Interlude

Unfortunately for me weaving does not consume the major part of my life. In my day job, I'm a scientist. My nom de net gives a hint as to which flavour. Today I'm running away to sea for a couple of months to do some work, so this blog will go very quiet.

But in the meantime, as I'm about four posts behind on things I'd like to talk about, have an almost completely contextless photo of the silk scarves I've managed to get out of the ugly warp so far. The draft for these is two contrasting broken twills, inspired by a scarf Janet Phillips put in her excellent book. The warp is 60/2 silk set at 50epi, and the weft on the left hand scarf is a pale blue-grey 60/2 silk. The weft for the right-hand scarf is variegated handspun silk cap, in blues and greens. Neither have been finished yet, and won't be now until the spring.

Take care, weave well.

Returning to musings on colour

Way back in March of last year, I made a post about colour, and wondered at the time whether it would be possible to redeeem a dyeing disaster (not of my making, I hasten to add) which had been visited upon a rather lovely skein of grey 60/2 silk. So once I'd finished weaving the handtowel for the bathroom (there will be photos in the future. I tried to take some yesterday but the light was too dark for navy-on-dark-blue), I warped up the loom with the silk. Here's a photo of the silk on a swift, to illustrate the dyeing job:


I turned this into a 9 metre long, 7-inch wide warp, with a couple of navy threads at the side for definition. Normally to beam sectionally I'd wind the yarn onto as many cones as I want ends per inch, but this is less workable when you're working at 50epi. Instead, I wound two warps, each with 50 ends and long enough to beam each one inch section one after the other. This is the warp, coming off the sectional back beam just before threading.

I'm sure some people would love the colours, but to me they're insipid. The combination of pale turquiose, fuschia, (ugh)pink and yellow do not fit my prejudices.

I've woven two scarves off from this already, in a broken twill. One with a pale blue/grey 60/2 silk warp, and the other with a variegated handspun silk cap warp in blues and greens. I was weaving a scarf a day towards the end of last week which is an accomplishment in fine silk. I'm pleased with the way each has behaved so far, but appear to have non photos of them yet! So I'll promise to post them soon and leave you instead with a comment on acid dyes.


One problem I've been finding with this warp is the odd breakage. These always occur in the regions where the turquoise is brightest. This is due to the chemistry of acid dyes, and the breakdown of protein fibres caused by acid dyes if not adequately rinsed (there is so much dye still in the turquoise parts of this silk my fingers turned blue while winding the warp).

So there are two morals here: if you're home-dyeing, either rinse your yarn really really well, or don't store it for many years before weaving it!

Fortunately there are not enough of these to cause a problem and when they do occur I use a method I think I learned from Sandra Rude. While I have a few spare warp threads hanging off the back beam ready for replacements and sometimes use these, I often tie a new warp thread to the broken thread, pull both threads through to the back together so that the knot is behind the back beam and the front of the new thread is hanging over the breast beam, and weight both ends of the thread. Then I weave on until I'm well past where the breakage occurred and pull the thread back through taut from the back beam, weight it at the front, and weave on. No-knot fabric with minimum fuss.

I'm back at work today after five weeks at home. That's been a bit of a shock to the system, and will severely cramp my weaving style I think. I've been getting used to my lovely routine of weaving in the mornings, garden in the afternoon!

A day in the life of the torture device

January 1, 2010. Because Meg dreamed up the idea and it's fun.

Sectional warping: typing warp bouts onto the back beam

A commenter in my blog asked how I go about attaching each warp bout to the sectional warp beam so I thought I'd answer with photos. The answer is to use headers. In the photo below I've just finished weaving the previous project, so the headers are stretched all the way to the back heddles.

Each section of the warp beam has a cotton thread tied to one of the dividers. Some sectional warp beams have a steel bar for this purpose, mine does not so I simply tie the thread to a divider, using the convention that it's tied to the right-hand divider for each piece. These are simply long pieces of sturdy cotton cut to twice the length between the warp beam and the back heddles, then with the ends tied in an overhand knot so that the thread runs around the divider.


The length of this thread is important. It's ideal to have the thread long enough so that they an reach the back heddles, which minimises loom waster, but also a length so that the end of the loop furthest from the warp beam sits between the wooden bars of the sectional beams. This is so that the knot for each bout (which can be quite large) doesn't interfere with the rest of the warp as it is wound on.

Each bout of warp (1" or 2", depending on the spacing of your sections) is tied with an overhand knot, and a larks-head knot is made from the end of the cotton header: fold over the end of the cotton thread and pull the two pieces through the end loop.


This is then slipped over the overhand knot on the warp bout, and drawn taut. Beaming can then continue.

One hint is to cut all of the header bouts at the same time so that they're all the same length. Do this even if you don't intend to use them. It saves having to undo one to check the length in the future. I just leave all of mine on, all the time, regardless of the width of my warp. They flop around a bit but they've never got in my way.

More krokbragd

This time actually a floor rug. It's not finished yet because I've literally only just cut it off the loom, but it fulfills my need for a floor rug to catch mud and the like trekked in through the front door. The yarns are assorted scrap rug yarns I've accumulated over the years, in addition to handspun rough wools (mostly Welsh), which I picked up during my British wool spinning experimentation phase. I was surprised at the take-up in the warp on this project. The rug is shorter than I'd planned, but still a good length for a foot-mat.


We've had a lot of snow and ice on the ground since a blizzard blew in on Thursday night (the temperatures haven't really risen above freezing since then, in fact it's -1C at 1pm today), so aside from short walks to enjoy the sunshine and views that's done a lot for my staying in and weaving! The light bouncing off the snow has been marvelous. I can really see why weaving is such a strong winter pastime in Scandanavian traditions. It's just as well: this is the rug I was going to have totally completed a full month ago, before my operation. I've been weaving this in short, careful bursts over the past couple of weeks.

Next up: the handtowel for the bathroom, which I've been threatening to weave for a full year.

Sampling really pays off

So: on due consideration and serious inspection under natural light(it was a rare lovely sunny day), my friend and I were unanimous that we liked all-light, and also all-dark, but that the two marled together lost something in the loveliness and subtletly. It's the contrast in texture between the camel and the silk that makes the yarn, and throwing another colour into the mix lessens that. We also decided that the all-light was lighter and more luscious with my complexion. So I'll be going with all-light for the top.

Fortunately I have enough of each for a project, and it may be quite nice to have a top and cardigan /scarf in almost-matching yarns. If there's enough left over, it may be wonderful to weave a scarf utilising the colour differences in the warp and the weft.

And so with that decision made, now to ply.

Knitting: sample, sample, sample!

A sample swatch in homespun brown alpaca

With all my sitting down time, I've been spinning and knitting. I'd thought I'd be working on my cross-stitch project, but it's been taking the back foot. I've started to learn that one of the reasons I've never liked knitting is because the yarns normally recommended for beginner knitters are too chunky for my taste, and that I apparently spin a very precise fingering-weight yarn. Who knew? I found that I had some dark brown handspun alpaca in precisely the right weight to give a good sample on one of the projects in the book I bought last weekend, so am currently knitting that on 3.25 mm needles.

I've also been spinning up the camel and silk roving.

Camel and silk roving on bobbins, L-R, darker variation and two bobbins of the lighter.

The intention had been to make a three-ply of two strands of light and one of dark, but the pattern I would like to use this for was originally written for a knitting machine, with a gauge of 33 stitches and 42 rows to 10cm. Three-ply would be too thick for that, even at the fine rate I spin. So I sampled. I tried various plys of the two colours, at various thicknesses of ply, and knitted the lot into a sample on the finest needles I have in the house, 3mm. The different variations were marked with a small amount of dark roving spun into the ply as it was made.

Sample swatch, with dark smudges to mark variations. L-R, two-ply one dark one light, three-ply one dark, two light, two-ply both light, three-ply all light.

It was immediately apparent that three-ply was a bit too thick for what I want here, and that two-ply gave a lovely soft drape and could even afford to go slightly smaller on the needles. In addition, a check of the gauge showed that on 3 mm needles, 33 stitches and 43 rows comes to almost precisely 11cm, so it's still slightly too large. The ribbing and pattern on this project are complex enough that I don't really want to be fiddling with adjusting numbers of stitches. So I'll be knitting another sample swatch for this project before going too much further with the plying. For a non-knitter, I own an awful lot of knitting needles:

But the smallest I have is 3 mm. Or so I thought. I've just remembered that I own a pair of 2.75 mm circular needles, so will have another go on those to try to get the gauge. The question now is, do I want to go for the all-light ply (saving the darker variant for another project) or do I like the dark-light marl?

Top: dark-light marl. Bottom: all-light two-ply.
This photo doesn't really do the colours justice as the darker marl is a beautiful caramel colour. I haven't made a decision on this yet, as both colours are lovely. The project I intend this for was originally done in white and I'm trying to remove that prejudice from my head before I make a decision. A friend is coming for lunch today so I'm going to canvas her opinion on which colour suits me better before she sees the original project. In all honesty there' s little enough difference between the two that it may not matter. In the meantime, until I make a decision, I'm spinning a second bobbin of the dark.

And finally; a photo for Meg, to assure here that I'm not torturing the gumnut babies!