Twisp of Fate

I finished up the 2 lace scarves and they shrank about 12% in length and 17% in width after washing.  But that is because they really bloom and soften so it is a good thing.

Woven with “Curry” Jaggerspun Zephyr:

Woven with “Peacock” Jaggerspun Zephyr:

They are incredibly lightweight and soft.  I am going to move along to tieing on with my hand-dyed wool and just stick with scarf versions.  They will be a LOT more colorful!

I also finished the point twill scarf that I wanted to do with some of my handspun (all the others were done with the merino/tencel in a color gradation).  I am very pleased with this, and it is for the upcoming show at Confluence Gallery in Twisp.  The handpainted merino & tencel spinning fiber was from Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks and I had 3 braids in the Autumn colorway.  One wasn’t split lengthwise before spinning, so had very gradual color changes in the singles.  One was split in half and spun back to back, so changed colors twice as often as the first one.  The other was split in quarters, and therefore had the most frequent color changes in the singles.  So when all 3 singles were made into a 3-ply I got a lot of interplaying color changes.

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I finished the second set of 4 merino/tencel scarves using the ombré color transition theme.

Here’s the blue one photographed with the table runner – I am submitting both of these for the show at Confluence Gallery in a couple of weeks:

I have also started a new experiment on my loom at the weaving guild room.  Last February at spinning camp I dyed 4 skeins of fine wool in a color gradient.

And at the weaving workshop in Seattle at the end of February, someone gave me a draft for a woven lace pattern that I thought might work for a shawl with these yarns.  But I didn’t want to experiment with my precious hand-dyed yarn, so I “conditioned” (soaked/washed) some of the undyed skeins and put a scarf warp on that is 2 motifs wide.  Here is the washed sample.  It shrank and bloomed a lot with washing!

It is woven with Jaggerspun Zephyr (50/50 wool silk in a finer weight than the wool warp).  I was experimenting with color and beat (picks per inch).  The gray one at the top was the most successful on both counts.  I like the gold one too, but it was beaten (just pressed with the beater, actually) too firmly.  I am just finishing the second of 2 scarves and will post pictures once they are finished (fringed and washed).

I am pretty sure I will proceed with this pattern for the hand-dyed shawls, using black Zephyr for the weft.  I’ll decide after the sample scarves are finished.  It’s a 66-row treadling repeat and I thought it was going to be a bear, but actually it’s not bad at all once broken down into 4-row sequences.

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I seem to have taken a break from weaving for the first few months of the year.  There were family issues, back issues, winter issues – whatever.  I just didn’t get out to the studio much.  But spring has come, we have events coming up, and I am more in the mood to get some projects going.

Also I needed to clean and organize my space.  Rick and I have signed up to be in a show at Confluence Gallery in Twisp that opens July 1.  It will be called

Methow Artists’ Studios Close up
Through a Photographic Lens
July 1 – August 5

Photographs of Methow Valley artists working in their studios displayed with the art they create.

The photographer is Mary Lou Harris, a commercial photographer from Seattle who is also a Methow part-time resident.  Her website is ML Harris Photography.  I believe she came up with the idea of the show and is working with a gallery curator.  Anyway, she wanted to come photograph us in our studios about 2 weeks ago and thus came the impetus to clean things up a bit!

Also, last Saturday we hosted a quarterly event called “Artist to Artist” sponsored by the Confluence Gallery.  Borrowing from their website:  “These events are hosted by an Okanogan region artist in their working studio…  Local and visiting artists are invited to attend Artist to Artist gatherings. The events provide educational and networking presentations which foster creativity, business skills, dialogue and collaboration within the local artist community, but also for an evening of socializing!”

There were a lot of other events going on that day and evening (not unusual for the Methow!) so we only had about 15 people come, some of whom we knew but also some new faces.  I wound up giving a “Weaving 101” demo as many people really did not know how a loom works at all, much less the process for measuring and winding on a warp, threading, sleying and getting it all ready before you even begin to throw the shuttle.  Anyway it was a fun evening, as well as another reason to clean and organize my space.

As far as moving projects forward goes, I finished 3 more rugs a couple of weeks ago:

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Finished the sampler from the Kathrin Weber workshop I took in Seattle at the end of February on using painted warps:

plain weave with a thin and then a thick weft

(center) repp weave with alternating blocks and stripes

(left) turned taquete in 2 weights of weft, (right) twill

I have enough warp left on the workshop loom to do at least a couple of table runners.  I think I will go with the repp weave for those.  The fun thing is that the warp colors change all along the length of the warp, so the next pieces will be different in color at least.

I also put a new warp on the 32″ Mac for some scarves I have been planning.  They blend several ideas.  There is a gradual color change based on an article in Handwoven magazine last year.  I wanted to try out WEBS 2/10 merino/tencel and bought some last fall when it was on sale – black for the warp, and a variety of colors for the wefts.  I found a point twill pattern in Strickler’s 8-shaft pattern book that looked interesting (pattern #98 I believe).

Here is the sample after washing.  The fabric really bloomed after washing (well, soaking really – no agitation) – it became a lot softer and more drapeable as well.

“front” side – what I see when weaving

“back” side

I wove the first scarf in these colors, then started another one where the 2 colors are closer in value.  I think I like that one better as it is less stripey.

I am working on the third one now and will then take them off the loom and do the finishing work (twisting the fringes, wet finishing, etc).  So there will be more photos of finished scarves to come!

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I have been gone a lot the last couple of weeks, having experienced two different workshops that were almost back-to-back.  Now home again, a little tired but full of new ideas and with workshop projects to finish up, I thought I would post today about the first one.

This was a 3-day workshop organized by the Seattle Weavers’ Guild and held at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Ballard (a neighborhood in north Seattle).  It was with Kathrin Weber from North Carolina, a professional weaver and dyer since the 1970’s.  More recently she has been teaching a lot and selling her hand-painted warps through her website and Facebook page (Blazing Shuttles).  All of her warps are cellulose fibers.  This particular workshop was called “Focus on the Warp” and was about how to use hand-painted warps in an intuitive manner, composing on the loom – it did not include dyeing.

We brought our looms to the class with a dummy warp to tie on to, and threaded for a straight draw.  I was using my little Macomber model CP “Baby Mac” loom.  300 threads, 2 threads per dent and I used a 10-dent reed so I had a 15″ wide warp.

The first thing we saw when coming in to class the first morning was an array of beautiful warps and many woven samples.  The warps were made for the workshop and had 100 threads each and were 4-1/2 yards long.  Most of the first morning involved a presentation of her method for combining multiple warps on the loom, and how the various samples had been woven using such a warp.

Next we each chose 3 warps for our own project for a total of 300 threads.  I chose two colored cotton chains, and one of dark charcoal rayon slub.

Here is someone else’s choice, which I thought was really pretty:

The warps are tied on in two steps, first all the evens (harnesses 2,4 and 6,8 if you have them) and then all the odds (harnesses 1,3 and 5,7 if you have them).  The first step uses all three warps in a fairly simple stripe pattern (doesn’t have to be symmetrical).  Then the second step is composed relative to what you did in the first step.  Whenever two colors alternate on odd and even harnesses it gives you an opportunity for a block design when weaving.  When the same color falls on both odds and evens, it will be a stripe when weaving.  It was a lot to keep in your head, especially the first time doing this, and not totally understanding the implications of what you came up with.

There were a lot of tips, including how to take apart her warps, hold them in your hand for tieing on, tie on efficiently and securely, separate out the unused part of warp to use later without making a tangled mess, etc.

My step 1 (evens) tied on:

Steps 1 and 2 completed and ready to wind on:

Then came how to wind on evenly and neatly without making yet another big tangled mess!  This was “only” 4-1/2 yards, some of the warps she sells are 7-1/2 or 10-1/2 yards.

Some other people’s warps were more free-form than mine and I admired them:

By the end of the second day, most people had their warps on and and were ready to start weaving samples.  She gave us several things to try: plain weave in two different weft weights, repp weave to bring out the block structures, turned taquete showing block structures, and twill.  Here were her samples all woven on the same composed warp.

Plain weave with a thin black weft:

Plain weave with a thicker black weft (more of a ribbed texture):

Repp weave (alternating thick and thin in black,  switching between blocks randomly, not completely warp faced):

4-harness turned taquete, again alternating between blocks:

8-harness turned taquete:

Twill:

I got through the repp weave sample on the third day, and will have to finish up the others here at home.  Then I should still have enough warp left on the loom to weave some placemats or runners (with the rayon in there, I think not towels).

This was very interesting and stimulating!  Her warps are beautiful and I can see using some of the tencel ones for scarves and shawls.  I will have to work on how to produce some of my own warps from wool and silk yarns.

Here is a shawl woven by a former student/customer, using one of her tencel hand-painted warps (color changes along the length of the pre-wound warp) combined with black stripes and other stripes using a warp wound from hand-painted yarn (color changes around the skein and is more homogenous when wound into a warp).

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I knew I hadn’t posted for a while. but it looks like it has been over a month – good grief!  Some family stuff has come up, but I have been weaving too so here is an update:

Rugs for the “Hearth” exhibit at Confluence Gallery, which ran for about 5 weeks and ended on October 8.  Some of these pictures go back to the last half of August, as I was getting inventory together for the show.  They sold 11 rugs and 2 shawls for me, which was wonderful!  Rick also sold his coffee table with the antique grate in the top.

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Rugs for the “Ponderosa Pine” show at Winthrop Gallery, which just came down this week.  Sold two of these, plus a shawl.

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Custom order rugs, wider at 36″ instead of my usual 32″ wide:

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Another set of mohair & boucle shawls, in a warp colorway I am calling “Blue Parrot”:

Blue Parrot warp on the loom

Blue Parrot shawl being woven

Woven in Ebony & Mahogany

Woven in Lagoon and Peacock

Here are the yarns I will start putting on today for some more shawls in a purple colorway:

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There is a new theme show opening at the Winthrop Gallery this week, with the title “Ponderosa Pine”.  I wanted to try weaving some mats with pine needle clusters as “weft” but just ran out of energy, time and loom availability to pull that off.  Maybe I will explore that over the winter.  The pine needles may be too brittle, especially the tips, but I saw something in a Swedish weaving book using bundles of rushes that gave me the idea.

Meanwhile, I finished off the current rug warp making a few more for the “Hearth” exhibit at Confluence Gallery, and two for the “Ponderosa Pine” exhibit in appropriate colors.  I am having fun using the new materials I got at the Pendleton Woolen Mill last June!

I also finished 4 shawls on a new mohair boucle warp, the third set so far.  One was woven with Jaggerspun 4/8 Zephyr  (50% wool/50% tussah silk) in the color “Sable” and I have put it in the Ponderosa Pine show.

They have sold 5 rugs (maybe more) down at Confluence Gallery since the show opened and now I am out of rug warp and need to re-warp the loom this week just to try to keep up!  Not a bad problem to have, but still…

Here are the other shawls just completed.

This one is woven with Jaggerspun Organic Wool in color “Lagoon”:

and this one and one other (which came out a little shorter, so I am keeping it for myself) were woven with Jaggerspun 4/8 Zephyr in color “Peacock”:

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I finished another four shawls last week, this time using a combination of 5 colorways of Claudia Handpainted Yarns kid mohair boucle (long discontinued) plus one skein of Naturally of New Zealand kid mohair boucle (also discontinued).  The wefts were from Jaggerspun Yarns in Maine.  I have a wholesale account and buy it on 1-lb cones.  I also used doubled Rowan Kidsilk Haze or equivalent for the accent stripes every 3 inches or so.

4/8 Zephyr (50% fine merino, 50% silk) in Plum and Mahogany:

Green Line Organic Wool in Eggplant and Stone:

These are unbelievably soft, lightweight and drapey.  Yum!

A couple of weeks ago I put the third and final warp for the plaited twill scarves onto my loom down at the weaving guild room.  The warp is 5/2 perle cotton and the wefts are 8/2 tencel used doubled.  The tencel is mostly from WEBS – their Valley Yarns 8/2 Tencel.  This week I started weaving on them; there will be seven scarves total.  So far I have finished two, in black and navy, and started the third one in grey blue.  I really like this color and may make two, one to sell and one for me!

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