YarnMaker Website is Up

Dot's new magazine, YarnMaker, has its website up and running here. She emphasizes UK and Europe, but really, it's for the whole world.

Summer & Winter: Wrapping up Sampling (For Now)

These are color combination experiments from the last couple of days. I'm trying to create subtle look. I'm sorry these photos aren't great; it's so sunny today, my eyes not my camera, (yeah, blaming it on my equipment!) can't focus well.

A: Pattern weft is slightly paler and greener than the warp; tabby weft is a skinny pale lime green.
B: Pattern weft is slightly paler and greener than the warp; tabby weft is three strands of skinny cottons (making the size roughly same as the warp and the pattern weft) in pale blue, pale lime and pale brown.
C: Pattern weft is slightly paler and greener than the warp; tabby weft is the same color as the warp but 1/3 the size.

As complementary as possible from yarns I already have.
A: Pattern weft is the same as the warp; tabby weft is a skinny pale orange.
B: Pattern weft is the same as the warp; tabby weft is a skinny bright orange.
C: Pattern weft is a bright orange; tabby weft is a skinny pale orange.
D: Pattern weft is a bright orange; tabby weft is a skinny bright orange pretty darned close to the pattern weft.

Pattern weft in shiny (but not metallic) accent yarn; in person, it's not as shiny nor gaudy as it appears in this photo. Not a bit.

My favorite, though it doesn't look like much in this photo: pattern weft is the same as the warp; tabby weft is a skinny shiny yellow, though not the same as my usual gold. The resultant cloth almost shimmers like my twill gold and blues scarves and the hand is reasonably good.

I'm going to take a break from the sampling and work on some block/design stuff now.

Randy??

A little after 8 this morning, we got a call for a "Randy"; as far as I know Husband has not changed his name, so I take it as some kind of synchronicity thing happening here. Although, I have to admit, we get a whole lot of wrong numbers at all hours here.

When we were in our second rented house in Auckland, when we had a number like a pizza place, i.e. something like 844-4488, we used to get strange, i.e. drunk, calls for one Maxwell at all hours. Once, we got a sane phone message with a return number, so I rang to say Maxwell hadn't had this number for nine months. It turned out Maxwell was a gay film director, and I caused quite a commotion in this woman's office, everybody wondering why an American woman's voice answered Maxwell's phone. Sandy was the woman's name. We chatted for 20 minutes, but she told me I probably would not have seen any of Maxwell's films. I wonder if they were the naughty kind.

Meanwhile I can't stop thinking about Kaz's idea of giving hand-finished clothes tiny boys and girls. Since I have a lot of cute decorative buttons, mine may not be for babies, but the possibility is limitless, yes?

For a few years, since the earthquake in Pakistan (?) or Catrina, I can't remember now, I've been thinking of weaving cotton baby blankets and sending them to hospitals in the region. I had a bunch of friends give me reliable (and still active) charities in New Orleans back then. With Samoa and Heiti, I was able to find out addresses of hospitals, but because I am such a slow weaver, and after checking the postage, (i.e. expensive), I haven't executed my now-not-so-secret plans. I know I can do something with these store-bought shirts, and perhaps bottoms, however, and I'm terribly excited with the prospect of finally being able to do something to welcome tiny people to the world.

Nip Tuck

This is my second shibori shirt; strictly speaking, it's the first half of the second experiment.

I've been nipping and tucking and tying up all over this shirt in a totally random way, little bits every night. I dyed it in the leftover dye solution from the first shirt this afternoon. The shirts are both cotton, but the first shirt (left) is much thicker and more elastic, and the second thinner and more papery. I don't know if the quality of the cottons made the drastic difference in the color, or if it's the second time for the dye solution, and a couple of weeks have passed. The solution's color looked close enough to last time, but obviously there's something going on.

The stitching on the shirt, (not the tied bits) didn't dye, so I might leave the buttons white, too. I'm glad the collar dyed, though, as it would have looked a bit sad with a white collar, I feel. The shirt just came out of the washing machine so when it dries it might be even paler. But I was able to deal with blotchiness better.

And I do so enjoy wearing the first shirt; in fact, it's hanging there because I just pressed it.

Tonight, I think I'll take out some of the tied up bits, and then nip-tuck some more in other places, and eventually stick it in another color dye bath.

And speaking of dyeing, Kaz has an excellent idea to cultivate children's interest in textiles "from the get go"; I think this would provide me a fun practice dyeing opportunity, and a way to use my tiny stash of cute patches, buttons and ribbons.

Summer & Winter: Off the Loom

Last week, Ali told me to get off my computer (PCW weaving software) and go back to paper, collage and the design textbook to study blocks, which totally threw me off my track. Like, completely, entirely, suddenly; like being thrown under a convoy of Mac Trucks. There I thought I was being a model mentee experimenting with drafts!

So, feeling a mixture of dejection and rebellion, yet not wishing to defy my mentor, and after Ali commenting on Facebook, "blocks are squares!", I did the best I could. I couldn't think of collaging, (too complicated!!), and how it tied with weaving design, so I filled in the squares in my notebook randomly. I learned this method a while ago, and though it's time-consuming, even when I didn't do as an elaborate job as the book dictated, it was good to get my mind off where my right track disappeared to. And watching patterns emerge is a bit like watching your cloth grow on the loom.


Then, I got out my favorite color coding stickers and randomly stuck them on the page.


Half a day later and several pages of these, I felt happily defiant and went back to sampling. The lovely think about weaving is it gives me lots more ideas about weaving.

I got to thinking, what if I changed the color of the warp alternately, to match the pattern weft (far left,) and discovered it'll just show off the structure better. I wanted to see what putting in a very skinny tabby weft in a color complementary to the warp color looked like, (center), but this is where I just have to see a cloth in real life instead of on the screen. I need to sample some.

I was feeling smug about having found a way to keep working on the same thing in different ways. I've been feeling very smug about finally being able to defy what I perceive to be instructions, and just do as I please, without feeling guilty. Boy, that was a long time coming.

Wednesday and Thursday, I felt hopeful, as if I were standing on a bank of a big wide river. I can kind of see the sunnier, lovelier other bank in the distance, but I see no bridge nor a ferry, so I might have to swim across.

Having written up these two posts, I feel more like I'm standing on a rocky, wind-swept cliff with choppy sea blow. In the distance I think I see a lovely island with palm trees, warm breeze and ukulele music. (OK, fair maidens in grass skirts and flowers in their hair, too, and large drinks with paper umbrellas!) Shall I take the plunge and swim across or look for a row boat? Shall I wait for a beautiful sail boat? And after I set off, will the island turn out to be a mirage?

Yes, I am talking about connecting design studies and my weaving. I never said I'm not a drama queen.

Summer & Winter Continued

I wove a short length of Summer & Winter sample on the table loom this week. The warp is 2/20 mercerized cotton; the weft includes 2/20 cotton, 2/60 cotton, 2/17 wool, wool boucle in three sizes, and an unknown synthetic discontinued boucle. The sett is 36EPI. Here are some views.

With boucle, it's better to exaggerate or simplify shapes they are not stripy or horizontal, unless you are trying to create that look. (Think Monet's Waterlilies.) I would love this in merino warp and merino or mixed boucle in the pattern weft in a bigger scale for jacket/coat fabric if I could sew, or for a skirt if my body shape were a bit more elongated...

Dukagang creates the most visible design, but also the most blocky in appearance? At the top is the late, lamented discontinued yarn.

In some places, I can see the shapes of individual units!

I used 2/20 cotton in the tabby at the bottom, and 2/60 cotton towards the top. I don't know if you can tell, but naturally the pattern color is more saturated and the hand a tad slinkier, but the blocks need to be elongated to achieve the same appearance, i.e. more picks and longer to weave.

I got a little sassier and used 2/60 cotton in the tabby in a pale yellow to create the metallic shine I like in combination with the warp color. I don't know if I achieved it, but it adds another dimension to the appearance of the cloth. A spool of orange (complementary) sewing thread in the tabby would be most interesting to experiment.

I don't like the hand of S&W in general, but particularly using 2/20 cotton both ways. Because I want to see the blocks I pack in the weft very tightly, creating a solid, unkind hand. I doubt I'd want to wear a blouse in this material. To remedy this, I could loosen the sett and the pick, but I'm not good at controlling my picks, so this will be a bit challenge.

I can tolerate the hand where I used 2/60 cotton in the tabby and 2/20 in the pattern. Wool boucle pattern wefts give sponginess to the cloth, which I like. In both of these cases, I have to make the blocks longer vertically if I were to weave the design I intended .

Thus far, I find the blocky look "old", and by this I mean, "dated", not historical or nostalgic. But using small blocks in a larger context and/or better use of colors could/would improve this, I think.

I'll fix the the threading mistake, (big strip in the middle, edited out from the photos :-P) and sample some more.

Saturday Daydreaming: Thinking of Our Garden

I've been thinking of our garden a lot. We are no gardeners and it is in a hidious state, as usual, but when the weather cools down and moisture returns a little is when I start thinking of cleaning up my garden and preparing the soil for spring planting. We get more rain in the winter, so it's nice to chop, mulch and fertilize before the rain comes. And it's never seriously cold in Nelson anyway, so for me it's good gardening weather from now until about September when the pollens start to fly.

And I'm thinking of the spring some of you are welcoming.

In Tune with "My" Colors

Remember the machine embroidery threads I bought? Stuff I collected in Japan, (mostly yarns from Mom's stash,) are slowly arriving, and among them were the silk thread I bought in January.

I'm glad to report I know what color schemes I want to work with in the near future. These silk sewing threads came in about 30 silvers and grays, too, but I managed to refrain from further extending my range. Maybe next trip.

Meanwhile, don't do things if you are under the weather. Mom sent me several machine washable silk T-shirts. I put them in net bags, then into the washing machine, then proceeded to put them through a regular cycle with regular detergent. The pale pink-purple one looks already worn, a bit... Darn...

Meanwhile, I've been pondering about my P2P choices and wanting to concentrate on one and move to the next phase. I can't help but be attracted to the fourth photo because of its colors, but feel it's the easy way out, just weaving in those, (plus or minus a few more,) colors, and have been wondering what else I can do. I love the shapes and the contrast in the first, and stories I can concoct with the plane stories, a favorite starting point for cloth design for me. I'll decide by the end of this week.

Today, I'm sampling Summer & Winter some more.

Congrats, Congrats!

Please join me in congratulating Cally (and her auntie Pat) for having a piece, each, accepted in Convergence.

Please also congratulate Lynne for a great interview here. Lynne has been interviewed and her work photographed numerous times, but I find this a great comprehensive interview. I've been following her blog, (OK, the photos in her blog,) since it started but I've had a hard time keeping up with her activities in the last year-plus, so for me it's been nice to look back a little.

Fun

Some of my friends think I take weaving, and therefore life, much too seriously, and that I don't play enough. Not so.

I can play dress up with my papier mache body!

Nobody ever told me my 52nd birthday was going to be my best yet. Kate, who had a grand tour of Central and South America recently, sent me this Peruvian scarf. The alpaca yarns, she said, were dyed with Peruvian plants, the blue-green being the most popular. Handspun and handwoven, this is the softest alpaca yarn I've ever felt, and Kate said this one is softer than the other alpaca scarves she bought. The selvedge is nicely done, too, unlike my alpaca scarf on the loom.

There is a new Australian book called "Really Wild Tea Cosies", and my local independently-owned bookshop is having a really wild tea cosie competition. The prize is, of course, a copy of the book. It just so happened I found these ribbon-made pansies and flowers yesterday, and needing a reason to buy them, I decided to enter the competition.

This morning, the merino combed slivers arrived, all eight, not seven, colors, totaling 1kg. I need to borrow a carder or combs because I want to mix the colors a little and spin, and I think I'll knit or crochet a tea cosy, and possibly felt it, before putting on the pansies, and some glass beads. And there were plenty more frilly things in the shop I can add.

I think I am allowed to buy a tiny, round-ish tea pot for this project.

And it's been Ben's birthday, all day today.