Knitting in Molokai

Just got back from a week in Molokai...one of the most laid back of the Hawaiian Islands.

No glitz, no shopping, no big tours...its as far from the Southern California experience as you can get within six hours. We used to like Maui but it has changed over the years into something resembling Southern California. We don't normally go on vacation to be somewhere like home.

But Molokai is definitely no Maui. We just love the place...have been there at least three times and are ready to plan another trip there. The first photo is a beach...at least two miles long...we were the only two people on the entire beach. My DH did his ten mile 'long day' for his marathon training in this area of the island. I got to read and do 'my' stuff.

I discovered that the 5+ hour plane ride was a great time to knit. I had thrown into my bag a zip lock bag with a few skeins of yarn and a WIP - made great progress - got through an entire ball of yarn...mostly on the plane but a few rows by the ocean. It was a nice pattern to knit - stripes of knit and garter- September 22nd from the Knitting Pattern Calendar. Great practice for perling [or is it pearling?] since it only has two knitted rows and 8 rows of perl in each pattern unit. KPKPPPPPPP

It is quite embarrassing to admit this is a WIP which started in November of last year. It is almost done...at which point I can finish up that other WIP which started even earlier than my Molokai scarf. I guess I just am a weaving diva and not a knitting knut

This second picture is by our 'camp' on the beach. It's lovely camping experience...a wooden tentalo with solar fans and lights. A private outdoor bathroom and shower. A chef to cook you breakfast and dinner. Wooden lawn chairs that you can sit on and star at the stars at night. Couldn't imagine a better place...except perhaps Anegada in BVI...but Molokai is so much closer.

Warping Day 2 & 3

Things are moving real fast today...yesterday I finished getting the entire 900 ends of polyester thread through the reed and heddles. I also was able to roll on the entire 5-6 yards in less than two hours. Far far better than the last time I put on such a thin and long warp.

Most interestingly, the majority of the tangles in the threads were on the first section of warp. That was the section where I wound on two threads at a time with my finger separating them. All the other warp bundles used my handy dandy straw warping utensil. Clearly, I will be using my straw warping tool in the future and not my fingers.

I couldn't quite get the right angle while winding on the warp around the back beam using the trapeze. So, I ended up lowering the trapeze until the warp was level, as in the photo, and it just started to roll on nicely. It took about twenty minutes to move all the weaving stuff out of the dining room, den and living room. The house returned to normal.

This morning I looked for and fixed some errors, smoothed out the tangles at the end of each warp bundle and tied on the ends to the front beam.. The loom is all ready to weave...all in about 2 1/2 days!

I was so inspired about finishing the warping process, I actually got the needle and thread out and sewed my backing on my latest tapestry and the tapestry is now being blocked in the backyard. Pictures later.

Warping Day 1 - continued

I wanted to finish up writing about day 1 before I go complete my weaving chores for day 3 of warping. My loom should be ready for weaving by the end of today...plus my tapestry should be ready for blocking. This does give a clue as to how successful my latest techniques were.

In this photo you can see the start of the warping with the mint green polyester thread. I warp front to back. Through the reed and the heddles and tie on the back. By rolling the thread onto the back beam through the heddles it forces me to get rid of all the knots and kinks leaving a lovely tensioned warp. The polyester thread is strong enough to handle it. I rarely have a break...breaks occur usually occur intentionally...when my patience is low and a knot or tangle cannot be untangled.

I have one of my favorite bricks weighing the thread down and keeping the threads from shifting. From the brick the threads go up and over the trapeze and over a chair at the end of the living room with the small copper candle sticks at the bottom. To give you some perspective, that crossbeam in our living room at 11 feet high. And yes, I had to climb up the ladder to throw the warp over the trapeze.

I am also using one of my favorite C clamps to attach the two popsicle sticks onto the loom. [I use these clamps all the time. Since they have the top bar - they are great to warp up a quick scarf between the two clamps. On short scarves I never use a cross - too much trouble. However, here on a 5-6 yard long piece a cross is essential. Between the popsicle sticks is my cross...wound in sets of two. I insert it while on the warping board and tape it closed. The clamp keeps it snug so I do not have to hold it. Remember, I only had three cones of mint green vs. four. If I had had four I would have wound on with all four and had four threads in each cross so they could go easily into the dent then split up into the heddles. What is pictured is 265 ends.

For winding on the color gradations in my warp, I created a warping paddle specifically for my four cones of warp. It consisted of four straws cut down to about four inches long. I taped them together. Each warp thread went from the cone rack through the straw and then onto the warping board. This is the best design of a warping paddle - at least for me. It is small and easily navigates along the rods on the warping board. I can hold it like a piece of chalk and by using what feels like a natural writing motion - the hand remains level and the thread goes on without twisting. Plus, it warps up the stuff real fast...fast and no tangles...great.

By the end of day one, I had about 600 ends onto the loom, all graduations of the color change except for the 100% turquoise. I alternated between winding on warp, threading the heddles and doing some mad cat/stretching dog poses. The back was a bit sore during the work but not too bad afterwards.

Back to work...

ps Bonnie - I will take a picture of my weft...and discuss it later this week.

Warping Day 1

Not much blogging recently...probably because I have been involved in finishing. I don't much care for that last 5% of a project and I have a number of projects in that stage.

On a more inspiring note, I began preparing my loom for the piece I am creating for the yardage exhibit at convergence. I want to put on a warp - about 5-6 yards of sewing thread...actually Maxi-lock serger thread made of polyester. I am using a 12 dent reed sleyed 4 threads per dent for a sett of 48 epi. I am going for 900 ends...just a tad over 18 inches.

I remember the last time I put on a long warp with this type of thread. Quite a nightmare due to the threads clinging to each other, twisting around and making knots. If I recall, I spent four or five days last time slowly...inch by inch...moving the thread through the reed and heddles. There was not an inch without at least one or two knots. Fortunately, I had lots of patience. I am planning on a better result this time.

This will be the first time I have warped up the 16 harness table loom with a long warp. It is not the best loom for front to back warping but that's the way it goes. I need the width...it goes out to 24 inches and I definitely need the 16 heddles. My design uses all 16 although it does look like it is woven on a loom with 27 harnesses.

This time warping I am going to use the theory that the less you touch the warp and the more under tension the better the result. I am going to try using a trapeze which I think Charlene discussed perhaps a year or two ago. I need the trapeze set up real high since the warp is 5-6 yards long and I want it to hang under tension. I set up the trapeze in the dining room/family room. It was stung across the weight bearing rafter which required a huge ladder to reach. The loom rested on the dining room table. Do notice how I have taken over this entire two room space. My DH is very understanding.

I also took over the den where I hung my warping board on the door with wreath hangers. I also put out the spool rack...since I had three cones of each of the two colors I wanted to use. I am using a mint green and a turquoise and all gradations of those two colors in the warp. I want to subtly show a color shift from the mint to the turquoise as your eye goes across the finished piece. Both these two will blend nicely with the various weft colors I have selected. So each spot in the piece will have a slightly different hue and along with a few metallic colors it should resemble the ocean.

[ Notice the little copper candle holders - I bought these for five bucks at a recent garage sale. I attached them to the end of the warp as a weight to maintain tension. I decided these would be easier than water jugs. ]

I have learned from previous projects in taquete that you should do everything in sets of four. Hence, four threads per dent... four threads per block... knot every four threads... color combinations in sets of four...you get the idea. Now how does having three cones of each warp color fit into the theory of four? Square peg into the round hole... more later.

To be continued...

Starting the Big One

I am almost finished with my five inch maze cube...just a bit of sewing left...so my sixteen harness loom is ready to for its next project.

Next up: my piece for the exhibit Ebb Tide at Convergence-Tampa 2008. It's a juried international yardage exhibit. I exhibited last year with my beetle piece which received an honorable mention. If I recall, minimum size is nine feet by eighteen inches.

I need to get the piece woven and finished plus an eight by eight inch sample done by January 1 so I can ensure I can get good pictures for the jurors. Since my yardage will be over 10 feet long and woven with sewing thread and three shuttles I need to get going!

The best way I know of to really get going on a giant project is to clean and re-organize the studio. So that is what I did today. I tossed a bunch of stuff. Organized some stuff. Moved some stuff. Touched and decided to deal with some stuff and not deal with other stuff. Then the studio was dusted and cleaned. It has now been re-arranged so I have a huge table which only has the stuff [loom, thread, pattern, notes, shuttles, scissors...] for the new piece and lots of empty space! I am ready.





In the newly arranged studio there is also a new space for the borrowed baby Shannock loom which has the tapestry I am currently working on.

There is also a place for me to sit and write on my computer. The computer in my studio is not connected to the Internet. I only use it to write notes and thoughts about the pieces I am weaving and watch DVDs. It also contains the beginnings of my novel. I occasionally read the prologue and first chapter and marvel how good it is.

THEY say there is a novel in everyone just waiting to come out. Mine is having a tough time coming ...perhaps a laxative is in order.

THEY also say you need to have a special spot to actually sit there and write. I now have one so good bye to that excuse.

THEY also say you should have a designated time where you just sit there and work on it. Now there's a problem. My writing area is right next to my tapestry loom and in close viewing distance of my sixteen harness loom.

Hmmm...write or weave...weave or write...what a dilemma!

Off the Loom

Here is what I have been laboring over for the last several weeks on my sixteen harness table loom. I started with the Tour de France. It seems like so long ago...

The piece laying over the top is my sampling. Turns out the sample is about 20 inches...the finished piece is about 30 inches...essentially six five inch squares.

It was quite a difficult piece to weave. Probably the hardest thing I have done. Tough to get the balance right, tough to choose the right color, tough to get the right pattern and tough to execute the pattern.

I have a lot of wasted thread. It is by far much easier to simply take out the sewing thread and cut it off and start a fresh than weaving it out and then back in. I don't think I went more than three or four rows without making some sort of error or not liking the balance.

The piece is resting...I am resisting the temptation to look and touch it. It needs a bunch of finishing before I can pull it all together into its final form.

More later...

Indigo Friends

Here are three tapestries that I have recently completed. I am exploring different setts with different number of weft strands. No conclusion yet.

One more to go...I think I am visualizing a hippo...

Another Maze

Well here is another project I have been working on for the last month or so. I can't yet say exactly what it is yet...but it is another take on a maze. The cartoon took many weeks to figure out. The warping of the loom was a nightmare. I think the weaving should be quite easy.

Why was the warping so bad? I think I will blame the Tour de France. You see I love to weave and watch the Tour de France on TV. It comes on about 5:30 am on the west coast. Then it is played again around 8:30 and again later. I can weave and weave and weave and never get tired of it. So much better than books on tape. And this time, the pictures of the flat areas looked just like like Van Gogh landscapes.

I had nothing to weave while watching the Tour. So I decided to warp my 16H loom for a piece that I want to enter into Small Expressions next year. There is no table in the den big enough for the loom so I had to move a new one in. The table was round and of a slightly different height and size than I am used to. Plus, it was a bit awkward getting the threads through the reed and the heddles. I have never made as many mistakes as I did on this piece. There were only 310 ends which needed to be sleyed and warped. At 48 epi that only a bit over 6 inches wide. Now I admit I was using serger thread which is thin...but on the positive side it was turquoise blue...a lovely color and a nice contrast with the white plastic heddles. I think I must have touched each end at least twice and some I fixed several times. After three days, I moved the loom back to its assigned work area and finished up the warping in a day or so.

The photo shows the results of my color testing for the weft. I must admit, it looks better on the loom than on that photo...I may go and test a couple more colors having seen that photo....

More on Mazes

I finished the 'answer key' for the large maze that I am going to weave. I wanted to have a small piece that would show the actual route through the maze since the larger one will only show the beginning of the route and perhaps the finish. As you can see, the actual route is not a simple path....it wanders all around the piece before ending up at the exit at the bottom.

Weaving this sample is a good test of the pattern to ensure I don't have any errors and ensure the overall balance is good. I did find a couple of small items that I may modify. But looks like the larger piece will be a go...of course I need to re-design it for size. It will be about 10 times larger when finished than this sample which of course necessitates a number of design changes due to the magnitude.

First though, I am going to weave a smaller piece of some compexity to enter into Small Expressions in Tampa Bay 208. I have the design complete and am vascillating on the colors - in particular the warp. A dark color will make the piece a bit somber but will make the walls of the maze be particularly vvid but the light colors will be a bit muted. On the other hand, a light warp will make the path of the maze pop but wash out the darker colors in the walls of the maze. Ah decisions, decisions...

A Little Blue'll Do Yah

I took a 'quick and dirty' workshop on indigo dyeing last weekend. The instructor was John Pitblado. It only lasted about four hours and was quite fun.

I have only used procion dyes. And never indigo. Everyone always speaks in such hushed tones when it comes to indigo. So I figured I might as well check it out. We used freeze dried indigo which does not require the urine of boys under 13 as does the traditional method. John informed us that the urine of pregnant women, diabetics or alcoholics also works well. This freeze dried stuff is good. It does not smell. Thanks goodness. Mixes up well and seemed to stand up to a lot of messy folks.

It is quite amazing how you put something into the dye pot for a couple of minutes, pull it out and it's green but within a few seconds the piece starts turning blue.

I used some big nuts and rubber bands to create patterns on my blanks. We got to dye two pieces of cotton, a silk scarf. You can see the results. I tried for a very light blue on the scarf so I would indeed wear it sometime. I am not a dark blue person. There is not one piece of dark blue clothing in my closet. And when I was in the corporate world I did not own a blue suit

I also dyed some of my silk yarn to see how it came out. It looked beautiful deep indigo blue while drying. I had to wash it since there was lots of excess dye which came off on my hands when it was dry. I couldn't imagine weaving with it - my hands would be permanently blue. I had to wash it twice in the washing machine to get the excess out.

In the end, it was a mottled blue. Actually two shades of blue, since I put one skein in the dye twice as much to get a deeper shade of blue. I am 'using it up' in a little tapestry right now...an indigo llama. I will stick with procion.

Many Fond Memories

There was a sense of emptiness in the house this morning.

Even the other three dogs felt it.

Pokie normally watches me weave from a small dog bed under the table in the studio. She was the only dog that seemed to enjoy the sound of the constant slamming of the shafts on my table looms while I wove taquete. I kept looking down at the bed expecting to see her looking up at me. But I could only see the memory of her. When I move from room to room I can still imagine her little feet pattering behind me. She would follow me everywhere.

Pokie had a good life with us. She was a dog rescued from a bad situation and was a very sick when we met her. She was a rescue dog of unknown age with heart problems and a hernia. The vet thought she would live perhaps six months or so. Every dog deserves some special time so we adopted her. We used to say she was in 'pre-heaven' while staying with us. And for over two and a half years she brought us great joy.

I, and the rest of the pack will miss her.

The Ikat to Rest

Here is my ikat piece all dyed, washed and ironed. It looks better in the photo than in person. I guess the dye was not well mixed at certain times since it left heavy dye splotches every one in awhile. Part of the piece is salvageable but too many splotches to use the entire piece material. I may experiment with discharging the dye...never done that before....

On this piece, a lot of yellow washed out. I kept rinsing and rinsing and the yellow kept coming out. I finally just put it in the washing machine and that seemed to have removed it all. I am now thinking it may not have been the dye that I painted on the warp that was running but it could have the yellow from the yellow silk weft I used. I never did any color fast test on it.

Well this was an interesting experiment. I have a couple of balls more of the ikat dyed yarn so I need to figure out what I will do with it. It looks like it would make a nice border or lapel for a jacket so I might go for that.

But no hurry....

The Rejected Twill

Here's the twill pattern I decided not to use. I was trying to shift the warp threads so the ikat design would be something like the letter 'N'. I shifted the twill direction to make it stand out more. After weaving a bit I realized I wan't trilled about this twill pattern in ikat - a bit old fashion.

Ater I wove about six inches with the white ikat design I decided I didn't like the contrast between the white and the dark purple [which looks brown in the photo] so I decided to dye the white - golden yellow. I dyed both the woven part and the next six inches of the unwoven warp on the loom to see if there would be a big difference in the end product.

Once finished weaving, I painted the entire piece with a 2:1 water:white vinegar mix, wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it in my old crock pot.

In the end, the dye took well on both parts and kept most of its color even after washing in the washing machine. There does seem to be a richer golden yellow color on the part that was woven then dyed vs. dyed then woven. Most troubling was the yellow stripe of dark dye in the middle of the piece...

Easy Ikat

Remember that silk that I bought that was not color fast...I over dyed it with some ikat ties. It used to look like this. I shifted the design using the easy ikat method I learned at the ASCH conference in Visalia.

Then as I wove it, I painted the warp while on the loom. At one end I started with yellow orange and gradually moved into emerald green. In the picture, I am close about 80% emerald green. I used liquid Createx dye. I have no idea how the dye will actually take...

I didn't like the initial pattern which was warped in a simple twill so I took it off. At the suggestion of a friend, I tightened the sett and used a finer weft. For the weft in the photo, I am using 60/2 silk in a pale yellow.

I like how it looks. It would make a a nice border or lapel on a jacket.

Sample Three

I finished up my third sample maze. This one is about fourteen inches long and two inches wide. I actually wove the beginning and end of the pathway through the maze to encourage the audience to try to connect the two paths. This photo only shows one end.


I still have some warp left...enough for one more sample. I made some modifications to the pattern of sample three so this upcoming last sample will show the new final maze with the actual pathway throughout. This will be the shakedown to ensure I have no mistakes in the pattern and there is indeed a way through the maze. Then I should be ready to plan the larger piece.

Another Sample

I finished my second maze sample...this one with the walls in blue, the path in yellow and the actual path to go through the maze in orange. The size is about 2 by 8 inches ignoring the fringe.

I kept with the symmetrical look with the entry and exit point on the sides near the bottom of the photo. I used the blue as the locking thread so the fringe is 100% yellow and orange threads. The warp I have on the loom is half pale yellow and half pale sky blue. The yellow warp really makes the yellow weft pop in comparison to where the weft goes over the pale blue warp. Another thing to keep in mind when decided on final colors.

The back side is most interesting too...lovely shades of green, purple and yellow-orange. I may consider doing a reversible piece.

I still have some warp left on the loom so I will try another sample...

Triangles

As promised, here is a sampling of my triangle scarves...there were more...but they were given away as gifts.

I like the ones which are more lacy and light. Of course, this probably has something to do with the weather in Southern California....the fog came in this afternoon for a bit so some of these may still be wearable this season.

I must admit, these scarves did not make a big dent in my yarn stash. I was hoping they would create more room for future additions. But alas they do not take much yarn at all. I could weave some more, but fortunately I have returned the triangle loom so I can now get back to more important things...like weaving mazes...

Back in the Groove

You may wonder what I have been doing...not posting and all. I actually think I have finally gotten back in the groove so to speak. I was in a slump after the weaving conference I had attended and couldn't quite get into doing anything.

Well, that isn't actually true...our Guild had a workshop on harness-less weaving and I learned how to use a triangle loom. I borrowed one from Hilda and proceeded to weave quite a few triangle scarves. I don't think I will actually admit to how many... but really quite a few. I kept wondering...hmmm...how would that yarn work on the loom? Or perhaps this yarn? Since I had just cleaned out and organized my stash...all my yarns were fresh in my memory. I'll take a picture of the results sometime and post.

I did finally start on my group project for our tapestry group...you can see what I am working on here. Anyway, as I started weaving that tapestry I started thinking it might be a fun thing to do on my sixteen harness loom...so I tried it out. Here is the result.




Sorry about the picture quality - its tough to get a good picture while the piece is on the loom.

It's a maze - obviously. One can go in one side and out the other. Pretty intriguing. I am going to play around some more on this concept. But I still like bugs.

Textile Painting

Look what we found in the garage during spring cleaning!

These are painted pants from my DH's high school days. His mother had saved them for all these years...look's like the 1960's to me! Quite remarkable.

They are a much more interesting result than the warp painting I did at the Visalia conference. I took a class on Painted Warp with Jannie Taylor.

I brought a warped loom to the class - warped with 20-2 perle cotton in a baby blue in a two shaft plain weave. Janie brought all sorts of textile paints, dyes, pens, markers, stencils etc. And we got to experiment on our warp.

We tried different techniques to acheive different looks, explored the difference in application and effect of different dyes vs. diferent paints. Tried different types of paints including a whole slew of metallic ones. I especially liked the Sunset Gold metallic with the purple paint.

It was great fun. To finish the piece, we had to iron it a bit then wait a week before washing. I was surprised when I took it out of the washing machine and it had not faded at all! All the colors including the dyes held fast.

Another Silk Test

Jackie suggested I test whether a bit of heat and vinegar would make the silk color fast. I went off to the cupboard to see what kinds of vinegar we had which might work...we've got some Chinese varieties - Chinkiang vinegar, Chinese Black vinegar, rice wine vinegar, some expensive French white wine vinegar, some malt vinegar and several varieties of Balsamic vinegars...

I selected the rice wine vinegar as my 'best' choice of what I had in the pantry. I made a small skein of the pink silk. I dropped a couple table spoons of vinegar into a glass with some 'hot water on tap' - it's automatically at 190 degrees right out of the faucet. I dropped the silk in and waited until it cooled to room temperature. Then for the fun part - I got to check if any color would come out. As long as there was vinegar on the yarn it held fast. I washed it out in cold water with soap. No color. Then warmed up the water and lo and behold - the color started coming out.

It will be interesting to see if the over dye I did on this yarn will hold fast. That project is somewhat down the list of projects so it will be at least a month or so before I can say more.

PS I have, since then bought some distilled white vinegar for future dyeing tests and experimentation.

My Not so Easy Ikat

I bought some 7/2 silk in Visalia to play with Easy Ikat. Here are two of the silk cones I bought. I decided to throw them into my crock pot at low along with some other silk that I was preparing for dyeing. And low and behold - much to my chagrin the most of the pink and the green colors came out.

Looks like I have some cones which lose their color at the warmer temperatures. I tested them in cold water and the colors were fast. Sara Lamb had mentioned she once bought some silk that did the very same thing.

Oh well, so much for 'no planning' Easy Ikat... I will just have to add some steps to the process...first I need to test how much color will actually wash out. I will also need to test that if I over dye the resulting silk that those colors will remain fast.

So here's the plan. First, I am going to test how much the colors are lost in different temperatures of water. I am going to tie up some of the silk in its original state with the plastic strips in a pattern of serendipity. Dye the skeins black. Come up with a design incorporating the black along with stripes of the six original colors I bought. I will weave three identical pieces using a bit of each color weft. Then throw one in hot, one in warm and one in cold water and see what happens to the colors.

On the left below, is the skein that I tied, dyed black and untied. I used a cold batch dye method using soda ash. I already knew I would lose the color in hot water. Despite using the cold water method, it was surprising how much red washed out during the rinsing. You can see how much less pink the dyed yarn is than on the cone.

One never gets black when dyeing silk. The black used here pushed a deep purplish brown color which looks nice against the pink. I also dyed a skein plain black for stripes and weft.








In the middle, is the skein which was originally green. On the right is the skein which was originally pink. They should made some interesting designs.

PS all this was occurring as I cleaned out my studios, my closest, the den and the gym. I doubt I will make much more progress for awhile - at least until my studio is straightened and the yarn dry. Given the fog...it might be a long while.

My Crackl'in Kite

When I went to Convergence in Grand Rapids last year I attended a seminar on crackle. For those of you unfamilar with crackle, its a weave structure based a couple of 'rules' and when woven a famous weaver once said it looked like the crackle in old pottery. All the crackle I have woven hasn't reminded me of old pottery...but that's the tale my weaving books tell.

Crackle is a weave structure of no special interest to me except for the fact I am in the Complex Weavers study group of that name. Every year I play around and weave up a crackle pattern for a sample exchange. I have no special attraction for the structure...in fact each time I weave it I wonder why am I actually weaving the structure. I have worked diligently to make it interesting. One year, I attempted to make the structure look like the waves of the ocean. Another time I used sewing thread as the warp and weft and created rainbows. This last time I experimented with cassette tape as the weft.

Ah but back to my story. At the crackle seminar I attended in Grand Rapids the speaker definitely stated that you simply could not get accepted into a juried show if you wove with crackle. NEVER. There was just something about crackle which turns the jurors off.

Hmmm...that certainly sounded like a challenge to me. How could I get a crackle piece into a juried show...and if I was going to get in...why not win a prize? I always love the challenge.

Here is one of my entries into Showcase, a juried show, at the Visalia conference I just attended.




Yes - it is a kite. That's a box kite I constructed with woven material and balsa wood. The material was woven with 3/2 perle cotton and cassette tape in a four harness crackle pattern. The cassette tape was both natural and painted.

The piece placed second in the woven multi-dimensional category.

Onto the next challenge - here is the kite hanging in our backyard. It's quite light and seems like it really wants to fly. Any little bit of breeze and it starts moving upwards. Next time I go to Hawaii I plan to take it along and see how it flies.

Easy Ikat

One of the workshops I took in Visalia was a one day affair on Easy Ikat by Bonnie Tarses. I've never done 'real' ikat so 'easy' ikat seemed just fine to me. Here is a picture of my easy ikat scarf on my loom being woven. It's a 3/2 cotton warp ; sett at 16 epi with 20/2 cotton weft.

Apparently in 'real' ikat, one plans a complex design often on a cartoon, lays out the warp onto the cartoon then carefully ties and dyes the warp in specific ways to get the design desired. At that point - untie, warp and weave.

Easy ikat avoids all that 'nasty' planning. One still ties and dyes...but you just design with what you already have. She does a demo for every class she teaches and just keeps the result for future pieces. Bonnie prefers virtual dyeing to actually dyeing herself...but will do the real thing - usually only in black. Here's a reference to her blog showing the yarn she dyed for our workshop. You can read more about easy ikat there. [If you hate to read she also did a podcast you can listen to - just google her name.]

Since it was only a day class, Bonnie had already done some dyeing and what we got to do was to 'spontaneously' create a warp using some of her dyed yarn. Our workshop fee only covered enough dyed yarn to do about half a scarf so we added some solid strips to make a nice pattern. It was all planned and created on the warping board. I shifted the yarns to get a pattern I liked and tied it up for latter warping onto the loom. Unfortunately it slipped a bit in the warping process but I still like the result. Even my DOH commented approvingly.

I wove the piece in about an hour or so...it was a plain weave using only two shafts on my eight shaft loom. It would have taken less but I ripped [does one frog on a loom?] out about a foot or two at the beginning since I didn't like the warp color. I started out with white...and then changed to navy blue weft. The darker color looks better.

This workshop was fun and quite lively. It was my fifth day in Visalia and the perfect workshop for my last workshop of the conference. After that - it was onto shopping and finding the perfect silk...oh and perhaps some linen....tapestry bobbins...tapestry needles...loom accessories...

The Painters' Studio

I have been decompressing from a week in Visalia at the ASCH [Association of Southern California Handweavers] conference which had the theme 'wildflowers of the Sierras'. I'll post some items about the conference over the next week or so.

Our Guild created a booth for the occasion. Here's a picture of it all set up in the exhibit hall. Almost all of our Guild participated.

The concept was fairly simple...it was a painters' studio in the mountains.

The painters had gone for a walk and picked some wildflowers that you can see out the window. The window is a tapestry that I wove.

The painters created a still life arrangement of those wildflowers sitting in a blue vase on a blue and lavender runner. The flowers were all made of woven fiber or crocheted yarns. It's in the center of the booth.

The painters then created a variety of pieces which were their interpretations of the the still life flower arrangement. They were all painted in fiber...woven, knitted, quilted, embroidered, glued...all done in the conference colors. All quite different but all most interestingly similar.

Overall it came out quite nicely. Looking at the photo again, the booth could have used a blue rug. But never the less, the booth won two awards - - Best Interpretation of Theme and Best Use of Booth Space.

Weekend in Review

Here is my little sample from the workshop I took last weekend on Color Blending in Tapestry with Tricia Golberg. I think I will call the piece Sailor's Delight. I reminds me of a reddish sky at sunset while sailing...

The workshop was interesting, the instructor charming and the participants a hoot. A great combination for a weekend class.

I did several things I had never done before. I wove this tapestry from the back. I wove dots and I used bobbins. I really liked the bobbins better than the standard butterflies which always seem to come apart when I use them for awhile. It seems so neat and tidy to have those bobbins hanging down from the tapestry when not in use. I will look for those in Visalia.

Weaving from the back was new. A new habit I picked up while weaving from the back was tidying up the warp ends which would be facing me all the time. I hate a messy foreground while working. Plus, much less clean up at the end of the tapestry. Whenever I wanted to see what the tapestry actually looked like I had to turn the loom around, walk around to the front or peek into a mirror. It was an interesting feeling...not sure if I like or dislike it. I may try a couple of my next weavings from the back and see how they turn out. At times it was difficult to see where I was in my weaving or where I would want to put a specific dot but otherwise it seemed OK.

We did three types of color blending as you can see working from the bottom up. First was hatching were we mimicked an outline of a barn like structure. Then I did a blending with four bobbins with different combinations of colors. And the last was using dots to blend from light to dark to light. All in all quite useful and will use all in future weavings.

We started our weaving with twining. Since I wasn't going to hem my piece I decided to braid the ends. I left the twining on the bottom of the piece and twined with five threads. I braided the top the same but without twining. I wanted to have a sampler that would remind me of how each looks. To me each is a bit different - but neither is something to write home about. [Note to self: its tough to twine with 12/12 Finnish cotton warp.]

My weft yarn was quite interesting. It is a 100% silk that I dyed. I wove with five threads at a time using a 10 epi. I beat solidly about every other round trip. Once off the loom, it was almost stiff as card board. I've never had anything as stiff as that. If I bend it a bit - the piece will stand up on its own! This gives me all sorts of ideas....

Great weekend...and I am ready to start weaving tapestry again.

Weekend Workshop

I am packed and ready to roll...weave that is..loom is warped at 10 epi, I found an awl as well as a mirror. Yarn is dyed and and packed in value order. Yup. Ready to roll. I am taking a tapestry workshop this weekend on Color Blending with Tapestry with Tricia Goldberg.

We are to:

learn how to achieve certain effects in tapestry by combining colors that can be subtle or high contrast. Colors can be blended by combining different colors on a bobbin or with weaving techniques and patterns. Beginning students will learn full pass techniques, while more advanced students can use half pass techniques and begin experimentation. Students can try also try interesting things with color using eccentric weft, weaving that varies from the horizontal line...

Sounds like fun! I will, of course, let you know how it goes.

Aristobia Beetle off the Loom

Half a Bug

I started weaving my new warp yesterday morning as planned. So far, I have half a bug; half an aristobia beetle from Thailand. The shiny copper metallic thread combined with the rust color in rayon is coming out quite nicely on the green.

This is the shake down cruise for both the loom and the warp so things are going slowly. This is the first warp I have done on this loom with fine threads. Fine threads is the reason I bought this particular loom - an ashford sixteen harness table loom with a 24 inch weaving width and a hanging beater. I must say that hanging beater is heavenly - easily provides a perfect consistent beat.

I have re-adjusted how the shafts were hung. The loom directions suggested hanging them in such a manner that each one is slightly higher than the previous. That was fairly impossible for me to achieve given the spacings on the texsolvv and the space available on the loom. It would probably work with eight harnesses - not sixteen. And anyway, it was giving me an odd shed which kept catching some threads...so I went back to a more level hanging. It's better.

I also saw a couple of twisted heddles in the back...I figure I will fix those when I take this first piece off the loom or when the thread might break.

In the photo you can easily see the two toned warp at the top where it is waiting to be woven. The impact is quite subtle in the weaving.

Finally!

The sixteen harness table loom is finally warped.

Since I will be experimenting with a new loom and trying to come up with a design for the yardage exhibit I decided to weave bookmarks. They are small, contained and make nice gifts. I can do lots of design modifications and still end up with something useful. I had originally intended to weave two bookmarks at a time - one would have yellow warp and one mint green. In the end, it turns out I will be weaving one not two bookmarks at a time. So we will forget the 'one for me and one for you' mantra for the next month or so.


I may need to modify those warping rules a bit...31 x 4 is indeed still 124. But for some reason, both with and without a glass of wine, I divided by 2 instead of ... ahh no need to go into the math. Anyway, it turned out I ran out of yellow warp half way through warping the first bookmark and considering I had already started over once before and since was now warping back to front I decided to punt. I'd just use the remaining mint yarn for the rest of the bookmark. So now my piece will be half lemon yellow warp and half a minty green. It will be interesting to see how noticeable the color shift will be.


To summarize, the loom is warped. The initial pattern ready. The weft threads are chosen and in their respective shuttles ready to roll. The supplemental warps for the fringe are attached, all heddle errors fixed and the initial hem completed. Finally ready to weave - except for warping rule 6.


Rule 6. Newly warped looms need rest - always begin weaving to the morning sun.

Warping Rules

Please add these to my list of warping rules - -


Rule 1: When you get a new loom measure the distance from the front to the back in order to place the cross in the right position for front to back warping. Moving the cross with fine threads is problematic.

Rule 2: Do not use a warping board after a glass of wine.

Rule 3: 31 times 4 is 124.

Rule 4: The more you pet the warp the more it turns into a dog.

Rule 5: When in doubt - throw it out and start again.

Great Service!

Gosh! I ordered these extra heddles from Village Spinning Tuesday morning...and got them in the mail today at noon! Seems to be about 48 hour turnaround! That sure is fast!

So now I can move forward on my taquete project.

Hmmm...warping with polyester sewing thread with those white cloth heddles is not one of my favorite things. At least the thread is not quite white...it's a lemon yellow and a light mint green. Perhaps, I will add this to my to-do list and work a different project. On the other hand, there are only 128 ends.

Color & Grayscale

There were a couple of requests for a picture in color of the yarns I dyed for my tapestry class. Here they are in both color and grayscale. Digital cameras are the best!

I need a couple of high and low contrast colors. Looks like I have just what I need.

Revisiting an Old Friend

It's time for a new project...most of my looms are empty and I am getting over that feeling of loss that I get when I have finished a big project. I will post a picture of my finished tapestry called Window to the Sierras after the conference in March. Don't want to ruin the surprise for those special folks who have signed up for the Visalia ASCH conference.

Now it's time to see what my new sixteen harness loom can do. One reason I bought it was to get better definition and have more freedom than with the eight harness in designing patterns. I am going to make a bookmark with a similar setup as the ones I have done previously just making those changes which occur due to twice as many harnesses.

So here is my first draft of the new beetle pattern I designed, it's a Aristobia beetle from Thailand. I also expanded the double diamond pattern I was putting on the top and bottom of the bookmarks I woven last year.

Rule one with taquete weaving...make sure you have enough heddles on your tie up shafts before warping. I need 62 heddles on shaft 1 and 16 if I want to make bookmark...but since I want to make two...one for me and one for you...I have to go order some more.

Off to Village Spinning....

A Better Value Scale

Well, I dyed some more yarn to achieve a better set of value contrasts. Here is a picture with the results. Much better than what I had before.


The Createx 'black' that I dyed in the lower right pushed to a lovely dark green. I also dyed a marine blue and a violet which came out quite close in hue and value. They were Createx dyes also. The Havana browns, from a procion dye, turned out to be lighter values than I expected. So not having enough low values I used up some leftover Rit dark brown to get the dark brown in the lower left.


The upper left is a light blue grey which was the base yarn. It's a 12/2 silk which I cooked overnight at low in a crock pot per Sara Lamb's suggestion prior to dyeing.


So now, all I need to do is warp my baby shannock tapestry loom at 10 epi and I am all ready for my tapestry workshop in March.

Colors to Soothe the Soul

Here are the first results of my dyeing using the leftover dyes from the Sara Lamb class I took last week. The yarn is 100% silk.

The colors from right to left are yellow, turquoise, orange, scarlet and trash green. The photo is true to the colors...so what was called yellow turned out green. I assumed this happened since the silk was not white it was more of a blueish grey. Of course, there could have been contamination of the yellow - - it was a long and somewhat messy class! The trash green was an amalgamation of any dyes folks used which where greenish. They all went into one bucket. I also have some trash red...which I dyed the next day.

I like the colors but was hoping for more contrast. Turns out all the colors I dyed are pretty much the same value. Check out the black and white photo of the yarns all balled up and ready to be woven. I will definitely need to dye up some dark colors before the tapestry class in March. I need a couple of high contrast colors. I am thinking of a rich purple and perhaps a dark green.

Sara Lamb Workshop

Here are my completed dye samples from the Sara Lamb workshop I took this weekend. Quite a few samples for a day and half.

I decided to put my samples on a key chain - like a painter's sample book. I find putting anything from a workshop into a notebook is the kiss of death. Once in that notebook on that shelf - all it will do is gather dust until we move. By putting the finished samples on a key chain hanging in plain sight I will now have another useful tool for my endeavors.

In lieu of painting a warp in the afternoon of the second day, I took some sample leftover dyes home. So, now it's time to dye up some tapestry yarn for the next workshop!

The Majors

This is one of my tapestry pieces I just finished framing. It is called The Majors.

This is one of the pieces that is the result of my study of value last year. It illustrates the low, middle and high major value keys. If you recall, a major key uses the entire range of values. There is however, one set of values which predominates with the other two values as accents. For example, the low major has the entire range of values but the darkest [the lowest] third of the value scale predominates with some middle values and a very light value color for accent.

The yarn is either silk or a cotton silk blend and the pieces were woven on a small Shannock table tapestry loom. I used perle cotton as the warp since it had the colors which I needed. It is often said that perle cotton should not be used as warp...I did it anyway. Since I don't make the warp super tight nor do I leave the warp on the loom for a very long there were no issues. I did have a warp or two break on the black warp which stayed on for about eight weeks while I worked on something else before getting back to it. A second black warp worked fine.

I had originally left the framing as a project for my DH to use all those cool tools in the garage to create beautifully cut and sanded blocks. I wanted each piece to rise out of the black background by an inch or two. Fortunately for DH, Dick Blick saved him by having a huge sale on pre-made canvas. Since I had to buy so many little canvases, I qualified for the 70% off prices. With a little spray paint, glue, a staple gun and some velcro - voila!

Just not my thing...

Low Minor Key

I've been busy as a bee...and I just got my camera out to document the progress - so if I can just find some time to blog you could see what I have been up to!

I finished up my Value Study where I was weaving small four by four inch tapestries in the various value keys. I am now working on the finishing and framing.


Here is one of the last four by fours I wove...is the low minor key, composed of only dark values. I finished with the same value key that I started with. Go here to read about the first attempt.