Wooly Shawl

In my quest to get as many things woven for the County Fair as possible, coupled with a desire to use up stash yarn, I wove a woolen shawl using Mountain Colors yarns http://www.mountaincolors.com.  The warp yarns were purchased as a knitted shawl kit many years ago.  The yarns included Mountain Goat (worsted), Merino Ribbon, Wooly Feathers, and Mohair in the Sierra Colorway. (I chose not to use the Moguls yarn, also included in the kit.  It had very large bumps that didn't seem to lend themselves to this project.) For the weft, I used another Mountain Goat yarn in the Yellowstone colorway.

Warp Yarns

Weft Yarns

The warp yarns were wound in "stripes of texture".  Some sections used all four types of yarn or just two or in a few cases, just one - depending on how much yarn was left as I wound the warp.  It was sett at 10 epi, which seemed to be a good compromise for the sett of all of the different yarns.  The warp was threaded to a straight threading on 8-shafts.

Since the colors were so close in value and color - even the weft versus the warp, I decided to keep the structure relatively simple.  I wanted to use a twill in order to increase the drape of the final shawl.  So I used my standard 3-2-1-1-1 tie-up and wove it as threaded.

Drawdown

The weaving turned out to be slow and somewhat painful.  The mohair was a slight problem, getting twisted with the yarns on each side.  (Neither the mohair nor the feathery yarns were adjacent to each other or themselves.)  The Wooly Feathers yarn was so attracted to it's neighboring yarns that it took about 10 minutes to weave each inch.  I had to clear each shed before I could throw the shuttle.  I'm pretty sure that I am not going to use this type of yarn in a warp again.

I twisted the fringe before wet finishing it.  This proved to take a fair amount of time too.

The final shawl did turn out to be very nice.  Although nervous about the wet finishing, I washed it in my front-loader washing machine on the handwash setting and lay it flat to dry. The yarn got cosy with itself rather than actually fulling.  

I'm pleased with the result and I hope to weave more shawls with wool yarns in the future.

Yuba River Scarf Plus One

Another Fair category in the Wool Division is Nevada County Inspired. This category is for entries that have been produce with some aspect of our County in mine.  I think it replaced "Fair Theme Inspired" several years go.  I love to enter this category - to keep the numbers up for it since it is an interesting category, and {truthfully} since it is one of the few categories with a cash prize.  :-) )  

This year I was a bit busy and not particularly inspired.  I have been looking through my yarn stash with the idea of doing projects that are relatively quick and can use up some of the yarn I have.  I purchased a fair amount of sock yarn to weaving into scarves.  I found several skeins of blue-green variegated sock yarn in two slightly different shades.  They looked a lot like the Yuba River that runs through the County and I got inspired to make a couple of scarves.  

Yuba River

This was the first time I've warped two scarves together.  Normally, I either have one skein with enough for one scarf - warp and weft or I felt safer just warping one at a time.  I did have to use a little of the yarn color I was planning to use for weft in the warp.  It is about an inch at one of the selvedges.

I used an extended point twill threading.  I like how this threading can result in large diamonds or other geometric shapes.  The warp (Knit One crochet two's Crock-O-Dye) was sett at 12 epi.  The tie-up is my standard 3-2-1-1-1 that I have been using for towels.  (Again, see the previous post about not wanting to get under the loom to re-chain.)  

The Yuba Inspired Scarf was woven as threaded - i.e., with large extended point threading. The second scarf was threadled in a small point.

Yuba Inspired Scarf

Second Scarf

Two Scarves Together

This yarn is variegated and creates a plaid effect by using it in the warp and weft.  The pattern is very subtle but in the detail pictures, the design can be seen.  It may not seem worth it to weave anything other than plain weave with this yarn but I like the extra texture that it creates.

Yuba Inspired Scarf Detail

Second Scarf Detail

I like the resulting scarves.  The Yuba River is a very inspiring landmark.

Handspun Yarn Project

The County Fair is right around the corner so it is the season to work on entries.  There is an underrepresented category in the Woven with Handspun Division called Collaborative Spinner/Maker.  The entries for this category are produced by two or more people with a woven item make from at least 50% handspun yarn.  Not being a spinner myself, I was able to get yarn for this purpose from my friend Beryl (http://bannermountaintextiles.blogspot.com).

I don't often work with wool, but I thought about a scarf with two of the yarns Beryl offered.  Her yarn was the green and dark brown ones pictured below.  The strand of yarn pictured below was a handspun I had but can't remember where I got it.  It was labeled Hummingbird Handspun and might be Hummingbird Moon Handspun.

I am trying to use some new weave structures, so I thought I might try an advancing twill. This one is pretty basic on 8-shafts.  I did decide to use the tie-up I have on my Cranbrook loom (to keep me from having to get under it and rechain).  This is the same 3-2-1-1-1 tie up that I use with towels.  I calculated that I wouldn't have enough green for the entire warp.  I thought about alternating the green and brown but realized it would hide the pattern.  So, I used the green for the majority of the warp with stripes of brown on the selvedges.  I used the Hummingbird for the weft.

The warp was sett at 8 epi.  This might have been a bit dense for this warp and the weft I chose for a scarf, but it feels perfect for a table runner.  

The project wove fine without any difficulties.  The weft yarn was brown overall but had bits of the green and other complementary colors.  It seemed ideal.

It is really a lovely table runner.

More Towels

It's been a while since I posted anything new.  I have been weaving but just doing more towels - different colors but similar yarns, sett and structures.  But I've liked them.  These are all woven using 10/2 mercerized cotton yarn.  They were sett at 28 epi.  They were threaded to some sort of 8 point twill - regular point, M's & W's, M's & M's, irregular 8-shaft point, etc.  The tie-up is a 3-2-1-1-1-1 twill.  In all cases, warp yarns were used for the weft and the towels were treadled in each color as a regular 8-point twill and then the next instance of that weft color was treadled as an irregular point twill; M's & W's, M's & M's, etc.

Two of the color combinations were ones I had used before.  In this first set, originally woven for my friend Odette, the sequence of the warp threads were as I wove these towels before.  http://foothillweaving.blogspot.com/2015/09/springy-towels.html

Odette Towel Yarns

Odette Towels

Looking for other color combinations, I looked at http://www.design-seeds.com   This website presents pictures than color pallets derived from those pictures.  I loved this picture of multi-colored carrots. 

Mixed Carrot Towel Yarns

Mixed Carrot Towels

My friend Sue was looking for towels that would match an upholstered sofa.  Working with the vagaries  of computer screens and printers, I found a combination of colors we both liked.  The resulting towels gave a fairly broad range of overall colors.

Sue's Towel Yarns

Sue's Towels

This last set of towels is one of my favorites.  This is actually the fourth time I've woven towels using this color combination.  This time I did find a different striping sequence and although the proportions of each color was about the same.  These towels were sett at 30 epi.  I think this thickness of towels is very good.  It is easier to thread the warp through the reed using two threads per dent on a 15 dent reed rather than a combination of 2-2-2-1 per dent for a 28 epi sett. 

SF Towel Inspiration Picture

SF Towel Yarns

SF Towels

I am currently working on some other projects that are not towels.  
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New Year, Maybe New Ideas

The holidays are over, the company is gone and if it doesn't rain today all of the decorations, etc. will be put away under the house.  So my thoughts are turning back to the loom.  I have been working slowly on a new set of towels.  They were slated to be finished in November but they might be finished this month. 

I put enough warp on the loom for 12 towel instead of my usual 10.  They are still 10/2 cotton, sett at 26 epi, but I'm thinking about setting the next batch at 28 epi.  Twenty-six still feels not right and 28 might be better.  These were threaded as an 8-shaft point and treadled with a 2-2-1-1-1-1 twill tie-up. 

I am also working on my samples for the Complex Weavers 24 +/- Study Group.  These are due at the beginning of February.  I'm well on my way to finishing early - for the first time. 

I took a class last January with Bhakti Ziek, a jacquard weaver (among other things) and co-author of The Woven Pixel.   http://www.bhaktiziek.com/ She helped us understand how to create designs using Photoshop (R) for a computerized dobby loom.  It was a fantastic learning experience.  Using these techniques and Alice Schlein's book, The Liftplan Connection, I designed the piece below.  This piece is woven on 24 shafts with a straight draw threading.  This is part of the textile I will be using for the samples.

CW 24 +/- Study Group Samples - before cutting

The group met again this January and spent the time learning about each others' work and having the chance to critique and discuss our work.  It was very inspiring to spend time with these weavers.  I am hoping that this year I will be able to spend more time studying and experimenting in areas I haven't before.  I will still be weaving towels but I look forward to challenging myself with other projects.