Slowly Getting Back to Weaving Again

I can't believe I haven't written anything since the beginning of January.  I think the bears took a lot out of me, so I haven't been doing any weaving since Christmas.

On January 30th, I had a mild heart attack, but even a mild one has affected me quite a bit.  I was too tired to do much of anything for at least a week, and after I started back to work, I didn't have any energy once I got home.  I think my brain finally kicked in to where I can actually concentrate on something for more than a few minutes.

I finished winding the linen warp that I was working on when I had the attack, and got it onto the loom a couple days ago.  I did a little weaving yesterday, checking for threading errors (I found two) and was thankful that my Leclerc Fanny came with a few snap-in repair heddles.  They are so easy to use.

The linen I am working on is for some cloths to use at church for communion.  I threaded an Atwater-Bronson lace, and then designed a cross to weave in the center, using a pick-up technique.  It took a bit of thinking, but finally figured out the treadling sequence for the pick-up.  I have to push two treadles to get a single shaft to rise on my counterbalance loom.  I could have done a direct tie-up, but I didn't feel like crawling under the loom to change the treadles, so what I figured out works for me.

Anyway, here is a photo of the cross, with as much as I could do tonight.  I have about 12 more pattern rows to finish.  It went faster than I anticipated, so maybe I can finish it tomorrow if I'm not too tired after work.

The x's on the design weave plain weave, and the lace is all around the cross and in the center of it.  It will show up much better after the cloth has been wet finished.  The lace threads will migrate toward each other, and leave larger lacy holes.

Here is a larger photo of my design, and a close-up of the bottom of the cross.  Clicking on the photos will enlarge them.

It feels good to be weaving again!

Teaching Our Daughter-in-law to Weave

It's always enjoyable having our daughter-in-law Rebecca come up with Edwin.  She is always interested in learning something new.  The last few times, we have gone out to the studio and I have shown her some simple weaving.  This time, she is working on the Atwater-Bronson lace pick-up.  After about 4 picks of needing to beat harder, she caught right on.

I showed her how to read the pattern for the pick-up, on the clipboard next to her, and then showed her how the pattern works.  It didn't take her long at all to memorize the treadling.

She has finished over half of the four rows of blocks! 

While Rebecca was weaving, I finished all the hems on the three towels and dishrag.  I like how they turned out.  To me, they have a vintage look to them, especially with the colors, and the one that has the small border.

Here is a close-up of the details of my variations.  Click the picture to make it bigger.  The dishrag was just woven with a straight 2/2 twill.  The colors are pretty true in these photos.

It's nice to have an extra day off tomorrow.  Maybe I will finish hemming one of my lace towels, and work on my fabric.

I would like to start planning some more yardage, wool, to make Teddy bears.  I'm debating using up some ugly yellow colored estate sale yarn in my stash.  I'm debating whether to dye it a better bear color before warping the loom.  I think I will do some calculations for warp length and width and wind the warp first, and then decide whether to dye it.  That way, I'll know for sure I have enought yarn dyed.

Current Loom Projects

I recently finished a looper rug that was on Fanny, but I'm not happy with it.  I had trouble with the stretchiness of the loops and it affected the width of the rug.  Usually weaving tends to get narrower, but this rug grew in width.  Oh, well, live and learn.  I can still wipe dirty feet on it at the back door!  The color isn't the best in the photo.  It should have been taken in daylight instead of at night.  It really isn't this yellow.

Yesterday, I wound a warp of thick and thin yarn that my daughter Rachel dyed a while back when she came to visit.   It is a short warp, only 3 1/2 yards of thick and thin cotton.  I put it on Fanny, and is destined for towels.  A towel from the Handwoven publication, Winning Towels from the 21st century towel contest was the inspiration for the warp stripes.  I tend to like things symetrical, so I'm not sure how I will like these.  I wish I hadn't made the widest blue stripe quite that wide, and put part of it on the left half instead.  I still need to thread the heddles and reed.  I will be weaving it with white in plain weave.  I'm not sure if my weft will be the thick and thin yarn, or a smooth one.  I will decide after I sample.

The fabric with wool warp and rayon weft is on Arti, and is coming along nicely.  I can't sit very long at a time to weave, so it is a bit slow, especially with the color changes.  I've got about 30" done.  I really need to get a bench or chair that doesn't bother the backs of my legs so much, and is padded.

Since this project is just fabric, I'm not worrying about yarn ends hanging out at the selvedges, or being carried up the edges.  I'm not sure what this fabric will become, but it is helping to use up some of my stash. 

Victoria still has a narrow warp from a doubleweave class I took a while ago.  I'm not too motivated to finish this project, since it was just for sampling in the class.  It is only about 10" wide, so not very useful, and I don't care for weaving on table looms.  When I decide I need the 8 harnesses for a project, I will probably finish it, or just pull it off.  I'd really like to add some treadles to the loom stand, but need to get Bob willing to help.

Dorothy has a pretty towel started on her, with Atwater-Bronson lace pickup.  My daughter-in-law Rebecca has been up a couple times, and is interested in learning about weaving.  She did the first row of hemstitching on this towel, and did a beautiful job for her first time.  The patterns that will be woven are on the clipboard in the background.  The bottom three are done.

This is a combination of two projects.  Quite a while ago, I decided to weave a bag with green rug warp and old video tapes.  It was  designed as I wove, so I have some twill in different directions, plus some plain weave, or basket weave.  It didn't have straps, so I never finished the bag. 

While my daughter-in-law was up at Easter, I showed her how to wind a warp and put it on the loom, thinking that it could be the straps, but I didn't like how it looked.  The warp was too narrow  for the heavy Fanny, so I scraped that project.  It did serve a good purpose, though, because Rebecca got a nice bit of experience on the loom with beaming the warp, threading, and weaving twill in two directions, and doing some basketweave.  Wish she could be around more.  I enjoy teaching her weaving.

I had a band of red and black that was done on my inkle loom quite a while ago when I was testing it after making the loom.  It has been hanging around, decorating my wall, but I've decided to use it for one of the bag straps, and I threaded another one.  Whenever I get that one completed, I will have a nifty conversation piece grocery bag.  I'm calling this  bag my Secret Message Bag, since the message is on the video tapes.

Enough projects and enough yacking for now, since I have to be to work early tomorrow.

Is our work really work, or is it play?

I ran across this on another weaver's blog, http://laurasloom.blogspot.com/2011/02/working-or-playing.html
I liked it so well, I am borrowing it, as she did, from James Mitchener.

Master in the Art of Living


As a master in the art of living
you draw no distinction between
your work and your play,
your labour and your leisure,
your mind and your body,
your education and your recreation,
your love and your religion.

You hardly know which is which.

You simply pursue your vision of
excellence through whatever you
are doing and leave it to others
to determine if you are working
or playing - to yourself
you are always doing both.

James Michener

I think anyone doing creative work, whether weaving, writing, drawing, painting, quilting, designing, or any other multitude of creative endevors would agree.

I've started on a more intricate pick-up design for lace. I'm still working on it, but you can see what it looks like partially finished.  I'll keep tweeking it, till I'm happy with it. Many of my designs only make it as far as paper.  We'll see if this one ever gets on a loom!
This one requires an odd number of blocks in order to center the design.  I'm figuring on 39 blocks, with 8 warp ends in each block.  I'm thinking of rethreading the loom with the remainder of my warp from my other projects, after a make a couple more towels.

I finished another towel with the pick-up technique.  Here is a close-up of one of the three stripes, the very simple design, and a look at the zig-zag or trellis hemstitching.  There are three stripes of lace, each 10 blocks wide, separated by an inch of plain weave.

Have a creative day!