50/50 Batts

My daily routine these days is produce batts in the early morning then spend a few hours spinning and plying the 50/50 Alpaca/Clun Forest blend.  The batts have the feel of Clun Forest, but are a lot softer than CF alone.  The CF makes the fiber much easier to spin at a medium weight single and the process of cleaning, washing and carding eliminates all but a few pieces of vegetable matter.

Two batts ready for spinning.

At about 4 hours to produce a skein of yarn and doing one every day or so, I should be able to deliver this order sometime around the middle of next month.

Other work at home recently was repairing/fixing things brought about by our first real thunderstorm of the season.  The rain came down in buckets and managed to erode quite a ditch down part of our gravel driveway.  The other casualty was our sunflower bed at the side of the shed.  The amount of water knocked the plants down and then they ended up with a coating of dirt/sand that washed over them.  Some staking and a gentle wash and they look like they are recovering.  I haven't checked the top garden, but will today and hopefully we should still have the seeds in the ground from a few days back.

Baby Blanket weaving finished

After a couple of hours in the garden this morning (planting seeds for the dye garden), and a little bit of spinning, I started the last pattern repeat of the Baby Blanket project.

The customary wine reward for finishing :-)

The sides are tied off for the side fringes - that extra 4 inches was cut and knotted each time I wound on.  Next I'll cut it off the loom and knot the warp ends, then comes the job of twisting the fringes.  By my reckoning that would be 336 fringes to twist.  Rather hoping I can get some help with this from Anne...

I'll leave the loom waste on the back beam and tie my next project directly to that.  A hand spun, painted warp, striped shawl for a wedding present for the bride, then a hand spun, dyed scarf in matching colours for the groom.  Due by the end of July so I need to get started on the planning/dyeing.

Baby Blanket progress

All finished and cleaned up from the party yesterday.  The fridge is full to bursting so we will be on left-overs for a few days.  Everything went smoothly and everyone seemed to have a good time and were certainly well fed.

I was the first up this morning so was able to do a little bit of weaving on the Baby Blanket.  It is pretty fast weaving, with the wide selvedge thread catching the weft and giving enough, eventually, for a twisted fringe.  For the moment though it is just weave a colour stripe or two, cut the side fringes and knot, then advance the cloth.

First sequence of stripes done, 3 to go.

The rest of today will be for spinning alpaca/wool blend.

Baby Blanket and Party prep.

Finished the tie on and addition of fixed selvedges for the side fringes, so was able to space the warp and weave the first inch (to check that I'm matching the 10 ppi called for in the instructions).

First inch woven.

The weaving will have to wait now until we have everything ready for our '1 year in the valley' party on Saturday. With family, friends and some locals coming we are preparing Kiwi flavoured food (with some TN staples though).  I have finished the mini-meat pies and sausage rolls.

Baking from this morning.

Bread, including cheddarmite scrolls next.  I also have to do some gardening chores and luckily it is not too hot out today, but gloriously fine so perfect to mow the lawns and prepare the croquet lawn.

I did manage to finish another skein of the 50/50 alpaca/wool blend that was ordered through KiwiWeave.  It's turning out to be a very pleasant blend to spin and being a little thicker than the 100% alpaca I did in the last order, it is faster.  I have nearly 2 lb of blend to do, so that becomes the next priority after the party.

First two skeins off the production line.

Reed cleaning

As previously mentioned I had to change reeds on the Macomber to be able to sley at the correct epi for this project.  The reed in question is a 48" 8 dent reed that my father had purchased when he first built the counterbalance loom that I inherited and began weaving on.  The hot humid year here in Southern Tennessee had not been kind to it, and in fact it had not been used for close to ten years and while stored wrapped up in plastic there was a lot of surface rust on the metal surfaces.

So I took to it first by wiping on vinegar with cotton buds and let that sit for 10 minutes.  I then used a small wire brush and scrubbed across the whole surface and through the dents.  This took off any rough areas and most of the surface rust.  Once dry I brushed it again and finally mounted it in the loom and took thick cotton string (6 at a time) and 'polished' each dent to remove any remaining rust residue.  The end result is pretty good and hopefully there shouldn't be anything left to come off on this warp.  I'll now have to find something to coat the reed surfaces in during storage - that won't impact future weaving.  Alternatively sealed in plastic with moisture removing sachets maybe.

Cleaned reed on the Macomber

Last night I threaded the heddles and tonight I will sley the reed and tie on.  Should be weaving on the weekend.

288 ends threaded

Sitting inside the front of the Macomber certainly makes it an easy job to dress the loom back to front.  Last couple of projects I dressed front to back.

Dressing the loom

The final work of the day yesterday was to start the baby blanket (a gift for a baby due near the end of June). This is a Yarn Barn of Kansas kit using washable acrylic/wool/nylon blend that features a twisted fringe all the way around - a first attempt at this for me.

Before starting this and included in the chores for the day were bake bread and transfer the conditioned beer to a keg.  Both done and for the bread I did two recipes - my standard loaf incorporating the left over grain from brewing and for the first time an Italian olive bread.

Italian olive bread fresh from the oven.

The warp for the blanket has been done for a month and hanging over the loom, so it was definitely time to start on it.  It's not a long warp so the spreading out through the raddle went pretty smoothly.

Beginning to spread warp.

The raddle is borrowed from the upright loom - my normal one wasn't quite wide enough so will have to look into building one for the full 56" Macomber.

Fully spread, showing the shades of grey.

Eventually finished - and in the little weaving room (the one bedroom in the house without a ceiling fan) the slight haze in the photo, I'm sure, is the fug from me sweating so much! Or perhaps the funny colour from the bright lamp I use at the back of the loom?  Tonight I will lash it on to the back beam and wind it on ready to thread the heddles (easy job - it is just a tabby), and sley the reed. My stainless steel reed is a 12 dent and I don't have a large 10 dent (for the 10 epi).  I will have to clean my 8 dent reed and sley 1-1-1-2.

Back to work

Finished a major tidy up of the weaving room.  The last project remains (scarves and dish towels) were still on the looms and the bags of cleaned wool had become fairly evenly distributed across all the looms as I had dug around for fiber or yarn for numerous other reasons.

Space at last - 4 color wool warp read to go on top of Macomber

I need to begin work on two projects: the baby blanket for a baby due in June and a shawl and scarf for a wedding at the end of July. 

I have mainly been working on spinning as that has created a little bit of income for KiwiWeave LLC with one order for 10 skeins and now a further 15 skeins.  Topic for another blog entry.