Random weavings

Randomly woven scarf... I like the way it came out, especially the drape. I'm not sure if it is technically saori or not, since I've read that in order to be truly saori, it has to be woven on a saori loom. I wove it on a rigid heddle loom. I put the question to the Weavolution saori group as to whether or not a piece had to be woven on a saori loom in order to be considered saori. Well that's not exactly what I asked. I asked if there were any difference between the saori loom and any other 2 or 4 harness loom. I mean the weaving is either plain weave or 4 harness, right? I've gotten no response as of yet.

I really liked the way the weft undulated between the warp... like ripples across water. I used a very light beat to achieve a gauze-like feel.

The heel she is done! And the stitches all look right. Now to conquer the ankle

This is Paton's Kroy sock yarn, color Blue Strip Ragg, over dyed with black. I love the way sock yarn looks when it's over dyed.

I finally decided on how to use the little green ball of yarn... Potato chip scarf!

Saori musings

I started this scarf back on the 14th and just thought I'd let it flow out as it would. The warp colors are the colors of a cow pasture that I saw on my way south from the parsonage a couple of weeks back. Blues, greens and golds. It's one of my favorite things about Florida; the endless horizons. I'm always able to get inspiration from the horizons.

So I'm weaving the scarf, using stash yarns, with no particular plan. Then, the other day, I got an invitation to join the Saori weaving group on Ravelry. What is Saori? It is a form of free weaving in which imperfections are welcome. This sounded familiar and upon reading the philosophy, I realized they were talking about wabi-sabi, the Japanese philosophy of finding the beauty in imperfection. I've always been drawn to this philosophy. Imperfection, decay,

And only a couple of weeks ago, I found this little mat that I wove a few years back in much the same way as the scarf I'm working on. No plan... just free weaving with imperfect selvedges. I was Saori before I knew what Saori was I guess.

My sock is coming along. I have started the increase on the heel. I am really enjoying sock knitting.

Beautyberry

Watched the storm over Lake Crescent while slurping Frosties

Happy holidays and rigid heddles

Visited my friend this past Sunday. We get together once a month to drink coffee, eat banana bread and knit. She wanted to learn rigid heddle weaving, so I let her borrow my RH loom last month and said if she needed any help, I'd work with her. Well, she did need help. When I got there, she had put the warp on the loom backwards (front of work tied to back apron  and vice versa). She was sort of almost in tears. I said no worries, we'd fix it. We took the warp off the loom and turned the loom around. So... in answer to a question on Facebook, on the rigid heddle page, this is how I tie little bundles to the back beam bar. We took small bundles of the warp, being careful to keep them the same length, tied them together, then lashed them to the back beam. These are thicker bundles than I would do, but that was her preference. Now, you can also tie them directly to the bars themselves, but I don't like the Ashford bars. They are rectangular, flat pieces of wood instead of dowel shape. I don't like this design at all, thus the bundles. Then of course she will sley the warp, and tie the ends to the front apron bar directly. 

This is an odd sort of way to warp I suppose, but I am used to warping an 8 shaft, 10 treadle monster of a Kessenich, so warping a RH is no where near as time consuming and tedious. Therefore, I don't mind taking extra time doing it. 

Another odd thing she did was this... instead of using brown wrapping paper or butcher paper, she used a bunch of cut up little cardboards. See how uneven this can be? You can use flat, narrow, even sticks, but these are totally uneven and cardboard has too much give. So we got rid of that hot mess too and luckily she had some brown paper on hand so we rolled the warp onto the back beam, tucking the brown paper in and around as we went. Hopefully, she will call me if she gets in a bind next time. 

And now... Happy Holidays from the kids of Messy Art! 

Sunday stuff

 He's giving you that come hither look. Yeah, not so much. Our young man here is in the goofiest, galumphing kitten phase I've ever seen...and I've had lots of cats. Maybe it's because he is a coonie, but he is a klutz. Got the basket at a yard sale for the loom room. Was going to use it for yarn but as you can see, Sasquatch here has taken over.

 We started orchid walls on the back porch. Orchids do good in trees, but not sure how this will turn out. Just bought 3 of the cheapy $5-7 ones that come in the little net bags. Then wrapped their little root systems in peat moss and tied them on with their net bags and string. Hopefully, they will root onto the trellises.

I'm ready to be done with the sampler and move onto the actual rug. Just a few more experiments here and I'm going to cut 'er off. I've switched greens for yellows. The darker yellow is actually recycled yarn from an old sweater. I'm starting to like the idea of that more and more. Recycle and reuse.

The scarf is coming along. I'm using a very light beat. Want it to be lacey-like

Chocolate covered cherry yarn. Merino superwash

The party's over



So my vacation is over, or staycation really. I did absolutely nothing. Partly because it rained almost every day. I had one day where I was able to go to sunny Hollyweird Beach and that was nice. Felt good to swim. We also went out to dinner a bunch and rode the scooter around town. Just relaxing. And I thought I would get more done in the loom room but, no. I was really in relaxation mode.

This is the block weave / shaft switching sampler. I have pretty much figured this out and am playing with a simple design idea for a rug. I have some math questions though, which I'll probably post on Weavolution. I've been reading Peter Collingwood's book; the chapter on block weaves and he started using fractions...I saw 3/4 and 4/3 and my eyes glazed over. You could tell this man was a surgeon ... the man was SMART! So I need to find someone to dummy the math parts down for me. Math and I have never been friends.

I finished the scarf I was weaving on the rigid heddle. I was a little concerned at first that it would be too stiff and have no drape. I realized halfway through weaving it that I had a lead foot on the beater, but I figured I should just be consistent at that point. But once I washed it and steam ironed, it came out nice and soft. Will make a nice Autumn scarf. 

Realized that I never put a picture of this up...the finished krokbragd wall hanging. I am not really jazzed about the colors. But it is an exercise in Fibonacci numbers. I made the grey's and white in varying Fibo-numbers in inches. That was fun...I'm not totally anti-math.

Progress

Still working on the block weave sampler. I've done blocks, checkerboard blocks, lines and cross stripes within the blocks so far. Next will be vertical lines within the blocks. I'm having way too much fun with this. Don't look at the selvedges, ha! But like I said, I don't have a small temple, so they look a little, shall we say, "chubby" ... and chubby is cute, right?

Almost done with the scarf on the rigid heddle. I'm already looking forward to the next project which will be a wrap/shawl. I'm thinking the main colors will be the purple slub cotton and maroon 3/2 perle with smatterings of the pink and green.

P.S. - bought a lamp in, ...sigh, Walmart on Sunday. I was visiting my mom up in Themiddleofnowhere, FL so there aren't too many store choices. Anyway, I was hoping that it would light things up in the Weaveatorium a bit. That was my mistake. Got the thing home, screwed all of the various pieces together, stuck a light bulb in it and nothing. The light came on just long enough for my synapses to register it, then poop. So ok...try another bulb. Same thing. So my advice; don't buy electronics at Mr. Walton's place. 

Late March

While eating eggs the other morning, I decided it was time to break out the rigid heddle loom. This is some warp and weft sample choices to see how they might work together. The warp is assorted cotton yarns. The weft is this incredibly soft acrylic yarn (Bernat Softee Baby). Scarves should be soft on the neck...end of story. I'm also throwing a gold sparkle crochet cotton into the weft mix. All of the yarns are from my stash. There's no real rhyme or reason to placement of warp colors. I just sort of shut my brain off (not real hard for me to do) and let go.

Sunny side up scarf!

This is a sample piece that I'm weaving on the big loom. The pattern is from Marguerite Porter Davison's book... the triple draught bird's eye. This is very dainty weaving for me. I'm used to doing big hunking rugs. But I'm having fun with it.