Thursday, December 10, 2015

Rugs and Scarves

I'm very happy that I finished the commission.  I still need to work on my follow through with my work.  But these pieces are mostly packed and ready to go to the shippers tomorrow.  They really finished up well.

The rugs are small, there was only so much fiber from her animals, but they feel like walking on a cloud.  These will be great to put where ever you want a soft touch on your feet.  I've always said these rugs are wonderful to step on first thing in the morning stepping out of bed.
Four little rugs from Llama
The four animals they own are represented in the stripes in the rugs.   What a great way to memorialize the animals they are raising.  

The scarves washed up very well and there is a good variety of designs.  The first warp was longest and I got four scarves from it.  The first three were woven first, then I tied the second warp onto the first and got two more scarves.  By this time, the yarn balls were smaller and I only got one scarf from the third warp when I tied on to the loom.  After weaving that scarf, there was still yarn left from the first warp...not enough for me to weave a full sized scarf and I couldn't decide what to do.  I did not want to waste the yarn, it was that great light and dark stripe.  I laid in bed and thought about the possibilities.  I didn't want to weave up the yarn if the scarf was not going to be long enough to use, but then I realized that I had warped the first scarves back to front, so there were no knots on the back tie-on rod and instead of 64 threads 45" long, I had 32 threads 90" long.  That was long enough to weave a narrow, long scarf...so I got scarf number seven!
And here we have the first six scarves
Scarf number 7, the bonus scarf, is drying and will get ironed and put into the box in the morning.  There are a couple of little balls of yarn left, so I will put them in also.  What a great gift to get in the mail.  Every time that I weave a dornik twill, like that first scarf or weave one of the star patterns, I want to do more.  As soon as I finish two or three of my current projects, I am going to weave another star pattern...A scarf, or a towel, I have plenty of time to decide what to weave.

I had my Tea Towel class students come into the studio to weave some on the bumberet towels.  Mostly I wanted them all to try an end feed shuttle.  Since we don't have a weaving shop in town any more, I think that I need to provide information about equipment that they do not get a chance to see.

I started out having problems with the selvedges.  It turns out the 8/2 cotton warp was catching on itself when I changed sheds and the extra weft got pushed out and was making an uneven left selvedge.  When I started a double beat to clear the shed, my edges improved.  I think that having three threads in the dent on an eight dent reed caused them to catch each other a little more, or at least that is how it seemed.  I have used end feed shuttles with 8/2 before with no problem.  The warp does have 8 different threads in different colors and some are less twisted then others, but the double beat cleared the shed and the edges are nice and smooth now. 

I'll work on the towels some more next week.  Tomorrow, after the box goes to the shippers, I need to get to the studio and put up my table for the Holiday Sale on Saturday.  This year we didn't get our advertising done early enough, one of the main workers had a stroke and another one was working on some political legislation.  The legislation got a pretty good result and we are hoping for a good healing with the man who had the stroke.  He seems to be feeling better.  So, if the sale is not busy, I will just get some knitting done and enjoy the day. 

We got some snow tonight, and it really is feeling like Christmas.
Here's an old winter picture to get us in the mood.






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