On the Beam

The Proudz, I has it. 

Ochre scarf is finished. The canvas structure really pops in Pony II. I'm very much in love. Ok, so I finished it weeks ago, Holidays are hard!

Random striping is harder then it looks. 

I was determined to use up all my blue/purple rag, and I almost succeeded. This rug is over 70" long. I used a 100 inch warp, the same as I do for a 72 inch scarf, and I had no loom waste. Didn't even have room for a dummy warp!

Nailpolish marks the center of the beater.

Current project: pointe twill rag rug. Color choices are slightly unfortunate but in a fun way. I'm aiming for a 2'x3', which will leave enough warp for a craazzzy stripe number.

At Least the Scarf is Done

Today Didn't Go Well for Anyone.

So today sort of sucked. Various little things went wrong all day, but at least I had gotten my Luskofte! scarf knitted and fringed and washed and outside to dry. So what if my camera deleted the photo tutorial I was going to post on how to put a fringe on a knitted scarf? At least the scarf was done.

And a Damn Fine Fringe it Was Too. 

So as usual, I completely forget about this thing called a dew point until after the sun is done and everything outside is covered in dew. With a sigh, I go and collect my knitting from the outdoors.

It crunches.

Because, you know, it's winter. There isn't a dew point. There's a frost point.

I may have knitted a Companion Cube or three. 

So on top of everything else that went wrong, I froze my knitting. Great.

On a related note, ironing a scarf after midnight is the sort of thing that causes existential crises.

The pin marks 40 inches.

Weaving continues apace. This ochre really is a lovely color and I'm ridiculously proud of it.

Scrap Monsters

Mary-Beth, Alphozo, Alice, Raymond, Quincy, Tolly, and Ozwald.

I don't believe in wasting fiber. So when I finished my senior project I had two nine foot crocodiles, and a lot of left over fabric in odd shapes. It seemed perfectly obvious therefore to make a series of scrap monsters.

The difficult part is putting together the body shapes. Mary-Beth was easy, she's a rectangle with rectangular appendages. Smaller, odder-scraps demand more complicated shapes. Sewing machines like rectangles like Mary-Beth. They don't like oddities like Ozwald, or sewing through five or more layers at once as is necessary for appendages. So a lot of the sewing I do by hand, or I reinforce by hand afterwards.

Adding Eyes.

Additional features are hand felted on. Eyes begin as huge balls of fluff that get matted down slowly. Generally eyes that look straight ahead are confrontational or creepy, so most of my monsters look off to the side. Oswald has three eyes, so he just looks everywhere.

Uh, Shelby? You got something on your mouth, there.

Felting is a process of making things smaller. Fine tuning the shaping on eyes and mouths can take forever since every alteration in outline changes the proportions and density of the entire feature. Above, Shelby's eyes are still pretty irregular. That can't be fixed until his mouth is on, since adding the mouth pulls in the entire plane of the face.

It might be awhile before I can finish him up though....

Rags to Riches I

A finished rug.

I make all of my rag rugs from rags. I think it's ludicrous to use new fabric as rag, but I know plenty of people do. Clothing is too difficult to take apart (which I'm sure is why many people buy new fabric) so I use old sheets. They're conveniently rectangular, lots of yardage in a single piece, and easy to come across. A ripped sheet fits so perfectly into the, "too good to throw away, too bad to keep," category that people are happy to donate to me. As a general rule, two queen sized sheets will weave up to 15 square feet, with a pretty high margin of error.

Pro Tip: Pull out shower curtain so you don't get dye on it like I did.

I have professional grade fiber-reactive dyes, but they're finicky so for rag rugs I usually use Rit. Dump bottle in tub of water, ignore for a few hours, and then give a quick rinse. Easy peasy. The brilliant thing about dying fabric rather then yarn is that the washing machine can do all the heavy rinsing and washing for you. Just make sure to do an extra rinse afterwards to make sure there isn't any dye lingering in the drum.

The Long Part. The Very Long Part. 

What takes the longest is cutting fabric into strips. There are two main methods, ripping, and the rotary cutter. I recommend a rotary cutter as it can go through three or four layers at once and is therefore some what faster. Either way, wear a mask. Tiny fibers go EVERYWHERE and when I forget the mask I end up coughing and sneezing like it's 1914. The finished strips can be wound into balls, although for today I just tied them into bundles.

Sleeping it off.

I feel Luskofte must be pronounced with a Fist Bump.

Winterfest was amazing, but very tiring. Arrived at 7:30 to set up, and didn't leave until five. Of course packing up was much easier since so much stock was sold. I and the other Quaker Ladies had a huge blast.  Finished up the evening, and most of today, with some peaceful knitting.

Loom is Empty but Dye Pot is Not

I have plans for rag rugs to use up more of that indomitable stash. But first to use that ochre warp I haven't done a thing with yet.

Orange you glad

The Quest to Not be Shot Continues Apace.

Believe it or not, photographing neon orange in bad interior lighting is difficult. The weaving at least is very easy. The treadling is a simple 121, 343. The new-to-me fly shuttles hold enough doubled thread for ten inches or so. Given that the piece is twice as wide as my scarves, and the thread twice as thick, this means they're holding about four times as much thread as the boat shuttles I have.

The pin marks twenty inches.

Among the many things this orange clashes with is my loom. Makes the poor Standard look positive jaundiced. I did a bit of a red border at the hem. I'm not sure if I like it beyond sartorially - haha, blood red on the hunter's scarf. I'll see how I like it off the loom before deciding to cut it off or not. I'd hate to have doe all that hemstitching just to cut it off though.

Shuttle Launch.

I'm pretty fly.

I got these babies at the MDSW under the assumption that they were end-feed shuttles.  They were in positively awful shape. The wood was dry, the metal was rusted, and the bobbins didn't come out. Why was I so eager to snatch up these dilapidated wrecks? Because size matters. End feed shuttles hold three to four times as much yarn as a boat shuttle. Careful application of Sweet Reason (a hammer) popped out the bobbin. Two afternoons with my Dad, sanding and polishing and varnishing fixed the rest. Had I known they were so easy to fix up, I would have gotten a lot more.

Sweat Reason also helped get the bobbins back in.

Through some extensive research (about five minutes on Google) I discovered that these guys aren't actually end-feed-shuttles. They're fly shuttles, meant to work with a type of mechanized loom. From a practical stand point, all that means is that they're heavier then end-feed-shuttles, and if I become Cyber-converted I'll still be able to weave. If the weight is a problem I'll just drill out some extraneous wood and metal (there really is a vast amount of metal in these guys), but I don't foresee that being a problem.

U.S.S. Make Shit Up.

Fly or End-Feed, either way the bobbins don't spin. Instead the yarn feeds straight off them, and through a tensioner device. If you buy your shuttles from a source other then someone who ransacked a closed down mill while hunting ghosts (I might be making some assumptions here), then they probably come with an instruction manual that will tell you how to tension your yarn by following a specific path through the tensioner. Since I learned to weave with shuttles that didn't tension at all I didn't worry too much about this, I just pulled the thread through a sequence of holes that would allow it to come off cleanly. I've woven a few inches and everything is working fine.

Don't shoot me.

Warping in sections can prevent tangling becoming epic.

I used to make fun of my weaving teacher, Nancy. The studio had a huge stash of yarns to play with, and in the very back of the very top cabinet, there was a giant cone of orange wool. It was about three or four pounds of a very fine cobweb weight that broke if you looked at it funny. If you dusted the cone off enough, you could tell it was high-visibility orange. The don't-shoot-me orange that hunters wear.
No one in their right minds would ever use this. It was fine, delicate, and hideous. Why did she even have it?

So four years later I graduate, and I'm at the Maryladn Sheep and Wool Festival having the time of my life.  Mom comes up to me with a big bag, grinning. "Guess what I got for $3!"

You mean they paid you $3, right?

I think this wool was raided from a closing mill. It doesn't have a whole lot to recommend it to a handweaver. The hand is mediocre and it's terribly weak. I double it in the warp and will probably do the same in the weft.

On the plus side, and this is why I didn't make my mother return it, the yarn is wool. Most high-visibility clothing is made out of nasty synthetics that either don't insulate well, or insulate without breathing. It might be weak on the cone, but woven up it'll be a hard, sturdy fabric that can get dirty and be washed clean. Back in the day, wools like this were what endurance sports fabrics were made of.

I'll probably just cut out that mistake.

I warped enough for 2 scarves 72 inches long. I warped until I got bored. I happen to like warping, so even at 15 epi, this will be about 18inches wide. That's wide enough to fold in half to wear. Although I suppose if you really wanted to it could be a stole. Canvas weave will pucker and let lots of air be caught. Air pockets equals insulation! The lofty weave and a half-fold will make this scarf very warm for its weight.

Note: In the picture above you can see how I do my header. Put in three picks without beating, then beat back suddenly. Not only is it as effective as the traditional  toilet paper or scrap rags, on fine yarns it'll even out tension. It's really cool how you slam the beater back and then up pop all the loose threads.

Oh shit

The horror.

A dropped stitch. 3 inches back. And while star stitch is a relatively simple pattern, stitches don't travel all the way back up to the needle. No hope of just crocheting it back up. So I cheated. I crocheted the dropped stitch up 3 rows, which as far as it could go. Then I cut off part of my cast on tail, looped it through the offending stitch and a nearby stitch tied a square knot and wove in ends. You can't see it now. But there's a square knot in my lace knitting. An abomination hiding among the population.

Anyway, that was scary. Have a kitty.

He's cute but he keeps me from knitting.

Averages

Shown with my one successful crochet project.

Day glow scarf is off the loom after far more warp breakages then were really neccisary. I could have woven at least another foot, but I'd already hit 70" and the warps were starting to break two at a time.  Next up will be canvas weave in this lovely ochre color. Either two scarves or a shawl, haven't done the math yet. But the ochre is just a prelude for what is to come.

Also capable of stacking like this. Black magic maybe?

So based on the last three scarves, I've worked out some averages. I weave about thirty inches a day. I plan scarves to be roughly 6 feet long. I make a warp 100 inches, and weave until it becomes difficult or I run out of weft. This work out to two days, heavy on the ish, of weaving. Another day for warping and slaying, and if I have to heddle another day for that. So three days if I have a dummy warp, four days if I don't.

Some tools: Skin Winder, Ball Winder, Bobbin Winder.

I wind bobbins using a drill, although when you call this guy a drill, other drills get upset. He has trouble with drywall. But he's great for bobbins, as long as you have a bobbin-adapter. Which is a pencil. The drill was $30, bobbin winders are often over a hundred dollars, so the price was right. And the pencil was free.

Shown on its side since it can't stand up with a bobbin attached.

Each bobbin holds enough weft for about 10 inches. So I weave about 3 bobbins a day. I also weave standing up. Some times I work the treadles like I'm walking, right foot, left foot, right foot, and so on. Most days I stand on my right foot and use my left until that gets sore, and then switch. Ten inches is about as long as I can weave like that before wanting a break.

My loom shelf.

So it's all so clearly itemized and balanced and lovely. Weave a bobbin, take a break, weave a bobbin, take a break, weave a bobbin, take a break. Repeat tomorrow and the scarf is done! So now I'm going to mix it all up and use a different type of bobbin, a different treddeling pattern, and a different yarn!

These will be used. May god have pity on my retina. 

Don't shoot me orange. Super fine mystery wool laceweight. Canvas weave.

Monday Night is Tangled Skein Night

The pig helps.

I spent most of last year working on my senior weaving project. While ultimately this did allow me to graduate, nine months later I'm still weaving with leftovers from that monstrosity. Literally a monstrosity, I made  two nine foot crocodiles. Thus all the variated warps as I use up small balls from dye experiments. 

Ball-winder's broken. Again.

I have tones of this ochre shade. Color's accurate in the photos. It changes in the light a lot but spends most of its time a luminous copper. I think some of it's going to become a canvas weave scarf or shawl, however wide my warp ends up being. And seeing as it's laceweight, prone to felting, been through about 5 dye baths to get that lovely shade, and then sat skeined in various yarn baskets for the yarn tangling gremlins to play with, winding it is a very slow process.

Figure two episodes of Supernatural for each of those balls.

The pink ball was actually the worst, it had felted pretty badly in the pot. It was also a much earlier dye experiment so I didn't know how to handle the fiber as well. Parts of it were too tangled for me to even spin the swift. I tell myself that even had the ball-winder been working, I wouldn't have been able to use it on these wretches, but that doesn't actually console me much. 

This is practically dayglow in life. 

The pink, combined with a sunshine-y warp, makes a shade of peach that is not really my taste. When I weave to my taste though I end up working for months on a single shade (last fall was turquoise) so I try to mix up what I do. This warp might even be my last variegated one for a while. I have a lot of greens left, but I have them in enough quantity I might knit them, or use them solidly. 

Current Projects

Winterfest is coming! So I'm churning out scarves like there's no tomorrow. These guys are just waiting their final pressing, which I'll do the night before.

One more and then some rag rugs. My rag stash is getting out of control!

Bundle on top is all the threads I missed.

I haven't decided on a weft color for this guy yet. I have a pink, and I have an ochre, which I'm leaning towards. Also haven't decided on a structure, but he's loosely set so plan weave may be the better part of valor. I used a dummy warp, which of course meant that I found a few pages on some fantastic canvas weaves that use a different threading pattern the moment I finished tying all those knots.

Dummy Warps: The Lesser Evil

Dummy warps don't actually save time. Instead of re-slaying and re-heddling, you have to tie a not for every single warp thread. Then you have to carefully wiggle them through the reed and harnesses. But the glory of them is: no heddling. And I hate heddling with a passion. Of course, now I'm stuck with a straight threading when I'd really love a point threading.

Starstitch. Forever.

On the needles I have two shawls. One is a rectangular Laminaria  done in some lovely laceweight I got at the MD Sheep and Wool Festival. I went to the festival instead of graduation, and didn't regret a moment of it.

This isn't pink. This is glory.

I usually prefer pink in eye-searing shades, but this skein won me. It has gold and berries and coral and sherbert and about a million other shades. I'm seriously considering just doing starstich for most of the shawl because it shows off the color so nicely. Then I contemplate just how much starstitch that would be and think better of it.

Stockingette. Forever.

Also on the needles is an Orchid Thief Shawlette. I took out the middle lace pattern in favor of stockingette. I will post the full list of mods as soon as I calculate what my mods are in regards to starting the border lace, and when I start the border lace. I like to keep two different projects going at once that are different enough to keep my interest. Unfortunately both of these are in stages where miles and miles happen of very simple stitches. I might need to start a sock.

I am not making up this color.

Yarn is Hill Farms Border Leicester  dyed by me. It's a delightfully wooly and it has that longwool luminosity that looks so much like silk. That close up picture above is color accurate, I promise you. I'm knitting on 9s and getting a loose stockingette, and I'm fully expecting this wool to bloom.

Blocking: Part II

What is both fun and horrible about blocking is that it offers an opportunity to fix mistakes. Thus we can all avoid ruined pieces and carefully tweak tiny errors. Of course, the downside is that there's really no excuse for doubled or missed picks.

No excuse.

Whether you do this before or after washing is up to you. Generally your fix will need a little blocking to even out. At the same time, some fabrics have so little friction before washing that trying to work with them is maddening. This example had one light washing, but hasn't yet been pressed.

Find the offending thread, and snip in the center.

The first trick is finding what exactly went wrong. The simpler the fabric, the easier this is. Consider it a test of your knowledge of structure: Do you have any clue what paths your warp and weft are following?

Tug from the center to the edge. 

A missed tie-down in huck is relatively easy to parse out, this thread should be following a tabby weave of over one, under one. Since the warp alternates between gray threads and pink/purple threads, this thread should be under grey, over pink/purple. Instead he's following the pattern pick of tabby in Block A, and under one, over one, under five in Block B.

Find the thread on the selvedge edge.

Of course, I have no idea why this particular thread decided to be a pattern pick for half of the width, and a tabby pick for half the width. Maybe I was channeling Harvey Dent when treadling that one.

Pull out offending thread.

The initial tug from the center does double duty. Errors are most apaprent in the center, so tugging from there is usually much easier then trying to follow with your eyes all the way from the center. Since this scarf has already been washed, it also loosens the thread up from it's neighbors, making it much easier to pull out completely.

Needle Weaving.

A pin can be helpful to manipulate threads that want to wiggle away. When you reach the center, try to overlap ends, even if it means adding another piece of thread.

All fixed!

Fixing errors is more then simple perfectionism. Poorly made fabrics are more likely to rip, snag, worm, and simply fall apart. A well woven fabric is one that will serve its function for decades.

This scarf is a slightly randomized huck lace done in Henry's Attic Pony II Laceweight, dyed by me. Pony is 100% merino and a pleasure to work with. Gentle handling is required though, because it felts easily.