While we wait

Having finished my scarf in record time and finding it admired despite the mistakes, and as if I haven't got enough to do, I'm planning my next project. If a buyer for the house materialises, well, they'll just have to take their turn!

Some time ago, I treated myself to a book by Elizabeth Wayland Barber, called "Women's Work". This is a book that investigates the use and develolpment of textiles from prehistoric times to the recent past and is a very good read. Among other things, she describes the use of magic numbers in various woven items and how these can be used to enhance the effect of light on the cloth. She talks about weaving with alternating groups of singles threads which are z and s spun and how this must have had some significance to the people who made them which is now lost to us. This fascinates me because I realise just how much  work is involved in planning a project and  brings home to me how much our prehistoric ancestors knew that perhaps we have forgotten.

I haven't woven with singles yarn before, let alone hand spun singles, but in my usual bull at a gate fashion, I'm going to have a go. I'm not sure whether I will be able to incorporate magic numbers as well, but we'll see.

For now, I'm starting with some lovely Tussah silk sliver from Adelaide Walker and I will need to find a way of ensuring that I spin to a consistent thickness, but also make the twist high enough to withstand the hammering it will get during the weaving process. But before I can start, I will have to work out how wide my piece will be, how many ends per inch there will be and how much yarn I will need in z spun and s spun. So in effect, I will need to plan the warp before I've even started spinning and then work out the number of wraps per inch my yarn will need to be. Having made the mistake previously of having more threads than there were heddles I'm not making that mistake again. I hope!

Should I play safe and use wool to start with? Well, wool is a wonderful fibre, but unlike my prehistoric sisters, I am much more free to choose which fibre I want to use and I love the look and feel of silk. Also, I think that it might have a more dramatic effect and that there will be more contrast between the two singles.

That's the theory anyway. Photos to follow in due course!

I'm weaving

So off I go to the Festival of Quilts and I came back with some beautiful silk yarn. This is hand dyed by Oliver Twists who sadly don't have a website, but do go to many shows. This is the yarn which is space dyed. There are two colourways, both orange, green ish, one darker than the other. the warp is the lighter colour and the weft is the darker.

I was so careful measuring and winding the warp, working out the sett, threading in the right order and sleying the reed that I was convinced I had it all done correctly. Sadly life is not that simple. I've come to the conclusion that no matter how many times you count, measure, check it all AGAIN, there's always a mistake you don't spot!

As you can see, there are threads crossing in the reed, so the shed is not opening correctly on some passes and this leads to MISTAKES. But only Allah is perfect and I had already woven too much to start again when I finally admitted that I'd got it wrong.

Anyway, I will end up with a lovely scarf that everyone will admire and say how beautifully woven and I'll bite my tongue and hope that any real weavers will discreetly sigh and not make rude comments!

So a success story instead of weaving problems. Here is my pirn winder made by my lovely DH for me from an old hand drill!

Don't you just love it!! Back to the loom!

Weaving Harris Tweed

The good news is that Harris Tweed is still being woven on the Islands and the independent weavers are flourishing after a bit of a set back. I went to visit Sheila Roderick on the island of Scalpay. both Sheila and her partner John are weavers and although they weave traditional Harris Tweed, Sheila also weaves with linen mohair and other fibres. She is also a hand spinner making beautiful art yarns for sale and for use in her weaving. She does most of her spinning in the winter months and uses a lot of Sparkle to make up for the dark days! At the moment Sheila has a linen warp on her traditional Hattersley loom which she is weaving into cloth that has been commissioned for costumes for the feature film, "The Hobbit". Sheila receives regualr commissions for films, theatre etc and also runs workshops in spinning and weaving on the islands. The couple also run a traditional droft with sheep, chickens and John catches fish fo sale! It's a hard life as the land is poor, but they love it there. I would have loved it more had the sun shone, but it rained so we didn't see it at it's best!

I did manage to find out that there is a group of spinners who meet at the Kildonan centre on the island of South Uist, but was not able to meet up with them. There seems to be a lot of interest in spinning and weaving in the islands, much more so than on the Scottish mainland and long may it continue!

So for my next project, I will be using some yarn that I bought on Harris to weave my own version of Harris Tweed. Sadly, I can't add the trade mark orb symbol to my cloth, unless I manage to take my loom etc to Harris and weave it there. Now there's an  idea!!!

Moebius Madness

You know when someone says, "I've just been on this fabulous workshop and etc...." and they show you what they did and you think, I could do that. Well, this happened to me lately when a friend showed me a lovely moebius scarf she had made at a workshop at a new(ish) yarn shop Create in Ilkely.

So I came home and found some very interesting videos on Youtube and discovered Cat Bordhi and her instructions for casting on and knitting these unusual scarves. It took me a few frustrating goes to learn the cast on and knitting the first row is a bit tricky, but then it's just like ordinary knitting in the round. Except that you end up with this....

It just like magic and it has the added advantage of keeping your neck warm! Now I can't stop knitting them and am getting more adventurous with lacy patterns and fancy yarns. Looks as if all my friends and relations will have very warm necks next Autumn and Winter! Who said that retirement is dull!!!

The importance of clearing the shed!

No, not the garden shed!!!Weaving is continuing apace on my 2/2 twill sample blanket. The photos show my first attempt and highlight the importance of getting the tension even and making sure that all the threads are behaving when you lift the shafts. You can see that there are quite a few missed threads and dodgy bits where I have gone ahead without checking the path is clear for the shuttle to pass through cleanly. So reluctantly, I decided to call it quits for this and cut it off the loom.

This gave me the opportunity to get the warp tied on correctly and even up the tension. What excellent timing because Stacey Harvey-Brown put some instructional videos on Facebook and these were so useful in helping me tie the warp so the tension was even. So now I have cracked the tension problem, clearing the shed is a doddle and my weaving is much better with fewer mistakes!

Next up is clearing Dave's wood work shed! Now there's a job!

Arithmetic as an art form!

I was given a lovely weaving book for my birthday, Designing woven fabrics by Janet Phillips and couldn't wait to get started. The designs in the book are based on  2/2 twill variations, of which there are many and are mostly  to be woven on a four shaft loom. Happening to have such a thing about me, what better I thought than to start to plan to weave Janet's multi section sample blanket in which the 2/2 twill weave structure is developed and explored.

This is where the arithmetic comes in. You can't plan a woven item with artistic ability alone because no matter how artistic you are or how much colour sense you have, you can't do it without a lot of arithmetic and I mean A LOT of arithmetic!

Janet's instructions for planning the warp for her sample blanket are very detailed and show all the threading plans, the sett, the  total number of threads and really she has done all the arithmetic. How simple it should have been. Just get the yarn, wind the warp and get it on the loom! Janet's done all the arithmetic, so I don't have to!

Well of course, like life, weaving isn't that simple! For a start, Janet's warp is 27 inches wide and my loom will only weave a width of 24 inches. Not to worry, I'll leave out one of the sections so my blanket will fit my loom. So now, the width is fine, but oh dear there are still 420 threads and I only have 400 heddles! Then, I can't find a yarn that is the right thickness and my yarn is a lot thinner than the one Janet uses, so I can't use her sett and will have to recalculate that as well!

So, I spent a merry (sic) afternoon with a pencil and a piece of paper designing my own sample blanket and doing my own arithmetic. My blanket has a sett of 32 ends per inch, has eight different threading patterns across the warp and still only uses 380 heddles! Feeling very proud of my efforts, I wound my warp carefully counting that I had the correct number of threads in each group. Double and triple checked them and got the warp ready to get onto the loom.

How is it then that threading my very last group through the heddles I find I'm four threads short! One sleepless night later, and deciding not to unwind the warp and add the additional threads in, I found another threading plan that used the number of threads available! Now to sley the reed, but again, getting 32 threads evenly through a 10 dent per inch reed defeated me as I got the division wrong. Now I have to sley the reed again!

Another book I was given for my birthday is called "Women's Work" by Elizabeth Wayland-Barber. This author is a very academic lady who has done a lot of research into the origins of textile crafts, particularly spinning and weaving and these are described in great detail. It's so humbling to think that even with all my modern equipment, I can't get my loom warped up in one go as so called "primitive" weavers could!

Anyway, I'ff off back to the loom to get the tying up done. Who knows what other mistakes will come to light! Exciting isn't it! Perhaps photos next post!

A New Shawl for a New Year

And so what have I been up to over Christmas while we have been holed up with the bad snow and with running noses and hacking coughs! Well, I decided that it would be a good idea to knit a silk shawl for Karen's 40 th birthday  which is not until 2012, but I wanted to give myself time! Having started this shawl though, I found I simply couldn't put it down and it has been finished in record time!      


Thanks go to my dear SIL for introducing me to the lifeline, without which there would have been a lot more frogging and frustration. This is so simple that I can't think why I didn't think of it myself. all you do is to thread a piece of waste yarn through the stitches after a pearl row. This means that if you drop a stitch, it can't go any further than the lifeline and is easy to pick up.

 These photos show the edging before and after blocking and now that it is blocked, I am quite pleased with it. Unfortunately, the nupps were not all as tidy as they might be. Silk yarn has no stretch and it was difficult to make the loops a consistent size and also get them large enough to ensure all the loops were caught on the peral row. In fact there were one or two which hadn't quite caught correctly and needed a bit of remedial stitching when blocking.

The question now is, do I fold it up and put it away for a year and a half, or do I claim it for myself and start wearing it and make another one for the special burthday present. Decisions so early in the new year!