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Archive for 2011

Orcas spinning camp

Posted in dyeing, spinning on March 4, 2011| 2 Comments »

I spent last week up on Orcas Island at “spinning camp” with Judith MacKenzie – my 4th time at this event (I missed 2009).  This year’s theme was “Bringing Color into Your Spinning”.  They were set up to do a lot of dyeing outdoors (always a bit iffy in February in NW Washington).  Then it snowed.  And got really cold.  But our organizers managed to score an indoor space in an adjacent cabin to the meeting room, swathed it in tarps to protect the furnishings, and we pressed on!

The first day Judith entertained us with stories of her trip to Peru in November 2010.  She was one of the speakers at Tinkuy de Tejedores (A Gathering of Weavers) near Cusco.  She brought back some beautiful textiles, all nature dyed handspun and woven on primitive backstrap looms.  She also shared a portion of her collection of Peruvian “burial dolls” – many of them very, very old.  They are not really dolls, but religious or ceremonial objects.  The clothes they wear are made from fragments of cloth that were originally on mummies, so in some cases the textile fragments could be thousands of years old.

Judith with burial dolls

The first class project was to spin a boucle yarn using a rayon core and kid mohair locks that Judith had dyed.  I skipped this one, as I have tried it before, am really bad at it, and know I won’t be pursuing this one any time soon.

Next she had us spin up some Corriedale rovings in white and black (natural colors) and make a series of 3-ply yarns: 3 white plies, 1 white/2 black, 2 white/1 black, 3 black.  Then we overdyed the final skein(s) with a color of our choice to see how the color interacts with the underlying makeup of the yarn.  Or this would be a way to make a graduated color yarn as you transition from white to black.  Mine came out sort of “sea lettuce green”:

After they got the dye area set up, we were able to dye solid colors in big dye pots on the cabin front porch, or go inside where they had 4 electric roasters set up to dye variegated color rovings or yarn with a direct pour application.  Each of us were given 4 oz of Corriedale roving, chose a colorway, then Judith dyed it for us while we observed the technique.  After everyone had done one roving this way, we were able to do more on our own (with her help with the colors, “if needed” – ha ha, always needed…)

my first dyed roving

Another spinning exercise: we were given 4 oz of Corriedale roving that Judith had already dyed (variegated in color like the one above).  Then we were encouraged to “share and share alike” by getting small amounts of other colors from other folks in the room.  The idea was to introduce other colors into the spun singles, in either a random or semi-methodical way, to obtain a final plied yarn that is more complex in color than if you had spun up just the single colorway represented by your roving.  This was a lot of fun and I like the idea a lot.  I finished plying mine when I got back home but I don’t have a picture of the final yarn yet and here it is:

The basic roving was quite muted, cream through shades of greyish purple, but I introduced short sections from another roving from time to time: dark royal blue through purple, and a brighter turquoise color.  I spun all the singles, divided it into thirds by weight, and made a 3-ply yarn where all the colors just come and go randomly.  I am pleased with the result and will probably use this idea again.

I also spun up some Polwarth roving that I bought from Maxine of Island Fibers on Lopez Island, at the event.  I made about 150 yds of 3-ply and it is wonderful, springy and soft yarn.  I will definitely be spinning more of this fiber.  I dyed it in one of the roasters along with some merino/tencel roving I also bought from Maxine.  Can you say RED?

Here are two more batches of dyed merino/tencel roving:

The one on the left was supposed to have more purple tones in it, but as it turns out this was superwash merino and it takes up dye very quickly.  It all just sort of blended together.  But I can put it back in a dye bath at home and try to modify it some, and I will.

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Weaving Marathon

Posted in pets, weaving on February 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Yesterday was a 12-hour weaving day – winding warps, tie on to the previous warp, wind on, weave weave weave the next piece for the wall-hangings I am doing for the show at Confluence Gallery.  I felted the first one on Wednesday and it turned out OK!  I was so uncertain it was even going to work.

These are actually a kind of double-weave, each color is woven separately but they interlace.  I am using Shetland 2-ply yarn (the kind you would knit a Fairisle sweater from) – I bought a big mixed bag of colors from a friend at the knitting retreat a couple of years ago at the stash reduction sale.  So I had a lot of colors to choose from and it wasn’t expensive, so risking completely ruining it in an experiment seemed OK.

Encouraged by the way the first one turned out (about 30-40% shrinkage) I went ahead and wove 2 more.  One is blue/green and the other is black & white (with some greys).

Here’s the Black & White before felting:

These are so open and delicate I have to start off with just a soak and then a careful swish in hot water and detergent, using some plastic spoons I use for dyeing:

After about 15 minutes I shocked it with cold water, then back to hot tap water and detergent and using my hands in rubber gloves.  Once they started holding together I transferred them to a table and the setup I used years ago for a nuno felting class:

The blue mat is spa cover material and has a waffle texture on one side, which provides just the right amount of rubbing and friction to continue the felting.  Then you use a “water noodle” (flotation device) to roll the package around.  Sprinkle on some hot soapy water and roll – and roll – and roll.  Take it out, rinse, check, roll some more.  It took a total of 2-3 hours to get these down to where I wanted them (from initial soak to final rolling and rinsing).

But I needed to get the weaving and felting done this week before I leave for Orcas Island and spinning camp with the fabulous Judith MacKenzie – bright and early tomorrow morning.  I am not done with these pieces yet, they are going to be embellished.  I will be working on that part while gone next week, then do the final assembly when I get home.

The show opens March 5 and here’s an article from the Methow Arts website about the show, with a wee small blurb about me and my friend Sara Ashford.

It was an absolutely gorgeous Methow day today – sunny and clear, with many skiers out on the trail across the fields.  Sadly, we were not among them.  But Pushkin came downstairs and grabbed some sun on the back of the sofa:

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From Snow Geese to Snow Gone

Posted in family & friends, weaving on February 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Last weekend we made a trip to the Coast to pick up materials for one of Rick’s cabinet jobs, and visit with friends and family.  On the way to and from Anacortes, in the Skagit Valley, we saw large flocks of snow geese out in the fields.  They are quite a sight!  Then when we arrived home, it was obvious that rain and/or thaw had set in.  We still have snow on the ground, but it is soggy during the day, becoming icy at night.  Yech!  Navigating our driveway on foot from house to carport is a bit treacherous.  Although now, in the late afternoon, I look outside and it is…. snowing!!

Having dropped the ball entirely on blogging the last couple of weeks, I will attempt a bit of a catch-up.

My weaving workshop a couple of weeks ago in Seattle, with Margaret Roach Wheeler, was marvelous.  Her website is Mahota Handwovens – the type of weaving we were learning is shown in her clothing line.  She uses the summer-and-winter weave structure to weave decorative bands that emulate Native American beadwork and quillwork.  Here are a few pictures from the 2-day workshop:

Margaret discussing a finished sampler

A shirt with decorative work on collar and facings

A beautiful dress - note subtle colorwork at the very top

Our samplers were worked in 10/2 perle cotton.  She gave color value and contrast guidelines, but every warp was different and the colors chosen for wefts were up to the student.  There is a lot to explore and learn there – what works and what doesn’t!  But I am pleased with my sampler and will use it both as a guide for future work, and as a wall hanging in my studio:

My washed sampler from the Wheeler workshop

Meanwhile, the last few weeks I have written up the pattern for the “Mosaic Mojo Hat” and have taught 2 groups of intrepid knitters the techniques used there – short rows (including hiding the wraps in garter stitch), garter stitch grafting and mosaic knitting.  No-one left crying so it must have been OK.  I taught it as two 2-hour sessions with a week in between to get some knitting done, and will be teaching it again in March down at Uptown Woolery in Chelan.  Inevitably, some errors in the pattern were found and I still need to tweak it a bit.  Eventually I will offer it as a PDF download from my Ravelry page and will put a link here on the blog.

I made a commitment to have some woven pieces for the next show at Confluence Gallery in Twisp – the theme is “Lacuna”, which they said “can be described as a gap, an absence or a void, but the meaning is much more nuanced and evocative”.  It has different meanings depending on the application.  The show opens the first weekend on March so time is running out, especially as I will be gone to spinning camp on Orcas Island all of next week!

So this week I am trying to bring an idea along and I am not sure it is going to work.   The basis will be some woven and felted wall-hangings, which I plan to embellish further.  So here is what I was doing the last couple of days:

Sleying the reed off the loom -first time I have tried this, and I like it.  Much more comfortable.

I discovered the Hans Wegner “Wishbone” chair is perfect for sitting over the sectional warp beam to thread from the back.  [As an aside, we were thrilled to find the set of 4 chairs at a used-furniture store in Ballard a couple of years ago, for a very reasonable price.  Hans Wegner is one of Rick’s heroes, a famous Danish furniture designer.  We had them down at Benson Creek but now they are in my studio along with the smaller oak dining table]

Here is the first piece almost done:

What will this odd-looking blob become?  Stay tuned!

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Downhill all the way

Posted in family & friends, outdoors on January 26, 2011| 1 Comment »

Yesterday morning started with a moose sighting!  Rick was downstairs making coffee and he saw it running right by the house.  By the time I got downstairs, it was heading towards the fields across the road, so we didn’t have a chance to take a picture.  We have heard of moose occasionally being seen on the valley floor, but I think it is still a very unusual occurrence.

Our long-time friends who now live out at Lake Quinault on the Olympic Peninsula were our second set of visitors for the week.  They have owned a small, rustic cabin resort on the lake for 30 years (originally with partners, and more recently as sole owners).  Last year they retired from their jobs in the greater Seattle area (3rd grade teacher and landscape architect), sold the house in Bellevue, and moved to the Peninsula.  They basically tore down the old house and rebuilt it and now that is their home.  So check out Lochaerie Resort – 6 rustic housekeeping cabins, most built in the 1920’s and 1930’s, on the North Shore of Lake Quinault in the Olympic National Park.  It’s like stepping back in time – but very clean and with hot showers!

Yesterday, post-moose-sighting, we put the cross country skis in our truck, drove up to Sun Mountain Lodge, and skiied back down to the house.  It was very foggy in the valley yesterday, so the only sun and views were up at the lodge at the beginning of the coast downhill.  It was a lot of fun and took us about 3 hours (we took the long way around at the end).  On the way down the Winthrop Trail, at a spot where we can look out across the valley to our home, we noticed large cloven hoofprints in the snow along the ski trail.  About the size of horse hooves, but definitely cloven.  So the inescapable conclusion is that this where the moose came up out of the valley after it crossed the fields from our place.  Too cool.

We met a friendly skier along the way, and he took our picture:

On the Winthrop Trail

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16 Scarves

Posted in family & friends, weaving on January 23, 2011| 2 Comments »

After we returned from Christmas on the coast, I wound 4 warps for the plaited twill scarves – that is, 4 different colorways, 2 of which were new ones I had in mind but hadn’t tried yet.  I can get 4 scarves from a 10-yard warp so I have been weaving away and now have 16 scarves woven:

but not finished.  I still need to twist the fringes, darn in ends and wash and press them.

I wanted to get this many done because I sold most of what I had before and during the holidays (not complaining!).  It saves me a lot of time if I can tie on each new warp and pull it through the heddles and reed, so I don’t have to re-thread etc.  But I am going to have to take this warp setup off the loom I am using because I need it for a workshop I am going to the end of next week.

The workshop, which will be held over in Seattle through the Seattle Weavers’ Guild,  is with Margaret Roach Wheeler, a native American of Chickasaw-Choctaw descent.  Do check out her website (Mahota Handwovens) –  I think her work is stunning.  She will be teaching us how she uses the Summer & Winter weave structure to interpret native American beadwork and quillwork patterns in her clothing line.   There are many beautiful examples on her website.  I am really excited to have this opportunity to learn from her.

Speaking of the loom I am using, I was having a fit around scarf # 10.  It is my Macomber “workshop loom”, the model CP portable.  Tie-up hooks were constantly popping off the lamms (the hooks connect the pedals or treadles to the lamm, which is a bar that connects to the jacks which raise the harnesses).  Also the harnesses themselves were hanging up and not dropping and I was getting messed up areas in the pattern and having to take work out and fix it constantly.  And it kept making a lot of loud creaking and squeaking noises.

Finally the light bulb went off in my head and I looked on the Macomber Looms and Me blog (also in my sidebar at right).  Sure enough there were a couple of entries about cleaning old grunge and dust off the jacks, and about Spiffing up your Loom.  I am not sure but my loom may have been sprayed with some WD-40 during a workshop last fall at our guild room – turns out this is a big No-No for Macomber looms.  So anyway, I cleaned up the jacks and the wooden slots the lamms slide in as best I could with a warp on the loom, using acetone and a rag, then applied silicone spray and vaseline (recommended for wherever brass parts touch steel parts).  The result was a much happier loom and a much happier weaver!  The last scarves went off without a hitch as fast as I could go.

I also include a picture of the handspun yarn I finished up a week or so ago.  This was from a multi-colored grey Corriedale fleece I washed, carded into layered batts (dark, medium and light in 3 layers to preserve some color variation in the spun yarn) and then spun over a period of time, mostly during the last year.  I finished it up as a 3-ply yarn and definitely have enough for a sweater (maybe 2700 yards of sport weight).  I am thinking traditional gansey style but need to do some swatching.  It is the most yummy, squishy and springy, soft yarn – I love it!

We will have 2 sets of visitors this week, so glad to see them!  Our first visitors arrived Friday night from Seattle.  Yesterday was a gorgeous Methow day and we went snowshoeing up in the Rendezvous area out of the Gunn Ranch.

Kristin is with child, due mid- to late-March, but she looks just like…. Kristin with a basketball on the front!

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27 for Dinner

Posted in home life on January 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This has been a sociable weekend.  On Friday our friend and neighbor, Lynette Westendorf, celebrated her 60th birthday at Tappi restaurant in Twisp by having musician friends from the valley and from Seattle join her for a night of dinner and music.

Lynette's 60th at Tappi

Lynette is an Emmy award winning composer and pianist, the link to her website is above.

Saturday evening brought the progressive dinner that is a tradition in our new community (Wolf Creek Views).  Last August at the community association meeting I volunteered to organize it this year, and to host the main course at our house.  I thought it would be a good way to meet all the neighbors and for them to see our new home.  It’s a potluck, so once I figured out who could make it, I just had to assign who was going to bring what to each home.

We started with appetizers at one home (also new to the community, they just built last year), then progressed to our house.  We set the food out in the kitchen, but managed to seat everyone – all 27 of us!

12 around the large walnut drawleaf table in our dining area:

8 around the smaller oak drawleaf table that we brought down from my studio and set up in the entryway:

4 at the bar between the dining room and kitchen:

And 3 of us around the coffee table in the living room.  Worked great.

Then we progressed to a third house for coffee and desserts.  What fun!

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Beautiful Snow

Posted in home life, pets on January 14, 2011| 2 Comments »

We had the predicted big snowfall a couple of days ago.  We had at least a foot of new snow here at the house, and it was snowing hard when we got up Wednesday morning.  It is almost up to the bottom of the Loki sculpture:

and here’s the buildup on the carport roof and in the driveway:

Rick needed to get out so he could go finish installing some cabinets, which fortunately he had transported to the client’s home the day before (because she is up on a ridge and he needed the truck and utility trailer to get them up there).  We weren’t sure when our friend Chuck the snowplow guy was going to show up, so Rick went to work with the snowblower.

Of course, that brought Chuck along – he had been up since 4 am plowing people out!

We got a fair amount again on Wednesday night, enough that we had to ask Chuck to come again yesterday.  I have been organizing a progressive dinner for our community association for this Saturday, and we will have 26 people here for the salads and main course that evening, so we are trying to keep enough space cleared for people to park!

This morning we went out for a nice long ski, about 2 hours.  The trails are in great shape.  We did a couple of loops on the other side of the Twin Lakes road, one of which had great views up the valley, and wouldn’t you know it – I forgot to bring the camera.  Sorry!

My sister asked about the cats, and I realized I haven’t given a Pushkin update for while.  We got him past the urinary tract infection last fall, but he is getting pretty elderly and we have to give him daily subcutaneous fluids now to keep him hydrated (progressive kidney failure, we have been through this before with previous cats…)  But he is still with us and he and Teasel spend most of the day curled up together.  She adores him.

I have been doing a lot of weaving, and  plying up my grey Corriedale handspun singles into the final yarn, and working out a true spiral top hat using short rows, to teach as a class, but no pictures yet – I will post when I have some finished items!

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