A strange scarf I can actually wear

I just finished a weaving class at the Textile Center Weaving for Knitters. I'm not much of a knitter, but I used my hand spun and went wild...experimenting all over the place, doing floats, lace, inlays, knotted locks, an inset of tapestry on a rigid heddle loom...And, believe it or not, one could actually wear it if it weren't 80 degress today! The big poof of knotted locks is, totally by accident, at the exact midpoint of the scarf, so it sits at the back of the neck as though intended.

The warp is a Harrisville wool. The weft is various handspuns, dominantly a beautiful black alpaca with bits of firestar and mohair, an alpaca with random mohair locks, and 2 wild batt handpuns of medium wool with sari silk, silk noil, firestar and stuff. I also knotted in some Wensleydale locks.

This week, the blues

Dying continues....this week, the blues, the periwinkles.
After a frenetic couple of weeks with the opening of COMMUNION in the Susan Hensel Gallery, time to refocus on fiber. Shepherd's Harvest looms on Mother's Day, followed very quickly by Art A Whirl and St. Anthony Park Art Fair.

I made a major delivery of roving and mohair to the Textile Center yesterday. The little packets of wooly goodness keep flying out of there. Yeah!

5 1/2 yard warping board

I made a 5 1/2 yard warping board last night...plenty of length for my rigid heddle loom. It is based on a picture of a Schacht warping board that was 20" x20". So, I cut the available clear pine into 20 " lengths; overlapped them and inserted wing nuts and lag bolts; inserted a removeable nail at each of the top corners to reduce side to side motion. Cut 1 " dowels to 6 " and 6 3/4?"...can't quite remember. The four dowels across the top are longer to accomodate the fact that they are on a board laid behind the other boards. I used a 1 inch spade bit in a drill press to drill the holes. Put in LOTS of wood glue, inserted the dowels and waited overnight. Ta da! No it is not hardwood, yes there are some extra holes here and there since I did one of the corners wrong. No it is not varnished. But, who cares? It works! AND it comes apart for storage. If I had wanted to be more elegant (and more able with wood working tools) I would have made a lap joint at the corners...is that what it is called? It's a joint where part of the wood is taken away so that the pieces key into one another. I would not have needed the stabilizing nail if I knew how to make that other kind of joint. Oh well...as I said before...who cares? It works!

spinning tales and weaving yarns

I plan on spinning some Romney to make more yarn that looks more or less like this. One pply is pure Romney, the other ply is 2 ounces of roving I dyed sometime ago and have no more of. But, I do have some recently dyed roving that is similar and should make a lovely ply. I plan to use it with the llama 3 ply I finished last week...when I learn to weave better?




I began a weaving class last night: Rigid Heddle for Knitters. Plain weave. I plan the use the yarns below. My warp is across the top.

Rainy Day Fiber

It is a rainy, snainy day. In my family, growing up in perennially cloudy upstate New York, that mixture of rain and snow was call snain, a snide sounding contraction that perfectly expresses the unpleasantness.

Completed yarn

The wild batt 2-ply yarn and the llama 3-ply yarn, over 450 yards each. The llama weighs a lot! The wild batt yarn is light and lofty. The batts were spun on the Roberta Electronic Spinner and the llama on the Ashford DT Traveler. Now I am spinning a bit of leftover pink and peach merino and some more batts.

Fleecey goodness and snow flurries

Today was a studio day...no gallery work. I drew, I ran to the library and a drove across town to pick up some artwork. And I washed fleece! Some lovely Lincoln locks and mystery wool. I got some almost free mystery fleeces last year. Really they are lovely. There is not much VM, not even much dirt and grease. The locks are long and glossy. When washed and pulled apart they burst open into a soft lustrous cloud. I will dye the wool for Shepherd's Harvest. I am hoping to set up a Wild and Wooly Batt Station there. I have not figured out all the specifics...but this row of lovely additives will be part of it: firestar sparklies, faux cashmere, sari silk, silk noil...other stuff. (By the way, the Spin Dryer is GREAT!)