April spools day

I missed April spools day! I'm a bad blogger. My only excuse can be that I worked all weekend.

Even though it's a few hours late, here are my bobbins:



I'm fairly disciplined about not having too much on bobbins. There are a couple of projects worth of handspun silk cap there, to get them off my spinning bobbins and a few odds and ends of handspun silk and wool awaiting the right moment. I normally use my leftovers as the header for a new project to use them up. These are in an old chocolate tin, and a biscuit tin serves as storage for empty bobbins.

Here are the shuttles I'm using for my current project, lined up in order on the loom bench:



Weaving one pick each with eight shuttles is sloooooooooow......

Just short

Is it really two months since my last post? I'm a bad blogger. I guess I've been so busy doing, I've not got around to typing about it. But I've been busy, with a pile of things I should post. Here's today's effort though: a 16-inch wide warp of 60/2 silk, natural-dyed. There are alternating threads of silk dyed with eucalyptus chordata and a blend of henna and madder. Hands up those who see the problem with the below picture though.


See the bout still taped to the lease stick in the left of the photo? And the distinct lack of heddles left on the loom? I've owned this loom for what must be six years now, and I've never bothered to calculate how many heddles I had. There were always (sometimes just) enough. It turns out it had 100 on each shaft, for a total of 800 heddles. This warp is 16 inches wide at 60 epi - 960 ends. Toss in the "emergency" hundred heddles I had set aside and I'm still an inch short.

I know I could make some, but it's Sunday evening. Off to buy heddles and hope they're here for next weekend!

A day in the life of a loom - 2012

A day in the life of a loom is something that Meg has had going for many years. Each year, on New Year's Day, weavers post a picture of their loom. Here's mine, my trusty 8-shaft Glimakra Ideal.

My poor loom has been sadly neglected for much of this year as work was a bit all-consuming and often had me away. After I finished my P2P2 challenge (itself still unfinished and in the condition it came off the loom), the loom spent months undressed with the thrums still on the back beam, while I went off to sea and travelled the world.

When I got back at the end of November, I warped up this warp. It's 2/10 Lunatic Fringe cotton in spectrum colours, making a block twill tea-towel project. Completely in contrast to my normal modus operandi, this is someone else's project, the towels seen on the front cover of Handwoven's Fabrics That Go Bump. I fell in love with them when the book was first published and have finally decided to make them. I bought the cottons back in May and have only just now had the time to weave them. It's true joy-weaving, nice brainless 1-2-3-4.

I'm hoping to finish weaving off this warp today or tomorrow. I'm moving house next week and need to break down my well-travelled loom!

I haven't been neglecting fibres completely. There's been quite a bit of spinning, knitting and warp dyeing going on, the results of which shall be posted soon!