Weaving and Other Woolly Things

I’ve been  checking things off my endless list.

Make buttons. DSC_0944There are over 150 buttons here.DSC_0965Weave more products to take to Fibershed’s Grow Your Jeans event on October 3. DSC_0773This are four shawls using very soft wool from Anderson Ranch.

Deal with sheepskins. I got one batch in and one batch out. At first I got four boxes with 29 sheepskins that were not mine. Those went back to the tannery. DSC_1113Yesterday I got the boxes with my 30 sheepskins and I photographed them for my website (although they aren’t there yet). Not artsy photos, but I  need to show the size and the color and this is how it has worked best for me. In addition I shipped off 42 more sheepskins and am keeping my fingers crossed that I get them back before December. That’s a pretty big investment and I need to be able to sell them before Christmas.

Weave a blanket for a customer using her handspun yarn that she sent me last year. I hate having things hanging over my head. When I was finally ready to get to it I opened the box that I though held her wool. Nope–there was something else in that box. Then I almost panicked wondering if it was possible that her yarn had ended up out in the big yard/estate sale that I had over Labor Day. Fortunately that was not the case.

DSC_0744 I had spent a lot of time thinking about how best to use this yarn. One worry was that using yarns that are very different is likely to result in tension issues and different elasticity in the finished piece (showing up as ruffly places where it should be smooth and flat). I’m glad that I waited to plan this blanket because one of the last emails that I had from the spinner had the word “gradient” in it. That gave me the inspiration for how to wind the warp and weave it.

DSC_0761 I made a gradient from the darkest brown all the way to white in the warp and then I wove with the same pattern. This is double width so this photo shows only the half that goes from dark to mid-brown. The lighter half is underneath. After weaving and unfolding the blanket…

DSC_0887 …this is what you get. This is not a very good photo but I just don’t have a good place to take a photo of a full size blanket spread out. I am really pleased with this piece and am inspired to do some more like it.

One last thing. At Spinners Night Out one of the spinners said that her husband had made a discovery in his bowl of popcorn:popcorn sheep

The Latest from the Loom

In preparation for Fibershed’s Grow Your Jeans event I wove six shawls using locally grown Timm Ranch wool yarn.  DSC_0099 I showed photos of these before they were washed in this blog post. Quite a dramatic change.DSC_0107 With the exception of the second blanket the weft is all the same as the warp, but naturally dyed.  From left to right: Osage orange (exhaust), Jacob wool, osage orange, black walnut, pomegranate, not dyed. DSC_0120 One shawl will be worn in the fashion show and they will all be for sale at Grow Your Jeans.  After that they will be for sale  at the Fibershed Marketplace website and at the Artery in Davis.932-3, 932-1, 932-2More locally grown wool. These scarves are woven using Solano County Anderson Ranch wool.DSC_0143 Not locally gown, but one of my best sellers–chenille scarves. 911-1, 911-2You’ve seen this before but I hadn’t taken a photo with the magazine cover.DSC_0167Here’s is one of my photoshoot locations. Hard to find a smooth surface in the shade.

Back at the Loom

It’s been awhile since I talked about weaving. There was Texas and the fair and sheep and dogs. But I have been at work in the shop. After the fair and before the shooting of the video documentary I worked for a couple of days cleaning. This was the kind of cleaning where you Throw Things Away…or at least put them in a different building (in the room of a kid who no longer lives here) with the designation to go to the upcoming Estate Sale. After all I couldn’t have a videographer in that shop where I couldn’t even get to a loom without stepping over mountains of boxes and moving piles of Stuff off the bench. Now that the space is organized I feel like my brain is a little more organized too.

One of the major accomplishments was to finish an order that has been hanging over my head for a really long time.916 Thacher queen blankets These are one full size and three queen size blankets woven out of the customer’s wool. I am anxious to get them shipped off. (And there is still one more custom order–that person may have given up on me but I will contact her this week.)929 Timm Ranch huck shawls Looking ahead to Fibershed Grow Your Jeans Event in October (same weekend as Lambtown by the way), I wove 6 shawls using wool I had spun last year from the local Timm Ranch flock. One of these will be in the fashion show and all will be for sale. The colored shawls use weft yarn dyed with osage orange, black walnut, and pomegranates. This are how the shawls look just off the loom. I still need to fringe and full them. DSC_9169This is one of the shawls after fulling.

I am teaching a class this weekend called Color on the Loom. I haven’t taught this one before and I am still working on content. I wanted to weave another sample that also included combining weave structures. This is the kind of thing I rarely take time to do. Instead I have been working to meet deadlines. The creative part of weaving (as in everything else) takes time to think, absorb, mull over ideas. This week I took that time–I think it helped that the space was clean.

930 on loom This is a warp in which stripes of wool  alternates with stripes of cotton. My idea was to purposely create a seersucker like effect. The wool is stretchy and the cotton is not. In addition wool and cotton react differently to wet finishing. I wove several samples of all different combinations of weave structure (plain weave, twill, basket weave) and cotton or wool weft. These are before and after photos of just a couple of the samples:930-E & D before finishingEach of these samples are woven the same (plain weave cotton stripes alternating with basket weave wool stripes and vice versa and the same in squares–to the left of the samples). I wove one sample with wool weft and one with cotton weft. 930-D after finishingThis is how the wool one looks after wet finishing (five minutes in the washing machine). It definitely has a different feel but isn’t all that appealing to me. 930-B before finishingThe most dramatic change and the one that I think I’d most like to repeat in a larger project is this one, the simplest. The photo above is plain weave throughout. One end is woven in wool, the other in cotton, and it’s hard to see, but in the middle wool and cotton alternate in bands–like weaving a plaid but without changing color. Take a look at this one after finishing:

930-B after finishing  This is felted (the next step past fulling). This sample had a five minute wash and then went into the dryer. I love the puckery look of where the cotton and wool alternate in the middle in both warp and weft. I think I want to weave a blanket like that. So I wove these as a color idea but love the texture most.

931 cotton scarves As an immediate follow-up to that experiment I used the same cotton yarns as in the samples and wove three scarves using the combination of plain weave and huck. I didn’t like that so much in the wool/cotton samples but I love the look in these scarves. These are also “samples” as they each use a different color weft (subtle difference) and are woven at two different setts (the number of warp threads in an inch). So I’ll use them as samples in the class and then they’ll be at the Artery for sale.

932 Huck scarf I  hosted a field trip of Japanese agriculture students on Monday. They have been in this country for several months staying on different farms but have now come together for some class time at UC Davis. We spent most of the time in the barn but I also wanted to show them how I combine my weaving business with farming. I quickly put a scarf warp on this loom and wove and finished a sample to show what the scarves would look like after fulling. Isn’t that difference amazing? I have now finished the scarves. Wait until you see them!loom with trapezeAlso this week I asked my husband to help me figure out a “warping trapeze”. No I won’t be swinging from the ceiling but my yarn will. I have been wanting to do this for a long time.  The idea is that you hang weights off the warp and wind it on smoothly under even tension.loom with trapeze (1) The tricky thing is that I need to get the warp yarns to go through a raddle to help keep them spaced properly. In most of the warping trapeze photos I see on-line the warp goes through the loom from the front. That won’t work here so I’m working on other configurations. I think this will work out OK. This warp is for more shawls using more local wool yarn (Anderson Ranch). I may use the same pattern as those scarves I just wove. wolf lichen dye potWell, this post just keeps going on and on. I also uploaded this photo. Thinking of what weft I’ll use for the shawl warp in the photo above I got out the dye pot and the wolf lichen that I collected while at Lake Tahoe a couple of months ago. I kept thinking that something smelled funny but I was at the computer and forgot that I had something on the stove. Oops. Fortunately the yarn wasn’t in the pot yet.

One last thing. This magazine came a couple of weeks ago.IMG_5721 I knew that my contest entry was in the magazine but I didn’t know that I had made the cover!

Weaving on the Go

I have been gone for a few days but took a rigid heddle loom with me. What an easy way to enjoy weaving away from home. IMG_4552These are scarves in 3/2 cotton (which I have in the shop but isn’t on my website). A pressing when I get home will give them a more finished look.IMG_4555A wool scarf in Jaggerspun Maine Line wool. These three scarves are samples for a couple of classes, the new Color on the Loom (in July) and Learn to Weave on the Rigid Heddle Loom.

The following photos are of recent weaving in the shop.922 Jacob scarvesJacob scarves with detail below.923-1 Jacob scarf (2)

923 Jacob scarves Another warp of Jacob scarves.

I had the idea of weaving a wool checkerboard to sell through the Fibershed Marketplace and at the Artery.924 checkerboardBut first I used cotton–the same 3/2 cotton as the scarves in the first photo. 

924 checkerboard (1) Using the the last of the warp I experimented with different weaving order. I think its interesting that at different angles it looks as though I used other colors but all the yarn here is black and white. By the way, I know that checkerboards are traditionally red and black but, oh well…

I don’t have a photo of the wool checkerboards yet but here are the checkers I made from horns. What do you think of the oblong shape?

IMG_4330 In this photo the checkers haven’t been finished.Yarn Lab articleIn other weaving, this is the latest issue of Handwoven with my Yarn Lab article in which I compared fulling and felting of Imperial Yarn Company’s Columbia and Erin yarns.

Weaving Faith

When weaving  the yarns are under tension on the loom so they look thinner than they will at the end of the process. In addition the yarn looks thinner on the cone than if it is wound in a skein. So there is some faith involved in planning a weaving project. It is important to know how the yarn will look once it is relaxed and after the very important step of wet finishing.Timm Ranch wool yarn on cone and skeinThis is one dramatic example of the same yarn on a cone and wound in a skein and washed.

Here is a project that I just finished:

.IMG_2288This is Jaggerspun Maine Line 3/8 sett at 10 epi (that’s ends per inch, or the number of threads wound in an inch, for you non-weavers). That photo is off the first blanket I wove as it was going around the cloth beam. The two colors alternate in the pattern blocks.

IMG_2289 This is the second blanket on the warp. I didn’t have enough of either of the warp colors so I used a third color and wove the whole blanket in the same color. Notice how much space there is between all the warp and weft threads? It’s harder to weave this way with it so open. And this is where the faith comes in. It sometimes takes awhile for brand new weavers to have that faith that it will all work out in the end.

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The photo above shows what the blankets look like off the loom and not under tension and there is a greater difference after washing. (Not the color difference–that is the lighting. I took the photo above in the evening because I wanted to get these washed that night.)

IMG_2382 The photo above and below show these blankets after washing and fulling.IMG_2383 

Close to Home…Post #12 Wearables

The previous posts were all about the farms where I got the wool to use in my show, Close to Home…Yarn with a Story. Most of them featured blankets. I love weaving blankets. It doesn’t really matter what size they are, you can weave each in a different color and/or pattern, and who couldn’t use a warm blanket?

But I wove some wearables as well. 879-1 (1) 879-1 Above are shawls woven of the same style of yarn from Imperial Yarn Company as the Stars and Stripes blankets. The brown yarn was dyed with black walnut.black walnuts after dyingThis is what the black walnuts look like after having soaked in a bucket for a couple of weeks and then been boiled for an hour. eucaluyptus dyeThese are pots of eucalyptus leaves and twigs on the stove…Eucalyptus dye…and yarn in the dye made after boiling those pots. Notice that there are two different weights of yarn in this post. That finer yarn, also from Imperial Yarn Company, is used in the shawls below.IYC shawlThe weft in this shawl uses the fine yarn dyed in eucalyptus. One batch turned out rust and another was gold.Eucalyptus dyeYou can see the two different sides of each shawl in this photo. 883-2 (1)Here is a close-up.DSC_9797Another shawl that uses natural dyed yarn (black walnut) is this one in huck lace woven using yarn from the Timm Ranch.894-1 & 894-3Here is another in un-dyed yarn.Timm Ranch woolBy the way, here is what that shawl looks like while on the loom. I always have to convince new weavers to have faith that even if you see spaces when you’re weaving they will close up if you’re working with wool.

There are also several scarves in the show, some of which have been shown in earlier posts.DSC_0156These scarves use yarn from Fiber Confections, Anderson Ranch, and Meridian Jacobs.

Close to Home…Yarn with a Story

For many months I have been preparing for a show at The Artery in Davis, CA. The Artery  is an a cooperative gallery with about 70 member artists and I have sold my work there for over ten years. The show runs from November 7 to December 1. I hope that local people will be able to visit.DSC_9944Jacob blankets above and on the rocking chair (my mom’s) on the right. Gray blanket on the left chair uses “Mom’s yarn” (see a future blog post on that). The others are wool from other Solano County farms.

The best way to explain this show is to reprint my “Artist’s Statement” here. My blog is usually mostly photos because that’s the kind of blog that I like to read but I hope that you will take the time to read the following because it explains the concept behind the work in the show.  I’ll throw in a few photos, but will display others in later blog posts.

DSC_9926Blankets woven from yarn grown by Imperial Stock Ranch in Oregon.The story about this yarn will be in a later post.

Artist’s Statement:   In 2010 I became involved in the Fibershed movement by donating yarn produced from my flock of Jacob sheep to Rebecca Burgess whose goal was to wear, for a year, only clothes sourced entirely from an area within 150 miles of where she lived. That means that the fiber (and any dye) was grown, the yarn was spun, the cloth created, and the garment sewn locally! Imagine doing that—it’s not easy!

Why bother? Have you looked at your clothing labels and thought about the impacts of the way in which we clothe ourselves? The true cost of inexpensive clothing is high when you consider the social and environmental impacts on a global scale. (China produces 52% of the world’s textiles.)

Rebecca’s personal challenge led to the creation of the on-line Fibershed Marketplace in 2011, and in 2012 the Fibershed (501c3) with the mission “… to change the way we clothe ourselves by supporting the creation of local textile cultures that enhance ecological balance, and utilize regional agriculture while strengthening local economies and communities.” In other words, by embracing the Fibershed concept, we support the idea of using locally grown and locally made textiles and encouraging the development of Fibersheds all over the world.

Education is an integral part of the Fibershed movement—educating the consumer about the environmental, economic, and social benefits of embracing the Fibershed concept. Imagine the Slow Food movement applied to textiles!

Close to Home… Does that mean down the block, across town, or within the U.S.A? Each yarn used in this show has a story. Some were grown by my own sheep, some by my neighbors, and some in other parts of Solano County. One is grown by a long-established Oregon ranch and another is grown by several ranches in the Pacific Northwest and dyed with plant dyes in Napa County. A few pieces are woven of yarn handspun and dyed by my mom many years ago. It was a challenge to stay true to the Fibershed concept when I needed commercial fabrics for pillows. (One of the many Fibershed goals is to bring mills back to our area that will commercially produce fabrics not locally produced now.) I did the best I could by using fabric and pillow forms made in the U.S.A. and some pillows use my home-grown wool for the pillow itself.

I wove or felted all the wool fabric in the show and each of the fibers have a story. Some were grown close to home and other evoke memories of home. The pieces are simple because my focus is on the fiber and the yarn. Enjoy the photos, read the stories, and think about the stories that your textiles would tell.

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