summer flowers

summer flowers

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Put away a Loom

I don't think I like blogging every day, my life is not that interesting.  You can see that by the last couple of days...just pictures.  That was all I could handle.  I'm hoping that this month will get me in the habit of blogging more.  But this daily thing is too much.

Yesterday, I did not have any students come in to the studio, the weather was bad and I don't blame them.  So I was able to put in some weaving time on the tea towels.  I probably should have done cleaning and clearing the place, but I enjoyed the weaving.  I finished the dusty rose towel and started a rust one.  I've had a suggestion to do a yellow one and a black or dark blue one.  I will keep those in mind, but the wefts are pretty much determined by the available weft in my stash.  
Second towel started
I may do a second dusty rose one, just because I have so much of that yarn, but a variety of colors sounds like fun to weave.  I do hate making more than one of anything.  

I also managed to empty a loom.  My Woolhouse is empty and put away for now.  
Poor thing, she looks sad folded up.  They look better dressed.
I have really enjoyed this loom.  I have put four warps since I got her.  The first was the hand-spun yarn that I wove for yardage in a plaited twill.  I will need a second warp to get enough for a short jacket.  That was woven very loosely and took a while.  The loom sat with that warp on for almost a year.  I emptied the warp to take to the workshop with Sarah Jackson in Las Vegas, check with my entry in October of this year for some pictures.

I took off the warp after 4 samples.  I tried various structures and yarns for a dress fabric and a jacket fabric.  I'm pretty sure I know what I want for each of those fabrics.  I plan to put the dress fabric on the AVL loom at the studio.  We have ordered four additional shafts for that loom and I will need a warp to test the loom after the upgrade, so why not some yardage that I want to weave.

I re-threaded the loom in rep for the workshop with Rosalie Neilson.  The weaver's guild brought her for our workshop in November.  
Rosalie brought samples for us to look at.

We had the best covered floor around.  She spread samples from her projects and often had the yarn wrapping that she used to figure her warp.  
Here you see the wrapping for the top color and the bottom.
Her combinations of color and the way that she designed was very interesting and I learned a great deal from her design sense.  

I had planned to have a three color top layer and a one color bottom layer, but half way through the warping, I figured that I had counted wrong and ended up with a two color warp.
There should have been another blended section then a green in the center.
 The warp I wound worked out great, though.  I did two samples, including the cool design shown above.  I also managed to get a runner for me.


I want to do a second runner for the other table.  This time I need it wider, so I want all three of the original colors that I had planned on.
Here are the three colors that I had planned on.
I can start planning this runner, and I can put it on the Baby Wolf loom.  That loom is empty now.  I need to order some parts to upgrade the Baby.  Should I put on a warp before I upgrade or after?







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