End of the Year and Playing with Lace

When I was clearing some the of clutter in the weaving room at my house, I found the first piece of "costume" lace that started this whole series.  Along with the frill, I found the list of what different sizes of lace I wanted and the amounts that I needed.  This plan was made several years ago and, in fact, I had not been working on that lace for quite a long while.  Any way, I started lacing on this piece and then decided to stop the wide flat lace at three yards.  The plan that I found said to do two and a half yards.  Was it stuck in the back of my head for all this time?  And I thought I couldn't remember anything that I've been doing!  And this narrow lace that I decided to do five yards (I thought I pulled that length out of the air), on my plan it calls for just over five yards.  I'm amazed that I came so close to the original plan I made so long ago.

Three different laces

On the bottom of the picture you can see the original frill, on the top of the picture is the wide lace and in the middle, wrapped around the storage bobbin, is the narrow lace.  

I have been using the same bobbins with the original 90/2 linen for all three of these, as I probably planned to do.  So now a bunch of those bobbins are running out of thread and I need to splice some more on.  I really don't know the correct/standard method of splicing, so I use my weaver's method.  I double the thread for a section and then start using the new thread I added.

Two Pair

You can see the right hand pair has a bobbin out of thread.  I wind a new bobbin with the same thread and attach it temporarily on one of the pins.

Extra thread looped around a pin

Replacement bobbin tied to the original

I tie the two bobbins together so that I will remember to use them as one bobbin.

One stitch done with the two pair

You can see on the left side that instead of two threads I have a single and a double in that pair.  I usually work the pattern for a section to make sure the new thread is attached well.  I like to work it in the ground pattern, because it does not show so much.  It can also be worked in the spider, but it looks bad if it is worked in the half stitch shell.

doubled thread worked in ground

After I have worked enough lace for the repair to come off the pillow, I cut both ends to make the lace look like there are no mistakes...well, at least, look less like it has mistakes.

Using the linen in our dry climate, I have to spray water to keep the yarn strong.  When I forget, I get a break in the thread.  These are a little harder to correct.  I can add a new thread, but the old one is usually very short and I am not able to work them double.  A few times I have un-laced to get an end to work in, but not all the time.  

To repair this error, I need a needle to weave it back into the web and very good eyes.  I have lots of needles, but need help with the eyes.

Tools to use for repairs

I got a magnifier from my Dad's old things and it comes in very handy when I need to see things clearly.  I use it for repairs on my weaving also.

Needle showing the repair.

I have more than a few breaks on the wide lace, so I will be doing a lot this type of repair.


Several of the pictures I have on here do not look clear and sharp.  I don't know if that is because I have been taking them at night when the light is not so good or if I am shaking the camera.  I may have to rely on a tripod to get the pictures to look better.

Well, the 31 day challenge is over and I did not do so well.  However, I learned what I want to continue to do on my blog and I want to keep producing information.  I like to share what I do, but I don't do enough to share every day.  I may still resort to a wordless day and just show pictures now and then, but I don't want to do it that often.  If you just want a picture, you can follow me on Instagram.  Here I want to show what I do, and hopefully how I solve some of my problems so that you will not have trouble with the same problems. 

The Holiday Season

This year we did not have the big family Christmas party.  Lots of reasons, it just didn't happen.  So each sibling had Mom stay over or come to their house for a party or such.  Since our family is just the four of us, we don't have the big groups some of my siblings have, so I decided to have her come down and see the lights at Temple Square and stay the night.  It didn't turn out as I would have hoped.

Mom, me and my DS walked around and then went into buildings to warm up.  The lights were great, they have so many lights and lots of things to look at.  We were there on Sunday, so some of the buildings we usually go in were closed, but we had a great time.  We went out to eat after, dropped off my son and came back to my house.  Mom's purse was gone!  We realized that it had been taken at the parking lot while we were seeing the lights.  So, we drove back to Mom's house, since her keys and address were in her purse, and I stayed the night up there.

The next morning, we went to all the places we could think of to get replacement items;  driver's licence, medicare card, bank (the cards were canceled the night it happened) to check on any charges...yes there were only two, and getting locks re-keyed.  I guess my sisters and I will be replacing things for the next couple of months as Mom remembers all the things that she had in her purse.  So it was not exactly the relaxing holiday experience that I had planned on.

After a couple nights of bad dreams, I got back to my crafts.  (I had taken some knitting up to her house to sit and knit while we did the waiting required with our replacement travels.)

l'enveloppe the second time

I had finished the knitting on this piece about a month ago, but it looked a little small.  So it has just been sitting.  When I checked the size, yes, smaller than expected.  Then I checked the gauge.  This pattern gives you the choice of several sizes and several gauges.  My gauge sample, yes I did one, was 13 stitches and the finished piece was 15 stitches in four inches.  No wonder it was too small.  So I unraveled the whole thing Christmas eve and started again.  That is why the ball is so large.  I had spit spliced the three skeins together so I got one big ball when I unraveled it.  I rechecked the gauge on this new version after a few inches and this time it should be OK.  (Actually, I have re-checked it several times just to make sure.)


I have also been working on finishing the warp from Joanne Hall's workshop some months ago, and I did finish the third piece.  (I plan to put them on the fronts of pillows.)  But I have enough warp on the loom to do another piece.  Do I want to be weaving on this warp for another month?  I really do not want to waste that linen warp...Sooo...I will probably keep weaving and get a fourth one done.  The last design that I did on number three was dukagang.  I like the way it worked out.  But I had to be careful, it is hard to see errors on the working side of thisl

Top, working, side of the pattern.

When ever the pattern changed, I had to double check that I did it the correct way.  I ended up taking it apart several times to get it right.  Then I put the camera under the loom, on the table and took a picture of the underside.

Front side pf the pattern.

My socks are going slow, I guess because I have been doing l'enveloppe.  I should be taking the socks with me when I travel, they travel easier (they are so much smaller).  

I have also done another 24 inches of the narrow lace on the bobbin lace.  I also found the frill that I originally started with.  It was tucked in one of my bags.  I suppose I did not transfer it when I started carrying the lace guild bag.  And the frill had a paper showing my original plans for the lace.  I know that I had started doing the lace to put on a costume to wear when I demonstrate crafts, but I usually do not wear a costume now.  I will have to think about that and how to use this group of three different but related lace pieces.  Since I want to have this narrow one about five yards long, I will have some time to think about it.

Planning a runner and Planning

I have been getting a few more things done.  I have been staying home, the weather has been snowy and wet.  I used it as an excuse to stay home and work on the stuff here.

I did get the plan for the new runner in rep.  It will coordinate with the smaller one I made in the class.  I wish that the narrow one could have been a little longer, but it should work on the sofa table.

Narrow runner on the table.

I am not completely pleased with this, but it will match the winter rugs and such.  So now I want a wider one to go on the coffee table.  When I started winding this warp, I thought that I had figured it correctly but I wound too much of the first three sections, so that there was no room for the third color.

Three top layer colors and dark green for the bottom

I had extra warp that I didn't use for the class sample.  So I want to incorporate this warp into the new runner warp.  I double checked my figures this time so I hope that I get it right.

Sample showing the blocks.

My goal is to have the light green replace the beige in the center two blocks.  Then I will add an additional "point twill" section (the one in the rust color) on each side to get more width.  This should give me enough for the two additional blended areas.  So I would have rust, rust/beige, beige, beige/light green, then light green in the center and reversed on the other side.  I think it worked out that all the sections need to be a little narrower, but that should be close enough that they will both look good in the living-room.  If there is enough, I may do a square one for the last table in that room.  But we will see how that goes.  

The first problem is figuring how to wind and put on the warp so that the extra warps from the first piece will fit in well.  I warp mostly from back to front and I want to do this one that way.  I'm willing to do front to back warping if that would make it easier, but I hate to sit in the back of this loom to thread.


The Swedish piece is coming along well.  I have the loom set up on the dining room table, so it needs to be put away before the Christmas eating binge.  

Weaving side of the pillow top.

It is hard to see how the piece is going when the top side looks like this!

Now that my children are older, cooking and eating are the main things we do at Christmas.  If I can get time with them, I would like to go up to my Mom's for a day or two after Christmas day.  There will still be the lights at the Christmas Village, and we have not gone there for a couple of years.

My big "Plan" is to get the studio cleared enough to actually work in there.  All of my weaving lately has been on looms that are not in my studio.  I have woven lots on the looms at the PCH studio, or in other rooms in my house (thus the loom on the dining room table), but the studio has been a "catch all" room.  I go in there to get the teaching materials, and sometimes put them away after.  I put things in there "for now" and they build up to stacks of mess.  The main reason that I stayed home, using the weather as an excuse, is to clear that room up.  I want to be able to work down there...I want to be able to walk around in that room without fear of tripping and killing myself!  Working two days, I have got about a fourth of the floor cleared up and most of those things have either been thrown out or put away.  No more stacks.  I took some pictures, but I don't think I can face them on here.


At Pioneer Craft House, we had a spot on a local TV show.  This is a morning show.  I had to be there at 5:30 AM, and I got all set up to talk to the guy, show him some weaving and finishing and making presents for Christmas.  As it turned out, they scheduled all the segments with other teachers, and I did not get on.  The closest I got was his intro on the program while he was standing in the weaving studio.

Oh well, we did not get to see weaving, but we did have looms in the show.

It's a Cold

I spent most of yesterday in bed.  I'm coming down with the cold my DH has been fighting.  I felt better today, but I think I over did it.  I should have napped more today.

Yesterday's quiet time was not all sleeping.  I managed to work on the narrow bobbin lace piece, I think it is close to one yard long.

I also spent some time sitting and doing a maori edge on the boundweave piece that I did after the Joanne Hall workshop.  We had a loom warped that students could come into the PCH studio and weave on.  When they quit coming,  I re-threaded it to 3 shaft rosepath  (also from the 2/13 VAV magazine) and I finished the warp.  I did not get a piece as long as I had hoped for.  I wanted a runner and got a long mat!

Here is the back with the warp finished

Sorry none of the pictures of the front were in focus.  I may need to start using the tripod to get better pictures.  

Here is the Maori edge

I really like the look of the Maori edge.  It looks like a plyed edge.  The best instructions I have found for this edge are in Peter Collingwood's big rug book.

Since I emptied the Woolhouse loom, I have moved back to the Dorothy to get the Hall workshop piece done.  I have finished 2 pieces that I want to put on sofa pillows.  I know I can get one more off (I'm half way thorough it), but I don't think I can get a fourth.

This is the third piece from under the loom.

Because you weave these Swedish designs upside down, I put the camera on the table under the loom to get this shot.  I like the way the designs are working.  This piece is better than the last one.

Second piece off the loom

I tried a couple of things on this one that did not work so well.  The Dukagang looks squished...I should have done more repeats to square the design better.  And the tapestry is wrong, I have not been able to find any examples of this style of tapestry with diagional lines.  Putting that aside, I think I will like the pillows when they are done.

First piece off the loom

The first piece was about half done in the three day class.  I finished the dukagang and the monk's belt (the two larger designs on the bottom) when I got home.

The new levers on the Dorothy make it a pleasure to work.

I upgraded the Dorothy (all three shaft sections) before the workshop and it is now a pleasure to weave on.  There is much less clanging when changing shafts and no sore fingers from pushing down the old levers.  The upgrade was well work the time and money.

I also started a new pair of socks.  I have not had a pair on the needles for about a month.  This is my first sock using the the yarn I bought in France last May.  I like the shades of blue.  These will be a good color that matches what I wear.  

I need to bind off the other knitting piece, L'enveloppe by Sally Melville.  With the cold weather, it would be a useful piece to be wearing.

Did I mention that at my last Dr's visit the numbers have gone down and I am again pre-diabetic instead of diabetic.  I managed to lower my numbers and loose about ten pounds.  I also managed to fit into a size smaller pants.  I need to continue the change in diet and the exercise, however, because I am not "out of the woods" yet.

Almost Have my decorating Done

Yes, I missed yesterday.  I didn't meet the challenge, but I have learned a lot about what I want to do with my blogging.  I enjoy sharing and documenting what I like to do.  I don't need to do it every day, that is too much pressure, but I do want to continue.

Today I pulled out the boxes of decorations, I could not find some.  Maybe there is another box somewhere.  I will check again tomorrow.  But it was fun pulling out the old things and putting them around me.  I also got some more glass icicles from the artist that I bought mine from last year.  They look great on the garland.

I had fun getting the nutcrackers out and putting them up.  I may try to find a new one sometime next year.  I would like more across the cabinet.

See, a couple more would look good.  

I decided not to put up a tree, so the wooden ornaments are around the clock.  Most of these I got from my girl friend many years ago when she lived in Germany.  Some of them I got from Mom when she downsized.  But I have bought a couple to add to the group.

The front door looks good at night all lit up.  

Here is the new bobbin lace ornament that I got at the group Christmas party.  I love the little metal piece in the middle.  She designs beautiful patterns.

Yes, I did Yellow

I worked on the towel warp at the studio today.  I finished the second (rust) towel and started the third one.  I decided on yellow.  This gives a sunny, bright towel.  

It really is a bright towel!  The colors show up well, the antique gold looks like spring green.  I love the way colors "read" as something different depending on what they are surrounded by.  It's always a fun and new experience to see what will happen with color.

I've also been working on the bobbin lace.  I am almost at the join of the pricking (the pattern).  That means that I have laced twice around the roller or about 24" of lace.  They say that it takes about an hour to do one square inch of bobbin lace and this lace is about 1 inch wide.  That means I have about 24 hours of work on there.  Bobbin Lace is slow, but I enjoy seeing each section of the pattern getting done.  These little spiders on the pattern are fun and look good.

I started working with the roving for spinning.  I divided it in two sections, then I divided it again and ended up with fourth's, then again to eighths, but it still was not fine enough.  When the roving is thick then the color section is very long.  I needed to get the roving thin enough that the color section would be shorter.  I think that I will be doing the sixteenths.

Half, quarter, eighths, sixteenths

I also have a picture showing the blue for the ground fabric.  It is a fine wool/silk.  You can see a bit of the yarn on top of the roving at the bottom of the picture.  I think I need to spin this roving about twice the size of the blue yarn.  That means that I need to spin it that fine and 2 ply it to make it about double.  

Blue ground yarn and one sixteenth split in the roving.

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?

Snowy Day

Cold and Snowy, I wish I could have stayed home.

Finally Got some Decorations up

Finally the wreath is up and everything is lit.

I got the garlands up over the bookshelves.

It's Beginning to Feel a lot like Christmas

Some things that we do remind us of the feelings of Christmas and today I was doing some of those things.  I started off this morning setting up for a Holiday Sale at Pioneer Craft House.  We didn't do as good of planning on this one, but we did get people in and we all sold stuff, so it was OK.  Plus it is fun to hang out with the other teachers and get to know them better.  We are not usually teaching at the same times and we do not get to spend time just talking and enjoying each others company.  So that was my first dose of good Christmas cheer.

The second Christmas thing I did this evening.  I went to a Christmas Concert put on by the Murray Symphony.  My sister-in-law plays with this symphony and it is great fun to attend to support her, but they play great music and are fun to see.  This one, of course, was Christmas music.  I love Christmas music and they had a chorus singing with them part of the time...I love Christmas Carols.

These were both things to help me get in the Christmas spirit.  Tomorrow I will put up some more of my Christmas decorations and that will make the house "feel a lot like Christmas".

I have been working on the narrow lace and have about twelve inches done.  I like the way it is looking.

I did three yards of the wider lace,  I wonder if I can do five yards of this one.  It is about half the width, so it is going quite fast and I can even watch movies on television while I am lacing.

I've been thinking of starting a new spinning project.  I know I had planned what to do with this roving, but I can't find the plans.  I love the woven fabric that uses a thick textured yarn and a finer base yarn.  This book shows quite a number of these patterns.  I know that I had purchased this roving to do this type of pattern, because I have two cones of a beautiful blue that I want to use for the base yarn.  

Roving and book of patterns

I know I need to split the roving to make the color changes shorter, but I'm not sure if I want a single ply or a two ply yarn.  I like the way the two ply weaves, but that means spinning a much finer single, and the color will be more broken up when you ply two together.  

A short color change and the two ply could give a good overall mixed color.  That would eliminate the stripping that often happens with the longer color repeats.  And if I do short color repeats and two ply, I can do the warp and weft yarns the same.  I just need to figure how fine I need to spin the get the size of two ply yarn that I want.  This sounds like a good plan.

Beautiful Scarves

I got the box on it's way today.  I hope it gets to it's destination early next week.  Once I put all the scarves out and took some pictures, I was very pleased with them.

The first warp was four threads of each color.  I choose the lightest and darkest of the yarns to get a good contrast for the dornik twill.  The first scarf was four shots dark and four shots light to show the stars in the twill.  This is one of my favorite designs in weaving, but I don't like to weave it because you need to weave with two shuttles and that is slower to weave.  I keep both shuttles attached and just wrap the yarn around the non-weaving shuttle, so I do not have to cut weft as I weave.  The second and third scarves off this warp are in point twill instead of the broken twill for dornik.  With each of these I used a third color.  When I design these scarves on commission, I get a bunch of yarn in various colors and I need to design scarves that use those colors.  It's amazing how the gray colored yarn tended to look more blue when woven with the brown yarns.  I guess that is logical when you figure that blue and orange (brown comes from a dark orange) are complementary colors.  It is always so interesting in weaving to see how the colors look when they cross.

Three scarves from warp one

The warm brown in the second scarf and the cool gray in the third scarf complete the first warp.

To speed up the weaving I tied the second warp on the ends left on the loom from the first warp.  The second warp used the next largest ball of brown yarn and some contrasting stripes of gray.  This brown is very similar to the weft in the second scarf above.  The gray warp stripes make a nice contrast and I used a straight twill for the structure.  My loom was threaded eight shafts straight draw, so there are several possible tie-ups for getting different versions of the twills.

Two scarves from warp two

The weft for these scarves is the same yarns that I used in the warp.  I got one gray scarf and one light brown one.  You can see the twill line in the areas of the two scarves that have the mixed colors.  Twill does not show up as well when both the warp and weft are the same color.  I like twill for my scarves, it makes a nice fabric and these llama fiber scarves should be very warm.

On the last warp, I started winding for two scarves, but realized that I did not have enough yarn, so I re-did it for one scarf.  I had gone through all kinds of calculations to get stripes that matched the point twill pattern in the scarf, but I miscalculated.  The finished scarf, however, turned out well.  I like the way I did a double repeat of the pattern to get a zig-zag pattern and a diamond.

One scarf from warp three

Although the pattern really "read" a zig-zag line with a small diamond when it was on the loom, after washing and pressing, it just looks like a large diamond, still it is a good design.

When I finished the third warp, I checked what was left on the warp beam and found that I had about 44 inches of yarn left.  Not enough for a full scarf, but with some adjustments I ended up with a 3 inch wide warp that was 88 inches long.  I wove with the lightest color of yarn, because that was the largest ball I had left and it ended up with a subtle check pattern.  Unfortunately, I was so excited to get everything in the box and mailed today that I did not even get a photo of it.  That is a shame, it is a nice scarf.

The temperature was up in the 40's (F) again so all the snow is gone in the valley, but the mountains still looked dusted with white.  We will be getting more snow, probably, but not tomorrow.  I have a sale and a concert to go to tomorrow and I don't want to drive on snowy roads!

Detail picture of my advent tree, I made it over thirty years ago.

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.