Twisp of Fate

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.

Read Full Post »

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!

Read Full Post »

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!

Read Full Post »

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.

Kingston from the front

Kingston from the back, with collapse weave warp

The beginning of the collapse weave scarf

Read Full Post »

I finally got back to the loom last week after what seemed like ages – many things seemed to interfere: trips to the coast, catching up at work now that my boss is back from Argentina, gallery activities, just life in general.

I put a second warp on my little loom for more “summer & winter polychrome” scarves.  This time I used shades of purple in the warp, then got out Deb Menz’s Colorworks book to come up with ideas for weft colors.

The first scarf was based on a “double split complement” color scheme.  Of course, I am somewhat limited by the colors I have on hand in the Zephyr silk/wool.  When sampling before actually starting the scarf, I wasn’t at all sure I was going to like the green, which is called “Basil”.  But amazingly, it works!  For the plain weave portion, I used a dark purple.

For the second scarf I used Lilac for the plain weave sections, and an “analogous” color scheme for the polychrome work at each end.  In some of the patterns, there are as many as three or even four shots of different colors in different sheds, before the tabby tie-down that holds the whole thing together.  This builds up a lot of color on the surface, both solid areas and color mixes, that gives it so much richness.

Doing the finishing work on these scarves seems to take almost as much time as weaving them!  It seemed like I was twisting fringes all day long yesterday….  But they did soften up nicely after washing and pressing.

Here are pictures I took this morning of the 4 scarves finished so far.  Today I will wind a new warp for 2 more, then after that I think I will work on something else for a while.

Read Full Post »

I have had an almost finished small rug sitting on my Baby Mac loom since September, when I took the rug weaving workshop out in Forks, WA.  Last week I finished that rug, in which I was playing with clasped wefts and some pick-and-pick patterns.

I still had warp left on the loom, so I got out Peter Collingwood’s book, The Techniques of Rug Weaving, and found some ideas based on a broken twill tie-up and 4-shot sequence of pattern wefts.  I had some miscellaneous knitting yarn (discontinued Rowanspun Tweed) in decent colors, so although not rug wool, I thought it would work for something meant to become a cushion top.

I like it OK and learned something new, which is always a good thing!  Neither of these is very big, about 16″ x 20″, and I hope to use them as throw pillow tops.

So now the small loom is free and ready for something new.  I have been meaning to start an exploration of surface color based on a summer-and-winter threading, ever since taking a workshop from Margaret Roach Wheeler in Seattle over a year ago.  Our guild challenge project this year is “Summer and Winter” and I need to have something done by mid-April, so that dovetailed nicely with some ideas I have been meaning to pursue anyway.

So I put a warp on for about a 10″ wide scarf, 6 yds long so I have room for some sampling and hopefully 2 scarves.  I am using a 50/50 wool silk blend (18/2 Zephyr from Jaggerspun) and used 5 colors of bluegreen graduated across the width of the warp.  Also using Zephyr for the pattern wefts and tabby tie-downs.

Here is some color sampling I did before starting the first scarf.  I was just exploring what looked good against the blue-green warp.

Here’s the start of the patterns for the first scarf:

then I wanted it to go into more muted colors, blending into the background, before starting the plain weave section in the middle:

I’m working on the plain weave section now, and then will work the above patterns in reverse at the other end.  This is so much fun and I am quite excited about the possibilities!

Read Full Post »

I’m nearing the end of the rug warp on my 48″ Macomber loom.  I have enough left to weave a custom order hallway runner for some friends (at least, I hope I have enough left…)

I usually weave 4-5 rugs at a time before taking them off and finishing them (which means sewing the hems, washing them on a delicate or washable-wool setting in cold water, hanging to dry, then sewing on my labels).

Here are the ones I finished mid to late January:

Multi-colored worms intermixed with solid red at each end

Multi-colored worms intermixed with solid blue at each end

This one is similar to the rug I did for a friend back at the beginning of this warp.  I used 6 different colors of “worms” (wool strips) plus some of the fringed wool blanket selvages.  It looks a lot better in person – I really like the variety of colors and textures and may wind up keeping it.

6 colors of worms plus some fringed material

Multi-colored worms with solid purple stripes outlined in dark violet

The above were taken off the loom, finished, and photographed on Jan 21st.  Since then I have produced the following:

Classic Pendleton blanket selvage alternated with blue worms

Blue multicolor flannel (un-napped) worms

These two I wove specifically for our upstairs bathroom:

Brown & green tones flannel worms; stripes outlined in solid black

When we were in Seattle a week or so ago, we went by D.A. Burns, a carpet & upholstery cleaning and repair business that we have used many times over the years.  I wanted to get some Durahold rug pad to put under the rugs I am keeping at home – this stuff is the best for hardwood floors!  It has a felt upper surface and natural rubber bottom surface, so it both cushions and grips the rug, and also won’t slide on the floor.  It came on 6-ft and 12-ft rolls, so we had them cut a piece 28″ wide and 12-ft long, then Rick just cut the piece with a utility knife to fit the rugs after washing (my current rugs are warped at 30″ and come out 29-30″ wide finished – they recommend cutting the pad about 1-1/2″ narrower than the finished size in both directions).

Read Full Post »

I’ve been weaving away on rugs and thought I would put up a few pictures.  All of these are woven with materials I got at the Pendleton mill outlet stores.  For the most part they are by-products from weaving wool blankets (the fringed selvages, and also the smooth wool selvages they call “worms”).   I also have some lighter weight fringed selvages that I think were by-products of weaving wool shirting fabrics.

Pendleton smooth wool selvages ("worms")

wool shirting selvages alternated with smooth wool strips

I’ve been experimenting with alternating shots of the fringed selvages with the smooth wool selvages, for a number of reasons – to make the fringed material go farther, to make the rug less heavy, and for color effects.  I am pretty pleased with this approach and will probably use it more.

very heavy fringed selvages alternated with black "worms"

And this:

turned into this:

I was a little surprised when I got into this next bag and realized the material was COTTON – almost everything I get from the mill stores is wool!

Pendleton cotton fringed material

Another one using alternating shots of fringed and smooth material:

And this last one was done all with “worms”:

One of these was a special order; the others are out in the Confluence Gallery in Twisp and the Winthrop Gallery in Winthrop, on consignment.  And there are more underway!

I’m happy to report that is is finally SNOWING here today, with more forecast for the week.  It has been really cold and dry, icy and treacherous walking… this seems more like “normal”!

Read Full Post »