of the collar and grafted them together in the back as directed, but wasn’t looking forward to sewing it onto the back neckline, which includes live stitches left on a holder.
So then I decided to try a knit-in sleeve cap from the top down, instead of knitting the sleeves separately and then sewing them into the armhole. I was using Karen Alfke’s directions from her Top-down Set-in-sleeve Pullover, except I planned the pickup of stitches around the armhole to match the sleeve cap shaping in my pattern. I was marking off the sections with plastic markers when I realized with horror that when I re-knit the left placket I had used my notes for starting at the underarm level and knit the darn thing about 3 inches too long! I mean, it was bizarre looking – how could I not have noticed it until now? I had to take the collar apart in the back, rip out the left side of the collar and the whole placket and do it once again.
There was an upside to this turn of events, though. I realized I could pick up stitches across the side of the back neck and put the live back neck stitches on the same needle, then attach the collar as I went (since I knew from the previous attempt how many rows there would be). This was a much more satisfactory solution than sewing the darn thing on, so I ripped out the right side of the collar and re-did it as well.
I am happy with the knit-in sleeve cap:
This is worked with “increasing short rows” (isn’t this an oxymoron – that makes them “longer and longer” rows in actual fact). I decided to use a traditional “wrap and turn” method at the end of each row. When you reach that point on the next (longer) row you need to hide the wrap as you work past it, and that presented some challenges when working within the double seed pattern, but I think it looks OK. The sleeve cap came out the exact height it was supposed to be and I am happy with the fit.
So onward! I may actually finish this sweater in time to wear it before the weather turns warm.
I also finished a little Feather & Fan pattern scarf using Noro Silk Garden Lite, which was started some time last year as a car-knitting project:
Posted in home life, outdoors on March 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »
This week brought me a stint of jury duty over at Okanogan Superior Court. I was to report at 8:30 am and left at 7:30 as it is about 45 miles from home and involves driving Hwy 20 over Loup Loup summit (about 4300 ft). Of course, after a beautiful sunny weekend, it started snowing fairly heavily Tuesday early morning, so the drive had to be slow and careful. I was selected for the jury, and it turned out to be a one-day affair, although we did not reach a verdict until after 7 pm. So I didn’t get home until almost 9 pm. Fortunately, the highway was clear of snow and no deer decided to jump out in front of my car!
Yesterday we went out for a ski in the morning. It was a bit sticky but the trail had been freshly groomed, which helped. We started across the road from our house (going in through the neighbor’s driveway) and skiied towards town, crossed Twin Lakes Rd, and did the Bitterbrush Loop, which has some fine views up valley:
Close-up of Mt Gardiner
As you can see, we still have plenty of snow! It has been almost a year since we moved to Wolf Creek, and at this time last year there was mostly bare ground on the valley floor and around the house. It has warmed up a lot this week so who knows how long it will last, but it sure is pretty.
Posted in knitting, Methow Valley, weaving on March 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »
The show, titled “Lacunae – The art of gaps, holes and negative spaces”, at the Confluence Gallery in Twisp opened yesterday. My friend Sara Ashford and I have our work displayed in what they call the Solo Gallery, which is now on either side as you walk on back to the main gallery space. Sara owns (or owned) the Ashford Gallery in Winthrop and has been carrying my rugs, scarves, shawls and shawl pins on consignment for the last couple of years. She does beautiful nature dyeing on silks and is also a weaver and member of our local guild. She is closing the gallery in Winthrop to devote more time to her own artwork, and will hopefully have a new studio space at TwispWorks (on the site of the old Forest Service complex) in the near future.
While up on Orcas Island, I was also knitting away feverishly on the embellishments for my woven and felted wall-hangings. I wanted each one to have a theme, and wound up knitting Estonian lace panels in Rowan Kidsilk Haze for the blue/green wall-hanging, and patterns from the fishermen’s ganseys of Eriskay (in the Outer Hebrides) for the black & white one. I have always loved the Eriskay ganseys and this got me excited about actually knitting one this year. My idea for the purple wall-hanging was to do stranded colorwork (Fair Isle, Bohus, etc) but this wasn’t panning out too well, so when I got home I found a yarn that worked well color-wise, and wound up knitting some elaborate cable and texture patterns from my stitch pattern books.
The idea here came from some of my friends asking me if I still knit, in slightly puzzled tones, when they observe my new obsession with weaving. It made me realize that for me, weaving is new, exciting, exploratory and offers a way to play with fiber and color and also get something completed relatively quickly. Whereas knitting is more of a “slow fiber” craft, it can take 6 months or more to complete a finely knitted sweater, but that is always OK with me – I enjoy the process and enjoy knitting challenging and complex patterns. So the wall-hangings are titled “Still Fitting in Knitting” – they are meant to be playful and whimsical, but also represent the place of the two crafts in my life at present.
They had to be in to the gallery by last Tuesday, and I was working on them right up to the end, but here they are hanging. I also have a nice selection of my plaited twill scarves in the Confluence Gallery gift shop.
By the way, for you traditional knitters out there, I know of two sources for patterns for complete Eriskay ganseys: Alice Starmore’s Fishermen’s Sweaters, and Madeline Weston’s Country Weekend Knits (originally published as Classic British Knits).
Posted in pets on March 5, 2011| 5 Comments »
I am only posting this because I know there are a few friends and family out there who will want to know that we said goodbye to our cat Pushkin last week. The last couple of weeks he was obviously failing, and we just knew it was time.
He was a wonderful fella, friendly and confident, playful and sweet. We will really miss him.
Twisp of Fate 