Category: Weave Page 32 of 34

Easy Twill

On 2 May, 2007

This is Nancy’s scarf from the CNCH workshop. (click picture to see closeup). I want to highlight the twill effect that she has going on here.

Would you believe that this is just plain weave? She achieved the twill effect by alternating S and Z plied yarns in her warp. The effect was exaggerated by plying 2 different color singles together into a single yarn.

Really, that’s all it was. It is brilliant. I see more experiments coming up. We spinners have a lot more opportunities to control our end products by creating yarns for a specific effect.

The brown threads on the edges, I was told, are floating selvages. I sort of understand what they are, but I will have to actually try it out on some samplers before I really understand it.

Correction: This post should have read “Easy Herringbone”, not Twill. Although Herringbone is a twill, the effect Nancy achieved here is Herringbone. It bugged the heck out of me all morning, and I just had to correct it. I may still have it incorrect, but at least I’ll sleep better tonight.

CNCH Pictures

By Ann

On 27 Apr, 2007

In Spin, Technique, Weave

CNCH was great. I took Spinning for Weaving from Judith MacKenzie-McCuin. We spent a day talking about what the characteristics of warp and weft yarns. We did a little spinning.

One of the things that we did was to play with mohair boucle. I’ve tried to make mohair boucle in the past, but have never been very satisfied with any of my end products. This time, I really exaggerated the boucle effect. It’s a bit much, but I like it. I will have to try again and tone it down just a smidge.

So, just how do you make mohair boucle? Take a core yarn, be it a single or a commercial yarn. I used a bit of left spun single (S twist), and then fed it back into the spinning wheel while “plucking” the mohair that is held in my left hand (same side as the twist in the core yarn) with my right hand, which was also controlling the core.

You can also use commercial yarn for your core. Just be sure that you spin the mohair in the same direction as the last twist in the core yarn. If it was a right twist yarn, spin to the right, use your right hand to hold the mohair, and pluck with your left hand that’s also controlling the core yarn.

Now, take the mohair “yarn” (It’s not yarn yet! It’s very unbalanced at this point), and ply it with another left twist single or yarn (S twist again). I used a commercial 60/2 silk. I hold the silk in one hand, and the mohair with the other at a 90 degree angle to the silk as I feed them both into the orifice. This causes the mohair to wrap around the silk core. This makes the boucle. Pretty, isn’t it? (Click to see a bigger picture)

For the weaving part of the workshop, Judith pulled out the warp weighted loom materials. This time, I know better. I know that (a) I don’t want to spend all day making little aquarium gravel packets, and (b) it’s not likely I will have the time to make a long piece. So, I made my warp from 9 lengths of yarn (18 ends).

I wanted a little sampler of hand spun and commercial yarns. Because I had visions of nice, lofty, and cuddly mohair blanket for the boat, I used some of my mohair boucle, some commercial brushed mohair, and then some silk/wool yarn spun by Shirley. I tried different textures in the weft.

I love the sampler. Using commercial yarn definitely extends the hand spun and adds textural interest. The resulting fabric is light as air.

CNCH wasn’t just about fiber. It was also a chance to hang out with friends, nosh on lots of food, drink wine, and lots of yakking. I roomed with Shirely, Michelle, Kathy, and Nancy. Unfortunately, we had a gatecrasher.

Bandit 2 Bandit 1

This little critter helped himself to our stash of cheese and fruit that we kept on the porch to keep cold. I caught him when he tried to take off with our wines. (Priorities! Of course, Kathy would have preferred that I saved her cheese.) These pictures were taken when he kept coming back, pounded on the window, trying to get more treats. These pictures are a bit blurry because I had to take them without a flash. Otherwise, you’d just get a pictures of the 5 of us in our jammies and giggling.

Madrona & Friends

By Ann

On 3 Feb, 2007

In Knit, Weave

Madrona was a blast, as usual. It was great to get away, spend time with your friends, both old and new, and learn something new that is totally unrelated to your every day work life. My work life is completely consumed with computers, so it’s nice to go off line for over a week and interact face to face with people.

What did I do at Madrona? Lots of talking, eating, drinking, and laughing. Oh, and a little bit of learning here and there. My biggest accomplishment? I finished these:

What does this have to do with Madrona? Nothing, except I have really, really good friends. These 2 sweaters are for my new grand nephews (I think that’s the right term — they are Martin’s niece’s new twins). I bought yarn back in September to make two of the sweaters on the right. It’s a Debbie Bliss baby sweater pattern (sweater on the right). It’s adorable. It’s garter stitch. It’s baby sized. How difficult can it be? But I lost interest in the sweater by the time I got to the arm pits. Not that it was boring. It’s only a baby sweater after all. Boredom will last only so long. No. It’s these that gave me nightmares. All those fiddly little ends.

When I first hit the roadblock, I whined to my friend Penny, who said that she loved to weave in ends, and she’ll help me with these ends. Upon seeing the finished garment, pre-weaving and seaming, she claimed that she must have been weak with some illness or another and she really didn’t mean it. So, I was left with 4 days before I first see my grand-nephew, all these ends, and a second sweater to be made.

I quickly switched tacks and casted on for Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Baby Surprise Sweater (the sweater on the left). This sweater zipped right along. There were only color changes when I felt like it.

What do friends have to do with this? I didn’t finish weaving the ends by the time I saw Cai and Cael for the first time. But since I was passing through their house on both ends of the trip, I availed myself to the grim reality that I will be spending all of my free time at Madrona weaving in these stupid ends.

While at Madrona, Eva sat down with me and helped weave in ends for a bit every evening. Kathleen made us cocktails and brought us wine while the weaving and swearing continued. This continued every night until the last evening, when I finished sewing on the buttons.

Oh, you wanted to hear about the classes. I didn’t take many pictures of those, but I took 3 classes: Weaving With a Stick and a Handful of Stones (warp weighted loom), Two Color Patterns of Marta Stina, and Scottish Wools. First class was with Judith MacKenzie McCuin, and the second 2 were with Carol Rhoades. They were all wonderful classes. I leave you with some pictures. Click to enlarge.

Warp tied on to a dowel. The ladies in the background are tieing up little packages of aquarium rocks for the warp weights. The yarn is my own handspun — shetland and silk, I think.

Warp weights — these are little pouches of aquarium rock wrapped in plastic wrap and tied up with yarn. I only tied up my warp in pairs. Most people chose to tie up each warp separately. I was too impatient (surprise!) to get started. When we ran out of aquarium rocks, peanuts from the gift shop were put into service. And when we ran out of that, I saw someone using rock salt.

Mid-weaving. Morning of the second day. I did finish weaving the scarf, but I haven’t woven in all the ends yet (the story of my life). It’s not the best weaving job I’ve ever done, but I’m still happy with the results.