A learning curve with weaving.

Tapestry weaving has been a skill I have wanted to learn for some time since receiving a small Good Wood loom.  A friend of my brother's gave it to me in honor of him when he died twenty years ago.  At that time spinning was a relatively newly-acquired skill for me since learning how to spin in 1997.  Upon returning home, I promptly warped the loom with crochet cotton and wove with a bit of white handspun weft.  It is the perfect size for a mug rug and has graced my computer desk for years. The experience of weaving was okay, but not something I felt compelled to pursue at that time...until Jim bought me the Cricket loom for my birthday in 2014.  The scarf I wove with the yarn that came with the loom (enhanced with some yarn from the knitting stash) was instant gratification.  That gift led to being in a small group at Anoka Fiber Works that wove vests on our Cricket looms, which then led to me writing an article for Spin-Off Magazine about the experience.  It became clear early on in my weaving that I enjoyed weaving with wool and particularly loved weaving fabric for garments.  A few months later, I purchased a floor loom from Deb, of Old Man Wool Farm.  Weaving fabric for sewing has been fun and satisfying and as time goes by, there is more to learn and opportunity to grow as a fiber artist.  The next step for me is to paint with the yarn with tapestry weaving.  My experiment is approximately three-inches wide by six-inches long.  The piece for me was a success and I look forward to more tapestry weaving.  My plan is to use some of the handspun from the Snake River Acres Lincoln Longwool for weft (and possibly warp) in a tapestry project.

I borrowed Mary's Harrisville lap loom and warped it for a small project using cotton rug warp and handspun woolly bits for the weft.  The simple landscape is made with simple shapes using contour, slanted, and straight lines.  The tension was not an issue, but I should have addressed the start before diving into the weaving.  

About halfway through the first project, I warped the Good Wood loom with two strands of rug warp per slot.  The advantage to the lap loom is that the yarn ends are easy to move to the back when not in use.  This time I wove with one warp thread per pass.  Next time it should be two strands per pass.  I still like how it looks, even though a bit of the warp peeks through the weaving.  

The varying thickness of yarn was tricky on the edges, but I like the overall texture.

The finishing at the top and bottom were a bit of a challenge.  I did two rows of twining and managed to stitch down the loops at the bottom.  Next time I will do a continuous warp.  

The long threads at the top was nice for tying the piece onto one of sticks I picked up on a hike last year.

Buttons for the finish!

17.05.19 Last week...The pattern is Textures—A Poncho Pattern by Melanie Smith from Spin-Off Magazine, Winter 2017.  I finished knitting the project last month, blocked it, changed the ribbing at the sides by re-knitting them with a smaller needle, and then folded it and put it away.  Yesterday I looked through my button stash and found a tube of wooden buttons I purchased when Depth of Field, a yarn shop, was closing.  Also in that issue of Spin-Off is  I wrote an article (pages 90-91) about a group weaving project out of Anoka Fiber Works.

The handspun project yarn has been in my stash for some time and there was a ball of roving ready to spin when I was reorganizing my fiber room.  It is nice to use up a large amount of handspun yarn in a project.  The roving colorway name Dark Side of the Moon, Coopworth wool/silk noil blend, from Hidden Valley Woollen Mill.

 

I like the look of the rustic sliced wood buttons.

Catching up

September...Looking out the window I can see the latest painting project, which is the shed.  It took three days and (thankfully) the weather was relatively cool.  Jim and I finished before the heat wave hit.  It is beginning to rain and today is a good day to catch up on some projects.  The state fair begins this week and even though there is still a month of summer remaining, I see small changes like some of the sumac leaves turning orange and red.  Cooler sweater weather is on the way.

On Saturday, August 18, I volunteered to do a spinning demo beside the Three Rivers Fibershed.  Mary received an email inquiring about a volunteer spinner during The Great Makers Exchange at the American Swedish Institute.  The timing was perfect because I wanted to visit the ASI to see Gudrun Sjödén--A Colorful Universe and being a volunteer, my admission to the museum was free.  I did not take many photos during the demo time, as the stream of visitors was steady and the time seemed to fly by.

Twelve days pass...and I am back.  We took the little Escape Pod out to Banning State Park in Pine County.  It is a small park and three years ago we kayaked the rapids on the Kettle River.  Because it rained the first two days (5+ inches) the river was up and really rushing along.  It was a joy to get out and hike after the rain.

Late afternoon after the rain.  

Coffee time.  

The hiking was particularly good on the trail and along the Kettle River.

The spin-in after the campout Deb (Ewespun fiber Mill at Old Man Wool Farm) had some beautiful Leicster Longwool dyed the most beautiful moss green.  It was just the pop of color I was seeking for a project using the handspun Jacob wool from Chi Chi.  Her fleece was one I purchased at Shepherd's Harvest a few years ago.  I combed the wool and it spun up just beautifully.  

Pulling the wool through the diz that Mary's husband, Rob, made.  The Leicester Longwool spun and plied beautifully.  It will be a lovely pop of color against the grayscale of the Jacob wool.

Inspiration

The end of September campout was at the Camp-Inn Campout at Castle Rock County Park in Juneau County, WI.  While the majority of campers were teardrops, there were 28 home-builds, and various other tiny campers.  It was fun to visit with other folks from all over the United States.  

We spent Friday out and about the area.  We visited the Cranberry Fest in Warrens.  It is a small town, but is transformed with hundreds of visitors.  We took a short marsh tour to see how the cranberries are grown and harvested.  The guide is one of the local farmers.  At the end, we bought some craisins and cranberry honey.  The cinnamon craisins are delicious in the chocolate chip cookies I baked the other evening.

I finished my handspun beanie on the bus ride to the marsh.  The colors look just like the colors of a campfire.

The marshes before harvest.  

Wisconsin harvests about 60 percent of the country's crop of cranberries.  They are delicious and  I use them all year round.  Here is a link to some recipes.

Jim and I took a day to visit the Burr Oak Winery.  We tasted some whites and reds and settled on a bottle of white and a bottle of dessert wine.  The flowers in the courtyard were just beautiful.  Those mums were gigantic!

One place I was delighted to visit was Mielke's Fiber Arts.  I contacted Amy the day before and she opened the shop for a visit.  I found a left-handed Nalbinding book along with a larger needle, a couple of fun reads about spinning, spindles, and weaving, a Dealgan (Scottish spindle), and some naturally colored cotton spinning fiber.  I have some roving left from Texas, so the colors will coordinate nicely.  It was so nice to be able to wander around the shop and see all the wonderful tools for working with fiber 

A visit to Wisconsin isn't complete without cheese. We did not visit a cheese house, but we did buy a snack for the road.  The store carried a variety of cheesehead hats.  

WIPs and even the kitchen sink

 This was spindle spun with my Icelandic birch spindle I bought on a visit to Thingborg in Iceland. The wool was a birthday gift from Mikey.  I ended up with 5 skeins of white, 4 skeins each of the grays, and 1 skein of the black for a total of 876 yards.

Deb Peterson's "Kitchen Sink" fiber that came off the drum turned into beautiful yarn.  I spun this with the bottom whorl spindle that Rob made.  Deb owns Ewespun Fiber Mill at Old Man Wool Farm.

Progress on Ben's Moose Sweater, sleeves.

The back and one front.  The other front is about one-third finished.

Sample swatch for an upcoming class at Anoka Fiber Works,
Around the World in Knitting--Cables

On the Cricket, the Pontunic front panels.  One of the threads broke and I had to add another piece.  This one is going slowly because I haven't been taking this loom to AFW for Weaving Wednesday.

On Hank are the scarves for Jim and Ben.  The warp is Harrisville Shetland in foliage and the weft is some tweed I picked up in Cashel, Ireland.  I like the broken twill pattern.  Things clicked into place with learning how to read the pattern and understand the tie-up for the treadles.  I have to decide whether to change the weft yarn for the second scarf.  

Spinnin' cotton

My dear friend, Joanne, gifted me some of her precious denim cotton roving, white cotton and cotton denim together.  My :^( Urchin hat that I lost while in Shetland needs to be replaced. I really loved it because it was handspun, cotton, I could wear it almost any time of year and it went with everything.  I remember well spinning that cotton, too.  It was my first and a real bugger, but so pretty--it was all denim and the most wonderful blue!  Cotton staple is short and it takes a bit of practice to get it going in a nice single.  While living in Texas I spun cotton and cotton blends often, but moving to Minnesota changed that.  Recycled cotton denim roving is impossible to find because the denim of today contains spandex.  I have found a bit used as an add-in and I bought some when I was last in Texas.  It will be used in something special.  The yarn in the photo is from that wonderful shop (now gone) called Woolenworks.  I have been using bits and bobs of those early skeins of handspun for all sorts of projects lately--the woven table runner, which I gave to Ben yesterday.  

Anyway, the first skein is finished and I have a bit more to spin on Hortense.  She is the perfect little wheel for spinning cotton.  

A happy photo when I finished the hat.

A well-traveled chapeau.  "Cock your hat--angles are attitudes," as Frank Sinatra said.

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