Category Archives: Weaving

Weaving day

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I spent most of the day at the loom weaving a project that it taking way longer than I expected. I planned to weave a ruana for the show coming up and I based the measurements on the ruana that my daughter wove way back when she was 11 years old.

When I took the measurements of this piece I assumed that we had warped this using double weave–to come up with a double width fabric in the back and two separate layers for the fronts. That was assumption #1 that was wrong. I planned colors of stripes to coincide with two twill patterns. As I was winding the bouts of warp I put them in the raddle for my AVL 8-shaft loom. It occurred to me part way through that I needed 16 shafts to weave the 2 layers that I planned. OK, no problem. Since I hadn’t yet wound the warp onto the beam I could move the warp to the 16-shaft AVL.   This was a tedious project to thread. With the help of the computer (and a lot of trial and error) I figured out how to thread this and then have the twill lines reverse on the bottom layer.

I also used the computer to figure out how avoid 3-thread floats between the transitions of the two patterns. This is one layer (shafts 1-8). I did another draft for the 2nd layer (shafts 9-16) and then interspersed the tie-up to create double width and again for two layers.

Here is the fabric on the loom. I am using the Zephyr 50% wool/50% silk yarn that I carry in my shop. The big mistake I made was planning this at double weave instead of just weaving one really long strip and sewing them up the back. My assumption about the original ruana was wrong–we did it just that way, not double weave. I’d have been finished a long time ago if I had woven one long strip. The double width isn’t so bad except that the yarn is so dense that I had to pay close attention to make sure that threads weren’t catching. Here is the system I rigged up for that.

A glance in the mirror each time I change sheds shows if it is clear or not.

The harder part is now that I’m weaving the two separate layers. Two shuttles is much slower than just half the speed of using one shuttle. I think I have another couple of hours tomorrow and then this warp will be finished and I can move on to other projects to finish in the next two weeks.

Here is a weaving project that is very different from the ruana. In a previous post I showed this pile of mohair and yarn scraps that was working on in Oregon:

This is what it turned into. Thanks to the ever willing Shelby for modeling. (Without a model it would probably not look much different than how the fiber looks piled on the table.)

A few days ago I wove another.

This will be in the Artful Fiber show at the Artery to accompany this painting:

There is something about this painting that makes me think of a fluffy boa.

Solano Grown debut

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Here we are in our spiffy new shirts standing in front of Chief Solano after the Board of Supervisors meeting in which we presented Solano Grown. If you really want to see Chief Solano you need to see this photo.

Although the presentation was only about 5 minutes we were in Fairfield from 9:30 to about 1:30. We had to wait a few hours until it was our turn and then we worked on a few more things to be ironed out as far as logo use and membership guidelines.

Finally back home, I worked on untangling the gold thread for the project on the loom now.

I have added the gold thread as a supplemental warp in part of the black border, but it doesn’t show up very well.

What do I do all day?

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What have I been doing all week? Way too much to write down and maybe not all that interesting. But I’m so busy that although I’m always taking photos and thinking of good blog posts I just haven’t had time.

Here are bits and pieces of this week.

I finally wove some more baby blankets. I have customers waiting.  After I took the blankets off the loom I realized that I had a lot of skipped threads along the left side of many blankets. I know why–has to do with combining 7 threads as one in the warp and trying to use 2 threads wound together on the pirn with a fly-shuttle. Just enough drag on the shuttle to cause it to catch the warp threads. AHHHH. That means a lot of fixing. My $/hour just went WAY down. Here are some of the 17 blankets.

These blankets will be on my website after I get better photos. That’s another thing I spent time on. I tried in the sun and in the shade and none of the photos were very good. Back to the drawing board.

I have projects on three looms right now. Two are for the November show at the Artery. One is for my friend, Irene, owner of  Cotton Clouds. That project will be a surprise, but here is a preview:


14 carat gold thread–use sparingly!

This is more of the project. All of these yarns are going into the warp!

In the meantime there are sheep things going on. Savor, one of the yearling rams, had been with a group of ewes and I needed to put him somewhere temporarily. I didn’t want to put him back with his buddy, Tioga, because I figured that they’d have to fight it out first and I can’t deal with that right now. So I gathered up the ram lambs that are left and put them all together. Usually the lambs bow down to the older and stronger ram and leave him alone. There is posturing, but if they know what’s good for them they won’t antagonize the big guy.

At first I thought it would be OK.

They look friendly enough, but finally Savor started threatening one of them more seriously. It happened to be a ram lamb who is already sold for breeding but hasn’t gone to his new home yet. I needed to separate them because I didn’t want to take a chance.

The ewes were all looking hopeful that they would get a chance to mingle with the rams. “We’re ready! Come hither!” Notice the double fence.

Last but not least–someone in this house has no problem taking naps:

Petunias off the loom

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Remember this photo? Here are the results of my weaving:

I made a warp long enough for two throws. (They were going to be shawls but because I wanted to keep all 16 colors the warp was too wide to turn into shawls.) This photo is a throw woven with a fine cotton weft so which you see the warp stripes, although it’s hard to really see all the colors.

I wove the second blanket with chenille yarns in the same colors and order as in the warp. If you could see the whole blanket you’d see that it starts with green on this end and finishes with blue on the other.

Julia, who is the felting half of the November Artery show, and I got together a couple of weeks ago to get a photo to be used for publicity.

Julia brought Lisa, her neighbor’s daughter  visiting from New York, who graciously agreed to be our model.

Isn’t she great?

I could weave O’Keefe inspired fabrics forever, but it’s on to Mondrian.

Visiting weavers

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I had two visitors the other day. Both are weavers. I didn’t realize until they got here that I knew one of the women…well, sort of. I hadn’t met her, but I had sold her some yarn a few years ago. Later my friends and I had driven about an hour to see a show in which her piece was entered only to find that the gallery was closed that day. (No problem because with these friends I could probably have a good time even waiting for a dentist appointment.) What does this have to do with anything?

Lea brought the piece that had been entered in the show so that I could see it up close. This is an over-sized clothing tag woven that Lea wove.

Lea can explain her mission much better than I can. Here is a link to a presentation she made a few months ago.    It’s worth the 16 minutes of watching. This is only one of Lea’s fascinating ideas. I have just spent the last hour on her website looking at all of her creative and unusual projects and items for sale. Take a special look at the Worlds Smallest Post Office!

Lea’s friend, Robin, was the person who made the appointment to visit. She is exploring ideas for combining fiber farming with weaving and creating a business and that is why she wanted to talk with me. So I spent a lot of time talking about what I do. I wish that I hadn’t talked so much but had spent more time listening to these two fascinating women. Maybe they’ll visit again!

Weaving Inspiration

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Remember the O’Keefe painting that I used for inspiration for chenille shawls?

Here is one of the finished shawls.

The next one is Petunia #2:

The red canna shawl has 12 colors in the warp and I had a hard time fitting them all in. There are 15 colors on the table now and I don’t want to leave any out. Since I couldn’t decide what to do I decided to wind a warp with all 15 colors in a paddle and weave some scarves before I move to a large project of a shawl or throw. Here is what that looks like on the loom:

More to come later.

It’s Showtime

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It will be ShowTime in November. That’s when Julia (see Historic Fibers blog to the right) and I will have our show at the Artery. We started talking about this a year ago and figured that if we each created  one or two pieces/month we’d have plenty. Oops. Now it’s 3 1/2 months away. I’ve had the plans all that time–just haven’t made much progress in real life.

I posted a photo awhile ago of this Georgia O’Keefe painting. Here are the chenille yarns I chose that represent this painting.

And here is the shawl on the loom.