Twisp of Fate

Archive for 2013

Guild Goes For Gold

Posted in Methow Valley, weaving on April 3, 2013| 2 Comments »

My local weaving guild, Methow Valley Spinners & Weavers, is affiliated with a larger organization called ANWG, or the Association of Northwest Weavers’ Guilds. This is an association of fiber arts guilds located within the Pacific Northwest area of the United States and Western Canada. Every 2 years there is an ANWG Conference with seminars, fashion show, exhibits, vendors etc. The first one I went to was 4 years ago in Spokane, Washington; then 2 years ago in Eugene, Oregon. This year the 2013 ANWG Conference will be at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington – June 17-23.

In a moment of perhaps temporary insanity, our little guild decided to make something really nice for the “goodie bags” they hand out to conference attendees. We decided to weave earring hangers with an arrowleaf balsomroot motif, that being the signature flower of the Methow Valley.

arrowleaf balsamroot

We committed to ANWG last fall to make 400 of these, and they have to be done and sent off by April 20th. Since then enrollment at the conference has exceeded expectations, being past 500 now I believe. However, we do the best we can.

We have done 430 of them! And that’s with only maybe 10-12 people really working on it. Besides warping and weaving, we must wash and finish them, serge them apart and sew a hem for the dowels, cut and sand the dowels for the hangers, make cording out of brown yarn for the hangers, and finally we will roll them up and put an informational wrapper around each one.

They are all a little different

Big pile of finished hangers

47 of them hanging to dry in my shower

I personally have woven more than 100 of these over the last 2 months. Most of the weaving was done at the guild room on a Baby Wolf devoted to the project. Fortunately, one of our members has been a production weaver for decades, has a big warping reel, and was able to put 30-yard warps onto the loom for us as we went along.

Another member designed the wrapper:

I think that it’s pretty cool that our little guild pulled this off – and so ready for it to be done and over with!

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California Dreamin’

Posted in weaving on March 26, 2013| 5 Comments »

A friend from weaving guild told me about a technique called “California Rags ®” developed by Trudie Roberts in 1982 (she recently passed away and was profiled by Handweavers Guild of America on their Facebook page). She used this technique, in which you weave with strips cut from large motif fabrics alternating with a novelty yarn, mostly for clothing. It preserves the “picture” from the original fabric in the woven cloth. I also found an article by Trudie Roberts in an older issue of Handwoven Magazine: “Rag Weave Sweatshirts.” May/June 1989: pp. 60–62, with some more specific information on how to proceed.

I decided to try this out for my other guild challenge project: Placemats Inspired by a Mug.

I started with some drapery or upholstery fabric samples that measured 17″ x 26″, and a novelty yarn I picked up at the stash reduction sale at knitting retreat last fall. I think the yarn is cotton and rayon, but no label, so not sure. The colors were just right to go with the mug, though:

the mug, the fabric & the yarn

Tied onto the existing warp on my Baby Mac workshop loom (the warp was for the Bronson Lace placemats blogged about previously) – using some colors of 8/4 cotton carpet warp that also came from the mug. 12 epi, 167 ends for a width of 13.9″ on the loom, and about 13″ off loom.

I washed and pressed the fabric first, as some of these showroom samples seem to have sizing on them. Then I cut it into 3/8″ strips and, carefully preserving the order, began to weave them in with alternating shots of the novelty yarn.

When used for clothing, the edges can be ignored since they will be serged and/or incorporated in a seam. But I had to deal with the bits hanging off either end so I would have a finished edge for the placemat. I wound up tucking the ends into the next fabric shed (not the next yarn shed) before laying in and beating the next strip. This seems to work pretty well.

I really had fun with this and am very happy with the results:

Mat #2 with the mug that inspired it

Both mats (fabric samples were not exactly the same in layout)

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Road Trip Report

Posted in family & friends, travel on March 23, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Last week we took off for a road trip to Port Townsend and Lake Quinault on the Olympic Pensinsula. We were celebrating our 40th anniversary, and visiting family & friends. We stayed the first night at my Dad’s house in Anacortes, and my brother and sister-in-law came up from Camano Island and we all cooked a meal together. Nice relaxing evening and a good start to the trip.

We stayed 2 nights in Port Townsend in a little cottage down on Discovery Bay. No TV, beach right below for walking. Very quiet and I read an entire Martha Grimes mystery (found on the shelf in the cottage) in 2 days. We had some wonderful meals in Port Townsend. Being somewhat Asian-food deprived over here in the valley, we really enjoyed Hanazono Asian Noodle, one of my favorite finds from being out there at knitting retreat in the fall. For our actual anniversary on March 17th, we went to The Fountain Cafe (they don’t have their own website). Since they don’t really “do” St. Patrick’s Day, it was a quiet and intimate setting for our dinner together.

40 years! think of that

…and we still like each other!

On Monday we headed out to Lake Quinault, where our longtime friends own and operate a small cabin resort on the north shore of the lake – actually inside the national park boundaries: Lochaerie Resort. They moved out there a couple of years ago and tore down and completely rebuilt the main house for their new home. Rick had built bathroom vanities for their 2 upstairs bathrooms, so we had a full truck and he had work to do installing once we got there. I’ll wait for photos until the countertops and sinks are installed (we will be back out there in June), but the cabinets are clear fir and looked great.

A major storm system moved through Washington this week, and by the second day there were strong winds and lashing sheets of rain coming down – this is the rainforest, after all. Not a good day for walking but a good day for knitting (me), conversation, reading, after dinner card games and movies. And hanging a bear skin rug in the Lochaerie office:

When we left Wednesday morning, it was actually snowing (a wet snow) at the lake and there was plenty of snow up in the mountains all around. Beautiful!

Dropped off my new tool, an older Wolf Clipper round-knife cutter, at C.H. Holderby’s in Seattle on the way over, and picked it up all tuned up on the way home.

I bought it on eBay about a month ago, for a fraction of what a new one costs, and it ran fine – but, as pictured above, it had no safety guard. Rick was sure, probably with good reason, that I was in danger of cutting off one or more fingers! So we called Wolf Machine Co. and ordered the safety guard and Rick installed it. But it still needed some adjustments to both the guard and the honing stones. When we picked it up on Thursday, one of the tech guys told me it would outlive me, and since it is probably already at least 30-40 years old, I think that sounds like one fine machine.

I will use it to cut through multiple layers of fabric to produce strips for weaving rugs and other things.

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Irons in the Fire

Posted in family & friends, knitting, Methow Valley, weaving on March 9, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I have had many things going at once lately, but it feels good to be moving projects forward and also spending time with friends. I love the idiomatic phrase, as defined on Wiktionary:

Etymology

Describing a blacksmith working on several pieces at the same time.

Noun

irons in the fire

tasks in progress.

Usage notes

May be used with a positive connotation, e.g. “have other irons in the fire” (other projects are available if this one fails), or with a negative connotation, e.g. “too many irons in the fire” (overwhelmed by having too many tasks).

Weaving

Several weeks ago I put a warp on my “Baby Mac” portable workshop loom to try out an idea for placemats.

The draft is based on Bronson lace, believe it or not, and came out of an older issue of Handwoven magazine. I used 8/4 cotton carpet warp for the warp, and also for the hems and the tabby weft between shots of fabric strips. The fun came with trying out a variety of fabrics to see what worked and what was less successful. Also, I finished my placemat for our guild’s challenge project, which is due in April – we exchanged mugs or tea cups, and the challenge was to weave a placemat or set of coasters inspired by the mug you drew (which will then be given to the owner of the mug).

Here are some of the finished mats – they shrank up to 20% in length after washing and drying!

cotton quilting fabric in 1″ strips

heavy cotton drapery fabric in 1″ strips – hard to fold!

heavy fabric, may have been tencel not cotton – a pain to work with

an old cotton sheet in 3/4″ strips, good thickness and pattern

I will be doing more of these but may move the project onto my full size loom at the guild meeting room.

Knitting

I needed a simple carry-around or car knitting project, and settled on the Shawl Collared Cowl by Alana Dakos of Never Not Knitting. Actually I have knit two of these now. The first is softer and more comfortable and my favorite – I can wear it over a long sleeve T like a scarf – but the Icelandic one would be great on a cold winter day tucked inside the neck of a coat.

using Ella Rae “Kamelsoft” 75% merino/25% camel

using Tongue River Farm Icelandic from very old stash!

Also finished a sweater I have had underway for a couple of months: Bedford by Michelle Wang (also found in Brooklyn Tweed Fall 2011 collection). I used Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton “Heaven’s Hand Wool Classic” in the dark cherry colorway. I love, love, love this sweater, it is so comfortable and “just right”.

Socializing

We had out of town guests for 4 nights last weekend, and as they are very self-sufficient (having lived in the valley previously) it was an enjoyable and relaxing time. The weather was mixed – cold and foggy some days, gloriously sunny others – and we got out for some nice walks. Spring is definitely around the corner, although there is still plenty of snow on the ground here.

Last week there was the monthly Methow Conservancy First Tuesday program at the Twisp River Pub. The place was packed, maybe 200 people! And they were serving a buffet dinner beforehand- it was kind of a mad house. Anyway we lucked out and found a place to sit with friends, and had a great time. The speaker was David Moskowitz, who has just come out with a new book called Wolves in the Land of Salmon (the land of salmon being the greater Pacific Northwest). Fabulous photography.

Other People’s Knitting Dept

One of the women who took my beaded cuff class has really taken off with it. Mostly, she is coming up with her own pattern charts now. Thought I would share some pictures of her cuffs, as seen at our weekly Thursday evening knitting get-together:

with a thumbhole!

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The Old Guard

Posted in family & friends, woodworking on February 23, 2013| 2 Comments »

We went over to The Coast last weekend for 4 nights, for a variety of reasons. One of my reasons was to spend a couple of days down at the Madrona Fiberarts Winter Retreat in Tacoma, WA. It started off small in Gig Harbor many years ago, and I used to go every year. Learned a lot there (classes were mostly knitting-oriented). It got big enough to move to the Hotel Murano in Tacoma at least 5 years ago. I haven’t been for a while, because I have chosen to go up to Orcas Island for a spinning week with Judith Mackenzie immediately following Madrona – can’t do both! But this year I didn’t go to “camp” so I thought it would be fun to head down to Madrona, not to take classes, but to see my friends and go to the market.

I was totally lame and took no pictures. But I did have lunch with friends and go to the market on Thursday and Friday. Mostly behaved myself, although I did buy Sarah Anderson’s new book, The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs. Sarah was in the demonstration area outside the market on Friday, and I spoke to her at length. Lovely woman with boundless energy and lots of good ideas. She showed me several pieces of woven cloth which she is doing with over-twisted yarns that got my creative juices flowing!

There were many great vendors there – independent, small dyers (Sincere Sheep was a favorite, Dicentra Designs, Chameleon Colorworks, also The Artful Ewe), yarns sourced from local, small flocks and/or rare breeds by Jorstad Creek and Toots LeBlanc & Co. I almost bought some Gotland/Finn Sheep cross yarn from Jorstad Creek – it had the most amazing luster and hand. But they are in Olympia, WA and I see them at knitting retreat, so there will be another chance in the future. Some of the “big players” were there, and some of my favorite local yarn shops (Acorn Street Shop, Churchmouse Yarns and Teas from Bainbridge Island, who were sharing a booth with the designer Jared Flood of Brooklyn Tweed). It was great fun.

While I was down in Tacoma, Rick spent some time with his mom and sister, and got together with some of his woodworking buddies from the Seattle area. On Saturday evening, there was a special event at Northwest Woodworkers’ Gallery in downtown Seattle, to honor Evert Sodergren. Rick was one of the founding members of this gallery back in the day (late 1970’s). They moved from Pioneer Square to a new location in Belltown last year, next door to Urban Hardwoods. It is a much better location for them, we think.

Evert Sodergren is a 4th-generation studio furniture-maker, now in his early 90’s and (finally!) retired. In the late 1990’s he was profiled in one of the Living Treasures videos produced by Northwest Designer Craftsmen. They showed the video at the gallery on Saturday, to an appreciative audience of at least 150 people who had turned out to greet and honor Evert.

Evert Sodergren with Rick and some of the “old guard”

And here is a scan of a postcard from the early days of the gallery in 1983. Can you tell which of these people are me and Rick (we are not standing next to each other), and Evert?

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Two Minutes of Fame

Posted in Methow Valley, weaving on February 8, 2013| 3 Comments »

Last weekend I got a call from a young man who is a videographer for the Methow Grist, the local online magazine produced by Methownet.com, an internet service provider in Winthrop. I have woven rugs for one of the owners there, and she suggested he come by to film me weaving in my studio. He has been producing a series of videos he calls “Gristisodes – Slices of Methow Life”.

So I somewhat nervously agreed, and he came by Monday morning and filmed and interviewed me. I told him about our guild, Methow Valley Spinners & Weavers, and suggested he might want to come to the weekly meeting on Thursday and see what the other weavers were up to. So he did, and here are a few pictures from that:

We were in the middle of a demonstration of different ways to prepare fabric strips for weaving rugs, placemats, etc.

Steven filming various guild members working on their weaving projects at the guild room:

Lill working on a beautiful, vividly colored blanket

Lillie weaving silk cloth with a butterfly pattern, to be made into a jacket

Cathie weaving a red scarf

Christina working on our guild project to make 400 earring hangers for the conference in June

Christina working on our guild project to make 400 earring hangers for “goodie bags” at the conference in June

Susan cutting cloth strips for a rug

The Gristisode just went up this morning and also features the local roller derby team, and ping-pong down at the Carlton General Store.

Gristisode Five – weaving, roller derby and ping-pong!

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iBag!

Posted in fiberarts, home life on February 6, 2013| 1 Comment »

My neighbor, who is a talented quilter, made me this cool bag as a thank-you for teaching her to weave over the last couple of months. It is from a pattern for an “iPad purse” and she has already made many of these for herself and for gifts. The pattern is Barbados Bag from Pink Sand Beach Designs.

For mine, she used a length of cloth I had woven at the end of a warp for my plaited twill scarves. There wasn’t enough length left for another scarf, but I didn’t want to waste the warp and knew I would use the extra cloth eventually for something. So it has perle cotton for the warp (the vertical color stripes), and was woven with a very dark navy Tencel weft. I went to a fabric store in Wenatchee last week and picked out some cotton batik quilting fabrics to go with my woven cloth, and the notions I needed to complete the bag.

She eliminated the inside pockets, as she says they just get in the way when she is putting her iPad into her bag. There are already plenty of pockets on the outside, anyway. The back panel is divided down the middle, e.g. for eyeglasses. She made the main bag out of the batik cloth, then just stitched my woven cloth down on the face – it has finished edges, and wasn’t quite wide enough to go across to the side seams.

I would never have made this for myself in a million years, as I am not really skilled at sewing. So I am thrilled beyond belief to have this beautiful padded bag/purse for my iPad!

Last night it stayed above freezing and a huge load of snow came down off the shady side of the studio roof – including one really huge chunk. It looks like a mattress fell off the roof!

Looking towards the house from my studio door.

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January Chinook

Posted in home life, knitting on February 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

A few days ago we had one day of unseasonably warm weather – meaning temperatures in the 50’s that day, with a wind. This set up the perfect conditions for our roofs to shed their snow loads. All day long there would be sudden loud shuddering swooshing sounds and another huge load would slide off the roof. It scared the heck out of the cats! They would just settle into a nice nap and then all of a sudden it sounded like a freight train was running through the house.

along the south side facing the road

off the carport and studio roofs

a pretty formation facing up-valley.

At Knit Night on Thursday, some of the women in my Beaded Cuff class had finished their cuffs (or rather, the first of a pair). They turned out great!

Should have used the flash for that one – I usually get better color without it.

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Finally Finished

Posted in knitting on January 29, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I have been on a mission to finish up some of my knitting UFO’s (Un-Finished Objects), partly because I was tired of them languishing for so long, and partly because I may need them for examples for an upcoming sweater design class at the end of February.

Berry Cluster Cardigan

This one was started in September 2010! It was based on Karen Alfke’s Unpattern for Raglan Cardigans from the Top Down, which I have used in several classes with her permission. For this one, I used a different raglan increase with a lace effect: YO, K1, slip marker, K1, YO on each side of the markers that divide the fronts, sleeves, and back. I was planning to do some kind of lace edging, so I wanted the raglan increases to be lacy.

The yarn is Queensland Collection “Merino Spray”, 100% extra fine merino wool, in color #5. I used 8 balls at 135 yds (123 m) per ball. Needle size 4 mm (US 6) for the main sweater with a gauge of 22 sts to 4 inches/10 cm. Needle size 3.75 mm (US 5) for the lace edgings. The dye lots were all the same according to the ball bands, but there is some striping, so I think it wasn’t as consistent as one would wish!

I searched my knitting library for lace edgings, and most are intended to be knit from the bottom up. The sweater is knit from the top down, so it would be “more convenient” to just continue with the edging from the top down. But I really liked this pattern and it was just too much trouble (indeed perhaps not possible) to convert it to a top-down approach. It is “Berry Cluster II” from Nicky Epstein’s book Knitting on the Edge.

So, after swatching, I knit the edgings separately and then attached them to the live stitches at the bottom of the sweater and ends of the sleeves, using a “Japanese Three Needle Bind Off”. With the Japanese 3 Needle Bind Off, you pull the stitches off one needle through the stitches of the other needle, all the way across, and then you bind off as a second step. It seemed to make a less bulky and more invisible join than the regular 3-needle Bind Off. There are tutorials out there on the web.

The sweater was finished with a simple garter stitch band, which I thought went well with the garter stitch portions of the lace edging. There are buttonholes for the 5 buttons, but I think I will leave it buttoned and just pull it on and off over my head. Also, the Berry Cluster II lace pattern calls for sewing on clusters of 3 beads at the base of each lace motif. I had actually purchased some small graphite colored round beads, and started sewing them on, but it was just too fiddly and made the sweater look dressier than I really wanted, so I abandoned that idea.

Pinecone Pullover

This one was started in September 2011. It was based on Karen Alfke’s Unpattern for Set-In Sleeve Cardigans from the Top Down. I used this Unpattern as the basis for another class last year, and I have to be honest and say I do not like her solution for the knit-in sleeve cap. It has way too many stitches in it and does not fit nicely into the armhole in the manner of a sewn-in sleeve cap. However, I am a big fan of one-piece construction and therefore spent many hours working out another method of planning and knitting the sleeve cap for my class. One of the sleeve caps on this sweater was probably ripped out and re-knit at least 3 times! I think my method works well, but it proved to be hard to teach – just a little too much math for some folks.

The yarn is Naturally Yarns “Me”, merino & cashmere 8-ply from New Zealand (80% merino, 20% cashmere), shade 812. I used 12 balls at 111 yds (102 m) per ball. Needle size 4 mm (US 6) for a gauge of 21 sts to 4 inches/10 cm. Bad news: this yarn is discontinued due to the cost of cashmere. Good news: I have more of it in other colors!

The sweater features some of the “extras” included in the Unpattern, namely side shaping, and “purl darts” at the bottom of the sweater and sleeves for a nice non-rolling finish to stockinette stitch.

To make the sweater more interesting, I used a lace and cable pattern, from the book Classic Knitted Cotton Edgings by Furze Hewitt and Billie Daley, for the front bands. They were knit and attached to the sweater edge as I went, starting from the bottom of each front, then grafted where the two bands met in the back of the neck. This method is shown best (IMHO) in The Principles of Knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt, although I have worked out some refinements, which I needed to do for this project and then to teach the method to others.

The two ceramic pine cone buttons were purchased long ago at an antique mall and I have been saving them for just the right project. Aren’t they wonderful? I do have a “thing” about pine cones. I sewed the 2 fronts together between the button locations, as I intend to pull it on over my head. Then simply sewed the buttons on top of the band for decoration.

Beaded Cuffs

These are probably the oldest UFO’s – started them more than 10 years ago. I was making them for my younger niece, who was thinking of being a veterinarian at the time. Now she is almost 29 and about to get her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Texas A&M. We are flying down for the dissertation defense and her birthday in April.

I wanted to finish them so I could remember how to do it before teaching a class on beaded cuffs last weekend. I had 8 intrepid souls and they all seemed to be getting it, maybe even enjoying it! The method and some basic patterns are from my friend Susanna Hansson: Off the Cuff: Basic beaded wrist warmers.

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Cold Weather Cats

Posted in home life, knitting on January 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »

It has stayed well below freezing for what seems like weeks now. Brrr. This means our snow is sticking around although there hasn’t been any new (although we may get a light snowfall this week).

The cats just love the fireplace insert in the evening. It has a fan that blows hot air into the living room, and we have a footstool set up in front of it for their lounging:

Stormy & Juno basking in the heat

Juno the lap cat

you looking at ME?

Here are some pictures of the bison/merino scarf I finished a few weeks ago. It is just so yummy and warm. The pattern is “Diagonal Lace Scarf & Wrap” from Churchmouse Classics. It is an easy knit (just an 8-row repeat) but also not boring. I used 2 skeins of Buffalo Gals 70% bison/30% merino (dyed by Judith MacKenzie, and probably no longer available) so a total of about 520 yds to make the sport-weight scarf version of this pattern.