I've Been Spinning

I have been doing a lot of spinning.  You know how you get into a craft and just work on it for a while.  I have been relaxing and spinning.  Remember the cashmere/silk/wool blend?  I got it finished and now I am trying to get a pattern for a shawl.

Fine Spun Cashmere/Silk/Wool

I have been trying to get the right needle size to knit the shawl from a pattern in Piecework May/June 2010.  It is an Orenburg honeycomb Lace Scarf.  But the pattern is not looking right on the sample that I tried.  I'm not sure if the pattern has an error or if it is the knitter.  I am also trying different sized needles to see which will work with this yarn.

I also got some painted roving from my LYS that was painted by a local spinner.  She sales her stuff on line too, look for Greenwood Fiber Works.  This one was a range of random colors (I think it is done with the left-over dye after a dye session) and I love it.

Isn't it a great color combination.  I have about eight ounces and I would love to knit a little bolero jacket sweater and then have a dress the color of the background on this picture.  I love the periwinkle color and It would look great with this yarn.

Another roving from Greenwood Fiber Works is used in the next skeins.  It is a color she calls "Copper Hills."

I love the colors and would like to use it in weaving.  Did you see the samples in the recent Handwoven magazine by Sharon Alderman?  I would love to use this as the floating yarns over the ground fabric like one of her samples, probably a rust brown color ground to look good with the yarn.  I am thinking of a heather type yarn.  It could make a great jacket.

The next yarn is for socks.  I purposefully made the two skeins slightly different so that each sock in the pair will be an individual.  

There was a great pattern that had a lace effect at the top of the cuff, but then I saw the ruffled cuff socks in the one skein wonder book and I think that is what I will be using.  With these wild colors, ruffled socks could be just the thing...but what do I need to have in the way of clothing to look good with ruffled sock?


The last yarn is for weaving a scarf.  It is a wool/silk blend and I got it at the Greenwood booth at the Great Basin Fiber Festival this year.  I will be using a deep sky blue silk/wool yarn and this yarn will be the accent stripes in it.  

The periwinkle background looks bad with this yarn, it really is a beautiful blue and green.  I made some scarves with hand spun silk several years ago.  I just had a twill ground and then the twill line changed directions where the hand spun stripe was.  The wool/silk yarn that I have looks great with this hand spun yarn...I will have to get you a better picture.

I also got a new loom!  I have been interested in Bergman loons for several years.  I don't know much about counter marche looms and I really should get some knowledge about them.  This loom came available and I had to have it.  

She is a twelve shaft and weaves 48" wide.  As you can see the loom is crammed in the kitchen now.  I really need to get a better place for her.  She will be in the living room and will replace the Baby Macomber...yeah I know a 48" loom replacing a 20" loom!!  I know that I have some moving around to do.  Also the loom is in pieces.  I am trying to decide if I should keep the wire tie-ups for the shafts and jacks or if I should replace them with texsolve.  Also the wood is very dry.

Here us a section that I put some Howard's  Feed and Wax on.  Yes, I need to use a fine steel wool or sand paper to smooth the surface and get it all waxed.  There are a couple of replacement parts that I would like, I'll have to see if I can get them made or find current loom parts that can work.  
Margaret Bergman (a Swedish immigrant) designed the loom in the 1930's and even had a patent on it.  I love the way the thing folds up.  Beams move (they even have a storage place on the loom) than the front and back fold in the make a small foot print.  But how much will I want to have it out and weaving and how much will be folded and out of the way??

My last picture is a bag that was brought from Thailand.  My niece was there working on her public health degree.  The village that she was in was a weaving village. 

The bag is in the shape that has been popular with weavers repeatedly over the time I have been weaving.  The width is shown in the strap.  In this one there is a center stripe and border strips.  It is folded in half for the strap and down the sides of the bag.  The center of the bag is the same width and has a great pick-up pattern on the top edge.  The interesting part is the yarn strings that the maker has added to the bag at the top.  It is a very interesting piece and I can always use another bag!  I have more projects that I have bags to put them in.

Oh and by the way, I got the tartan scarves off the loom.  They look great hanging up and drying after the first wet finishing.

It took seven hangers to get the yardage up and hanging.  This weekend I can start cutting them apart and finishing them to get the scarves ready for gift time.