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.

Gettin' the shaft...switching

 Working on clasped wefts...try saying that 10 times fast. Clasped wefts, clasped wets, claspt wets, clast sets, cla#&*///

I was having a bit of trouble with them at first in that I was either pulling the clasped bit too far over or not far enough. It takes some practice, but eventually I got the gist of it. Not that you could tell from this picture. You can see where I jacked it up in the black and white verticle stripes to the right.

And here I've finally made it to the shaft switching part of the Collingwood DVD. Yeah, I know, mine looks nothing like his. And the colors are hideous but I figure it's a sampler...let me use up some unwanted yarns.  The black areas just below where the red and green starts were done with clasped wefts. I like the way the little tiny blocks came out in the bigger red and green middle blocks, which I did by simply switching one shaft in each block unit. This gave me an idea for a design. 

I'm now trying to figure the whole design thing out, like how to set up the block units, etc.  I've drawn a rough draft out on graph paper of the design I've got in my head, but I have to figure out how to make the warp and lifts do what I want. 

Now check this nifty contraption out...is this cool or what!?! Ok, I'm not even going to try to describe what this is...it's too complicated and I don't want to infringe on anyone's copyright, if ya know what I mean. Just watch the Jason Collingwood DVD. Basically, you use this little clothes line thingy to hold up your string thingys which are attached to the heddles and floating warps, and with the help of little constrictor knots, controls your shaft switching. You don't have to crawl into your heddles every 5 min. snipping floating warps and retying them. And it works and it's so so COOL! The Nifty Boss-o-matic Constrictor Clothesline!

Here is a closer picture of the constrictor knots. You color code them so you know whether you're tying the floating warp to shaft 3 or shaft 4. Of course I got my colors backward, but it's ok. This is amazing. You can also read about this method in The Techniques of Rug Weaving, P. Collingwood, ch. 8. 

Just a couple of pics for fun. This is a small tapestry I did a while back. It's hanging in my office at work.

Here is one of the orchids I tied in my backyard tree about a year ago. It has finally bloomed. I read in an article that orchids love to be in trees and being as I live in a place where it doesn't get cold very often, it's ok to just leave them out in the treetops and visit them a few times a week. I want them to be happy :)

 

And here is young Mr. Levon, trying to look cute so I don't toss him out of the loom room on his butt. He just won't leave things alone. My new nick name for my loom is the Kitty Guillotine.

Kitty in pain

Ok...this guy...I'm trying to weave, minding my own business, not knowing that he's in the Weaveatorium with me. All of a sudden shafts 2 and 3 just won't go down. So I thought I'd help them out and started pushing...nope. They're stuck. I try again and hear a small pained sound from under the loom. Mr. Levon here has gotten himself tangled up in the shafts. Of course having the sick sense of humor that I have, I was laughing so hard I could hardly get him out of there.
So cats and weaving...maybe not a good idea ;) except for entertainment value

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. 

Blocks and stuff

Check out these uber-cool things. These are fiber cards made from teasels. I had lunch with a very good friend and weaver who got these when she was in the Peace Corp back in the 70's in Ecuador. Thought I'd share.

I really wanted to take the class with Jason Collingwood at the Mannings this summer, but unfortunately, I can't get away from work in the summer. That's our busy time. So next best thing? His video on block weaves and shaft switching. Above picture shows the floating warp ends tied to the heddle eyes on shafts 3 and 4. The warp ends on shafts 1 and 2 are not floating and have no effect on the pattern. I have to say that when I was finally finished warping the loom, I was one sore puppy. I tried to take breaks but I didn't take enough breaks...I was just getting so into it. Definitely need more lighting though in the Weavatorium (as it's come to be known). I'm having a hard time seeing in there.

And here you can see the little blocks starting. Neat-o! I'm using a lot of left over stuff because it's just a sampler. I have a 6 epi reed so just sleyed it single to sort of conserve materials. And I didn't have a temple small enough for this piece so I'm not using one, but like I said, it's a sampler. I'll use one on the first rug. I'm really loving block weaving. It's like doing puzzles. And the video is really good.

Meanwhile, here's old man Sam hanging out with his doppelganger.

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.

St. Paddy's Day weekend fun

No good St. Pat's day should be without a ride on the bar bicycle. This was in St. Petersburg, FL. I have never in my life seen one of these things. You ride on it while sitting at the bar and you peddle...thus powering your own bar experience. Or some such thing. At least you're working off all the calories from the booze.

Here the city of Tampa is dyeing the river green during the Irish festival. I really hope that the dye is non-toxic to sea life :\ That's the University of Tampa in the background.

Irish dancers at the Tampa festival. Took me back to the days when my daughter used to be in step dancing competitions. And what a nerve wrecking hot mess that was.

Here we are with our BFF's in Ybor City (that's pronounced Ebor). It is the very place where the famous Cuban - Tampa cigars were manufactured by hand back in the day. And maybe still today. I don't know. The males in the group didn't want to watch the little history movie at the welcome center. And I'm supposed to be the one with ADHD.

While in Ybor City, we came across a vintage clothing store, La France, that was just off the chain. I took a picture of this old coat. Not the most spectacular thing in the store, but I did love the weave. It reminded me of my mother's spring coats when I was a kid.

Now, this was the most spectacular thing in the store. The most beautiful dress I have ever seen...ever.

And speaking of textiles....we took a trip to the Ringling museum in Sarasota. The Ringling museum is a collection of museums and Mr. Ringling's magnificent house. I must say, Ringling was one wealthy son-of-a-gun. Or as my husband said, "...a lot of midgets built this house". Here is a shot of the dinning room table cloth; incredibly beautiful lace!

Ringling collected quite a few tapestries from the 16th century. This one is just some little piece they threw up in the foyer.

This tapestry was in the art museum. It has deteriorated to some degree and you can see the warp showing. 20 epi ... I counted.

We also went to the Dali museum, but you weren't allowed to take pictures there. It was pretty incredible. I really like the Tampa area. Hope we can go back again soon. And now back to weaving. I'm working on a bird's eye pattern for a pillow at present. Pics to follow.