Warped

Cottolin is a bit of a pain to warp as it seems to enjoy sticking to itself, but I managed to tame all 340 ends. This view gives you a bit of a suggestion of what's to come.


From the front...


And now it's time to make some motivational cookies.

My first major weaving project

Kevin the Magnificent made me an absolutely gorgeous warping board out of maple and oak, and this past week we broke it in.


Here we have five yards of cottolin, a cotton/linen blend, and a total of 340 ends. I'll be warping up the loom this weekend at 20 ends per inch, 17 inches of weaving width. What will it become?


I can tell you that it will involve this hand-dyed 70% merino/30% mohair top from Hello Yarn.


I have just over 30 days to complete this project. No mean feat considering that there is a lot of gardening to do, plus that thing called work that tends to eat up a bit of the weekday. But I confess that I do love a challenge.

Off to procrastinate just a little bit longer.

Oh my

Life has certainly been busy. Today I finished guest blogging about my experiences as a new weaver over on Jane's blog, and I find myself loving weaving more and more each day. It's interesting to reflect back and see the circumstances and experiences of life shaping you over time. I am happy to have made the choices, good and bad, that landed me in this place I now find myself. Perspective is a lovely thing.

To make life easier, my little blog here will just focus on my creative pursuits, and Melvin will be the place to hear about all things Melvin, including our very exciting stab at growing lots of tasty veggies, feasting on those tasty veggies and exploring lots of mountains and such here in sunny Colorado.


So I got myself a Baby Wolf. And while it does have four legs and you could even argue a decent set of teeth, it is completely hairless and doesn't eat much. I love my loom, and I think we're going to weave great things together.

I'm currently working on making a flap and a shoulder strap for the bike basket bag I designed.



The flap will flap over the top half of this side, leaving the overshot pattern exposed at the bottom.


I varied my use of color on the bottom of the bag just for kicks.


My next plan is to move on to finalizing the fabric I'm designing for a skirt or two. I threaded my sample 5" at 15 ends per inch and 5" at 20 ends per inch. You can see the difference quite clearly in this cottolin warp/weft plain weave.


I also spun up a 70% merino/30% mohair blend of hand-dyed fiber from the Hello Yarn January fiber club to use as weft in the same cottolin warp. I purposely made it a bit thick in places to add some texture, and I really love how the color changes as the weaving progresses.



Off to celebrate Friday night.

More weaving

I am weaving, weaving, weaving. Two weeks ago our assignment was to weave something with either stripes, checks or plaid. Checks and stripes seemed like a non-challenge, so I whipped up this little number. It's got a bit of that 80's pink and gray thing going, but I'm liking it.


I love these lines (a clean shed in weaver speak)


Back beam warped and tension evened out


Making plaid!


I don't really like how any of my final shots came out, but this gives you an idea of the end result.

Weaving

If she could see me now, my grandmother would be proud. In my memories of her she was always making something, and she always tried to share her love of the creative process with me. I was probably too young to be a good student at the time, but greatly appreciate her efforts now in retrospect.

At work I am surrounded by exceptionally talented craftspeople, and it is impossible not to be influenced by their enthusiasm. So learning to weave has become a new goal of mine. Last week I started a course in beginning four harness weaving, and I think I have found a new obsession.

I'm learning on a 15" table loom manufactured by Schacht Spindle Co., and this is a bit of my first project. We had to choose materials that would allow us to view each thread individually so that you could really get a sense of how technique and pattern affected the end result.

Here my loom is warped and my first inch or so is woven. Not so attractive.


Starting to get the hang of things.


Experimenting with patterns.


As soon as I finished my first project, I felt an immediate need to start a second project. I decided to work in cotton this time as the wool I used in the first project was just generally unpleasant to feel. Plus, I wanted to use colors that I liked. I taught myself how to read patterns, but accidentally ended up with a warp that was half the length I was intending, so rather than this being a scarf, it will have to find either another purpose or someone with a very, very small neck.

Prezzies

Now that the gifts have been doled out, I can post a few images of a few of the crafty things Kevin and I whipped up for folks for Christmas.

This stuffed kitty in a scarf was for Miss Emily and was instantly dubbed Melvin. His scarf is handspun corriedale dyed in beet juice, and his whiskers are wax coated linen thread. The buttons are from my button box. I've been collecting buttons for a couple of decades now. When I was little I always loved looking in my grandmother's button tin, and one day I found that I had unknowingly started my own collection.


A hat for Sarah. I used Dream in Color yarn for this, a favorite of mine that Ellen at Purl Diva carries.


My dad is thoroughly enjoying his retirement, and much of his time in the warmer months is spent managing their ten acres - tending the bees, the orchard, the garden, building stone walls and generally caring for the land. One of the things I love about my dad is that he's a hat man. He has a hat for every occasion. Now you shouldn't mistake his hat wearing as a formality. My dad is most certainly not a stuffy guy. He's just a guy who likes hats, and I think it makes him special, not to mention handsome.


So I didn't get him a hat for Christmas. What I did make for him was a cotton cloth for him to carry in his pocket or stow in the tractor for those extra hot days when his hats aren't enough to keep him cool - a brow dabber.


Kevin was very busy creating some beautiful stained glass lampshades and night lights. Of course Stinker couldn't help but want to be a part of the action.


Ooh! Pretty!


And one of the lamps in its new home.

Time Flies

That would be my first attempt at spinning on the Schacht Matchless spinning wheel. The chunky stuff on the left came out before I tweaked the tension. I prefer a Scotch tension setup, though the wheel is designed so that you can choose to spin in double drive mode if you prefer. I'm taking a class with Maggie Casey at Shuttles, Spindles & Skeins, and she is absolutely brilliant.

I have been knitting up a storm over the past few weeks. Presents already gifted include GG mittens for Mom


and a few little bits for Smidgie.




I managed to knit myself a cramp today, so I'm taking a break from the Christmas gift knitting for a few hours.

Kevin the Magnificent has been cutting, and grinding and soldering away, and looking mighty hot in his safety glasses too.





The dust barely has time to settle in our craft room which is fine with me since dusting isn't very high up on the list these days, or any days for that matter. Perhaps one day Melvin's Yarn and Stained Glass will earn us a bit of dough. Stranger things have happened.