New Spinners

Yesterday two new spinners/weavers came over to look at the Ashland Bay spinning fibres.

I'd met them the evening before at the guild drop-in where they were working on their inkle looms weaving tapes and/or spinning on drop spindles. :)

One of the local spinners/weavers has been giving classes at the SCA group and has been weaving up a storm herself making SCA appropriate tapes.

It's just great to see interest starting to bubble!

Weaving seems to go through cycles of interest, then subsiding for a while. When I started weaving in 1974 interest was just growing and there was a lot of excitement about it. It seems that it may be growing again - how lovely.

Someone commented that one of the barriers to weaving is the cost of a new loom. In my area there is a surplus of used looms around, but ultimately a full size loom takes up a room. Not everyone has that much room to spare.

However there are small looms - inkle, backstrap, card/tablet weaving, even rigid heddle looms. When I first started weaving I wasn't very interested in the small looms. I was primarily interested in 'fancy' weaving with lots of shafts. :D But the only difference between a loom without shafts, or only a few shafts, and one with lots of shafts is that you can do 'fancy' weave structures more efficiently. If a person is willing to use a pick up stick, there really isn't anything that they can't do.

So one of the things I'll be showing Mizz B how to do is pick up. Right now she can use my 24 shaft lever loom, but when she moves home she will have her 4 shaft Leclerc Fanny and backstrap loom. Knowing how to do pick up will give her the freedom to do lots of 'fancy' things with a minimum of investment in equipment.

The trade off will be that it will take her more time.

Currently reading State Fair by Earlene Fowler

Moon Dance, Anyone?

I got the wardrobe.....

This morning, rather early (for me and Doug, that is) I went to the hospital Cast Room and got the staples removed from the incisions, an x-ray taken to check on healing and then got outfitted with a 'moon boot'. Didn't ask how much the boot cost - didn't want to know. :} I'll wait til the bill arrives in the mail.....

No I can't put any weight on my foot yet. Another 3 weeks before I can even think about putting maybe half my weight on it.

But the boot is removeable and I'm to start doing gentle physiotherapy - mostly stretching and flexing the foot in order to keep the ankle muscles limber - as well as some gentle massage. And to let the incisions heal in the air.

Doug is about ready to start loading the van - just waiting on a few more items to pack up. I've woven some on the rigid heddle demonstrator loom so he can now package that up for transport, too.

I ventured down the stairs to the studio yesterday (bum bump, bum bump) and finished threading the last 2 inches on the AVL, then started sleying, but I can see that it's going to be a few more days before I can contemplate weaving. I'll aim for when Doug returns next week. :)

In the meantime I finished hemming a dozen placemats and a table runner, and have a stack of tea towels to do yet.

I'll get Doug to dig that stack of Terry Pratchett's Disc World books that I haven't yet read out of the guest room. That should keep me well occupied while he's away.

Currently reading Masqurade by Terry Pratchett

Scarf A Day

Scarf number 1 (orange) and Scarf number 2 (blue - on loom)

One of the blogs I follow is Janet D's:

Scarf A Day: Everything Old is New Again [Scarf #42]

She essentially challenged her readers to join her in her Scarf A Day goals. So today became a Scarf Day for me, too. :)

I had managed to weave one scarf on the little Ashford rigid heddle loom a few weeks ago, but the loom had been languishing. Today was crafts drop-in day, so I grabbed some wool that I'd balled up a while ago, quickly wound a warp then headed for the drop-in where I would have a nice big table all to myself to dress the loom.

Since it took hardly any time to dress the rigid heddle loom, I started weaving, and managed to finish the scarf just before 4 pm.

Still have to weave the header (footer?) before I can cut it off, but I didn't have any 'extra' yarn with me for that. So it had to come home still on the loom.

All of which is to say that no, I didn't finish re-packaging the spinning fibre, nor take the photos for my website. :(

It has been a bit of a challenging couple of days on the personal front and it was nice to just get away from the mess and chaos here and spend a little time with some other creative people.

Taming the Rigid Heddle Loom - Maybe!

rough sleying the rigid heddle reed - just like I do 'ordinary' reeds for floor looms


beaming the same way I do a floor loom - vinyl wallpaper warp packing



threading the heddle - the cross was transferred behind the heddle for threading



weaving commences - notice weft is wound onto the shuttle by figure 8's on the spine - this puts the yarn where the shed is the biggest for ease of passsage


After waiting for several weeks for Doug to find the time to finish the wood and assemble the loom, I decided tonight was the night to get it set up and operating.

Since I don't have a table - or space - sufficient to wind a warp long enough using Ashford's warping peg method, and since I am a weaver with a whole studio full of weaving tools - I wound a warp the usual way on my warping board. It's about 2.5 meters, which should be long enough for a scarf given that I can use the loom waste for the fringes.

The yarn is a thick and thin wool that I dyed a while ago and wrapped to around 6 epi. I only have a 7.5 and a 12.5 heddle so I used the 7.5 with a finer yarn planned for weft. (My mom gave me a bag of old - and I do mean old! - Patton's yarn. Since I'm encouraging her in reducing her stash I told her that of course I could use it! Should make good weft yarn for this scarf. And several others, to boot...)

As well as wind the warp I also had to make final adjustments to the loom so set up took a bit longer than it will in the future.

The Ashford rigid heddle loom comes with these nifty plastic thingees to attach the apron rods to the beams. I knew right away that wouldn't work for me on the back beam so I rooted in my studio to find the spool of TexSolv tie up cord and attached the beam with that. I tried the plastic gizmos on the front but already I can tell they will be exchanged for more tie up cord as soon as this warp comes off.

But one thing I have already learned - the space constraints due to the small size of the loom are going to make threading two heddles so I can weave twills a bit of a nuisance. I'm going to read through Betty Davenport's book and see if she has any suggestions for making this easier.

One thing I do know, reducing the size of my hands isn't an option! :^)

Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom

Picked up my new Ashford Rigid Heddle loom last night and decided that, even though I have no time whatsoever to get it assembled and try it out right now, to at least open the box.

I'm glad I did because I wanted two each of the heddles, but didn't make myself clear when I ordered it. :( So I've ordered two more heddles, which will hopefully be here by the time we get back from Oliver, BC and Doug has time to put it together. (That's the part he likes about my being a weaver - he gets to play with the equipment.) :D

My friend is going out of business, so we talked about my taking over her Ashford dealership. If I'm going to start teaching weaving on rigid heddle looms, it would be really nice to be able to supply new weavers with their equipment.

So after wallowing around for a few years wondering what direction to take with my weaving, it looks like a path has opened in the forest. Since I've picked up spinning again, too, being an Ashford dealer might be a very good thing to do.

Anyway, I've asked for more details about what it takes to have a dealership, so we'll see.

Currently reading the Hald book on ancient textiles - as predicted, it's intriguing but not terribly enlightening. Sample, sample, sample!

The Yarn Harlot

I first heard about The Yarn Harlot (Stephanie Pearl-McPhee) in 2003, but - not being much involved in the knitting world - didn't pursue the comments made by fervent knitting friends. :)

Thursday we went to Weaving Works in Seattle so that I could buy a pair of knitting needles. (I suspected I was about to run out of hand work to do in the evenings - a fate worse than death!)

While there I looked at their books, thinking that since I was purchasing a rigid heddle loom, a book that would help me use this tool effectively might be A Good Thing.

While scanning the book shelves, I spotted a slim volume called Things I Learned from Knitting....whether I wanted to or not.

Pulling it down from the shelf I started reading. And giggling. And snickering. And out right laughing.

For instance, The 39th Thing: Goodness is its own reward.

"Sometimes if I am having a very, very bad day and much of humanity vexes me entirely, one of the only things that keeps me on the straight and narrow in this life is the knowledge that not all prisons have a knitting program."

http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/


Oh, yes, I also got Betty Linn Davenport's book on rigid heddle weaving.

Oh - and I also rummaged (foraged?) through Lynn's stash and got a couple of nice cottons that I combined to knit a scarf and got about 10 inches done while we (well, while Lynn) watched the baseball game. We won't discuss the 8 or 9 huge cones of extremely fine linen I also came across and will be bringing home to weave more tea towels with. Like Stephanie says - you get way more value for your money with very fine yarns..........

On Re-Discovering Plain Weave

....or the joy of being able to weave without thinking....

A few weeks ago a friend asked if I had any of my painted warp scarves woven in plain weave that she could use to illustrate an article she was writing. (Hi Tien!)

I didn't, but assured her that I could and set about dressing the loom with a scarf warp, intending to weave one scarf in plain weave, the rest in a 'fancy' four shaft twill.

Well, this was about the time my bp had gone all wonky and being able to just sit down at the loom, treadle plain weave and throw the shuttle was great therapy. Mentally as well as physically. :) Not to mention that I was really liking what was happening on the loom. So I wound up weaving off the whole warp in plain weave!

Since then I've done several scarf warps - all in plain weave - and it's been wonderful. The current warp is shades of pale turqouise to a dark royal blue. The first two scarves were woven with a turquoise (almost cyan). The last two are being woven with a darker mid-range blue.

I've also been doing a lot of thinking about the 'future of weaving' - how to encourage more people to take up the craft, on-line resources, such as Weavolution, WeaveZine, WeaveCast etc., etc.

And last night I talked myself into ordering a rigid heddle loom. I know, I know - me of the "if I'm going to weave just let me toss that shuttle and weave as efficiently as possible" philosophy!

But given the cost of floor looms and the state of the economy, I'm thinking that a whole lot more people are going to be open to weaving on a rigid heddle loom as an introduction. Sooooo - I guess it's time for me to take that step and really learn how the tool works so I can - perhaps - offer classes.

So which loom? Well, an Ashford because a friend is an Ashford dealer and is willing to give me a really good price. The rigid heddle (not the Knitter's Loom) because you can get the two heddle kit with two 12.5 dent heddle - which means being able to weave a lot more than plain weave - joyous as that is.

In the end, I may be heading to Syne's for lessons on rigid heddle weaving............right, Syne?

On the bp front, that seems to be stabilizing since the last tweak in medications. And the regimen of weaving plain weave for at least an hour every day. :D