All done!

I am finally done with all the weaving I committed myself to. Now, no one twisted my arm and no one is expecting presents. But I thought it would be nice to take home-made gifts to family in India. I've always been a bit leery of taking knitted things as most of them live in warm weather places. I've given my SILs and aunt a couple of knitted shawls for use when they travel to colder places.

But now I am weaving and a woven shawl is much lighter and more useful than a knitted one. Besides, knitting with the fine yarns that one can use in weaving is time consuming. Weaving with them is easy.

I showed you the yarns I was planning to use in my last post. My plan was to warp for 2 scarves at a time and weave different designs by varying the sequence in which I depress the treadles as well as the possibly the weft. I would have warped for more scarves but I didn't have enough yarn. I would have had to use 3 colors in the warp and then a fourth in the weft. I thought that might be too much. So two it was.

I used the same basic color plan for warping. Even stripes, but I didn't want it to be half and half. I decided to put one repeat on each side in the color from the other half of the scarf. It worked really well.

This is the first warp for example. The warp is half maroon and half teal. But there is a narrow stripe of maroon on the teal side and a corresponding stripe of teal on the maroon side.

Here is the first scarf which I showed in process above. It has an indigo weft.

The same warp with a ruby weft and a different pattern.

Details of the two patterns. The colors are accurate in the big pictures. In the close-ups, the camera gets a bit confused color wise.

I also finished the socks I was knitting two-at-a-time. I worked on them a little bit at a time in the evenings and finished them up on a drive we had to do for some business.

These 3 photos are the close-ups of the second pair of scarves and a sample I did with the bit of warp left over. All three use the same threading through the heddles but a different sequence of treadling. All of these patterns are basic twills where I am raising two shafts on the loom at a time and moving fairly rhythmically across the shafts.

These two scarves were done with stripes of tartan (green) and chestnut (brown) in the warp and a weft of old gold.

I also finished up two scarves with the Shetland I was using up. Now I have only a little bit of the yarn left.  These and the cotton/linen one that follows are plain weave woven on the rigid heddle loom, I am now at the point with that loom that I can warp it in a little over an hour and finish a scarf in 2-3 days.

First of the two scarves. The second is still drying so I'll post a pic next time. I'd rather wait for daylight to take the photo.

Lastly, one of my SILs doesn't wear silk so I made her this cotton/linen scarf from the same yarn I used for the towels. To break up the monotony for me, I inserted some hand-manipulated laces at various points. I had used one of these in my doubleweave workshop but had never done it otherwise.

These two are called Leno. The bottom is on an open shed (with the two layers of warp separated) and the top is on a closed shed. I like it better on the closed shed.

Then I did another called Brooks Bouquet which I like better overall. I find Leno a pain to do but I like working Brooks Bouquet. I saw this for the first time at the Ashford shop in New Zealand. The top is a closed shed and the one below is on an open shed. Here I prefer the open shed version.

And that is it for now. 10 scarves and 3 towels since Sept. Of those, 6 scarves since Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow I am going to finish sewing the hems on the towels and then will wet finish them. I also got little labels to put on the scarves that say 'Handmade with love by Jaya' and will sew those in too.

More photos to come of all that and my next knitting project. I may also take the opportunity next week of it being a bit quieter to do the travel write-up from one of the two trips.

Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate!

Weaving up a storm

I have been weaving and weaving and weaving. I had this pile of Harris Tweed Textiles Shetland jumperweight that I had bought on Elann.com years ago. They were getting out of the yarn business and it was cheap. Lovely yarn. I have no regrets about buying it. I used it to make the color gamp scarf in the summer and fell in love with the handle of the fabric that it created.

This was the color gamp scarf, in case you missed it then.

So I decided to use the rest of the yarn to make scarves for the men in my family. Unfortunately, I only see my son at Thanksgiving and I knew I was going to see my brother then. Christmas can be iffy due to the weather. I wove two more scarves with the yarn. One using clasped weft and the other was just stripes.

That yarn is just beautiful. It blooms and creates a gorgeous fabric. So all those three have gone to their new homes.

I love weaving on the floor loom. I warped up some towels following a pattern blindly. My only deviations from the instructions in the book had to do with color and fiber content. I used my own color combination and a cotton-linen yarn instead of a cotton yarn.

The process was a learning experience. First, I had never woven with such thin yarn. I had lots of warp threads to wind. That process went very smoothly. Then I had to warp the loom. Part way through winding the warp threads on the back beam, the right hand side jumped out of the spacers (raddle) than they were threaded through and ended up in a big bunch on the back beam. Oy veh! I thought about it overnight and decided to try and fix it because that bunching would mean the threads would go through the metal heddles at a sharp angle, causing a lot of abrasion and maybe breaking threads. So my husband and I slowly wound the warp off the loom, I redistributed the threads on the back beam as best as I could and we wound it back on. It wasn't ideal because there were a lot of crossed threads, but it was the best I could do. Fortunately, while there was a bit of abrasion (I have rust dust bunnies under the loom), the threads held together and I didn't see any wear on them.  I have to be a lot more careful next time.

They are off the loom but not finished. I need to hem them before finishing. But I have more weaving to do so I am holding off finishing them now.

The mystery in this project is that I ended up with 3 towels in stead of two. I ran out of the rust colored yarn after the first two towels (the project called for 8 oz of that color and I had exactly 8 oz). I wove the third towel with the mauve contrast yarn. This project was from Anne Field's Learn to Weave book.

I heard about a selvedge treatment described in Anne Dixon's Handweaver's Pattern Directory. It was on a Ravelry forum and I thought I'd try it. I really love the way this selvedge looks. It is really solid and like a commercially woven selvedge.

Anyway, while I was weaving these towels. I decided to weave silk scarves for family in India. We are going there in Jan. That is why I am not hemming and finishing the towels yet. They probably won't be going to India and I want to get those gifts completed first.

First I wove another Shetland scarf. I finished that today. I need to wet finish it tomorrow. I put stripes into the warp and used a solid for the weft.

Better photos after it is finished.

I spent some time today planning the silk scarves. These are the colors of silk that I bought from Colourmart over the summer.

The idea behind buying them was to use them to learn various weave structures. I've decided that my first structure is twill. The scarf I made was in a 2/2 twill and the towels also were in a twill called M&O. For these scarves, I've picked a twill called M&W because the threading on the loom is like an M and a W.

My plan is to warp for two scarves in stripes and weave with a third color. The two scarves will have the same warp threading but I will treadle the weaving in a different pattern and that will create a completely different design in the fabric. This way I save on warping time and still end up with unique though fraternal scarves.

I start winding the warp for the first 2 scarves tomorrow.

In between all this, I did get some knitting done. I knitted a wrap when I was traveling in New Mexico at the beginning of Sept.

The pattern is I want that Wrap from Ravelry. I found the perfect buttons at the LYS. The yarn is handspun from a door prize I won at a fiber retreat in 2012. It has a bit of sparkle in it so I wanted dressy buttons.

I also made progress on the two at a time socks. No photos of the progress but I am half way up the leg now.

More on weaving next time. After these scarves are done, I hope to get back to spinning. I haven't spun since the Tour de Fleece in July!

Results of Collapse weave experiments

The collapse weave experiments are done and I have my plan for the Tour de Fleece. As I said last time, I planned to do four sets of samples. Each set consists of two identical samples: one to remain unwashed and the other to be washed and finished.

I hemstitched each sample. I did not size the singles. I think I need to do this because the single got very twisty and was difficult to weave with.

Sample set 1: This was done with a high-twist, very fine, dyed Polwarth single. It was spun with Z twist from top. Spun with a short forward draw. The discrepancy between the thickness of the warp and the weft meant that this became warp-focused and the color variation in the weft is not visible. But I liked the feel of this. With a thinner warp, this would be a lovely fabric.

This is one of the samples on the loom.

This is the completed set. Washed on the left and unwashed on the right. The unwashed sample is curling from the twist I think.

Sample set 2: a thicker, lower twist single spun Z from a cream/taupe striped Corriedale roving. This was spun with a supported longish draw. I striped the weft by packing it down more densely to create stripes. This is my favorite and what I will be spinning for during the Tour de Fleece.  I will weave a scarf with self stripes in the warp and the weft using the same singles yarn.

On the loom.

Completed set. Washed on left and unwashed on right.

Sample set 3: Singles were spun with S twist from gray Corriedale roving. Spun with a short backward draw. This is what the dyed Polwarth would look like if the singles were thicker. The gray makes the colors in the warp pop.

On the loom.

 Completed set. Washed on left, unwashed on right. This is also curling but see how nice the fabric is on the washed sample. I liked this one a lot also.

Sample set 4: Same singles as above but I added stripes of the warp, which wouldn't change in the finishing as it is a balanced yarn.

 On the loom.

Completed set. Washed on left, unwashed on right. This also makes an interesting fabric and something I may try with a different warp at some time.

Overall, I found the process fun and I learned a lot. Sarah Anderson recommends sizing with a xanthan gum solution to control the twist while weaving. It washes out in the finishing. That is what I plan to do. I want to spin a thicker, slightly lower twist singles from the dyed top and do the self striping, which will provide some structure to the fabric. The only question in my mind is whether I ply the warp yarn and just use singles in the weft or use singles for both.

Next, I am playing with spinning stretchy yarns for socks so stay tuned...

Broke out the loom this weekend!

I was going to write about New Zealand but I spent a lot of time on fiber-related pursuits this weekend so this is a fiber post, not a travel post.

First of all, I finally warped my Flip rigid-heddle loom! I bought it shortly before I went to China and apparently had only partially assembled it. When I took it out to warp it, I found that the apron rods were not attached. I couldn't figure out the instructions so I had to search online for better instructions. Amazingly, there isn't a video on how to put it together. I guess since it is 90% assembled, one is not needed except for people like me. I finally found what I was looking for in a video on assembling the Cricket loom which comes in many parts. The instructions talked about a chain in the cord that was supplied and I couldn't see the chain until it was pointed out in the video.

After that it was sort of plain sailing. I have the Craftsy class on rigid heddle weaving and I went back and forth between the lesson on warping and actually warping my loom. I made a few mistakes. The warping paper wound on crookedly so a bit of the warp is on and off the paper. I also didn't do a surgeon's knot when I knotted the warp but it is quite tight.

It took about 4-5 hours to get it all done. Now I have loads of weaving to do which can be done in bits and pieces. I did a bit this afternoon.

 I was going to use this cone of alpaca for warp but it wasn't strong enough. So I ended up using it for weft. I warped with Silk City Kashmir - a merino, cashmere, silk yarn I got years ago. I have it in 3 colors and used the white to go with the white in the alpaca above.

 Here is the bit I wove this afternoon along with the warped loom.

 And a close-up of the weaving. It is going to be a stole - about 18x65". The loom is 20" wide so 18 is pretty close to the full width of the loom. To add some interest, I may weave a few stripes of leftover yarn when I run of the main yarn in the shuttle. Just to add some color to the plain stole. Let's see.

 I started a sweater for my husband last weekend. It is in Rowan Felted Tweed DK in a color called Midnight. It is a bit darker than the photo - almost black with tweedy bits. It is going to be a plain stockinette sweater with saddle shoulders, worked seamlessly per Elizabeth Zimmermann in Knitting without Tears. I started with a provisional cast-on because I only have 10 balls and am not sure if it will be enough. If I don't have enough, I can do the ribbing in a lighter blue or a very dark purple - which I have in stash. The idea is to bust the stash.

I have also been slowly spinning the Kraemer Sterling Silk and Silver roving. I had started this in China and spun the big ball you see in the photo. It was a full bobbin like the one next to it. I wound it off when I got here because I needed the WooLee Winder bobbins reamed out at Rhinebeck by Nathan Lee. I didn't want him to have to deal with the fiber on the bobbin. Since then I finished up the rest of that single and the other single and now I have 2 full bobbins and 2 partial bobbins worth. I will probably start plying this evening.

It is roving so I spun it long draw and hope to get a worsted weight yarn out of it. Let us see.

I am spending an hour or two spinning or now weaving after dinner. I found that if I sat in the family room and did something, I ended up munching on something even though I didn't need it. By going upstairs to the guest bedroom and doing something other than watch TV, or even be around the TV when it is on, I am not motivated to munch. It is a win-win. Good for my waistline and good for getting fiber-y things done. I watch spinning or weaving videos or listen to podcasts.

Last weekend, I organized my stash. Wow! I have a lot more fiber than I thought I did. I had a lot of partially filled boxes of yarn in my closet so they all got combined into large plastic tubs which have been put up high. I put yarns of the same type together and found quite a few that I can use for weaving. I was going to get rid of some of it but decided against it because the weaving will use up yarn faster than knitting. Plus I like all of it!

The fiber also went into plastic tubs but lives in the guest bedroom closet. Once that closet is cleaned out and decluttered, my yarn is going in there too. The good news is that I have less yarn than I thought I did. And a lot of it is fine yarn which is good for weaving.

I will try and get to posting about New Zealand during the week.