Magic

Just a few minutes into the first part of the wash cycle the colour begins to develop

After the first complete wash cycle the brown is now a deep rich colour and the green a warm mossy shade.

You may remember seeing pictures of this warp on the loom where the difference in colour between the warp and weft wasn't great.  At all.

The weft is the Fox Fiber natural coloured cotton.  As such it looks rather bland until after the magic of wet finishing with a high alkaline wash.

This is about 1/3 of the warp being wet finished, both green and brown.  Because the yarn isn't dyed there is no danger of fugitive dye so I don't worry about mixing two different colours in the water.

In order to get the colour as deep as possible I use a fairly high concentration of detergent plus added about 1/3 of a cup of borax to boost the pH level.

Then I used the 'soak' cycle of the washing machine, plus during the long soak I actually turned the machine off so that the cloth could soak in the machine for even longer.

With such a high pH concentration, I also set the machine for an extra rinse, just to make sure all the detergent and borax got rinsed out.

Sandra Rude has done more of a scientific approach to her towels using the Fox Fiber yarns.  I didn't think to save a 'before' sample so that I could compare to the 'after' wet finishing.  

Currently reading In These Grave Times by Jacqueline Winspear

Sh*t Happens

Question:  How can I weave a whole 20 yards without noticing a sleying error?

Answer:  Rather easily apparently.  :P~

So I have a dozen towels with a sleying error.  Will it close up enough during wet finishing so that they are not seconds?  Only time will tell.  They are now in the washing machine soaking to develop the colour of the Fox Fibre naturally coloured cotton I used in the weft.

In the meantime I did make some progress.  Got the small loom set up with the next warp for A Good Yarn: Linen and Hemp.  Didn't think to wind the bobbins last night and get them 'soaking' up some moisture so did that this morning while I've been doing other stuff.  Like finding mistakes...

I wound as many bobbins as I had empty, put them into a plastic bag with a soaked paper towel and am now ignoring them while I work on other stuff.  I'm sure my impatience will over rule my sensibility soon because it's looking rather good and I'm anxious to get started.  Patience?  Moi?

Decided that since the relative humidity is rather 'low' in terms of working with linen that using a temple is the better part of discretion.  Thanks to Syne Mitchell for the loan of this 'baby' temple which perfectly suits this 20" wide (in the reed) warp.

I also put the humidifier on to help raise the relative humidity near the loom.  Hopefully this warp will come off the loom with no 'issues'....

Currently Reading Who I Am by Pete Townsend.  Not sure I will finish it.  Depends on whether or not it gets 'tedious'.

Satisfying Progress

Today I cut off what I've woven so far on the beige towel warp.  Considering I've been sick with a cold, progress is...satisfactory.  I'm trying very hard to not get on my own case for having done 'only' this much.

I have, after all, done a bunch of administrivia and cleared a lot of the paperwork I'd been procrastinating over off my desk.  :)

Today I mailed the contract for HWSDA next May.  Only one seminar, but since I don't know for sure if Doug will be able to come with me and I'll have a vendor booth I figured I'd better not apply to do more.  The call for instructors for Mid-West 2013 also came through today but as it's the same week as ANWG and I've already applied there, I can't apply to Mid-West, too.  Another time perhaps.  Of course there's no guarantee I'll get to teach at ANWG, but it would be too embarassing to get accepted at both and have to turn one of them down.  :(

One of my jobs in the next little while is to review and update my workshop topics.  I already know I have to update Magic in the Water part II so I've pulled some yarns for a new warp for that workshop.  I'll weave the sample as soon as I get the towel warp done.  I need to order more yarns for that, too, so I'm going to try to get all the yarn orders done at once.  I have to watch my budget, too!

I've also been thinking that I ought to move up publication date for the sample packet to co-incide with HWSDA.  Unfortunately my energy levels still aren't great so I haven't done much about that - yet.  Instead I set out a jigsaw puzzle and I've been vegging fiddling with bits of coloured cardboard.  But I am hoping that my energy will start to come back now that I'm pretty much over my cold.

A dozen towels are in the washing machine and I'll go press them on Sunday along with the rest of the place mats I finished hemming and whatever else I can manage to get ready by then.  These towels are particularly exciting because they have the Fox Fibre yarn for weft and the colours should develop to a much greater degree than the loom state.

In the meantime it's back to the loom to weave the 2nd towel of the day.  We'll see if I manage 3 or not.

Next Big Project

next Fox Fibre towel

 

I think the towels on this warp are turning out quite nicely.  They will make excellent hostess gifts next year when I travel to teach.  They will also eventually be listed on my Art Fire Store as soon as they are wet finished, hemmed and pressed - which will take a while.  I'm just about at the half way mark on this warp with quite a bit of weaving left to do - it's a 40 yard warp.  :)

In the meantime I am getting over my cold and finally my brain and energy seem to be returning.

One of the things I have had to do is take serious stock of where I am at in my life and what direction I would like to go in terms of weaving/teaching/writing.  I'm now 61 years old with no pension plan other than to continue to weave.  No lottery wins for me!  (Of course one is supposed to actually buy a lottery ticket in order to win!)  :}

A number of people have urged me to produce more sample packets so I have been giving this very close consideration and have decided that if I scale back and do a much more modest presentation than Magic in the Water that it is feasible.

Right now plans include 10 projects with before and after samples.  This will mean 10 (approximately) 16 yard long warps to weave, cut up and wet finish the actual samples plus the prototype project warps.  The samples will come as loose pages (no binder) which will help save on shipping and production costs and the print run will be 150 maximum.  Printing will be done by a laser copier, not an off set press which will further reduce the expense of production.  Samples would be stapled to card stock as we did for Magic.  Yes, all projects will have project notes and be for either 4 or 8 shaft looms.

My deadline to have this ready would be by Convergence next year.  Ball park pricing is between $50 and $60 for the package plus shipping.  If you are at all interested you can vote on the poll at the top of the page (or email me laura at laurafry dot com if you want to be on my pre-publication contact list and I'll let you know when it is ready for sale). 

If this first publication is well received I have plans for 3 additional publications.

Currently reading Leave the Grave Green by Deborah Crombie

Wet Finished

cones of Fox Fibre yarn and wet finished towels

Friday evening I finished weaving the beige warp with the Fox Fibre weft and ran the 19 towels through the washer/dryer on Saturday.  Today I went and pressed them.  Over all I'm quite pleased with the results although the colours aren't 'my' colours.  Actually the brown ones would look quite nice in my kitchen with the cork floors.  ;)

The cloth is slightly more weft emphasis on one side, and slightly more warp emphasis on the other.  Personally I like the warp emphasis better so will hem them so that that side is the 'right' side.

My energy is slowly returning and I celebrate each day that it is.  Today I beamed a warp onto the Leclerc Fanny for placemats and table runners.  I'm trying to use up some warps I'd intended to have painted for scarves but that never happened so two warps are wide enough for placemats woven width-ways.  It means hems on the top and bottom of the mat instead of the ends, but I don't think that will matter too much.  And it uses up the warps.  Stash busting continues.

I also got the warp for a guild member wound and will go up to the guild room Tuesday night and get some help extracting the loom from the 'herd' of looms so I can get that warp dressed for Ruth's friendship coverlet.

And last, but not least, I started beaming another tea towel warp, this time in two shades of blue, mixed thoroughly.  The weft for this warp will be a singles 6 cotton with lots of twist energy.  I'll probably do a couple of different treadlings, one in advancing twill, one in waffle weave.  With the twist energy in the weft, the waffle weave ought to pucker up well.

I've used this yarn for collapse effects and it works quite well if given sufficient room to torque.  I have lots of it and have been thinking of coning some off the huge mill cones and offering it for sale.  Perhaps it's time I got a round tuit and did just that.

Currently reading The Sharing Knife, part II by Lois McMaster Bujold - this series has lots of references to spinning and weaving for anyone who enjoys that in a story

Weaving Zen

There is nothing quite like weaving when everything is going smoothly.  :)  Today I found myself in harmony with the loom and decided to tape a video clip.  I'd hoped that my left hand would be more visible so that viewers could see how I catch the shuttle between my index and middle finger, then shift my index finger to propel the shuttle back across the web - but there just wasn't enough room between the loom and the wall to get the camera at just the correct distance.  Sorry it didn't work out.

Getting a good weaving rhythm is a confluence of a number of factors.  First the warp has to beamed firmly and evenly so that you get a good clear shed.

Then the bobbins have to be wound well - again with firm tension so that the built up layers can't cut down into the lower layers of yarn.

Holding the shuttle 'underslung' allows it to be caught and thrown in an ergonomic manner.  The shoulders are relaxed and a little bit of a flick of the wrist combined with the push of the index finger can shoot the shuttle across quite a wide web.  In this instance it's not too wide - just 24" in the reed.  This is a width I find quite comfortable to hand throw.  More than 30" wide and I start to feel the strain from having to hold my hands out further from my body.  More than 30" in width I generally switch to the fly shuttle.

You might notice that at a certain point in the cycle my hands are not holding onto the beater at all.  I don't weave with an overhead beater so I'm not sure that this is possible on one of those but on an underslung beater there is a time when it passes the pivot point that it will naturally fall towards the fell or away from it. 

I have a few other video clips on my You Tube channel here where I talk through what I am doing and weave more slowly.

And here is a better view of the cloth:

Here you can see the cut line I weave in on the lower level to aid in separating the towels once they are off the loom.  It's the white line.  One of the advantages of the Compu-Dobby is that I can generate the entire treadling draft and include a blank pick to let me know that the next two picks are to be woven in a constrasting colour for the cut line.

And here is a close up of the cloth.  I threaded the large motif once along each edge of the cloth.  Once the cloth has been wet finished and the brown Fox Fibre yarn has developed the darker colour, the design woven into the cloth should show up much more clearly. 

That, at least, is the plan!

Rising to the Challenge

here is the 2/20 merc. cotton warp all beamed and ready to be threaded

brown and green Fox Fibre yarn on cone and small sample soaked in heavy concentration of washing soda and detergent - wow! look at the green!

One of my weaving mentors always said that if we weren't making mistakes we weren't learning.  Her words struck a chord with me and I've never fussed too much about the mistakes I've made. 

Oh sure I get disappointed and exasperated at myself when I make stupid mistakes - those dumb mistakes that we all make when we just don't think through something or forget a lesson from the past.  You know what they say - if you don't learn from history you are doomed to repeat it.

I've done plenty of repeating and I get annoyed with myself when I do.

But I don't ever let the fear of failing keep me from trying something new.  The mistakes we make along the path simply let us know when we are straying from success and allow us to make changes that will bring us closer to the desired results.

And sometimes trying is the only way to find out if that direction is truly the way you want to go.

It was fun working on the baby wraps but what I discovered is that they take a lot more 'engineering' in terms of the sewing than I'm really happy about doing.  And so I think I will return from that interesting detour and go back to the more 'ordinary' things that I've done in the past - tea towels, scarves, shawls and so on.

I have also had to do a lot of thinking about the coming months.  The last two cycles are going to get yet more challenging from everything that I've been told and so it is going to be important to keep stress - good and bad - to a minimum.  Mom's surgery is going to be stressful for her and us as we do our best to help her through her recovery.  And of course there is the upcoming craft fair season to be dealt with.

Since I earn my income from weaving (doing it and teaching it) these shows are a critical part of my income for the year.  While Doug is willing to work the shows, there is still the weaving, wet finishing, tagging and pricing to be done.  I've tried to stay on top of that but a quick riffle through the storage area showed me that not everything is priced.  I will have to start packing things up early in October so that everything is ready for the show season. 

Weavolution, the weaver's social network, is doing something interesting this year.  Called Halloweave, a number of group leaders have issued challenges to people to stretch their wings and dare to try something different.  I'm not participating in any of the challenges (see above about stress) but I'm trying to be supportive of those people who are willing to participate.  You can find out more information on their website here

It doesn't cost anything to join.

Currently reading Home Improvement; undead edition edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner

Sunny Sunday

Silk scarves after pressing

Managed to get the pressing done today - 8 silk scarves (whoops, really lost count!), 7 silk gimp shawls, 2 larger shawls and a small rectangle that may become a baby 'blankie'.

This afternoon I met with a lace making friend and we both talked lots and made (a very little) lace.  We're both having some issues with numbness in our hands - different reasons, same affect - so mostly the afternoon was about catching up since our last visit.

Once I got home I ruminated on the next warp some more, decided that the blue really would not fit nicely into the cloth I was seeing in my mind's eye, then realized there was much less of the pale grey than I thought I had and removed that, too.  So the next warp is a mixed blend of the pale and medium sort of beige colours and the sage green.  The warp is mostly the palest beige with the sage green as the least amount.

The weft on these tea towels will be the two darkest of the Fox Fibre colours - 100% green and 100% brown.  The blended colours of the Fox Fibre yarns darkened much more than anticipated so I'm expecting the 100% colours to get even darker yet, relying on the contrast in values to pop the fancy twill up as the design element. 

Since I haven't actually done a sample, I am fully into the 'full sized sample' club on this warp!

But now it's time to go to my friend's across the street for a tutorial on how to give myself the jabs to stimulate white cell growth.  Another milestone on this journey.  :)

Currently reading Wheel of Fate by Kate Sedley

Looking Ahead - Cautiously

possible yarns for next warp - tea towels with Fox Fibre weft

possible draft for towels

I think I'm on scarf #7 with a possibility of either 9 or 10 scarves on this warp.  The silk warp went onto the loom at 20 turns (nominally 20 yards) and I've been weaving each scarf about 72" plus the fringes so with loom waste, samples, etc., I'm pretty sure the warp will only give me 9 scarves.

Therefore, it's about time I started thinking, at least tentatively, about the next warp.

I'm finding each cycle is knocking the stuffing out of me a little bit more, just as warned, so I decided to do something a little less challenging than the baby wraps.  Not to mention that early feedback from field tests is indicating that a bit more tweaking needs to be done in terms of construction, so before I invest any more time and materials in making more wraps I want to fine tune them.

One of the things I concentrate on when designing cloth is the function the fabric is to perform.  I've never worn a baby wrap so I have no personal experience of the wear and tear they need to withstand.  I did the best I could with the limited knowledge of wraps that I had but it seems they need to be constructed (and by this I mean the sewing, not the weaving) to be more sturdy than what I did with the first batch.  I've asked for one of the test wraps back so I can apply a couple of options and then give the wrap back to the tester for more feedback.

In the meantime I realized that in spite of weaving dozens of tea towels the last 5 years I have very few left in stock so it seems tea towels are the way to go.  :)  I gave free tea towels away with purchases of Magic and there are not a lot left on the shelf.  I do have half a dozen or so more to hem, but....

Since I have a great deal of Fox Fibre yarn to use up the next warp will be a mixed or blended one (not stripes) of different colours. 

While I do have more 2/20 merc. cotton on hand, the colours are too dark in value for this warp.  If I went with the darkest value colours I feel the tea towels would be too dark to be appealing.  So I'll keep those darker values for baby wraps, if I decide to continue developing that textile.  Actually I'm not entirely sure I'll put that blue in the warp.  It's just dark enough that it might make the cloth look streaky.  Which is one reason why I'm thinking about the next warp now so I can mull over my options. 

If I drop the blue I'll probably increase the green and darker beige.  With such a fancy twill weave structure I don't want visual stripes or streaks, but rather a more blended colour appearance.  Then I'll use the darker value Fox Fibre shades so that there is some contrast between the lighter value warp and the darker value weft so that the weave structure shows as the pattern in the cloth.

Currently reading In A Gilded Cage by Rhys Bowen

Another Mini-Milestone (or two)

This morning I went up to the annex and did some more pressing.  The colours of the Fox Fibre yarns are actually a little more intense than shown here - guess the flash wiped some of the intensity out.

From the left - 50% green, 25% green, 50% brown, 25% brown, then regular 2/16 unmerc. cotton in cream and on the far right, natural white wefts.  I was going to put some of the 'raw' yarn on the cloth to show the change in colour - and I forgot.  Brain is truly not firing on all cylinders these days.  :(

Three of the wraps are almost ready to go.  I still have to sew the Fox Fibre label onto the two FF wraps that are ready, measure them and attach the care/hang tag.  The other three will get sewn some time this week, depending on how I feel after Wednesday.

In the meantime I have a long list of things that need to be done yet, including threading the guild loom on Monday, drive mom to her doctor's appointment and so on.  I'm still hoping to get the silk scarf warp sleyed and tied on today but it doesn't look like I'll get any weaving done.  We'll see how things go on Monday - hopefully I can at least get the first scarf started.

My web master made a truly Herculean effort last week and it looks like he's getting very close to finalizing the transfer of Magic to digital format.

Since word of mouth is the most effective marketing tool I'd appreciate it if you, dear readers, would pass the word that Magic will be available sometime in September in digital format.  I'm taking names and making up a contact list to let people know when I have cd's in hand and available to ship.  For those who prefer a 'real' book with actual fabric samples - there are still 14 abridged copies of Magic left.  They are listed on my Art Fire store http://laurafry.artfire.com/

People on my contact list will receive their copies of digital Magic first, then I will be listing it on my Art Fire store as well. 

All Wrapped Up!

stack of 'finished' wraps

sewing the 'hand woven by Laura Fry' label into the seam

The thing about weaving is that what you are mostly making is squares or rectangles.  Towels, place mats, shawls, scarves, table cloths.  Rectangles.  Or squares.

Generally if you are making something out of your fabric, you can make any sort of shape you want, like garments.  Or bags.  Or - well, your imagination is the limit.

I'm not a seamstress.  Yes, I can sew - if I have to.  But to make a garment that fits well and doesn't look home made instead of hand made - well, I would rather be weaving.

So when I was approached last December about making baby wraps, I thought that would be a great new product for me.  I wove a prototype and then could not contact the person who asked me about it - their email elicited no reply, a message left on their voice mail garnered no return call.  So I boxed the prototype up and pretty much forgot about it.

Until I met my latest student.  :)  She's a big fan of baby wraps and essentially wanted to learn how to weave so that she could make herself baby wraps.  I remembered my prototype and found it in the store room (a bit of a miracle, really!) and gave it to her to test drive.

Her feedback was great and I revisited the idea with her input.  And now I have 3 completed wraps with 3 more yet to come, possibly 4, because I made a couple of them shorter than originally planned.

Whether or not the baby wearing community will be interested in my baby wraps is yet to be determined.  But I feel confident I've got a product that will perform well and, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.  And besides, they are rectangles.  If they don't sell as baby wraps I can always cut them down into table cloths or something, right?

Finished! (Almost)

This morning I went up to the annex and fired up Puff so that I could press the cloth that went through the washer and dryer last night.

I'm quite pleased with the results.  The green and brown are the Fox Fibre weft yarn, the white uses 'ordinary' 2/16 cotton in natural for weft.  The pattern in the two Fox Fibre cloths is quite subtle now but shows up when viewed from different angles.  I like the way it plays peek-a-boo.  ;)

The warp is over the half way mark now although I'm not exactly sure how far.  I'll measure the 3 pieces tomorrow when they are dry and get them sewn up.  I've got massage tomorrow afternoon so probably won't weave after that - sewing these items will likely be a better activity (and let my neck muscles rest from weaving).

I'd hoped to have this warp off the loom before Wednesday but it doesn't look like that is going to happen.  I'm thinking the next warp might be a silk scarf warp.  I've got a bunch of 2/20 natural white silk already on spools so beaming that warp will be easy.  For weft I have some finer tussah silk.  Since I can only sell a few 'white' scarves I'll probably weave them up and then dye them after weaving.  Which means a hem stitched end, not fringe twisting.  :)  I've got way more fringe twisting to do, I really don't need to add to that mountain of finishing work. 

The really nice thing about hem stitching is that no further 'finishing' is required once off the loom.  And hem stitching a scarf really doesn't take all that long.

That Old Magic in the Water

light green on left, light brown on right before wet finishing

It truly felt like magic in the water!  The wefts before finishing were quite subtle.  After wet finishing they turned darker and took on a lot more definition.  And these are spun with just 25% of the naturally coloured cotton.

The colours may deepen further yet although I'm not sure because I haven't sampled them to test how far they will go.

Sometimes it's nice to have an element of surprise.  Plus my target market is aware of these yarns and that they will change colour.  Or at least some of them are, from what I understand.  Lots to learn about the customer base yet.

For more information on naturally grown coloured cotton you might find this website interesting:
naturally coloured cotton

More of the Same

This treadling pleased me enough that I decided to weave a second item in the same treadling but with one of the darker green Fox Fibre wefts.  I think the pattern shows up a little more clearly - possibly because the colour value is just that much slightly darker than the last one.

One of the things that you have to do when you are trying to earn an income from making things is to show up for work.  Every day. 

You have to make working a priority.  And sometimes there are tasks involved that you don't much like or care to do but they need to be done and someone has to do them.  Most times that someone is you.

For me, the weaving is the fun part, the zen part, the part that, once I get into the 'groove' - well, the time just flies by.  Usually I put on a cd or cassette tape and when it ends I'm reminded to take a break.

Doesn't matter much what it is I'm weaving.  I just love to be weaving.  Some things I love more than others, naturally, but when I'm doing something that isn't on the top of my list of favourite things, it's usually because it is necessary to achieve the quality of cloth that I desire.

So it is with this cloth.  I decided that I really truly needed to use a temple.  Now I don't like using a temple because moving it forward every inch slows me down.  But in the long run I'm much happier with the results and once I get into the rhythm of 32 picks, move temple, it actually goes fairly quickly.  Faster than hand throwing, even.

So I finished the light brown weft cloth, partly because I have a potential client and she wanted the cloth shorter than what I'd planned, wound the pirns for the medium green and got nearly 20" of that woven before quitting for the night.

I even managed to do a tiny bit of paperwork and fringe twist.

All in all, a pretty good day.

Currently reading Downpour by Kat Richardson