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Pomegranate

Posted in weaving on July 9, 2011| 3 Comments »

I finished the 5 scarves on the red perle cotton warp I am calling “Pomegranate”.  This time I used tencel for the weft on all of them, but a different color on each.  I am really happy with these, and will be taking 2 each to the galleries today for consignment (Confluence Gallery in Twisp, and Winthrop Gallery in Winthrop).

Pomegranate with Black tencel weft

Pomegranate with Eggplant tencel weft

Pomegranate with Taupe tencel weft

Pomegranate with Navy tencel weft

Pomegranate with Shale tencel weft

We just spent 3 days (2 nights) over on the coast – Rick’s birthday, his sister’s birthday, seeing friends, doing errands, etc.  It was a beautiful drive in both directions, although a bit cloudy and drippy over there.  Good visits with family, although as always we are happy to be home in the valley, where it is forecast to be sunny and in the high 70’s this week – how perfect is that?

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Coming up for air

Posted in family & friends, Methow Valley, weaving on June 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Wow, it’s been almost 3 weeks since my last post.  Life has been busy but wonderful!

During our week at home after the trip to Oregon, we had a little time to catch up on home life.  I had applied to join the Winthrop Gallery, an artist cooperative, before we left for Utah, and was accepted.  We are expected to take one day a month to staff the gallery and it was time for me to get some training and put in a first day there.  I “worked” on Sunday, June 12, and things went well except that I only sold one note card during the entire day.  But now I have an outlet for my weaving again in Winthrop and have my rugs, scarves and a couple of small blankets there on consignment.  I am also showing at the Confluence Gallery in Twisp.

An old friend of Rick’s, who lives in North Bend, came over for a couple of nights with his friend Fukiko from Japan.

Dave & Fukiko

She brought a bottle of special sake which is made in her village near Kyoto, and the first night she cooked us a wonderful sukiyaki dinner, including ingredients she had brought from Japan.

Dave originally met Fukiko a couple of years ago when he was on  trip to Japan with some friends.  She has worked as a travel agent, but most recently has developed a home stay program at her family home in Kameoka.  Here is her website:  Japan Reservation Network.  Lovely woman.  We hope we can pull off a visit to Japan in the next couple of years!

The following week (last week) we had a small family reunion here.  My sister and brother-in-law flew up from San Jose (soon to be from Colorado instead).  My dad came over from Anacortes in his RV.  My brother and sister-in-law came over from Camano Island.  The weather was cool-ish but not raining! and a good time was had by all.

Family dinner at Wolf Creek

The gathered clan

I have managed to fit in a little weaving during the last month or so.  I wound a new scarf warp after returning from Utah/Colorado and got it set up on my loom at the weaving guild room.  It is a mix of reds and I am calling it “Pomegranate” in my head.  So far, with all the comings and goings, I have woven off 3 of the 5 scarves it should allow.  Today finished number 3 in a navy tencel warp:

Navy tencel weft on Pomegranate warp

Tomorrow we head out to Lochaerie Resort on the north shore of Lake Quinault on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, for the annual fundraiser bike ride around the lake and a get-together with old friends.  But tonight we went down to the Twisp River Pub for dinner, and discovered it was the beginning of summer, with the first Wednesday night jazz music in the beer garden!

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ANWG 2011

Posted in travel, weaving on June 4, 2011| 1 Comment »

Sort of dropped the ball on chronicling the rest of our meander through Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and onward to home in the Methow.  Suffice it to say that we encountered a lot of wind, some heavy rain, but also some partly sunny days and lots of beautiful vistas of the Rockies and other mountain ranges of Montana (which was incredibly GREEN – a lush, verdant spring green).  We particularly enjoyed the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.  It is a beautifully done (and obviously well funded) complex of 5 museums.  We only had time to visit the Plains Indian and Western Art museums, but they were well worth it.

Our last night was spent outside of Spokane, and we spent the evening with our friend Austin who has relocated there from Seattle.  Check out the band he is playing (guitar) with: the Angela Marie Project.  This is just a sideline for all of them, they have actual jobs….

Then we had 5 whole days at home!  Teasel was so glad to see us, although she wasn’t really frantic – obviously she has bonded with our trusted housesitter.  It rained like crazy from time to time.  This is May in the Methow?  But it does make it so green on the hills, and the wildflowers are loving it.  We washed everything in sight…clothes, the trailer, both cars,etc.  Then packed up the truck with miscellaneous furniture and household belongings (since we have finally consolidated into one domicile only) – this for Rick to take down to the kid & grandkids in Medford/Ashland.

So last Tuesday we set out again for Oregon, without trailer this time.  We stayed with our good friends who own the Real Mother Goose Gallery in Portland, then on Wednesday Rick dropped me off at Willamette University in Salem, OR for the Association of Northwest Weavers Guilds (ANWG) biannual conference.  He kept going and is down in Medford/Ashland visiting with the family until tomorrow, when he comes back to pick me up.  Meanwhile I am staying at a somewhat tatty dorm on campus (my friend Holly is in a much nicer and newer one – jealous!) but having a great time at the conference.  At least the food is better, MUCH better than 2 years ago at Gonzaga U. in Spokane.

The first day Holly and I set up the guild booth display for the Seattle Weavers’ Guild:

Seattle Weavers' Guild booth at ANWG 2011

Our theme was “Use Your Weaving Every Day” and we had 3 “rooms” in the display.  Left-guest bedroom, Center-family room, Right-kitchen.

On Thursday I had an all-day class on using Photoshop (or Photoshop Elements) to produce a free-form weaving pattern design and then import it into your weaving software that will generate threading, tie-up and draw-downs.  I have Weave-It Pro to do this but it works with a lot of them.  It was pretty interesting but it became clear, for reasons I won’t try to explain, that you have to have a computer-driven dobby loom with at  least 16 shafts to make use of this idea.  Won’t really fly with an 8 or 12 shaft floor loom like I have.  Well you could do it with a 16-shaft table loom (the thing is you need to be able to raise any combination of 16 or more shafts – can you say 16 factorial?) but that would be tedious IMHO.  Not having the spare $10,000 or so to buy an AVL or Louet Megado loom at the moment – not doing this!

The next day I had a great class in the morning on “Polychrome Crackle” with Susan Wilson.  Very organized teacher, good handout and Powerpoint presentation.  In 2-1/2 hours I got a lot of information on a technique that I am very interested in pursuing.  Crackle is a weave structure – polychrome is what happens when you start introducing a lot of colors.

Sue Wilson with polychrome crackle blanket

My Friday afternoon seminar was on “Analyzing and Reproducing Commercial Cloth” with Teresa Ruch, who worked at Pendleton Woolen Mills for 18 years first as a sample weaver and later as a fabric designer.  Since then she has taught fabric design at the college level and has a thriving dye studio and art-to-wear business.  A little disorganized as a teacher but I still got some useful information.

Today I had the morning off, which was wonderful since the weather has turned warm and sunny and the campus is quite beautiful with a steam meandering through it and gorgeous landscaping – lots of rhododendrons in bloom right now.  I lazed around and went to look at the garments from the previous night’s fashion show.  Just showing a few things here, I have more pictures but these were kind of favorites:

This dress with peacock feather train was the Grand Finale of fashion show!

Really liked this sleeveless dress with side pockets

OK, this is a needle-felted "hat"

Looked amazing on a Young-Thing Model in a black leotard!

Awarded "Best of Show" - cloth and garment both fabulous

This afternoon I had another half-day class with Teresa Ruch on “Dyeing Hand-Painted Skeins and Warps”.  Got some great handouts and took a lot of pictures, but more of the sort to remind me of what she was doing, not for the blog.

So here I am in my down-at-heel dorm room on a Saturday night, which fortunately also has great internet access so I can catch up on the blog, as I fear it may get by me when I finally get home.  It has been a great experience (both the trip to the Southwest and the time in Oregon) but now I am ready to be at home after an extended absence of almost a month!

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Stormy Weather

Posted in travel, weaving on May 22, 2011| 2 Comments »

After leaving Pueblo, Colorado our plan was to stay near Boulder for a few days, visit the Rocky Mountain National Park and then work our way up through Yellowstone on the way home.  Well, it is snowing/raining in both national parks so that is just not an option.  We drove up to Golden Gate State Park in the mountains west of Boulder on Friday, which was a beautiful drive, only to find 4-6″ of snow on the ground at the park- so not camping there!

Drove back down to Boulder and fulfilled my mission of visiting Shuttles, Spindles & Skeins, a fabulous yarn store.  My mentor, Judith MacKenzie, told me about it years ago – they have a lot of mill ends for weaving.  But they don’t show these on their website, as it is a constantly revolving and unpredictable selection.  The place is huge and staff very friendly and helpful.

The mill-ends area in the back room

weaving classroom and more weaving yarns (not mill-end)

classroom area in back including dye kitchen

the main store (retail knitting yarn etc)

From Boulder we drove north and stayed at Boyd Lake State Park just south of Fort Collins.  Although we drove in through essentially a suburb, the park itself was very nice and we were able to go for a bike ride on their extensive trail system before leaving the next morning.  We also went up to Fort Collins Friday afternoon and visited the New Belgium Brewing Co. (think “Fat Tire” and others).  Quite the scene, being late Friday in a college town!  But they give out 4 free tasters per person so between us we were able to try 8 different beers, including seasonal specials.  Kind of fun!

Yesterday we started working our way north into Wyoming, where it was (is) extremely windy, with some pelting rain mixed in last night.  We are staying east of the Rockies for now, and visited Guernsey State Park to see the historic CCC buildings there, and also Fort Laramie.  Thought we would stay at the state park, but due to the nasty weather of late they were not really set up and open yet.  So we holed up in a KOA at Douglas, WY last night and rode out the storm.

Beautifully crafted museum built by the CCC in 1930's

Today it is still very windy, but at least the sun is out!

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Lap Robe #5

Posted in weaving on May 4, 2011| 3 Comments »

We’re in the final stages of preparing to leave on {gasp!} an actual vacation, so there don’t seem to be enough minutes in the day, these days.  But I did want to put up a picture of the blanket-of-the-week.  I really like the colors in this one, and it may be the one that goes to the ANWG 2011 Conference with me at the beginning of June.

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Weaving along…

Posted in weaving on May 1, 2011| 2 Comments »

I finished the fourth fulled lap robe last week, this time in shades of green in the warp (Shetland wool) and a beautiful blue-green in Harrisville Shetland for the weft.  I think it may be my favorite so far:

off the loom but before fulling

the finished blue-green lap robe or throw

I moved my plaited twill scarf weaving down to the loom that I keep at the guild room.  This is “Mother Mary’s Loom” that we bought and restored 2 summers ago (blogged about here).  I am using 8 of the 12 harnesses, but the real bonus is in having 16 treadles.  Now I can reserve 2 treadles for true tabby or plain weave (which raises 1-2 on one treadle, and 3-4-5-6-7-8 on the other  – for the double 2-tie threading, same as with summer & winter – in other words, every other thread is on either harness 1 or harness 2).

I put on enough warp in my Autumn colorway to weave 5 scarves:

I got into the guild room several times this past week, and finished off the 5th scarf yesterday.  I have had some fun trying some new weft colors and a new pattern, too.

Here it is with a tencel weft in a color called Tussah:

Here is the new pattern.  It required 12 treadles and I only had 10 on the smaller workshop loom I was using at home for these scarves.  I used tencel in a color called Shale:

Now that I have enough treadles to do a complicated pattern plus tabby (plain weave) I am weaving a small header in plain weave at each end and doing hemstitching.  I think it will be a much nicer finish than going straight into the twisted braids (although I will still braid the ends as before).

Dare I speak it… Spring may be on the way!  It is supposed to be sunny and in the mid-60’s this coming week, for the most part.  We went for a lovely walk up Wolf Creek Road this morning, enjoying the sun and the bird songs.

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Lap Robe #3

Posted in weaving on April 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This one came off the loom before we left for California, but I didn’t finish it until this week (twisting the fringes, then fulling it in the washing machine).  I agitated it for 8 minutes this time, after the initial 4-hour soak, and it came out about 34″ x 57″ exclusive of fringe.  It is nice and soft and drapy.

The yarn was, once again, Shetland wool 2-ply knitting yarn – leftovers from previous knitting projects, plus yarn bought at a de-stashing sale at knitting retreat.  I had quite a bit of a heathered grey with mauve overtones, and not enough of the actual mauve colors to do all the warp, so I alternated the grey with the mauve colors every other thread in the warp.  The same grey was used to weave the blanket as the weft.  I used the broken twill treadling but it doesn’t show up as much as in blanket #1.  The use of the grey yarn in both the warp and the weft tended to mute the tones overall, but I do like it – just another variation, and a learning experience!

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Lap Robe #2

Posted in weaving on April 13, 2011| 2 Comments »

Not a lot to report today, but I did finish the second fulled lap robe:

I agitated this one a little longer after the initial soak (11 minutes instead of 7), and it is definitely a little more dense, although not overly so (not felted).

I am really pleased with the colors – seven shades of Shetland 2-ply across the warp, plus the red stripe down the middle of each of those.  I really had to work out the number of ends  in each stripe ahead of time, because not all the colors were a full skein.  A good scale is the weaver’s friend!  The weft was a heathered green with gold overtones.  I used a twill-and-tabby treadling this time.  You can see it better in the close-up of the fabric before fulling:

Lap robe 3 came off the loom last night and I should have it finished up sometime next week.

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What, me wadmal?

Posted in knitting, weaving on April 5, 2011| 1 Comment »

The Methow Valley Spinners & Weavers Guild has an annual “challenge” project, due in April of each year.  Usually the challenge is to weave something in a particular weave structure (2 years ago it was “overshot”).  This year it is more of a fabric type – wadmal.  This is a woven fabric that has been felted so the weave structure is no longer apparent.  Often it is used for apparel (jackets etc) or it can be made into mitts or slippers.  Usually it is woven as yardage, loosely, in plain weave or twill and it is the color choice and final treatment of the fabric by machine felting that gives it the final appearance.

So I set out to make a small blanket using miscellaneous colors of 2-ply Shetland knitting yarn, because I also wanted to make a gift for some friends who have recently had their first child.  I got some of my ideas from a project in the Jan/Feb 1996 Handwoven Magazine:  Cloud-Light Lap Robe by Sharon Alderman.  I liked the braided fringe, and her instructions for machine fulling leave the fabric dense but still soft and drapey, not stiff as a board (soak in hot water with detergent for 4 hours, followed by only about 5 minutes of agitation plus a couple of gentle rinses and spinning out).

I used 5 colors of Shetland 2-ply for the warp (a total of 8 skeins at 150 yds each), but the weft was a New Zealand DK-weight wool I got in a fiber exchange a couple of years back.  It was sett at 8 epi (that’s ends-per-inch for the non-weavers out there).  I threaded it as a 2/2 twill and treadled it in a broken zig-zag pattern, trying to maintain 8 picks per inch.  To maintain the openness of the fabric, the weft needed to be nudged into position, not beaten, after changing sheds – another tip from Sharon Alderman.

Here’s the fabric before fulling:

After fulling:

It was 41″ wide on the loom and I wove about 2 yards, maybe a little more.  Off the loom before fulling it measured 37″ x 64″ (excluding fringe).  After fulling it measured 30″ x 57″.  I still need to trim the fuzzy ends of the braided fringe, but otherwise it is done:


I am really pleased with how this turned out.  Maybe it isn’t exactly “wadmal” (not felted to jacket fabric consistency) but I love the feel of it.  I am tieing on another warp already and will try a different treadling pattern on the same twill threading.

Hey, what’s that peeking out from under the blanket in that last picture?  I finished the Notre Dame de Grace Pullover designed by Veronik Avery!

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Still Fitting in Knitting

Posted in knitting, Methow Valley, weaving on March 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The show, titled “Lacunae – The art of gaps, holes and negative spaces”, at the Confluence Gallery in Twisp opened yesterday.  My friend Sara Ashford and I have our work displayed in what they call the Solo Gallery, which is now on either side as you walk on back to the main gallery space.  Sara owns (or owned) the Ashford Gallery in Winthrop and has been carrying my rugs, scarves, shawls and shawl pins on consignment for the last couple of years.  She does beautiful nature dyeing on silks and is also a weaver and member of our local guild.  She is closing the gallery in Winthrop to devote more time to her own artwork, and will hopefully have a new studio space at TwispWorks (on the site of the old Forest Service complex) in the near future.

While up on Orcas Island, I was also knitting away feverishly on the embellishments for my woven and felted wall-hangings.  I wanted each one to have a theme, and wound up knitting Estonian lace panels in Rowan Kidsilk Haze for the blue/green wall-hanging, and patterns from the fishermen’s ganseys of Eriskay (in the Outer Hebrides) for the black & white one.  I have always loved the Eriskay ganseys and this got me excited about actually knitting one this year.  My idea for the purple wall-hanging was to do stranded colorwork (Fair Isle, Bohus, etc) but this wasn’t panning out too well, so when I got home I found a yarn that worked well color-wise, and wound up knitting some elaborate cable and texture patterns from my stitch pattern books.

The idea here came from some of my friends asking me if I still knit, in slightly puzzled tones, when they observe my new obsession with weaving.  It made me realize that for me, weaving is new, exciting, exploratory and offers a way to play with fiber and color and also get something completed relatively quickly.  Whereas knitting is more of a “slow fiber” craft, it can take 6 months or more to complete a finely knitted sweater, but that is always OK with me – I enjoy the process and enjoy knitting challenging and complex patterns.  So the wall-hangings are titled “Still Fitting in Knitting” – they are meant to be playful and whimsical, but also represent the place of the two crafts in my life at present.

They had to be in to the gallery by last Tuesday, and I was working on them right up to the end, but here they are hanging.  I also have a nice selection of my plaited twill scarves in the Confluence Gallery gift shop.

Still Fitting in Knitting – Texture
Still Fitting in Knitting – Lace
Still Fitting in Knitting – Eriskay

By the way, for you traditional knitters out there, I know of two sources for patterns for complete Eriskay ganseys:  Alice Starmore’s Fishermen’s Sweaters, and Madeline Weston’s Country Weekend Knits (originally published as Classic British Knits).

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