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Not Quite Crackle

Posted in Methow Valley, weaving on August 30, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Before I go into the weaving saga, let me just say that things have calmed down considerably here at our home since my last post. There was an article on regional fire activity yesterday (Saturday August 29) on Methow Valley News Online if you want more information. There is still some bad stuff going on in the lower Methow Valley, over in the Okanogan Valley, and around Lake Chelan. It was terribly smoky here this past week and we had to stay inside as much as possible and not leave any windows open. But our area is back to level 1 “be alert” and we have moved back in and brought the Airstream home. We had some rain and wind yesterday and the air this morning is lovely and clear. They are hoping to open the North Cascades Highway today, although there may be occasional closures due to mud and rock slides, continuing fire fighting efforts, etc.

This past week I have been down at our weaving guild room putting a towel warp on the loom I keep there. It is a project from a 1994 Handwoven magazine called Country Rustic Towels. This was re-published by Interweave Press in “Best of Handwoven – A Dozen Projects in 8/2 Cotton” which I purchased as an eBook (PDF download) back in 2012. So that was the source I was using to set up my project. It is a Crackle Weave structure, which is something I have not done before. There are 4 blocks or units and each color stripe is a different block, with what is called an “incidental” or transition warp end between blocks.

I brought my AVL warping wheel down there and wound a 12-yard warp onto the sectional beam.

Country Rustic warp on the loom

Threaded it, sleyed the reed, tied it up and started weaving the first towel yesterday morning.

What’s wrong with this picture?

The pattern is shifted by one thread! I went over and over what I had done, and yes, it matched the published instructions perfectly. Then I went to our guild library shelves and got out the original Jan/Feb 1994 Handwoven magazine. It turns out they edited the original pattern and did indeed add some useful information. But they got one thing backwards – the warp color order chart! Actually it is just a little thing – it should start with 13 blue threads on the right, and end with 12 blue threads on the left, not the other way around. It is correct in the original instructions, but not in the Dozen Projects in 8/2 Cotton book.

I consulted with another guild member, and we agreed it is most obvious in the light gray stripes. She suggested that I finish the first towel, then selectively replace some of the warp threads on either side of the gray stripes to at least improve the appearance (I have 10 towels to go, mind you). That would mean having extra weighted threads hanging off the back for the rest of the weaving. When I left last night, that was my plan.

But at 3:30 this morning, during an awake period, I decided to bite the bullet and re-thread the darn thing. That will fix all of the blocks, not just make the gray ones look better. And it won’t be as hard as the original threading, as I already know it is threaded correctly. I will have to remove the left-most blue thread, then go through from left to right moving all the rest of the threads over one heddle. Then add one new blue thread on the right.

If only I knew more about crackle weave, I would have realized when I started threading the heddles that the transition threads were the wrong color. That would have been the chance to remove the left-most thread and add one at the right, before I started threading. But no, I was being a “blind follower”. Live and learn!

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New Steps, New Rugs, New Scarf

Posted in home life, knitting, weaving on May 20, 2015| 2 Comments »

We finally found a great guy who is an experienced carpenter, but only looking for small jobs when he is in the valley. We have a couple of projects to do around here, and first up will be exterior stairs to parts of the deck. The house wasn’t quite finished when we bought it 4 years ago, and the “steps” were very temporary.

These are designed to match the stairs for our main entry under the breezeway, that Rick did last fall. Those have wooden treads, as they are under cover. The rest of them will get snow and ice, which we don’t want to pile up all winter on wooden treads. The stringers are done and awaiting metal stair treads which we are getting from Alpine Welding in Twisp.

Off the front corner leading to guest and trailer parking

Two stairs off the back porch, one from the French doors and one leading to the woodpile

Weaving rugs again now, to get some inventory out to the galleries for the summer, and use up my stash of Pendleton wool selvage material.

R216

R217

R218

R219

R220

R221

And I finished knitting this lovely shawlette, using my silk/wool handspun yarn: “Magrathea” by Martina Behm. I had very little yarn left over!

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Four Shawls & A Cowl

Posted in knitting, weaving on April 14, 2015| 1 Comment »

This week I finished the four shawls for my guild’s challenge project. As previously noted, these were all done on the same warp of 20/2 mercerized cotton, and the same threading (extended manifold twill) and tie-up. But I used different treadlings for each one, and different materials and colors as well. They seemed rather stiff right off the loom, but after washing and pressing they have a lovely hand and drape.

Pattern weft: brown 8/2 rayon used doubled, Tabby weft: 20/2 mercerized cotton, changing color every pattern repeat

Pattern weft: variegated 8/2 tencel used doubled, Tabby weft: 10/2 tencel

Pattern weft: solid teal 8/2 tencel used doubled, Tabby weft: 10/2 tencel

Pattern weft: variegated 8/2 tencel used doubled, Tabby weft: 10/2 tencel

I had enough warp left to weave this cloth (table mat?) in black 5/2 pearl cotton with a 20/2 gray pearl cotton tabby weft. Used the same treadling as the 4th shawl above.

front side

back side

On the knitting front, I just finished a cowl using some of my handspun yarn. It was a 2-ply and approx. laceweight. One of the singles was spun from a merino/tencel dyed top from Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks. The other was merino/cashmere in the same colorway. These are dyed in a regular repeating color sequence, which I was careful to preserve in the spinning. When plied together, the same colors lined up pretty well so I got this nice soft striping when knitting with it.

The pattern is “Zuzu’s Petals” by Carina Spencer (available on Ravelry or her website). I was pretty much getting gauge on the recommended needle size, even with the handspun. But I tried it on when partway done and decided it was fitting a little too close around my neck, so I took it back to the point where you quit knitting back and forth and join in the round to begin the lace chart. Then continued the stockinette part with the same increases until I had added 24 more stitches (two 12-st repeats of the lace) then went on and joined in the round and finished it up. I think it works much better for me, or at least in this yarn.

I just love this little cowl – it may be my favorite thing I have knit this year!

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Silk Tie Soiree

Posted in dyeing, weaving on April 10, 2015| 3 Comments »

Yesterday was a really fun day at the guild room. We have been planning to do a group project, which was to learn how to dye silk scarf blanks by transferring dye from recycled silk neckties. We collected a bunch of neckties from various sources and ordered 11″ x 60″ silk charmeuse scarf blanks from Dharma Trading Co. A couple of women from the Seattle Weavers’ Guild came over to visit and lead us through the process (there are also some YouTube videos out there that are pretty good).

Basically you lay out a piece of muslin bigger than your scarf (a couple of inches on each side), then lay the washed and ironed scarf on it, right side up. It takes about 3 neckties worth to cover one end of the scarf in a pattern. Don’t open up the ties, just remove the labels, as you want fabric on both sides – although you do need to remove the wide end as there isn’t fabric on both sides in that area. Fold the other end of the scarf over, to sandwich the necktie pattern between the 2 ends. Fold the muslin over, then roll the whole thing up and secure (but not too tightly) with cloth strips or string or something. The roll is placed in a hot water bath with vinegar in it and kept just below boiling for about 2o minutes. They tend to float so you have to come up with a way to keep them submerged!

Here we are starting our layouts:

This was mine:

and another one:

One very interesting thing was that the color of the necktie doesn’t necessarily predict how it will come out on the scarf! Some just transfer their dye more completely. Others transfer as a paler color, or a different color. So there is a definite element of serendipity to this whole process. But they all came out really cool.

mine is the one on the right

I have more neckties and scarf blanks here at home, so will be doing more of these!

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A Learning Experience

Posted in weaving on April 1, 2015| 4 Comments »

Our guild has an annual “challenge” project which we work on throughout the year (read: at the last minute) and the results are presented in April. This year the theme is “Twill”. I decided to use drafts #263-268 in Carol Strickler’s “A Weaver’s Book of 8-Shaft Patterns”. This is an extended manifold twill from the Bateman manuscript (draft 201 in Shuttle Craft Guild Monograph 40). The Strickler book offers additional treadling variations.

In March I got started, intending to weave a series of 4 scarves to try out different materials, colors and treadling variations. I did all the calculations for an 8-inch wide, 12-yard long warp using 20/2 mercerized cotton sett at 30 epi. Then I wound the warp using my AVL warping wheel, to put it on my sectional beam on the 32″ Macomber loom. First major error: I forgot I was winding 2 threads at a time (using 2 cones of close colors, natural and a pale tan). Using the counter on the warping wheel, I wound as many times as I should have for a SINGLE thread, and got twice as many warp ends in each section as I needed. So now I had enough warp on there for a 16-inch wide piece, but crammed into 8-inches on the sectional beam. And I didn’t even realize it until I was partway across threading the heddles. Oops.

But this did turn into a learning experience! My advisors at the guild told me to finish the threading and then sley the reed, which would spread it out to the full 16″. Then wind it forward onto the front cloth beam, inserting sticks frequently to keep it from getting too mushy and stuck together. Then spread it out in the back and re-attach it onto the cords for the requisite number of sections on the sectional beam. Wind it back onto that beam using lease sticks in the cross in front of the reed, to provide needed tension. That was a sweaty palm day, let me tell you. But by golly it worked (with a few broken threads along the way). So now I am making shawls instead of scarves.

Here is the first one. The pattern weft was 8/2 brown rayon used double. The tabby weft is 20/2 mercerized cotton, same as used for the warp. I was afraid it would be a little boring so I changed the color of the tabby weft every complete pattern repeat – pale tan, natural and a medium gray. The treadling was the original one from Bateman and is #264 in Strickler. I wanted to finish this one completely, through the washing and pressing phase, to make sure it had the right drape, before moving on to the remaining three shawls. It feels good!

Notice how different the other side looks:

and a close-up of the pattern:

Last week I finished the second one, but it is still on the loom. I took a picture when I first started it, though. The pattern weft is variegated 8/2 tencel used double (from WEBS) and the tabby weft is 10/2 tencel in gold. This is treadling variation #266 in Strickler.

I am now working on the third one, using solid color teal 8/2 tencel used double for pattern weft, and 10/2 tencel in color “tussah” for the tabby weft. This is treadling variation #268 in Strickler.

I will post more pictures in a couple of weeks when they are off the loom and finished!

We are having an early spring and the hills, and our yard, are greening up. There are wildflowers out, and birds coming to nest. They expect to have the North Cascades Hwy open by the end of the week, which is about a month earlier than normal! Of course, that does mean the snowpack is low….

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Two Stockings

Posted in knitting, weaving on December 12, 2014| 2 Comments »

A few months back, one of my neighbors asked me if I could knit two Christmas stockings for her new daughter-in-law and her youngest grandchild. It seems this is a family tradition that was started by her husband’s mother, and there are 18 of these stockings out there, all the same pattern. But she didn’t have the pattern – it had been lost after the two family members who had knitted the previous ones had passed away.

All she could do was give me her son’s stocking as an example:

Well, I have to tell you that intarsia knitting (knit-in separate motifs) is one of my least favorite things to do. But she is a good friend and I couldn’t see how she was going to find anyone else who could not only knit it, but also deconstruct the original stocking to come up with a pattern.

So I did a bunch of examining and stitch counting and charting (using Excel) and went to work. It turns out they were knit flat and seamed up the back, down as far as the heel shaping – because of the intarsia motifs. There are ways you can knit intarsia in the round and I considered that, but decided it was more hassle than it was worth. The foot can’t be knit in the round until you are done with the wreath motif on the instep (top of foot) so the part of the foot after the heel shaping, and the rest of the instep, are both knit flat and then seamed together. So only the last red and green parts of the foot were knit in the round.

I didn’t knit the names in as intarsia either – just knit the white section at the top, then used duplicate stitch with the green to add the names. Much easier!

I definitely had “second sock syndrome” by the time I was done with them. As in, sick and tired of knitting that second sock. But they turned out well, here they are with one in profile and one with the top facing so you can see the wreath:

And the two of them with the original (my neighbor is going to sew the jingle bells on):

Now she has a pattern and charts, just in case they ever need another one. I won’t be knitting it.

I have also been a little scarf-weaving factory the last couple of weeks. Put on three 21-yard warps using some handpaint mohair boucle and brushed mohair yarns from New Zealand that I picked up when a business changed hands several years ago. This is actually much easier than it may sound, using my AVL warping wheel and winding directly on to the sectional warp beam. A 21-yard warp is just enough for me weave 10 scarves on the same warp colorway, each about 65″ plus fringe after washing. The scarves themselves are just plain weave with a hemstitched edge and fringe. I used mostly rayon chenille for the wefts, but also some Jaggerspun “Green Line” wools on some of them, and natural black alpaca on a couple of them. They are all out at the Winthrop Gallery, Confluence Gallery, and the holiday gift show at Local 98856 in Twisp.

Didn’t get pictures of all of them, but here is the last set of 10 drying on a rack:

We had a decent snow 2 weeks ago, then it stayed very cold for a while. Then, it rained a lot this week and stayed just above freezing during the day – so now the snow is a mess and it is really icy and dangerous to walk on. Yuck. I do hope we go back to normal snow soon, for the sake of the ski trail system!

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Bazaar happenings

Posted in home life, Methow Valley, weaving on November 29, 2014| 2 Comments »

My Dad rather pointedly reminded me that I haven’t posted since the one titled “A Month Went By” – and that was over a month ago. Well, it’s not like I haven’t been doing anything.

The end of October brought the Seattle Weavers’ Guild sale. I didn’t go over for it this year, but did send my handspun wraps and some Mosaic Mojo hats over to a friend to take in for me. I sold 4 hats but nothing else – my friend brought what remained out to me at an annual knitting retreat I have been attending for decades. That was a lot of fun, as always – 4 days of hanging out with old friends, knitting (and going out for some nice dinners in Port Townsend). There is always a de-stashing sale and I once again pared down my knitting yarn collection – although it is still SABLE (stash acquired beyond life expectancy). I also sold three of my handspun wraps! To say I was thrilled doesn’t quite cover it.

Gone, but not forgotten. Of the 9 shawls I made in the late spring with my handspun, I now only have 3 left. Considering I wasn’t sure I would sell ANY of them, I am quite pleased!

Right after I got home, we went down to Wenatchee for Rick’s knee replacement surgery on Nov 4th. That went very well and he is now about 3-1/2 weeks out and definitely on the road to recovery.

When we got back to the Methow, I went to work on finalizing the rugs I was making for the winter show at the Confluence Gallery in Twisp – the title of the show is “In A Land of Snow and Indigo”. Now, imagine a winter wonderland: the quiet of snow, shadows stretching across the horizon, cold, crisp air, and magnificent icicle stalactites. Peer from the warmth of your home through the windows or reflect on a day of snowy adventure – artists tell us what they see. I made some rugs that I thought would would work color-wise – and there’s nothing like a cozy wool rug underfoot in the winter!

Rick was actually up to attending the opening on Nov 15th, having moved off the walker and only using a cane at that point. He lasted for about half an hour before getting too uncomfortable to stand, but I think he enjoyed getting out of the house for the first time and visiting with folks.

The next event up was Methow Valley Spinners & Weavers Guild annual “show and sale”, which is always the weekend before Thanksgiving. We made some extra efforts at advertising this year, adding some radio ads on our local station KTRT “The Root” to our local paper ad and putting up posters around town. Don Ashford at KTRT does a fabulous job with his ads (97.5 FM if you are over here). We also had a reporter from the Methow Valley News come by the guild room the week before the sale, and the resulting picture was on the front page of the MV News:

photo by Laurelle Walsh

We also had a reporter for the Wenatchee World come by with a photographer and wound up with a story about our guild on the front page of that paper the week before the sale! The link no longer seems to be working, so you just have to trust me on this one.

Here are some pictures I took of the weaving guild room after we set up for the sale:

For several weeks before the sale, I wove 10 towels on my loom at the guild room, finishing off the warp I had put on for the Robyn Spady workshop in September. I tried quite a few of the treadlings/patterns we had covered in the class, so each one was different. My threading was for overshot, what we learned was how to get additional kinds of patterns by changing the tie-up and treadling.

Lace with overshot borders in a cotton/linen blend

Lace with blue overshot borders

Lace with brown overshot borders

Summer & Winter Fashion – Pairs

Summer & Winter Fashion – Dukagang

Monk’s Belt

Double-Faced borders and plain weave in nubbly cotton

Shadow Fashion borders and plain weave in nubbly cotton

all-over Shadow Fashion

one of the Twill treadlings

For the last 6 weeks or so, I have also been on a roll to make these “fiber beads”, which I am making into earrings for the holiday sales season. I did some up using my handspun yarn especially for the guild sale. These have been a lot of fun, and something I can do in the house in the evenings while hanging out with Rick and the cats (and the nice warm fire). Rick made me the display racks a day or two before he went into knee surgery!

Well anyway, we had quite a good turnout for the guild sale, and I personally did very well – 17 towels (including all the new ones), 7 scarves, 5 rugs, 3 pairs of earrings. That’s the good news and the bad news! Now I have low inventory and commitments to Winthrop Gallery, Confluence Gallery and the holiday gift show coming up next week at Local 98856 in Twisp.

So now I am weaving more scarves.

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A Month Went By

Posted in home life, Uncategorized, weaving on October 16, 2014| 4 Comments »

I guess I just haven’t been in a blogging mood lately, but am shocked to see it has been over a month since my last post! Here is an attempt to catch up a little.

Our guild had a 2-day workshop with Robyn Spady, something we had booked back in the spring. I was the chief organizer and it seemed like a lot of work at the time, but it went well. Robyn stayed here with me and Rick, and she is very personable and easy to talk to. The workshop was her “Extreme Warp Makeover” class, in which you choose one of three threadings (overshot, rosepath twill, or huck lace) and then learn how you can “make over” that threading by changing treadling sequences and wefts. It includes a very comprehensive bound notebook that covers all three threadings.

We set up our looms ahead of time at the guild room. It seems that the usual thing to do is put on a relatively narrow and natural color warp, but many of us chose to use color or put in stripes of color to see what happened. Also some of us put on a wide and long enough warp to weave some towels after the class sampler was done. Robyn seemed surprised and excited to see the color choices!

Each day included two lecture sessions, and a lot of weaving:

In the evening of the second day, we had a potluck here at our house so everyone in the guild (not just those in the workshop) would have a chance to meet Robyn and have some good conversations.

On the home front, we are getting ready for winter – especially since Rick is having a total knee replacement on Nov 4th and he won’t be able to do much of anything around here for a while after that. There was all the wood, cut into rounds, from the pine trees we had taken down – fortunately a friend wants that, so he has been coming over to pick it up and haul it away. We raked up copious quantities of pine needles and hauled them to the burn pile area. Had a bit of a burn pile going last weekend (VERY CAREFULLY). The 2 cords of fir firewood we had delivered in August, is now all split and stored in the wood shed.

And we have new front steps! Still need a temporary handrail to get us through the winter. These replace the 2 timbers that were just sort of stacked there on concrete blocks, when we bought the place 4 years ago. They have a shorter rise (3 steps instead of 2) and a nice long deep tread.

And I have still been weaving away on rugs at home – finished the first warp with the below:

R192

R193 & R194 (2 alike)

Then I put on a new warp in early September, and the first 5 rugs were at a 40″ width, as I had a special order for one that wide.

R195 (40″ wide, special order)

R196 (40″ wide)

R197 & R198 (40″, 2 alike)

R199 (40″ wide)

I had 12 yards on the sectional beam at the 40″ width, so when the extra 4″ on each side ran out, I was back to 32″ wide for the rest I have woven to date:

R200 & R201 (to go with R195 special order)

R202 & R203 (2 alike)

R204

R205 & R206

Still have a lot of rug warp left, so I will keep picking away at these. But I am planning to put a scarf warp on my other loom at home and do something else for a change!

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Summer Rugs

Posted in weaving on September 2, 2014| 1 Comment »

So back to our regular programming….

I was weaving along from the end of July until early August, when there was a hiatus due to a trip to Seattle, getting ready for our huge Labor Day Weekend yard sale, and another trip to Seattle – and then the actual yard sale.

These rugs were all done at my standard 30″ width.

R182 & R183 – Fiesta fringe and olive green wooly worms – SOLD

R184 – fire color alternated with red wooly worms – SOLD

R185 – fire color alternated with dark red & navy wooly worms

R186 – a long rug, gray fringe alternated with colorful wooly worms

R187 – brown & teal fringe alternated with complementary wooly worms

R188 & R189 – bands of charcoal fringe alternated with bands of wooly worms in a color progression

R190 – bands of black & color fringe alternated with bands of wooly worms in a color progression

In some ways, life is getting back to normal. Most of the upper valley is untouched, of course, and it is getting to be the kind of beautiful fall that we so love here. But to quote our friend whose ravine washed out in the flood: “The weather here is beautiful now, and if you weren’t looking at burned landscape and dried mud, many feet deep and deeply scoured ravines, it looks beautifully pastoral.” We met more people this weekend at the yard sale, who had lost everything and are still dealing with insurance companies, and where they are going to live for the winter, etc. I just can’t imagine what that must be like, or how we would deal with the kind of clean-up our friends up Benson Creek are facing.

By the way, here is an aerial video of the most severely flooded areas from Thursday 7/21’s heavy rains and the breaching of the 3 dams in the Wenner Lakes. It is 17 minutes long and takes you over much of the middle valley that burned and flooded, and tells you where you are throughout the flight. http://vimeo.com/104463724

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Wider Rugs

Posted in weaving on August 9, 2014| 1 Comment »

After I finished Teri’s Rugs, I had enough warp at the 36″ width to finish four more for the galleries. I kind of like this width, and may return to it on the next warp. I am weaving now with selvages and wooly worms I bought at the Pendleton Woolen Mill Outlet store in Milwaukee, OR last September. Selvages are produced during the weaving process, and are available in three different weights. Blanket weight selvage is the heaviest, thickest type of selvage. Worsted weight selvage is the finest, lightest type of selvage. Flannel weight selvage falls between the two. The ones I bought last fall are mostly lighter than blanket weight and seem like they might have been selvages from shirting material. Wooly worms are the selvage edges of finished blankets. They are generally in the 5-6 foot range in length and are most often between 1/4 inch and 1/2 inches wide.

These were all woven July 15-17, the week the Carlton Complex fires started. We lost power on the 17th. The “R” numbers are my way of keeping track of all the rugs I have woven since I started doing this around 2007. So R178 is the 178th rug I have woven!