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Weaving & Woodwork

Posted in weaving, woodworking on November 16, 2012| 1 Comment »

First, a “shopcam” update. Rick built this beautiful walnut table for some neighbors. He got the matched boards from a friend in the valley who has had them for a long time and was threatening to cut them up for the stack laminate, sculptural work he does. Rick rescued them from this fate and replaced them with some “regular” walnut that will do just fine for our friend.

We were in Seattle for 4 nights, three weeks ago, for many reasons including my participation in the Seattle Weavers’ Guild annual sale up at St Marks Cathedral. It always amazes me how quickly they put it all together, and how much work is on display in the room. I sold all 7 of the dishtowels I brought, plus 2 scarves, and had a good time just hanging out and socializing with the other weavers.

hundreds of towels on display

one of the four “scarf tables” arranged by color

We also had good visits with Rick’s mom and sister, and got together with several friends for dinner and/or visits over the course of the long weekend. On the way out of town on a Monday morning, we picked up a U-Haul trailer for a one-way trip from Seattle to Twisp, so that Rick could pick up some wood at Specialty Forest Products in Algona-Pacific (Kent Valley south of Seattle). He got a fabulous deal on a big pile of cherry rippings, among other things. These are cut-offs from lumber when a customer order wood cut to a specific dimension. The pile turned out to be even bigger than he expected, and many pieces were 12-14 ft long but had to fit into a 10-ft trailer. So he spent many hours at their cutoff saw getting it all to fit.

Rick and the big pile of wood

The following weekend found me out in Port Townsend for my annual knitting retreat, an event I have been attending for over 25 years. It was great to see my Seattle friends, as well as some folks from all over that I only see there once a year. The weather was warm and dry (enough) for long walks to the beach or into town. I sold 6 more of my scarves, plus a blanket and some “pre-owned” sweaters. Picked up some great bargains, mostly for use in weaving, at the stash-reduction sale that has become a treasured part of this event.

Two of my friends had ordered Hansencrafts miniSpinners so I went along for the ride to pick one of them up at the Hansen’s new manufacturing plant on the outskirts of Port Townsend. When I picked mine up 2 years ago, they were still operating out of a side room in their home. This new building takes it to a whole new level – they are obviously enjoying a great deal of success! Much of the operation involves computer operated machinery and their dust collection systems are fabulous – the place was incredibly clean for a woodworking shop.

computer operated routing table for end pieces

drill station with jigs

computer operated lathe

finished e-spinners waiting for a happy buyer

with my buddies at the Hansencrafts manufacturing site

By the way, I just love my miniSpinner and use it for almost all my spinning these days. I picked up a third Wooly Winder bobbin during the visit, and a cleaning kit. Got a lecture on not cleaning or oiling my spinner for the last 2 years (oops! sheepish grin…) so now I will be sure to take care of it a little better.

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Arizona Bound

Posted in knitting, travel on September 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »

We’re off on a 2-week road trip tomorrow, with our Aliner camping trailer. We will be attending a wedding in Las Vegas in a little over a week, and decided to make a camping trip out of it rather than fly down. By next Monday we will be at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for 4 nights. I was there once before about 40 years ago, and Rick has never been, so we are excited! After that comes 3 nights with the wedding party at a hotel on the Strip in Las Vegas (can you say…. “and now for something completely different”?) Then we will work our way home via the east side of northern California and central Oregon.

I finished another of my Mosaic Mojo hats, this time in a handpainted Blue Face Leicester yarn from Chameleon Colorworks, plus some lovely plum-colored Elsbeth Lavold “Baby Llama”.

It is interesting how the fairly regular color repeat in the yarn played off against the number of stitches in the mosaic band, causing a “swirl” of colors through the band. This was completely unplanned and uncontrolled on my part, but I sure do like it!

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2012 Okanogan Fair results

Posted in fiberarts on September 12, 2012| 2 Comments »

The Okanogan County Fair was held last weekend (Thursday through Sunday, actually). I had filed my entries online before I left on the road trip, but one of them wasn’t finished before I left – namely, in the category “fleece to finished item”. This must be something you made in the last year, starting with a fleece, so it could be a felted item or something made from yarn spun after preparing the fleece for spinning.

So anyway, last week I was seized with the determination to pull this off! I was working from a Corriedale/Shetland fleece that I had washed and carded into batts. I decided to spin up enough of it, and then make a 3-ply yarn, to knit a hat. I only got to the knitting stage 2 nights before I had to take my entries over to the fairgrounds, but with one very late night I managed to get it done:

Temptation’s fleece as a finished knitted hat

I picked up my entries on Sunday afternoon and here they are after judging:

handspun yarn – blue ribbon

woven scarf – Blue & Grand Champion

woven shawl – Blue, Grand Champion & “Special Award”

woven throw – Blue & Grand Champion

Fleece to Finished Item – Blue & Special Award

I am not quite sure what the “Special Awards” are all about – there isn’t any mention of them in the fair premium book that lists all the departments and categories and how to enter, etc. I’ll have to ask at our guild meeting this week – maybe someone knows!

I have been working on some of my “Mosaic Mojo” hats as a simple carry-around project. Here are the two that I finished in the last couple of weeks (one on the road trip, and the other going to and from Seattle last week).

Noro “Silver Thaw” and gray Rowan “Kid Classic”

Noro “Silk Garden” and blue Rowan “Kid Classic”

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Thelma & Louise

Posted in spinning, travel, weaving on August 24, 2012| 1 Comment »

I found out a week ago that I am leaving on an Adventure with one of my best friends. She just bought a pre-owned 2004 Porsche Carrera S but it is located in Lancaster, PA and she wants me to fly back with her to drive it cross-country to Seattle. So I am leaving this evening from the Wenatchee airport to join her in Seattle. We will fly out of Seatac to Philadelphia the next morning, and will be gone for about a week. The plan is to come back via I-90 and she will bring me home to the Methow on her way through to Seattle.

This is the Porsche, a pretty midnight blue with soft grey interior:

It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it! A number of people have remarked it sounds kind of like the movie “Thelma & Louise” – but hopefully without the driving-off-the-cliff part at the end.

I finished up 3 more of the collapse weave scarves – the warp had soft blues, greens and pinks for the cottons with a dark hot pink (“Chanel”) for the wool grid that shrinks more than the cotton and causes the puckering. The weft colors were lavender, turquoise, and a soft blue-green.

One of my neighbors wants to learn something about weaving, so to get her started (and to have something new to do myself) we wound and tied a cotton towel warp onto the existing setup I have for the scarves on Kingston. So now she will weave a couple of towels and I will finish up the rest when I get back from the road trip:

I also finished spinning and plying some dyed New Zealand Corriedale that I bought at least 10 years ago from a place in Victoria BC. The preparation was interesting – it looked like a roving in the bag, but was actually a narrow batt with stripes of about 6 colors running side by side the whole length of it. I didn’t want to spin it from the end and risk having the colors get all muddied, and I also wanted a more woolen, rather than worsted, prep. So I tore off about 1-ft sections of the narrow batt, spread it out, then rolled it from the end to something like a rolag (warning … spinning terminology). Then spun it from the end of the “rolag”, after attenuating the fibers a bit. So for each of these “rolags” I was spinning across the colors, so they came and went in the singles in a more or less regular pattern. Clear as mud? Then I made a 3-ply yarn and just let the colors from the singles work against each other as they came without trying to plan that part out very much. I am quite pleased with the result!

I have about 650 yards which should be enough to knit a vest:

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Major Catching Up To Do!

Posted in family & friends, Methow Valley, pets, weaving, woodworking on August 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I can’t believe it has been a month since my last blog post. We have had a lot of things going on, but none seemed particularly blog-worthy or picture-worthy at the time. But anyway, here’s the news from Wolf Creek.

In early July, we went over to Seattle for family birthdays (Rick’s on July 6, his sister’s on July 10). Rick’s daughter and son-in-law came up from Medford, so we had a nice long visit with them and Rick’s mom and sister. Here’s a shot from dinner at his mom’s retirement home:

Towards the end of July we were guests at a paella dinner by the Twisp River. Our friends had bid on the dinner at a charity auction last winter. It was a beautiful evening which was actually a lull between thunder and lightning storms (complete with downpours and even hail), so we lucked out:

On July 23rd, the featured-artist exhibit at the Winthrop Gallery came down and I spent a fair amount of time moving things around, rearranging the gift shop area, and bringing some of my work down to the Confluence Gallery.

Meanwhile I have kept moving new weaving projects forward. I finished off the plaited twill scarves down at the weaving guild room and finally removed that warp setup from the loom. One of the other women in the guild is going to use my loom for a 12-harness project, then I will figure out what to do on it next. At home, I set up another warp for the polychrome summer & winter series, this time in shades of blue:

On Kingston, I set up another warp for three of the collapse-weave scarves, which I just finished weaving yesterday, but they still need to be washed and finished.

The past week and a half has been taken up with the 17th annual Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival. There were 5 main concerts between July 27 and August 4, and my Dad came over from Anacortes for the whole festival. He “camped” in our front yard in his RV:

Last Thursday, my brother and sister-in-law came over from Camano Island for the last 2 concerts. We had a great 3 days together:

family dinner at Twisp River Pub

Dad & Andy hanging out on the porch

At the Thursday concert, we re-connected with old friends from Seattle (they were actually one of Rick’s very earliest woodworking clients, so we are talking 30 years ago or so). They have a cabin up Cub Creek in the Rendezvous. Well, it turns out they also know my sister-in-law Patti from a long time ago (Harriet taught and mentored one of Patti’s daughters), and Harriet was the officiant at Andy & Patti’s wedding (she was a Superior Court judge in Seattle, now retired). So on Saturday before the concert we had a wonderful picnic dinner together:

We will definitely all be doing this again next year!

Early August now. We have diggers and plumbers coming to complete the hookup of the water and sewer lines to the shop building. The water and sewer had been run over to that building at the time the house was built, but not connected. We also had them move one of the frost-free hydrants from under the breezeway to a spot behind the shop building, and dug a long trench so we can get another frost-free line out to where we plan to put the vegetable garden. This made it an interesting experience to get in and out of my studio for a few days (I had to walk a plank).

long trench to the garden area

where it all comes together

Also on the home front, Rick finished up the new vanity for our main floor bathroom. He used straight-grain fir and we are both pleased both with the new look, and the much improved storage space:

He is feeling great and back to work in the shop. First up were 3 sets of bedside tables, two of them in cherry with ebony handles (one was an order, the other he did on “spec” to put out in the galleries) – the third set he did in afromosia for us! They are gorgeous:

This is the same wood he used to make the beautiful front door for our house in Seattle (no longer our house, we sold it in 2006 to move here to the Methow Valley).

And finally, the kitties have been doing great and really seem to enjoy having company as much as we do! Juno is into everything, including this basket:

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Yet more scarves…

Posted in weaving on July 5, 2012| 1 Comment »

I finished up some new scarves, both the “polychrome” and the “collapse weave”, over the course of the last couple of weeks. Just trying to get ahead of demand a little bit…things really pick up in the valley during “tourist season” (AKA summer).

A new polychrome summer & winter scarf:

Shades of black, grey & white on a grey/brown warp

and three new ones of the collapse weave scarves on a warp I think of as “Spring Meadow”, with weft colors of berry, chartreuse and daffodil yellow. It is really amazing how the weft color changes the overall perceived color of the scarf!

Weft sampler for the “spring meadow” warp (and how it looks before washing)

Spring Meadow with Berry weft

Spring Meadow with Chartreuse weft

Spring Meadow with Daffodil weft

These are all up at the Winthrop Gallery right now (as I sold some pieces and needed to provide replacements). Show is on until July 23.

Off to Seattle tomorrow for family birthdays and a visit with Rick’s daughter and her husband, who will be coming up from Medford, OR to see us and Rick’s mom and sister.

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In a World of Her Own

Posted in Methow Valley, weaving on June 9, 2012| 2 Comments »

Tonight is the artists’ reception at the Winthrop Gallery for a featured-artist exhibit, one of whom is me! This is a cooperative gallery and a couple of times a year they feature the work of 3 members in the front half of the gallery. This time, it just turned out that we were 3 women working in media other than painting and photography – most of the work on display is usually in those 2 categories.

Here is the show card:

And here are a few pictures I took last Tuesday when we set up the show.

wall-hangings and totem figures by Susannah Young

We put Susannah’s embroidered silk blouse, one of my polychrome scarves, and one of Linda’s pins on a mannequin in the front window as a collaborative display.

the collaborative display

There was also a nice article about the show in this week’s Methow Valley News: read it here

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Aloha!

Posted in weaving on May 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

We are heading out on a little vacation for the next 2 weeks. So it has been a frantic scramble to get things wrapped up in the woodshop and the weaving studio before then…but we are coming down to the end, and then it is off to something “completely different” – Hawaii (the Big Island). We are so looking forward to it!

I had my first collapse weave scarf purchased right off my back the day I finished it. Pretty cool. This last week I put on the warp for two more:

Color sampling for 2 more collapse-weave scarves

and here they are done. I was experimenting with length (woven, and after shrinking in the washer) and also with degree of shrinkage (how long I agitate them). I actually like both of them for different reasons.

Collapse weave scarves in “American Southwest” colors

I’ll be back at the end of May!

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Collapse weave round 1

Posted in weaving on May 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Well, my first collapse weave experiment totally worked! I wove the scarf with 16 strands of 16/2 unmercerized cotton and 4 strands of superfine merino wool per inch, using a 2/2 twill structure (see pictures in previous post).

I soaked and then agitated it in the washing machine in very hot water and some Dawn detergent. I think I agitated it for about 25 minutes – might do a little less next time. Rinsed it in cold water twice, spun out, laid over a rack to dry. Yesterday morning I trimmed the ends and gave it a steam press and it was done!

Waffle Scarf number 1

I’m winding and tieing on a warp for two more of these as we speak….

Spring is really coming to the valley this week. The serviceberry bushes just popped into full bloom, and the arrowleaf balsamroot (our signature flower) is coming on strong as well. It’s lovely!

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Introducing…Kingston!

Posted in weaving on April 29, 2012| 3 Comments »

First of all, I did finish two more of the polychrome scarves, for a total of 6 so far. I had them photographed last week in a studio setting so I would have good photos for the advertising and poster of the show I have coming up with 2 other women (early June, Winthrop Gallery).

photo by Teri Pieper

While working on these, I was getting increasingly frustrated by trying to use my little loom (a “Baby Mac”, Macomber model CP folding portable) for serious work. It is great for taking to workshops, fits in the back of my Honda CR-V, and it actually works great. But the treadles are small and spaced close together, it does have a tendency to have the tie-up hooks pop off on a regular basis, and this time around one of the folding struts folded up on me and I didn’t figure out why the tension was so far off on one side until it was too late. I thought I had just done a poor job putting the warp on.

So I was thinking to myself, what I need is a 32″ Macomber to devote to narrower projects like scarves, towels, etc. But I know they are hard to find, or if you do find one it is way across the country and the seller is unwilling to ship. Nonetheless, I looked on Craig’s List that afternoon and one had been listed in Kingston, WA the day before! And we were leaving for a trip to Seattle in just a few days. Contacted the seller, talked to Rick who was amenable and so we took the truck instead of the Honda. Last Sunday we took the ferry over to Kingston and I came back with a new loom. It is in wonderful shape, just needed some dusting and lubricating. The woman’s parents were the weavers – they bought it used in the 1980’s. Her Dad had passed away and her mom is 92 and suffering dementia, so couldn’t really tell her anything about it.

When we got home early last week, I contacted Sarah of the Macomber Looms and Me blog. She lives in York, Maine and is a rep for Macomber. I gave her the serial number and she went by the company and found out this loom was built in May 1961. When I can afford it, I will order 4 more ad-a-harness units to bring it up to an 8-harness loom.

Do I “need” this loom? No. But it was a great deal and just had that “meant to be” feel. I like to set up for a particular kind of project and then just keep tieing on new warps, avoiding having to re-sley the reed and re-thread the heddles every time. This way I can have multiple projects going!

So on Kingston the new loom, I am setting up to do a series of “collapse weave” scarves – they will be very colorful. The thin stripes in warp and weft are fine merino wool, the rest cotton. When I wash them vigorously the wool should shrink and felt more than the cotton, to get a textured surface. The first one is an experiment… in a day or two I should know how it turns out before moving on to the next ones.