Need More Hands!

It’s been over a month since I’ve posted, but the autumn whirl has begun, trying to get enough yarn and handwovens ready for the winter season!  Lazy winter days won’t occur until after tax season next February or so.  I am sure I’m not the only one who’s perhaps busier than they’d prefer!

A set of 4 weft-faced rugs are on the floor loom, though just one rug has been woven thus far, because, once the small loom arrived, I’ve been trying to keep it warped and scarves woven off.  

Yes, I did have a 16” RH loom for a short time, then sold it – it was too large for scarves, but not large enough for towels.  The 10” loom is perfect – I should never have tortured myself about buying the 16” loom, but, like many other weavers, I was trying to only buy one loom to make too wide a variety of fabrics.  

The weft-faced rugs are slower to weave than my usual rag rugs, but the effect is worth the time.  The hard beat that rugs need does mean it’s noisier than weaving regular fabrics, so I don’t work at the floor loom when hubby has a headache, which is quite often.  I don’t want to add to his pain.  

So, the small loom is an ideal addition to my business, as it’s quiet and very quick to warp.  And, perhaps because I have been a knitting designer for so very long, I *love* to chart weaving drafts as well!  In a short time, I’ve charted 65 drafts, just for plain weaves. I love the interplay of color.  

With stranded color pattern knitting, the secondary color(s) are held to the wrong side, so the color charts are pure for lack of a better word.  In weaving, the yarns interlace.  Two colors interlacing can give the effect of a third color, and even a simple draft can look complex when using 3 colors.  It’s magical!  And something I don’t think I’ll ever tire of doing.

In between weaving, I try to keep the bins stocked with several weights of handspun Falkland and Romney wool yarns.  I’ve spun other finer wools, like Rambouillet, Merino, and Polwarth, and many other fibers from camel down to cotton and horsehair, but I find spinning the Falkland wool to be such a pleasurable experience – it’s soft enough to be pleasant to wear, yet has a long enough staple length and excellent prep which is easy to spin.

Romney has always been a favorite, one of my first, and one day, I’d like to spin enough to weave a blanket or 2.  In the meantime, it’s wonderful for handknit socks, which I wear almost all year long.

I may be imagining it, but I find the socks knit from Romney, or other long wools, seem to breathe better than, or resist retaining moisture better than, socks knit with softer wools.  I love Lamb’s Pride, both the worsted and bulky versions, but I find that they can feel damp during the day, requiring changing.  This doesn’t happen with the Romney pairs.

The change in activity from weaving to spinning is surely better for the body than making the same motions every day, and I do love to spin.  It allows my mind to relax and wander a bit, where if I did that when weaving, the patterning would go wrong, requiring un-weaving, which no weaver wants to have to do.  So, weaving requires much more concentration, which can be tiring.  I could probably spin all day long, but weaving is best kept to about 3 hrs.

I’ll post pics soon of what I’ve been making, with links to my Etsy shop.  I’m working up a small pile of scarves at a time, which I will wet block and lay flat to dry en masse, then sew on labels.

May all your work go smoothly and may you still find time to relax during this busy season!
Happy Autumn!
Dawn

Switching Gears

(Originally posted on WP 9/16/20.)

Homemaking/housekeeping has always involved multi-tasking, but lately my work also has me going in different directions.  Some days I am at the rug loom (although these kitchen/tea towels, for our use, have been sitting on this loom for weeks, waiting on me to have time for them!)

Other days I am either knitting up design samples, at the computer, working on the patterns and charts, or tackling the long-ish process of uploading designs to various sites. In the evenings I can be found knitting plain/mindless socks, which tends to be a self-adjusting activity, where if I’m really tired, it lets the mind decompress, whilst still being productive.  On other evenings, it allows the mind the freedom to wander and think up new designs or problem-solve, like designing a house that has auto-wash.

And on other days yet, I am weaving samples on the Little Loom, trying to ascertain what, if anything it will do well.

This is where I have been until recently.  

I wish there were two of me, or I at least had Mrs. Weasley’s housekeeping magic spells, then I could have gotten those kitchen towels and these knitting patterns finished already, although I wouldn’t be wasting my magic spells on auto-knitting, rather the dishes, laundry, and cleaning – especially now that this well-lived in house is desperate for a fall cleaning!

So, the Little Loom had me derailed.  I really needed to see what it could do, so I could have a useable warp on both looms, thereby allowing something productive to be accomplished, no matter which room I needed to be in.  

Well, that was the plan, anyway.

I am beginning to surmise that it can only do some things well, and only a few of what I want to make are on this list.  I have only owned sturdy floor looms (except my very first loom, which was upgraded soon after buying it), and like my knitting gauges, I prefer as densely woven a fabric, as can be made without undue stress to the maker, whilst maintaining a pleasing fabric.  

This is one of the best ways to ensure longevity.  I have long said that knitting ball band gauges are a guideline, not to be adhered to, as they can tend to be too loose.  Same goes for their touted yarn weight.  But that’s for another discussion.

For example, a pick and pick weft-faced sample on the floor loom can be beaten to 6.5 picks to the inch easily, using t-shirt yarn and doubled 8/4 warp, sett at 4 working epi, making a firm, well-woven fabric.

The same sett with even slightly thinner t-shirt yarn can only get 5 ppi on the RH loom, and that is with really pressing the weft into place using my forearms on the heddle so to give it a good even beat.  

The ‘even’ part isn’t easy on a RH loom.  If one holds the heddle at the outer edges to beat (as I often see RH weavers do), the middle of the fell can tend to not be beaten to the same level as the edges, so I have been conscientious about holding the heddle with each hand about 1/3 of the way across the fell.

But with these samples needing to be rug-tight, it required even arm pressure along the entire heddle.  Pita is an understatement!  I could show you the bruises I had on my inner forearms to prove this, but I’ll save you.  One would need to use a hand beater, perhaps even the heaviest weighted hand beater to pack each weft shot in to achieve what the floor loom does easily.

And plain weave with the same weft and warp used singly sett at 7.5 epi yields similar ho-hum results.  No photos to show, as I un-wove each one – I only save samples I am pleased with.

The only fabric I have been really happy with thus far is wool.  Peace Fleece doubled in a 5-dent reed, woven with doubled weft, then soaked and very lightly fulled in the dryer makes a totally great afghan/blanket fabric, which I’d like to make for hubby, as my knit wool afghans are a bit too short, for when he’s stretched out in his recliner (though not using the Georgia Rose pink!)

That is, if one wanted to weave narrow panels then seam them, which I am not yet sure I want to do, not when I could weave it full width on the floor loom, in one piece.  The downside to using the floor loom of course, is all the time it takes to warp which involves removing the breast beam and reed, and having enough yarn packages to warp its 2” sections.

Sigh.

I recently wove these pick and pick weft-faced mug mats/coasters on the RH loom, as a gift for one of my brothers.

The RH loom did these well and easily.  Doubled 8/4 warp, in a 5-dent reed, doubled KnitPicks Dishie as weft.

I am surprised to not see Dishie used more often in weaving, as it’s a really lovely, soft cotton yarn, which doesn’t shrink after washing and drying.  I much prefer it for rug hems than 8/4, which tangles if you look it it sideways, which I must be doing a lot.

I have one more cotton sample to put on the RH loom (Dishie at 11 epi), then onto the bulky to super bulky handspun wool samples, but they can wait.  Have already switched gears and am back to working on the last 2 of 3 wintery knitting patterns and their charts before September passes me by!

The first of the 3 is my Midnight Snowfall Tea Cozy.

In case you’re wondering about the odd sett of 11 epi I mentioned – I only have 5 and 7.5 dent reeds for this ASIL (Ashford Sampleit loom) and am not buying another heddle at this point.  

I find DK to worsted yarn at 7.5 in plain weave to make far too sleazy a fabric.  I have sampled the Dishie doubled in a 7.5 dent reed (= 15 total epi), and it works, though it makes a heavy towel.  This might be a good bath towel fabric, but am not sure about a kitchen towel, and a 16” weaving width isn’t going to make a bath towel!

So, I’ll be sampling the Dishie in the 7.5 dent reed, but threading every other slot  doubled, as such. There are 15 slots to 4”:
000000000000000

Threaded *2 ends in first slot, 4 ends in next slot; rep from *:
242424242424242
= 44 ends/4” after sleying into the holes = 11 epi.

Maybe I’ll like the look of alternating double/single warp ends, maybe I won’t, but the sett should keep draw-in and shrinkage to a minimum, will see!

But first, I need to put Dawn into house-washing mode!

Onward,
Dawn







 

Looms, Looms Everywhere!

(Originally posted on WP 7/27/20.)

This detour into weaving (although, more accurately, it is a u-turn!) is borne by both necessity and the fact that I love to weave, and have long missed it.  Just as I love to spin, so I *had to* find the style wheel I had decades ago, and did.  Life is way too short not to do the things we love.  

Desire doesn’t necessarily translate into having the wherewithal to purchase new equipment.  And anyone interested in these particular crafts will know exactly how large an investment one can make!  Knit design just required good needles, which, for me, meant Addi Turbos and dpns.  

But I was, and still am, intent on acquiring and hacking all the necessary equipment, without needing to sell off my children and maybe even my grandchildren.  All it takes is Patience and Persistence.  I’m really good at the latter, but am not known for the former.  Amazing how a bit of monetary crimp can allow us to develop a faltering virtue.

My all-time favorite loom is the Glimakra counterbalance. 

I just find it to be near heart-stoppingly beautiful.  If ever one makes its way into my life, hubby will need to peel me off the thing every night.  One won’t be coming any time soon, however, which I am fine with.  I need to earn it, and that will make it all the sweeter.  

What I do have is a circa 1978 Hammett 45” counterbalance rug loom.  

And it’s a fine loom, works well, maintains tight tension, has a nice deep shed, and deep weaving area.  It also came with a sectional warp beam.  I only had a jack loom with plain beam once.  Once was more than enough.  When I sold it, it would only be counterbalance and sectional beams thereafter, for me.

And it was Patience and Perseverance which allowed this loom into my studio, the room formerly known as the Dining Room!  It required 6 months of daily searching all the used fiber equipment sites, the Ravelry weaving forums, Craigslist, and Ebay.  Like a bloodhound that got a whiff of something he likes, or one of those truffle dogs!

But no loom does everything equally well.  There can be a reed size glitch.  There can be a heddle opening size glitch.  Then there can be a floor loom yarn waste glitch.  And  a tension/shed glitch.

Once the glitches start to pile up, sometimes the best solution can be to get another loom – one more suited to the yarn planned for the project.  To this end, a small RH (rigid heddle) loom will shortly be making its way to me.  They’re easier on certain yarns than floor looms, and the heddle sizes drop down further than a floor loom’s reed.  Been thinking about getting a RH loom for so many months, talking myself into it, then talking myself out of it, until I was getting dizzy!

Finally, I had it with this internal argument.  I don’t like to spend $, as I’m SO used to making do, but I have ideas to flesh out, and ultimately, oddly enough, I can be more productive with 2 looms.  I know, sounds counter-intuitive, but I can’t be at the floor loom all day.  My health requires more time with my feet up, than when I was younger,   where the RH loom can still allow me to weave, and weave certain ideas more easily than on the floor loom.  So, that was the winning argument.  Case closed!  

Hubby says I should have been a lawyer, to which I respond, as Jo in Little Women did, that I could have been a great many things.  But, as I tend to see both sides of issues equally well, I think I’d just end up arguing with myself!  And that is worse than arguing with another person, as it tends not to clarify things, but, fosters self-doubt, beating that horse until it cries Uncle.

This doing something because I want to is new for me, haven’t been able to live that way in decades.  But, new work = new life, and I’ve been desperate for a new life for far too long!  Or, as hubby is known to say, Think Big or Go Home!  Thinking big I can do.

Onward,
Dawn