More March Color

Major chill hit Charlevoix last night.  The wind off Lake Michigan has made it quite bitter today.  Since it was partly cloudy today, Carolyn and I thought it would be a good day for some sunset shots with the waves on Lake Michigan.  I got some good shots, but my fingers found it hard to push camera buttons, because it was so cold.

The waves are really blowing in off Little Traverse Bay.  Harbor Springs is barely visible to the north, across the bay.

The water doesn't look as rough here.  The photo was taken from the same spot as the picture above, but facing west.  This spot was a bit more protected from the wind.

Lake Michigan from the beach at the foot of Dixon St. in Charlevoix.  There is still a lot of ice build-up on the breakwall to the Pine River Channel.  The lighthouse and St. Mary's Cement plant are in the background. 

The sky is beautiful behind St. Mary's.  There have been some awesome sunsets lately.

The lighthouse from the other side of the channel at the Lake Michigan beach.  The waves are starting to die down a bit. 

Join in the color challenge that Sue started on her blog at http://lifeloomslarge.blogspot.com/.

Working on Linen Samples

I've been working on my linen samples for the last few days after coming home from work.  They were going ok, but I was having trouble with an even beat.

The dense area in the top pattern area was what concerned me.   This sample was a 20/1 linen, sleyed at 28 epi.  I showed it to Kati Meek, online, and she thought it looked a bit sleezy (not a tight enough weave) and suggested I sett it a little closer together.

I tried that this evening, changing the sett to 32 epi.  It definitely helped with making the plain weave tighter.  The first sample looks quite a bit better.  I think that once the wet finishing is completed, most of the reed marks will disappear.

I'm so thankful to learn about the live weight tensioning.  It has made weaving on the tiny loom much more enjoyable with not having to get up after every inch of weaving to release the brake.

Kati sent a message that her reprinted book, Warp With a Trapeze and Dance With Your Loom, is now available.  Here is a link to order a copy:
http://katimeek.blogspot.com/

I haven't decided on my next project.  In fact, I don't even have one concrete idea in my head.  I think clearing out some excess accumulation of "stuff" may be a priority, and as soon as it gets a little warmer outside, I have flower beds in need of thinning out, weeding, and mulching.

Bed is calling.  I have to get up early for work tomorrow.

Colors of March in Charlevoix, Michigan

Colors from nature during the different seasons can provide color inspiration for weaving.  Bob, Carolyn and I took a walk with our cameras a couple days ago. The challenge came from the following blog: http://lifeloomslarge.blogspot.com/ 
Check it out and add your colors of March.

The snowdrops are the first flowers to bloom, often coming up through the snow.  These are right by the back step.

The first crocus in my yard.

Canada geese have started to arrive.  They found a spot of open water on Susan Lake.

Ice on Susan Lake.  Still lots of greys and browns.

Moss on an old silo foundation.

Pinecones blanket the ground under the blue spruce trees.

The stump of our Christmas tree.

Nest

 Daffodils almost ready to bloom

Lichen on a rock

Lustrous Linen Class with Kati Meek

What a great three days spent with author, weaver and teacher, Kati Meek.  Kati has written a couple books that I know of, and I highly recommend them.  I've added a link to her blog. 
Kati Meek's Blog
Any information from a weaver as skilled as she is would be valuable for any weaver's library.  I'm waiting to be able to purchase a copy of her book, Warp With a Trapeze and Dance With Your Loom, which is in the process of being reprinted right now.  It should be available very soon, so contact her or your local weaving store to get on their order list.


Most of the weavers I know live downstate, where the class was held, so I was able to see some of my weaving friends, plus the added bonus of meeting new ones.

If anyone is interested in learning how to put a warp on their loom under tension with the trapeze, make sure you find out where her next class will be.  I know Kati will be teaching a tartan class at the Campbell School in Brasstown, NC later in the year.  She says she always includes how to use the trapeze and how to use live weight tensioning on the loom in all her classes. 

The class was all about weaving with fine linen.  Since my loom was the demo loom, I took it unwarped, with my only preparation being to get the warp measured into two even bouts, choke tied and with a cross.  It was put into two plastic grocery bags tied shut with the cross hanging out.  The whole first day was pretty much taken up with learning the trapeze method of beaming the warp.  If it wasn't for all the photos I took, I doubt if I could have remembered everything.  I really do need to get her book!

Kati's finished linens that she brought with her were beautiful.  She is such an artisan!  They all were beautiful, but my favorite was an Atwater-Bronson lace cloth.  I've shown a couple photos of it with a blue cloth behind it to make the pattern visible.

I wasn't very happy when I realized I didn't bring my camera charger with me, so I had to settle for using my camera phone.  The quality of the photos leaves a little to be desired.


Kati's threading techniques were great, teaching us to be more efficient with our movements.  Using the auto denter was interesting also.  With a bit of practice, it could make sleying the reed very speedy.

I brought a little table loom on a treadle stand that Bob had made.  It is convenient for traveling to workshops, but isn't the greatest for weaving, because I can't weave very much before having to get up to release the brake and wind the cloth forward.

With the live weight tensioning that Kati taught, I didn't have to get up to wind.  It is definitely a technique I will try on all my looms.  I'll have to watch for some weight sets (barbells) at garage sales this spring.  The picture above isn't my loom, but shows how the live weight is attached using water bottles.

Well, Bob just got home from work.  I haven't seen him in a few days, so I'm going to spend a couple hours with him before he has to go to his Up North Big Band gig. Up North Big Band, Walloon Lake, Michigan

And the Winner is Blue (Weft)!

I had a day off today, so was able to clean my kitchen and finish the scarf.

The weft winner was blue!  I was the only one to put a vote in on time.  I love rayon chenille scarves because they are so soft.
















My new little floor (formerly table) loom worked fine, although I will probably decide to do a bit of tweeking on the tie-ups once it is all put back together.  The stand is now disassembled in the basement, waiting for stain and varnish.

 

Sample for chenille scarf

The loom stand is finished enough for testing.  I wound a warp for a rayon chenille scarf and wove about 8-10 inches with white, blue and black weft.

The sample on the right of the serger stitching is not washed and is quite stiff.

The sample on the left of the serger stitching has been washed and dried in the dryer.  It is nice and soft.  I'm having a hard time deciding whether to use the black weft or the medium blue(above the little tail of white yarn).



I'm leaning toward the medium blue because I like how the blue varigated stripe looks.

Table Loom Stand About Ready to Test

Bob is just about finished with the small table loom stand with treadles.  Tomorrow, I will wind a scarf warp to test it and see if we need to make any adjustments.  A nice chenille scarf sounds nice, since it is still so wintry up here.

I'm tying up the treadles with tex-solve cord but need about 2 more yards of it.   I will have to make do with some heavy linen cord for three of the tie-ups until I can get some more cord.

I'm pretty sure there will be some adjustments needed because the left couple treadles are a lot harder to raise than the others.

All in all, for not having any measurements to go by, I think it is turning out pretty well. 

Once the testing is done and adjusted, I will stain the stand to match the loom and then get some varnish on it.

It cost us about $50 to purchase the maple wood and some hardware and the cord, and now I will have another six treadle, four harness floor loom that will be portable enough to take to workshops.  It's just in time for taking to the linen workshop on March 10-12th.

Rug album completed

I took a little time today to add another photo album to my Facebook.  This newest album is a record of the rugs I have woven since I started weaving 5 years ago.
Handwoven rugs link to album.

Here are a few of my favorites.  This one was one of the most recent, finished last summer.  There were four rugs from this warp.  I used rug warp that I already had and the weft was a heavy cotton in a bundle of five or six strands in greens and oranges. 

If you click on the photo, you can see that the wide warp stripes are alternating burgundy and forest green in one stripe, and turquoise and blue in the second stripe.  They are separated by narrow white stripes. Because my warp colors alternate, I can keep any of the four warp colors on top by throwing a pic of narrow yarn between each pic of the heavy bundled yarn.  When I wanted the alternate color on top, I just skipped one pic of the narrow yarn.  It opens up all kinds of possibilities for color changes.  Threading green, burgundy, etc. in one stripe and burgundy, green, etc. in another stripe (as long as the stripes are an even number of threads) can also create another color in the same row. 

A huge cabinet of the weft yarn, in many "Fiesta" colors, was given to me by a wonderful friend when she was preparing to move to an apartment.  Three of the rugs were sold to help fund a church mission trip to Kentucky.

 This Giant Fancy Twill pattern caught my eye in one of the first weaving books I had lent to me when I first started weaving.  It was in the book, Weaving, Spinning and Dyeing, by Rachel Brown, page 176.  I was quite new to weaving when I wove it, and have since learned many things that I would do differently now, but the main thing that still makes it a favorite are the colors.  It was fun planning it out to get a nice mix, and I would do the colors like this again if I ever repeated this pattern.

A valuable class that I took a while ago was taught by Jason Collingwood.  The following sampler of techniques was done after I came home from the class.  It is also woven with the free heavy cotton yarn that my friend gave to me.  Most rugs of this type are woven with wool, but I wanted to see how some of the "Fiesta" colors would work up.  Unfortunately, I was testing it on the end of a rug warp and it wasn't enough to make a complete rug.

Colors of winter

I was reading someone's blog where it was suggested to take some pictures of the colors of the season or month for weaving inspiration.  It was a beautiful day out today, a little above freezing, so Bob and I took a walk with our cameras.  Here is a link to the challenge site:  Life Looms Large

As my photos show, we still have a lot of white up here!  It looks so pretty with the spruce trees and was so sparkling this morning when it was still pretty cold.

Two of our old sugar maples are "dying" to be tapped.  If they had, the sap would have been pouring out of them today.  The day was perfect for sap running, with above freezing temperature and a beautiful sunny day.

All of the old maples are dying.  This one especially needs to be taken down.  It is right next to our drive and the road and it already lost one huge limb in a storm a couple years ago.  We used to put two or three taps in this tree when it was healthier.

I love the different colors of brown and gray of these old trees.  This old sugar maple is so big we usually put four taps on it. It's about four feet in diameter.   I wanted to tap this year, but Bob doesn't think we will have enough time to boil maple syrup.  I'd like to at least do a couple gallons.  We are all out, and I miss having it in the pantry to use.

A little bit of Susan Lake can be seen to the right of the tree trunk.  The lake is still completely frozen.  

Snow doesn't really appear white unless the sun is on it.  This is close to sunset, and with the deer tracks and tree shadows, the colors are various shades of gray and blue-gray.  The snow is still pretty deep as you can see by the drag marks from the deer hoofs.

 

The birch trees are very beautiful, especially with a backdrop of cedar or a sunset.

 

Our old pear tree looks like it has been tapped hundreds of times--by woodpeckers! Interesting grays and browns and a touch of Norway Spruce green in the background.  

A close-up of a dried mullein plant with a backdrop of snow.  Still quite a lot of white and brown and gray and lots of texture.  As beautiful as all of this is, I'm looking forward to the addition of some spring green and daffodil yellow to the outdoor pallet.

Stand for My Table Loom

It is so nice to have a husband that is handy.  I have been wanting stands for my two table looms for quite some time.  Last weekend, Bob and I went to a local hardwood place and purchased enough maple to make both stands.  He has been working on the first one off and on this week, and finally progressed as far as attaching the loom to the stand.  The legs angling off the back of the loom are  ones someone else added to the loom.  It was fine for getting the loom off a table, but it was still hand operated to raise the harnesses.

Bob gets the night off tonight to go visit a friend, but hopefully he can start the treadles tomorrow after he gets out of work.  This is the test project, since we are just going from a picture with no measurements.  If this one works well, he will make another one for the wider loom.  If adjustments need to be made, at least he won't have to change both loom stands.

It will be so nice to have a handy loom to take to workshops, or to weave narrow projects such as scarves.  I hate tying up my bigger looms for those kinds of projects, but hate weaving on a hand operated table loom.  It's way too slow.

I signed up to take a linen class, taught by Kati Meek, early in March.  I may be asking for too much to have both loom stands done by March 9th, but am hoping they are. Then I can decide whether to take the 15" or the 22" loom.