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Why yes….

Posted in Airstream, weaving on June 13, 2013| 1 Comment »

I have been weaving.

Rick and I are exhibiting our work at the Lost Rivery Winery tasting room in Winthrop from mid-June to mid-September. Toward that end, I have been trying to build inventory! Down at the weaving guild room, on my 40″ Macomber, I wove another set of undulating twill towels, 13 out of a 12-yard warp.

These were the first four, I am not sure I ever put up a picture of them finished:

and these are the ones I just finished:

At home on the 32″ Mac, I wove another round of placemats on a blue warp. I got 17 out of a 12-yard warp. Eight of the ones on the left, and eight of the ones on the right, plus one other I did with a different fabric but did not get a picture. Four of the ones on the right have been donated for a fundraising “gala evening” and auction on July 13 for Confluence Gallery & Art Center in Twisp.

This week on the 48″ Mac at home, I finished 3 rugs that are the ones I really wanted to do for the Lost River Winery exhibit. I finished the third one around 10 pm last night, and today hemmed and washed them, so they are drying as I write this.

We set up the exhibit at the winery tasting room this morning and it looks good. I hung 3 rugs as temporary place-holders for the ones drying now, and on Saturday we will go up and swap them out. I will get pictures then. Rick brought up his entry table made from the beautiful western bigleaf maple log, and he has a wine cabinet underway that won’t be finished for another week or so.

Airstream update: Rick took the propane tanks up to Okanogan County Energy (our electric and propane suppliers) and had new valves put on the tanks so they conform to current standards. Then we had the propane technician come by yesterday and check all the gas appliances in the trailer. Everything works!! Water heater, 4 burner cook-top, wall oven and refrigerator/freezer in propane mode.

Tomorrow we tow it to Spokane to the Airstream dealership for a checkover and possible repair of some things, depending on what they find and how much it costs. We will leave it there for several weeks.

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Happiness is a New Warp

Posted in knitting, weaving on May 6, 2013| 1 Comment »

Two new warps, actually! Blogging has lagged behind all the activity around here lately, but I will try to catch up this week.

First, here are pictures of the placemat sets I finished a week or two ago. These were woven using the Bronson lace threading with alternating shots of thick (1/2″ fabric strips, light cotton fabrics) and thin (8/4 cotton carpet warp). All were woven on the same warp, again showing how much the color of the weft determines the final look.

burgundy fabric

rosy brown fabric

lilac, cream, beige floral print

I also knit up another Shawl-Collared Cowl by Alano Dakos in Cascade “Cloud”, a heavenly blend of merino and baby alpaca – but unfortunately one skein was not quite enough to make the cowl, so I had to buy another one. Therefore I also made a pair of fingerless mitts using a pattern found on Ravelry: Integral Mitts by Danielle Chalson.

The set was donated for the upcoming dinner and auction to raise funds for Little Star Montessori in Winthrop.

So on to the new warps! At home, on Kingston the 2nd, I put 12 yds of 8/4 carpet warp in blue tones, for another round of placemats:

And at the weaving guild room, on my 40″ Macomber, I put on a towel warp to try out a new idea I found in Handwoven magazine. It is an 8-harness pattern, using 8/2 matte cotton and cotton flake yarns, with a straight twill at each side and an undulating twill of irregular shape, across the middle section.

an undulating twill towel – underway!

I just finished and took off the 4 towels from this warp yesterday, got them washed and dried, but still need to hem them. Pictures coming! The warp set-up was a bit of work, but they are relatively quick to weave. I plan to get some mileage out of this setup by tying on one or more additional warps in other colors, as I really like how they are turning out.

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From Texas to Today

Posted in family & friends, weaving on April 25, 2013| Leave a Comment »

We went down to College Station, TX two weeks ago to meet up with my sister’s family and see their younger daughter defend her dissertation and become a Ph.D. Her subject has to do with Lyme disease, and she is in the Dept. of Microbial & Molecular Pathogenesis – needless to say , we didn’t understand half of what her talk was about! But it was a great visit with family, my sister and brother-in-law, both nieces and one of their best friends from childhood.

And of course, no matter where you go, there it is:

It was a pretty nice little wool shop, actually – had some local alpaca products, although none of it came home with me – I need more knitting and spinning fiber like I need a hole in the head.

Since we came home, spring is definitely coming along – bunch grasses growing in the yard, lots of shooting stars this year too. Our friends from Lake Quinault came over for 4 nights and brought their bicycles. The day they meant to go out for a long ride was, of course, the day a storm moved through! Lots of wind, cold, rain and sleet down here in the valley and snow up higher. We made a fire and settled down with books, instead.

I have been weaving away on the Bronson lace style of placemats to finish up the warp I put on before we went to Texas. This time I am using cotton quilting type fabrics, cut in 1/2″ strips and used singly. The placemats are coming out a lot better, not as thick and with more pattern repeats. I should finish them up today or tomorrow, meanwhile here are some “progress photos”. I used my “new” Wolf cutter to cut the strips – it slid through 8 layers of fabric like a hot knife through butter. Lovely. No distortion, goes as straight as an arrow – I love it.

fabric 1 being cut

fabric 1 being woven

fabric 3 and cotton yarn used for tabby

fabric 3 cut into strips

fabric 3 being woven

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Introducing…the NEW Kingston!

Posted in weaving on April 7, 2013| Leave a Comment »

A year ago I bought a 32″ Macomber loom from a woman in Kingston, WA and blogged about it here. I named it “Kingston” because that is where it came from, and I liked the sound of it. I have really been happy with Kingston, it is a great weaving width for doing scarves, towels, shawls etc. and then I can devote my wider 48″ Mac to rugs, blankets, and so forth. But I have been a little frustrated with the fact that it only had 4 harnesses (4H), thus restricting the types of patterns I can weave on it. In fact, I have had to use my “Baby Mac” model CP portable workshop loom, which is 20″ wide and has 8 harnesses, to do the polychrome summer & winter scarves, and the placemats I have been doing lately, for exactly this reason. It is a lot smaller (not as comfortable to sit at for a long time) and just not as beefy as a full-size loom, so really wasn’t what I wanted for a long term solution.

Most B4/B5 model Macs can take up to 10 harnesses (10H), and I intended to add 6 more to Kingston “eventually”, but that is a big chunk of change and I just hadn’t taken the plunge.

Then about a month ago I got wind of someone in Seattle who had a 32″ Mac with 12 harnesses for sale. In other words, exactly the same loom as Kingston, but with 12H instead of 4H. I emailed her to explore the idea of buying hers, and selling mine, but I wasn’t sure if this made any kind of sense, or how hard it would be to sell Kingston.

It turns out she is getting a wider, multi-harness countermarch loom (new) but she really liked the 32″ Mac and she suggested we swap looms as she would be happy to have a simpler version (plus some money, of course). So for a fair amount less money that it would cost to upgrade Kingston to 10H, I now have a “new” Kingston with 12H! Also, it is newer – Kingston was built in 1961 and this one was built in 1995. And, she didn’t care about having the sectional warp beam, so I was able to keep the one which came with Kingston! Regarding the history of the new loom, she bought it from a young woman who graduated with an arts degree and an interest in textiles, who later moved on to other things – this loom had been a graduation gift. So I am the third owner at this point.

So right after we got back from Port Townsend and the Olympic Peninsula, we made a one-night trip over to Seattle with the cargo trailer and made the exchange. Both parties are quite happy!

I had a warp on the Baby Mac to finish off, but yesterday and today I put the first warp on the new loom. It may be called “Madison” (it came from Madison Valley neighborhood in Seattle) – but I really like the name Kingston, and they look so much alike, it may just continue to be “Kingston”.

a “California Rags” placemats underway

from this fabric:

Here are the fabric and resulting “California Rags” placemats I finished up on the Baby Mac last week:

Wierd weather department:

After some lovely sunny days, bringing on lots of new green grass and shooting stars coming up in our yard, we awoke to this today:

April 7, 2013 spring snow!

It did all melt eventually….

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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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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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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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Twisp of Fate

Life in general, fiber arts in particular, near Twisp in the beautiful Methow Valley

Archive for the ‘fiberarts’ Category

Why yes….

Happiness is a New Warp

From Texas to Today

Introducing…the NEW Kingston!

Guild Goes For Gold

California Dreamin’

Irons in the Fire

Two Minutes of Fame

iBag!

January Chinook

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