Finished!

I won't say that the scarf is done as it still needs to be hemmed, but here it is after wet finishing.

Although southern guilds aren't keen to have wool in the Magic workshop - they have very little call or use for wool - a little bit used to create shrinkage differential or 'collapse' effects might be tempting.  :)

With only one scarf (and a towel) in the washing machine, fulling didn't really begin to happen by the end of the 4 minute wash cycle with hot water (and our water is very hot as we keep the water heater turned up quite high just for my wet finishing), the regular cycle agitation and spin.

When I took the scarf out of the machine I wetted it out thoroughly and tossed both it and the towel into the dryer for about 30 minutes, checked on it a couple of times and took it out still damp after it had reached the degree of 'collapse' I thought would work well in a generous sized scarf.  The length is a bit longer than antiticpated (remember too long can be made 'right') but some people like very long scarves.  Since this is primarily a teaching sample, not a prototype for production, I'll hem it as it is and call it 'done'.

Currently reading A Good Hanging - a collection of short stories by Ian Rankin.  Not sure how I missed this title as I thought I'd read everything he'd written but it will do until his next title becomes available.

Pay Attention

The end of the scarf with one more sample, this one woven in twill.  Notice the little 'waves' in the fell.  This is due to the difference in characteristics of the two yarns - the wool has a much higher elasticity than the Tencel.  Since the whole point is to have a cloth that 'collapses' this difference is not a problem and in fact after wet finishing, the white wool will be shorter than the Tencel causing the bubbling in the purple stripes.

If there is one bit of advice I would love to give to every new weaver it is this:  Pay Attention!

New weavers often get frustrated with their results - the cloth coming off their looms isn't 'perfect' and they don't know why.  Rather than sit down and analyze what they are doing and change it, they get fed up.

As an 'old time' weaver who started weaving long before the internet, my first inclination is always to head for my books for assistance when I run into a problem.  I was incredibly fortunate in that I had an actual teacher who was able to show me things, but not everyone was that lucky.  Frankly I can't imagine learning how to weave from a book, or even a video for that matter.  But I digress.

Once I got the basics from my real live teacher I spent many months studying what I was doing and the results I was getting.  I did not expect to learn everything about weaving in a weekend.  Somehow I knew that learning to weave was like getting to the heart of an onion - it was going to take the peeling back of many many layers until I became proficient.

Ultimately the adage that sums it up best for me is the one that says:  If  you keep doing what you've been doing you'll keep getting what you've been getting.

Unfortunately if you've been doing a physical activity for a long time, change isn't done at a snap of the fingers - there is muscle memory to be erased and a new position or motion to be repeated until it becomes the new 'default' mode.

But in order to decide if you need to change something, you need to pay attention.  Are you physically uncomfortable?  Maybe you need to sit at a different height or a different distance from the edge of the bench.  Maybe you need a different seat altogether - an adjustable office chair, a large ball, a tall barstool might fit your body and loom better.

Threading killing your back?  Maybe you need to remove the breast beam (if dressing the loom back to front).  Maybe you need to raise the shafts.  (I found a shoe box raised the shafts on a Baby Wolf to the point where I wasn't killing my neck to thread the loom.)

Threading takes forever?  Maybe you need to use a different method of threading.  Yes, there is more than one way to thread the loom and more than one way to hold the hook.

Not happy with the way your cloth is turning out?  Maybe you are not making the best choices in your yarn selection in terms of fibres or colours.  Maybe you need to learn how to wet finish differently to get different results.

Before you can improve, though, you need to pay attention. 

And don't forget my You Tube channel.

After Sample

.....and here's the 'after' sample.  :)

Again, the bottom bit is woven with the wool as weft.  The results are interesting but not 'collapse'.  The top bit is with the Tencel as weft and voila!  Collapse! 

After serging the ends I tossed the sample into the hottest water my hands could stand, then balled it up and rolled it vigorously as though I were making a large meatball (if that makes sense - it's the only analogy I could come up with).

As it cooled, I hotted it up again, several times.  This is the result of around 3 minutes of 'rolling'.

The Tencel shed some fugitive dye but it doesn't look like the wool picked any of it up - although it's hard to tell, especially in the part where the Tencel is the weft. 

I decided to hem the scarf as any fringe is going to look really odd with the wool fulling and the Tencel not.

I also calculated how much dimensional loss (approximately) and worked out that I should weave somewhere between 90 and 100" for a scarf.  I'll probably do 108 to allow for hems.  Besides, too long is easy to fix (especially when the 'finish' will be hems on the ends) while too short simply can't be fixed at all.

Sampling

Although I've worked with 'collapse' weaves and shrinkage differential quite a bit, ultimately every time you change yarns you have to sample.  If you don't you risk losing the entire project.

So even though I know from previous sampling that the white yarn (Henry's Attic Pony Worsted) fulls very well I've not actually combined it with Tencel before so while I suspect I'm going to get some sort of effect from fulling the wool, there are no guarantees I'll get the effect I'm actually going after.

I started with a combination set of 15 for the wool and 20 for the Tencel and my first sample is plain weave.

While plain weave will have to be fulled much more energetically than a twill structure, I wanted the best visual blending of the colours of the two different yarns.  The reason I'm using white is because I don't have any dyed and I've no time to do any. 

While I suspect I'm going to get the most fulling with the wool weft, sometimes you can be surprised so I wove about 6" with wool weft and about 8" with Tencel.  Tomorrow I'll beat the sample up good and see what happens.  If it works I've got enough warp on the loom to weave a scarf.  If it doesn't I'll be changing the parameters and weaving more samples.  None of it will go to waste as the samples will become teaching examples.  ;)

Currently reading Falling Backwards by Jann Arden

Little by Little

I have spent rather more time the last two days fighting with issues of electronic technology than I'd like and find the battles to be rather wearing.  Well, that's my excuse for frittering away a couple of hours this afternoon playing games on Facebook rather than doing something productive. 

However I did finally flog myself to the studio and got a sample warp for the Durham NC workshop wound and rough sleyed.  By the time I finished that it was nearing 5 pm and I was too tired to beam it.  But that's the thing about weaving - it is very patient and will wait until you get a round tuit.

The workshop for Durham is Magic in the Water part II which focuses more on shrinkage differential effects.  They don't want a lot of wool but I will include a couple just so they can gain experience with fulling.  I had to contact my supplier to make sure she was still carrying the wool yarn.  As soon as I got confirmation I was able to continue with this particular combination.

We are now nearly half way through December and I will have to have the warps for Durham ready very soon after the holiday so it's time to review the workshop and get everything ready.  I also need to review the one day workshop A Good Yarn.  I realized in Quebec that the handouts rather desperately needed editing.

And I got some good news today.  I had been labouring under the impression that my maintenance treatments would take place every 3 months (what part of Oct. 14 to Dec. 14 equaled 3 months I don't know) but that means the 3rd treatment is not in the middle of the March 'tour' after all, but during February.

I also realized that I get back to Seattle the Sunday before the Seattle guild meeting on the Thursday of that week. I had planned to stay a couple of days with my friend so I may just ask if she minds if I stay a couple extra days to attend the meeting and leave the following day.  Since I'm gone more than 3 weeks (one day over!) I have to buy extra travel medical insurance anyway so I might as well buy an extra week and stay for a visit?

Tempting!

Currently reading Gently by the Shore by Alan Hunter - somehow I managed to come home from the library today with even more books than I returned to them - I'll look forward to at least 3 hours of reading at the clinic tomorrow.

And So It Begins...

Finally got the first sample warp off the loom today and set it up for cutting into samples.  I'm not entirely sure how much warp was left when I began weaving them, but if my math is correct (always a moot point!) there should have been exactly enough to do the samples (before and after finishing) for the first sample. 

However many samples I wind up with will be my 'print run'.  How's that for flexibility?  So, before I set up the loom for the next sample I need to cut up the loom state samples and see how many there will be.  No point doing extra samples if they aren't needed - that's just plain wasteful.  On the other hand, a few extra are nice just in case of oopsies.

Since this warp didn't start out to be samples it's going to be a bit of a challenge to cut up.  If I'd been clearer headed I'd have added 3 coloured yarns to the warp to act as cut lines but I didn't think of it.  In order to help me cut the vertical lines, then, I put a piece of masking tape down on the table and marked off on it where the cut lines should be.  The horizontal cut lines aren't as obvious as I'd like, either, but if I'm careful I ought to be able to mark the cut lines and then cut without too much difficulty.

Needless to say 3M is going to be benefitting from this project as I'll need miles of tape again.  Sure wish I'd bought shares when I first started weaving! 

The red 'thing' on the right is my Chicakee cutter (electric rotary cutter).  I have to get Doug to clean all the blades - it looks like he never found that round tuit after my last bout of sample cutting several years ago.  Hopefully he can do that tonight after his staff party.  They never go very late - the store opens again tomorrow at 7 am, although thankfully he doesn't start until noon.

The next task will be to clear out space in the studio for the electric stapler.  I have a corner I think I can fit it into if I shift a bunch of boxes currently living there.

While I'm doing those things I also need to redesign a couple of the warps for the workshop Magic in the Water part II, for Durham, NC which focuses on shrinkage differential effects.  Those will go onto the Fanny.

Next week is going to be a bit - um - scattered, I suppose - as I go in for #2 of the maintenance treatments so I'll spend time at the lab on Tuesday and several hours at the clinic on Wednesday.  It's also getting close to Christmas so there are some social events I plan on attending.  Not likely to be much weaving going on, at least until I can one or other of the looms dressed.

With 10 samples scheduled for the Big Project and one already woven, things are looking like they are well in hand.  :)  I received the yarn for the next two warps last week.  I'll be ordering the rest of the yarn next week as my supplier usually closes shop for a couple of weeks in January.

Currently reading - 3 of the George Gently series by Alan Hunter

The Roses

When my mother was a young teenager she wanted very much to study art.  But this was during the Great Depression (as it was called) and her parents could not afford to pay for lessons.  So she got herself a job in order to pay the 5 cents a week she needed for art classes.

But life, as they say, intervened and she never managed to pursue art the way she would have liked.

Her creativity has taken many forms - cooking, baking, knitting, sewing, stitchery, rug hooking, flower arranging and eventually she took up quilting which she still does.  But she never lost that appreciation for, and drive to do herself, drawing and painting.

After my father died she re-did the master bedroom, buying white French Provincial furniture and painting the walls.  On the wall at the foot of the bed she painted these large bright cheerful roses directly onto the wall.

When it came time to re-paint the bedroom a number of years later she talked to Doug and he installed a frame around the painting so she could continue to enjoy the roses she had painted.  She can no longer do any painting or drawing due to arthritis and shaky hands.

Now mom has moved out of the house and she misses her roses.  Doug is hoping that he can cut the wall board out of the wall (the room is finished with a product called donacona - I'm not sure how that is spelled, but it was a common finish before sheet rock became the standard for walls).  He says it is still available and he should be able to just fill the hole in the wall and repaint.

But just in case it all goes horribly awry, he took a photo of the roses today and I'll find out how much it will cost to make a photographic poster.

We are still waiting to hear when she will have her surgery - it's been dragging on longer than they estimated so we are hoping that it will happen soon.  She is getting a bit antsy that the surgery will happen at Christmas but I told her that if that is the case her Christmas present this year will be a new heart valve.  :)

Reading The Pirate King by Laurie R. King (finished this morning and started Shatner Rules by William Shatner)