Stash reduction?????

With my stated aim of stash reduction, how did I manage to justify coming home with nearly 30 pounds of yarn????

Well, I never specified which stash I was aiming to reduce! So when Lynn encouraged me to help myself to more of her fine linens......well, what was a good friend to do but help her reduce her stash, too!

I still have lots of fine cottons, but had finally used up (nearly) all of the fine linen, so the opportuntity to get my hands on more - well, what could I do? I caved, of course. Lynn will get more tea towels next year as a thank you for the yarn.

The drive home was in nearly perfect conditions - no rain or sleet this year as has happened so often in the past. Traffic was very light so I was able to make good time, and I stopped as seldom as possible, for as little time as I could manage. I left Seattle at 4:45 am, and arrived home about 3:45 pm - just in time to head up to the University to help Doug pack up and out.

Next year I'll be teaching in Michigan the weekend of the Seattle guild sale, so won't be there in person (although a bevy of great friends have offered to help deliver and pick up my textiles). And the local craft fair is the weekend following, so I'll be able to be in attendance myself next year and Doug won't have to do it all by himself. :)

Today I'm trying to recover from the trip, unpack, deal with mail and banking, and then I hope to start dressing the loom with the red cotton. There are two spools of red singles linen left for towels, and the rest of the warp will be for shawls.

Road Trip

Today I finished the 30 yard shawl warp - just in time to bring the shawls with me to fringe twist when I can find the time on my trip. :) Which I am sure I will, in the evenings or when ever. One of the really nice features of the AVL is that the cloth is stored at the back of the loom and I can just keep weaving and weaving. This beam will get transferred to my work table in order to cut and inspect/repair the cloth. I think I remember one warp thread breaking early on, but perhaps that was the last warp.

I'm heading south tomorrow and will be back on the 27th. Well, late on the 26th if the weather is good. It's a long drive from Seattle to Prince George, but my host/ess rise early, so I plan to hit the road by 6 am. It's about a 12-13 hour drive with minimal stops, so it will be dark before I get home. Many years I've driven home in the dark, in the rain. So not nice! However, the Seattle Weavers Guild sale is great and I'm looking forward to visiting with the friends I've made there.

However, I'm not going directly there - first I'll be at the Desert Mesa Spin In in Cache Creek, BC with Loralee, helping her in her booth. And spinning. So many people have no idea I came to weaving via spinning and dyeing, and frankly I've done very little of it over the past 20 or so years. But somehow I managed to acquire 3 spinning wheels in the last little while, so I am looking forward to spending some time getting acquainted with spinning again. As always I'll be the odd ball - I spin woolen long draw and can't seem to get my hands to do worsted. :}

In between Cache Creek and Seattle I'll be visiting with another friend, helping her get her new-to-her loom fine tuned.

I'm looking forward to the trip, but also to getting home again as I will be re-tooling all the workshop handouts for the various topics that have been booked for 2009. There are so many new yarns in the market that I want to drop old ones and add some new. But it will be work of many hours, and probably some sample warps to test them out, so I expect most of Nov/Dec will be devoted to pouring through sample cards, ordering yarns, weaving samples, and re-generating workshop handouts. It's going to feel good to finally do that.

The local guild has booked several demo's in Nov/Dec so I'll also be helping out with that where I can.

So this will be my last post for a couple of weeks.

Dyeing

This morning and part of this afternoon I dyed about 8 pounds of yarn - 4 pounds of a silk boucle, and 4 pounds of a yarn called Bamboo Rain - 65% merino, 20% bamboo and 15% silk.

I bought the Bamboo Rain in February and it arrived just a few days before my brother died, so I didn't have much time or energy to get it dyed until now.

The bamboo is cellulose, so the dye doesn't strike it quite the same as the wool/silk and the result is a subtle tweedy effect. I'm dyeing the yarn in a "semi-solid", not trying for level colours, because I like the slight variations in shade used for warp or weft.

While I have managed to dye and weave a small amount of the yarn, I'm looking forward to trying some different combinations. One idea is shadow weave - or some other colour and weave effect - with one yarn in the Bamboo Rain, one in Bambu 7. They are about the same grist, so should work up nicely together. A project for the winter?

While the Bamboo Rain was all done in the semi-solid, the silk was done as 1 pound of the teal shade, 1 pound of the purple, and 2 pounds of a variegated teal/purple. Where the teal and purple overlap, a really deep navy results. Not sure what I will do with the silk yet - this is the same yarn as used for weft in the loofah towels, so they may turn into towel weft, or?

I'm also doing some shows next spring, so perhaps it will just get offered for sale in my booth. :)

Speaking of which, there are plans afoot for a fibre festival in March in Abbotsford, BC. Will let people know if it goes ahead, or check the Schedule Page on my website.

Thanksgiving

This weekend is Thanksgiving. It is also the weekend we "lost" Peter Collingwood. I'll miss his dry wit and encyclopedic knowledge about all things thread.

I've also been thinking very consciously about all the things for which I am deeply thankful.

With the passing of Peter Collingwood, I've been thinking a great deal about all the teachers that have touched my life. I think the workshop that Peter led here in Prince George was the third workshop I took.

My first weaving teacher, Elain Genser, was not primarily a weaver but a fibre artist. She gave probably the most valuable gift of all when she insisted that none of her students "copy" anything we saw in a book or magazine but draw upon our own personal creativity to design our projects.

At the time I was a pattern person. If I didn't have a pattern to follow I didn't know where to start. Elain showed us how to begin with a design inspiration and follow it with our own creative spark.

Some of the teachers have faded into memory, but some stand out for the value of the lessons they taught - not always about weaving, but also about how to be a creative person. Diane Mortenson, Lilly Bohlin, Allen Fannin, Dini Moes, Morfydd Roberts, Mary Bentley, Jack Lenor Larsen, Jane Stafford, Linda Heinrich, Madelyn van der Hoogt - the list goes on.

Others have taught through their inspiration - Noreen Rustad, Eileen Shannon, Jane Evans, Robyn Spady, Syne Mitchell. Some have taught through their friendship - Darlene Wainwright, Sheila Carey, Betty Bell, Teresa Ruch, Karena Pollard, Lynn Heglar, Loralee Schultz, Kerstin Fro:berg. Last, but certainly not least, some have taught through their example - mom, dad, my brother and Doug.

All of these people, and so many more, have contributed to make me the person, the weaver, I am today.

It is one of the reasons I am so supportive of WeaveCast. Syne has worked hard to bring us the people behind the writing and the designs, allowing us to get to know them in a way that we couldn't otherwise. Syne interviewed Peter Collingwood for a recent 'cast - link is to the right in my list of links. For even more information, Complex Weavers produced a DVD interviewing Peter and touring his studio.

So, at this time of the year, with the leaves turning colour and winter sending chills down our spines, it is good to think about all the things we have to give thanks for. This year, of course, my primary gratitude is simply for life itself, and the opportunity to go on being a creative person, playing with thread. :D

(Email me for info on my Thanksgiving "Special" on Magic in the Water; wet finishing handwovens. laura@laurafry.com)

Next shawl

Not sure why my camera wouldn't work yesterday, but after removing the battery for an hour, it seemed to gather itself together and started working again. But I'm going to have to find the manual for my brother's camera and figure out how to get the flash working - just in case!

This photo shows the beginning of the next shawl, including the cutting line. I tested the blue bamboo weft at the cutting line to make sure it was going to work before committing to doing the whole shawl.

When I was first starting out as a weaver, I hung out with a group of artists - a painter, print maker, wood turner and a couple of potters. We collaborated on mounting shows/sales, and talked together about being creative people.

One of the things I learned was that creativity doesn't happen in a vacuum, and that artists rarely make a single artistic statement but rather build on an idea in a series.

Weavers quite naturally work in "series". Setting up the loom is such a lot of work, it makes sense to put a long warp on and do multiple items on that same warp. Sometimes I do identical things, such as placemats and a table runner. Sometimes I change the tie-up, treadling and/or the weft for each item, such as on this shawl warp.

At the end, I will have 9 shawls that will form a "series". They all have the same warp and they will share the same threading. I am changing the treadling and weft for each one, and as I move from Bambu 12 to 2/10 Tencel, will change the tie up as well. Seen as a "whole", the 9 shawls will make an artistic statement.

From time to time I have had assistance in the studio. One of these assistants once asked me why my scarves "all look the same". I told her it was called "having a line". Each year in my craft fair booth, I present 3 to 5 different scarf designs in a variety of colours. I may also change the treadlings as well as the weft colours. Customers often see a design that appeals to them, but want to choose from amongst a variety of colours. So I don't just make one of any particular design, but work in series.

Fashion designers are very familiar with the concept - every year, twice a year, sometimes 3 times - they have to put a collection together. The collection will centre on a theme of some sort.

The look of the collection, or "line", will have a cohesiveness that can be readily identified as their particular look.

Some of the best hand weavers (IMHO) have a style that can be readily identified as their work. Randall Darwell is perhaps the best known hand weaver, but there are others.

Sandra Rude has several lines of scarves. Lucille Crichton has a line of clothing. Once seen, either of their work can never be mistaken for anyone else's. I've posted links to their websites on my list of links to the right.

I belong to a large guild that has a sale every autumn. One of the members commented to me that she could always identify my work. I took that as a compliment. :)

Back to shawls

Today my digital camera died, so I dug my brother's camera out. I can't get the flash to work, but I hope this is clear enough to be seen.

Someone emailed me, asking how/why I make design decisions for a project. She noted that this warp is wider than the last one, and wondered why.

Dimensions for a textile are a range, not set in stone. So when I decide to make something, I already have a width range in mind.

The next decision is which weave structure to use. In this case, it is twill blocks. Then I decide how large a block I want. The unit for twill is generally 4 ends - how many repeats will set the width for the block - IF you want all the blocks the same size.

Once I've set the scale of the block, I start generating progressions. Do I want the design to be symmetrical? Asymmetrical? Do I want the design to repeat across the textile, or be non-repeating? When I've got the general look of the design, I start number crunching to fit the design into the general dimensional range.

For shawls, my general width is between 20 and 30 inches in the reed. In the case of the previous warp, the width in the reed was 22". The bamboo yarn shrank a lot more than the Tencel, and since I wanted to use the bamboo more often for weft I wanted to start a little wider in the reed, so the width of 24" in the reed should work out to a nice finished width.

The actual threading is mirrored in the centre, and in this case, the threading worked out precisely to fit the 24" width in the reed. If it hadn't, I might have added a border, or if I had planned a border, may have adjusted it if necessary to make it fit.

As for length, I weave shawls between 84 to 90 inches under tension on the loom, plus 12" for fringe (6" on each end) so roughly 3 yards of warp per shawl. With a 30 yard warp, I should get 9 shawls.

Towel draft

As part of my stash reduction plan, I am trying very hard to use up what I have on hand, and not buy more yarn.

These towels were made from 2/16 unmercerized cotton for warp, and cottolin for weft.

The warp was 21" in the reed, 10 yards long, wound in two sections or warp chains. Generally I use a warping valet (trapeze) to beam longer/wider warps, using one water jug for each section. The jugs have the same amount of water so that they provide the same degree of tension to each section.

During threading, I changed twill direction each time the colour changed, but skipped a shaft so that there is a break at the change. There are two advantages to doing this. The first is that no float is more than two threads. The second is that I can change direction of the twill line in the treadling and none of the selvedge threads will "fall out" of the cloth. This means that no floating selvedge is required.

If you follow the draft exactly, beginning with the shuttle entering from the right hand side of the warp, all of the threads will weave, all of the time. Unless, of course, a mistake is made in treadling.

In the photo in my previous post, you can see the reed marks quite clearly. These should mostly come out during wet finishing. An eight dent reed was used, 4 ends per dent. The selvedge was threaded with two threads per heddle in the outside four heddles, but the density was kept the same - 32 epi.

For finer or more fragile threads (singles, for example) I will frequently double the selvedges in the heddles, but keep the density the same in the reed.

The towels were woven with 60 picks of plain weave for hems using the 2/16 cotton in the darker of the two colours, then twill with the heavier cottolin. I used 20 picks of twill, then changed direction. By counting picks up to 40, I could tell exactly where I was in the sequence at all times.