Finished weaving

This morning I finished the final placemat (#9) and as has become the tradition, was handed a glass of wine to celebrate :-)

Finished weaving...

I remembered from the last placemats that the linen warp became increasingly difficult to make a shed - with a combination of the lack of stretch in the linen and the small amount of warp left.  While I couldn't solve the latter problem the 'sagging' of certain warp threads was solved by progressively moving the shafts up one link in the chain that supports them.  I started about 1/2 way through the placemat by raising #8 then each time I wound on I raised the next inwards (7 then 6 was enough to solve the problem).
 
Tomorrow I'll be sewing the ends before cutting them apart and hand hemming them.  Then they go in the wash, then freezer, then a good hard iron.  Hopefully they will turn out as soft and shiny as the first ones.

Adding colour

The Colours of New Zealand Placemat borrow from the colours found in our paua shell (abalone here in the US).  The process starts by painting dye onto linen wrapped around a card.

Dyed warp

 The process (following the instructions with the Procion dyes from Dharma Trading Co.) is straight forward and after the rinse and a quick dry (with a hair dryer) it is ready to put onto bobbins.

Bobbins ready to go

 The mix on the bobbins starts to show what the eventual stripe will be like.

Stripe woven in

Back to weaving - placemat #8 underway.

Not 1 but 2

The weaving of the Colours of New Zealand Placemats is going well - up to number 7 at this stage, but then comes along the first broken warp thread.  The last placemats I did, I recall I had quite a few to contend with so had been thinking myself fairly lucky and wondering if the source and processing of this lot (half-bleached instead of fully bleached) might have made the difference.  I hadn't even made it half way through that thought and the next warp thread broke!!

Repairs were quickly set up (extra length on the warp thread and pinned into the weft down from the fell line).  Coincidentally the first break occured as I wound on a bit of tension ready to start the next placemat (in the photo below the blue thread is my 'cut' line between each placemat).

'Fixed' broken warp thread ready to weave in.

The second breakage was my floating selvedge - it must have worn on a weak spot.  I anchored it back in the same way, but will need to do some repairs to the edge of this placemat as without the tension of the selvedge the weft shots around the break have gone a bit wonky.

The other thing that has slowed me down a fraction (although I confess to only weaving in the the 'holiday mode' - two or three hours a day at most :-) was running out of dyed weft half way through the first stripe of placemat number 8.

Taking a pause on placemat #8

 I wound some more yarn onto the card and soaked it and Anne has now painted it.  Ready for a full day of weaving tomorrow to finish off the run and then try some experiments with what is left on the warp, which I'm not too sure of as I forgot (again) to allow for the fact that I don't measure these placemats exactly, but rather begin/end/place the stripes based on where the pattern (62 weft shots) is.

Other activity for the day was - more batts carded - the first bag is full (of 2 oz batts) and the flicked locks bag is hardly showing a dent!!  I was able to spin for an hour on some singles that will make 2-ply for the next Right Side of the Bed Rug.  The next spinning (actually concurrent) is more Clun Forest combed top to make up more skeins for either sale or the making of a cable jersey - I have a ways to go (and have to find a knitter).

Lots of Clun Forest batts

Off out tonight to another live band - I could get used to this holiday lifestyle...

Boxing Day

A great day for being indoors...  When I first got up it looked quite nice out - then about an hour later the snow/sleet/rain mix started and kept up for an hour or two.  It was nice to be indoors with no need to head outside at all.

 2 more placemats completed.

Yarn painted for the next lot of stripes

Anne painting yarn

The random-ish colours on the placemat are produced through a combination of the length of the 'painted' pattern - which is twice as wide as seen here (the back is a close copy of this side) - and the width of the placemat plus the design (a 'fancy' twill).  The last factor means that even if perfectly aligned for width the 'pattern' would vary from shot to shot as the ratio of weft/warp crosses changes across the 62 shots that make up the pattern.  Hence the choice of painting a random colour effect in the first place and letting the design randomise it further. The dyed yarn will be ready tomorrow morning to wash out the residue dye and I'll be setting up the drum carder for a long session producing batts.

Also Anne is about to embark on some drum carding after finally finishing the huge bag of washed Clun Forest locks. 

Flicked locks

Over quite a few months of flicking sessions there is now nearly 7lbs of flicked locks ready to run through the drum carder where they come out superbly, as the flicking removes almost all the left over VM, and sets up the locks perfectly so that they only need a couple of runs through the drum carder to produce ready to spin 2 oz batts. 

For a break we may go and see 'Lincoln' - one of the movies on our to see list. 

Hopefully the weather has picked up a bit tomorrow.

One down

Despite the late start today - Christmas Day (a sleep in, then presents, then breakfast) good progress on weaving the Colours of NZ placemats with the first (trial) one now finished.

Number 1 finished

For the next placemats I will be adding some more length before the stripe to allow for a hem and still keep the 16" length.  This one will be a half inch shorter.

With this much finished it is now time to go and stretch out on the couch and watch a movie and get back to the weaving tomorrow.

Christmas Eve weaving

Most of the day has been spent getting ready for the arrival of the Washington part of the family - we are hosting the gathering this year, our last here in Washington as it turns out.  However the cleaning and tidying went pretty quickly so I was able to put in a little bit of time on the weaving.

2/3 of the way through the 1st placemat

It is certainly going well and the slight difference in the yarn, the last placemats were bleached, these ones are half-bleached (the linen is from the Yarn Barn of Kansas) so the 'pattern' shows a little bit better, although that will only really be evident once they are finished and washed, ironed.

Tomorrow, Christmas Day here, will be a quiet day for us.  Great for some more serious weaving :-)

First stripe

The dyeing went smoothly - 3 main colours and then various shades and mixes to make up about 9 all told (blues, greens, purples, and pink/red).  I painted the wound yarn in fairly random stripes and blocks and wrapped it in glad wrap and left it for 6 hours. 

It washed out fairly easily - very little colour coming from the dyed yarn at all (just the full strength purple  which had quite a bit of red bleeding out.  I dried the yard with a hair dryer and was ready to weave the first stripe to see how the random colours would come out.

The woven stripe

Stripe with pattern visible.

The pattern emerged nicely as I went and getting back into the rhythm won't take long.

Dyeing Linen

After having woven enough of a placemat to check the loom dressing, I'm now moving on to preparing the coloured stripes.  This time I am trying to speed up the process a little, hopefully making it less tedious.  I've measured a weft shot from the test weaving to ensure I have pretty close to the actual length rather than just the width of the warp/drawn in weaving.  On the loom the drawn in width is 12 5/8 inches with the actual weft shot measuring 13 1/8.  I have cut some plastic dividers (the kind used in folders) to exactly half the 13 1/8 measurement and then glued them together to make a fairly rigid (but thin) waterproof frame to wind the linen yarn around.

The idea is to be able to make a whole lot more painted/dyed yarn than the groups of single stripes I made for the last placemats.  It will randomise the pattern a lot more over the whole series of placemats, but that should be fine with the colours and design I have planned.

This morning I mixed up the soda ash mix and the chemical water/thickener.  The former so that I can get the first lot of linen soaking while the latter is setting/thickening before I mix up the colours from the Fiber Reactive dyes I have.

Linen, wound on card, soaking in soda-ash solution

Ready to start mixing colours

The chemical water should be ready by tomorrow morning, so I should be able to paint on the dyes and then let that set for 24 hours - wash the yarn out and dry it ready to start weaving some test stripes by Monday.

CoNZ Placemat weaving

Another day and I have finished off the threading of the headles (after work on Wednesday) then managed to sley the reed and tie off the warp before calling it a day.  Today after work I was able to weave in some packing weft and weave the first inch or two of weft to check for any treadling/sleying errors.

None spotted, but I'll be checking a bit more, in daylight just to make sure.

2/3 of the heddles threaded, notice the twisting of the warp yarn.

This dressing of the loom went so much more smoothly that the last linen - paying way more attention to making sure nothing tangled and effectively taking it a little slower, worked and it was still a lot faster than with the extra day needed on the last warp when it flew into a huge tangle as I wound it on.

Heddles threaded and reed sleyed

As in the last placemats and using 20/2 linen again the sleying is a nice neat two per dent on the 12 dent reed.

First 1.75 inches woven

The next step is to prepare the dyes and mordant for the coloured stripe - a job for tomorrow/the weekend, with this time it being paua themed colours and I'll be trying a new and improved method for doing more linen at a time.  This placemat will be the testbed.

Colours of NZ Placemats

Finally started today with the placemats for my brother's Christmas present - yes I know it is a little late.  The linen took way longer than planned after multiple non-available messages before finally finding a source only to find out it was coming all the way from India!

These placemats will be similar to the Colours of Ireland, with a different coloured stripe (a paua theme) and a little wider at 13".

So this weekend we were able to warp and chain the necessary linen for the 8 placemats needed (plus a bit spare for trials, and a sample), then begin to dress the loom.  I remembered the difficulties encountered with winding on the warp last time, so was more carefull to defeat the natural tendancy of linen to a) grip when close together, and b) twist, which I suspect is a by-product of the way I put the warp onto my warping frame - that will need some trials to determine the best way to avoid this.  Bottom line - it all went well, the warp went onto the back beam without any real problems and I'm now starting to thread the heddles.

Warping frame with the correct length marked out.

One of three, tied up ready for chaining.

The chained warp ready to go (with calculations visible)

Yes - I still warp on the dining room table - certainly not the most erganomic choice.  I have once,  hung the frame on the wall in the entrance hall and warped horizontally which is certainly easier.  Something I will set up again once we are set up more permanently in TN.

The weight - ready to wind on.

 I chose to wind the warp on a small section at a time - to make sure I wouldn't encounter any of the problems of last time.  It meant untwisting the three chains and then combining them onto the weight (water in a milk containter) - I could then wind on the back beam about 3/4 of a revoltion.  While that may seem slow, it meant I could insert my custom cardboard (ex business cards) warp separators as I paused.

Warp wound on - noting the business cards at each segregation.

 Once wound on, it was fairly straight forward to pull the remaining warp through the cross and begin threading the heddles (according to the pattern top left in the picture).

Threading the heddles - with record keeping notebook handy.

This warp, for these placemats, is the same pattern as the last, with one extra 'repeat' in the middle.  The loom is tied up ready to go (from last time) so that will be one step not needed this time.  It should take a few more nights to finish off the dressing and then into the weaving - hopefully to finish during my Christmas time off.

Scarves finished

Spent some time this afternoon finishing the weaving and then the hemstitching and fulling.  The last scarf only had 10 or so inches to weave so didn't actually take too long and the hemstitching (same method I used for the CF blue striped scarves) was simple.  I've fulled them and they are now flat on the drying rack and should dry overnight. 

I've had interest in two and possibly the third - that would be great if they all sold straight off!

#3, 2 and 1

All three a slightly different (length, fringe length and with #3 the pattern).  I certainly learnt a few things during the process, but in general they were fairly straight forward to weave and the little Leclerc Dorothy loom performed perfectly throughout. 

I really like the way the herringbone throws up distinct lines (in the warp direction) along with the obvious colour changing stripes.

The other good news is that the Yarn Barn contacted me to say the 20/2 linen has finally arrived and was shipped a day ago - it should be here by the weekend so I will be able to move straight on to weaving placemats again, although I'll have to 'paint/dye' some weft yarn for the stripes before that starts.

Alpaca Scarf #3

I managed to finish the spinning of the dark alpaca singles while in Greenville, NC and was able to complete the plying this morning.  That let me wind some bobbins for the 3 colours I'm using on this scarf.

I had to make a couple of little boxes to hold two of the shuttles as I am running the yarn up the side of the scarf vice joining at each stripe.  This is because I am doing a fibonacci sequence for each of the two colours (cream and dark) with the coffee/medium as the ground for that.  The sequence goes: 1,1,2,3,5,8,5,3,2,1,1 then repeats with the other colour.

1st repeats, resting shuttles in the holders, and active one to the left.

It's a little slower weaving while I get used to keeping the yarn in the correct place at the sides, but it is starting to become easier, so shouldn't take too long to complete.  Then some finishing and they'll be ready to sell.

Back to Spinning

It's been quite a while since I did anything fibre related.  First it was visitors to work - then a trip up to Ottawa for a week, all taking most of my work and not-work time organising.  Incidentally the little bit of free time we had in Ottawa included a trip to Wabi-Sabi (wabi-sabi.ca) a great outlet for everything from roving to yarn to finished items to classes.  We spent some time there but didn't actually find anything we really needed.

But since we've been back I have started spinning the alpaca needed to finish the 3rd scarf of the alpaca series.

3 colours of alpaca with scarf #2

I still have one skein of dark to go and then will work out what the design for the stripes will be. I'm thinking a Fibonacci sequence maybe - depending on how it looks on the predominantly medium/coffee warp, but probably quite interesting if swapping between the cream and dark.

I'll have to take my wheel with me on the Thanksgiving trip tomorrow - we are in Greenville NC for a couple of days - as I most certainly won't be going out shopping on Friday which will give me an opportunity to produce the last skein.

The linen, ordered from Yarn Barn is not here yet (supply problems) so the Christmas deadline has now gone.  I'll hopefully be weaving the placemats some time soon and they will be ready a little after Christmas.  Otherwise it's now looking at 'last projects' before everything is packed up for storage and we move to NZ for a year (two looms, but no spinning wheel there, although I might be able to borrow one)

Frankenstorm II

Not quite as much achieved today (spinning) - I have moved on to the dark brown alpaca and have half a skein spun.  I mixed that in with some working out of the amount needed for the final scarf (in three stripes), and tidying up the rather spread out mess I had created on the dining room table!

Back to work tomorrow so it will only be an hour or two a day until the weekend, although next month will see us away almost all but the last two weekends.

I'm still awaiting the linen to get the Macomber dressed ready to make the next set of placemats - hopefully won't be long.

Frankenstorm I

Hurricane Sandy plus the other events, used to equal 'Frankenstorm', but that has now been changed to 'Super Storm' - given the Halloween reference/timing, I prefer the former.  So, with the Federal Government shut down today, I had a day of fiber work plus a few other bits and pieces (a walk, in the rain, to top up our bread and eggs not that we really needed it, but it was nice to get out).

The Alpaca spinning has gone well with nearly half the 8oz spun into 2ply. It's very enjoyable to spin and ply and has filled a pleasant few hours today.  We are off again tomorrow so no doubt there'll be more progress.

As supplied (bottom) and finished skeins (top)

And of course the mountain of flicked wool has grown with my small pile of combed wool growing only a little.  I like to take a break from spinning after 30-40 minutes to do something else, so did some combing in between.  I've enough combed top to spin another skein (like the blue ribbon 3 ply) and will keep going until I have enough for a larger project - mainly driven by the fact I have a very large bag of the best of the long staples that Anne sorted while picking through the washed wool.

Return from New York

We survived New York (the city may never sleep, but I needed to after the first couple of days :-) - had a great time up there for 4 days.  No textile connections barring a close study of some excellent clothing and rug examples in the National Museum of the American Indian.

So getting busy again I've discovered that my efforts at preparing wool fall far behind Anne's.  She is churning through washed locks - flicking them open ready for drum carding and can sit and watch TV and create a pile. In the time it took her to do [lots - not sure of weight etc] I was able to only comb and diz two insignificant balls of roving top.

Anne's to the left, mine to the right (actually only one ball at that time!!)

After that discouraging start: luckily a distraction.  As I had decided to liven up the final scarf with some stripes - I sent off for some more alpaca roving.  Linda at Crooked Fence Alpacas via Etsy was very helpful and quick and I now have two 8oz lots of roving ready to spin.  And it is superb - grade 1 and 2 (it's the micron count - I had to ask), and so so soft, and clean.  It spins like a dream so it won't be any time at all before I have some more two ply skeins to start weaving on scarf number three (it will be the white/cream and chocolate from Crooked Fence and the remainder of the coffee colour from NZ as weft stripes - I haven't quite worked out a sequence yet, but will)

The two colours from Crooked Fence - spinning already.

Close up of the alpaca singles

Clun Forest singles to compare

The two different singles look the same - there's no comparison in the feel.  The alpaca is very very soft and silky to the touch. 

Great viewing

While progress on the alpaca scarves has been steady ( I have about 12 inches to go on number two) and pleasant.  I've taken a break over the last three nights to view the video I downloaded.  It is "Three Bags Full" by Judith MacKenzie and is all about selecting and processing wool from fleece to yarn.  Absolutely loaded full off great tips and guidance.

It's pleasing to see we're not straying too far from the norm in processing the Clun Forest amongst others here - although as I have her book and another of her videos I guess I paid attention early on.

Highly recommended and can be found at: http://www.interweavestore.com/Spinning/DVDs-Videos/Three-Bags-Full-DVD.html?SessionThemeID=23&a=blacksheep

2nd Alpaca Scarf

I began the second scarf this morning; weaving with the temple in place this time.  So far it is all going very smoothly.  The draw in is approximately half and inch, but with the temple the reed is hitting the fell line with all the warp threads parallel thus no stretching, a nice even selvedge, and no broken threads.

Weaving alpaca on the Dorothy loom (with temple)

So far I am about 1/2 way though the second scarf - having had the day off (Columbus Day).  I also took some time to darn in all the ends (from broken warp threads) on scarf number one.

Alpaca scarf number 2

To use all the alpaca two-ply, the number 3 scarf may have some stripes - I'll have to work on some colour schemes.

Selvedge Theory

Well into the alpaca scarf #1 and I've really been struggling to keep a neat selvedge on one side (sometimes both sides).  My normal approach of a double floating selvedge yarn under tension just isn't doing it.  As it turns out I'm pretty sure I know why - and what the solution is.

Close up of left selvedge

Both selvedges (and broken threads woven back in)

First off I didn't start with a temple (this is my 'chain' temple with weights on either side in these pictures), so of course there was an expected draw in. In this case the 'in reed' width was 10" and the drawn in width was 9.25"  I thought that seemed reasonable.  But it is home spun 2 ply...  with the draw in and the extra 'stretch' as the outer (including the double selvedge) threads were pushed out as the weft was beaten into place meant the 6 or so warp yarns on the outside were slowly stretched. My hand spun is strong, but will eventually pull apart if you give it lots of little repetative stretches. The obvious factor should have been that I've broken quite a few of the same outer warps threads since I started and NONE of the inner warp at all.  The stretching made it looser and consequently make it very hard to maintain a straight selvedge.

The latter use of the chain temple, and careful throwing of the weft have kept it (barely) under control.  The obvious fix is to use a proper temple set at the correct (10") width when I start the next scarf.  That will remove the extra stretching pressure on the selvedge and hopefully lead to an even edge.  The draw in will happen after the temple.

I have about 15" to finish this scarf which will now become a gift or a keeper, before I try out the 'fix' above.

Who knows....

Alpaca scarf weaving

I decided to 'un-weave' the sample I had done and re-adjust the tension before starting to weave again.  The process was relatively straight forward, although the 'hairiness' of the Alpaca meant that the weft tended to catch as it was drawn through the warp, which made it slower.

Once back to warp I retied some of the warp threads to even it up and used cardboard spacers before weaving just a small tabby header.

Weaving commenced for real

 And the dyed pillow cases have now been washed and ironed - they came out well - using only the blues and grey from the original colours of Ireland selection.

Tie dyed pillow cases

Craft day

The morning started out with an effort to use up the left over liquid dye (from the linen dyeing). We had bought a couple of plain cotton pillow cases and decided to tie dye/paint them with the left over colours from the placemat project.  The dye has been in the fridge and this will be the test to see if it survived.  I started by soaking the pillow cases in water then in the solution needed to 'set' the dye.  Anne and Rachel then tied/knotted and painted them.

Painting on the dye

The craft (dining) table

Once they were finished and the pillow cases were wrapped and set aside (for 24 hours), I was able to clean up the table and start dressing the loom (Dorothy).  It all went pretty smoothly (with help).  I've found out Alpaca is a little more slippery than the wool or other yarn I've been using, but I've just about got the right tension going now and have woven a couple of test inches.

The first couple of inches 

This will be first of three scarves in this yarn/design and shouldn't take too long once I am back in the table loom rythm.

Alpaca Warp

With a little help* I warped up the Alpaca yesterday and today I hope to get it onto Dorothy to start weaving.  It's enough for 3 scarves - and will be a twill, herringbone patter with the warp using 'Cairo' and the weft using Chocolate.  There's a dark/Chocolate band down each side of the scarf, and each scarf will have 2 inch fringes that I'll sew in like the CF/Indigo scarves.

Alpaca warp ready for the loom

* I didn't make balls from the skeins then warp, but rather asked Anne to sit patiently with skeins on her hands and I warped directly from that.  I have the plans to build a swift - that will need to be done for any larger projects - luckily this one was only 3 skeins.

Spinning again

After a week long trip down through Tennessee then up to Ohio for two weddings (the placemats were a huge hit), we're back and I'm back spinning again.  We spent some time visiting areas where we are considering eventually relocating to, and found some great places, saw some nice homes/land and connected in a small way with the fibre community  All in all: successful.

I decided to do a small trial of the Tennessee Tweed fine 3 ply.  It has come out pretty well and while it will certainly take a while to spin all the wool, it will be worth it to weave into cloth for a couple of waistcoats.  To re-cap, it will be half like this (Lincoln Longwool with flecks of coloured Clun Forest) and half Lincoln Longwool and CF blend with flecks of coloured CF) and the two shades woven into a point twill/herringbone cloth.

The first real sample of TT

21 wraps per inch - Fine

The CF spinning for the Right Side of the Bed Rug is going well and I'm back doing that now.  About half way or so...

2 skeins 320 yards

Placemats ready to go

After a couple of nights of sewing - with help - the placemats were all done and with a quick wash, some time in the freezer, and then a good long iron (repeated again when they were almost dry), they are all boxed up and ready to go.

All lined up on display together for the last time

 We made 'product' cards with some background info and basic care, along with a copy of the Connell painting that supplied the colours. There is also a sheet with guidance on removing stains from linen - should that ever happen.

Boxed ready to go

All three, ready for wrapping.

And now back to the CF spinning...

Marathon completed

A later start today (7:30) and 5 placemats completed.  The warp was 'just' enough for the last one - although I'll note for future that with a non-elastic warp you can't really push the loom waste.  As the warp gets shorter all minor variations in tension start really showing up, luckily, I think, I was able to squeeze the last out of this one.

In what is now a tradition (or does it have to happen three times) - at the end of weaving I was presented with a glass of wine.  I could, of course, now start a whole series of very short projects to earn more wine - but probably not!

Rachel presented me with a glass of wine at 'the end'

The Colours of Ireland Placemats (CoIP) have hand coloured weft stripes based on a picture painted by Connell Byrne (http://www.pbase.com/connellart) after he took a trip to Ireland a few years back.  The photo shows a copy of the painting with the stripe, and also noting this was one of two 'alternative' woven patterns I tried - by reversing the start directions a different pattern appears.

Colours of Ireland origin

So all up there are 15 placemats - I had planned 14 (6 plus 4 plus 4) and a small sample.  The weaving today went fairly smoothly - no broken warp threads and even the selvedges behaved.  I went faster today - with the best time being 1 hour and 5 minutes for the first placemat.  Coincidentally - enough time to ensure your forgotten coffee is stone cold!

Off the loom

With a sewing machine borrowed from our friend Robynne I was able to quickly run some stitching either side of the cut line before separating the placemats.  After that I will do a trial run at wet finishing (washing/rinsing/freezing/ironing) on the sample piece.

Separated placemats

I have a few ends to darn in and then trim where I joined the weft threads - then hand stitching the ends.

We should make the deadline after all.