Shawls of the Pandemic

It's been a long eight months so far.  I've taken the opportunity to use up some yarn.  I usually think that shawls are the best way to really create empty spaces in the yarn tubs, but it doesn't seem to work out that way.  

While I've woven several shawls this year during lock-down, there aren't as many as I thought I had.  Most of these shawls are primarily wool.  Some have nylon and others alpaca/silk blend.  They are all woven on eight shafts in some sort of twill.  The tie-up for all of these is a 2-2-1-1-1-1 twill. 

The warp of this shawl is Mt Colors Mountain Goat in Hummingbird and Wilderness, alternated.  The warp is a 70/30 alpaca silk from a local alpaca rancher.  The design is an extended point twill.

Mt Colors Greens -Purples

Mt Colors Greens -Purples - detail

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This shawl was woven using Mountain Goat yarn as well from Mountain Colors.  The colorways Yellowstone and Gold Rush were used.  The weft was a yarn from Madeline Tosh in a red.  It's an extended point twill.  

Mt Colors Gold - detail

Mt Colors Gold

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The following are shawl's I wove before the shut-down.  This one is grays and charcoals is made using 70/20 alpaca silk from a local alpaca rancher for both the warp and weft.  The structure is an undulating twill.

Gray-Black Alpaca - detail

Gray-Black Alpaca

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For last year's County Fair, I wove a shawl inspired by the ground of our county.  There was lots of gold taken out of the earth hereabouts.  The warp and weft was yarn from Madeline Tosh: Tosh Sock in Ginger (merino wool) for the warp and Madeline Tosh Twist Light in Stephen Loves Tosh for the weft.  It was woven in an extended point twill.

Nevada County Inspiration

Nevada County Inspiration - detail

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This colorful shawl was woven using Malabrigo Arroyo yarn (Camaleon 684) for the warp and Madeline Tosh DK (Mandala) for the weft.  Malabrigo is interesting yarn.  They have beautiful colors but each skein can look very different - all of the same colors but in different proportions.  This shawl was woven as an undulating twill. 

Green Chameleon Malabrigo - detail

Green Chameleon Malabrigo 

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This very autumn colored shawl was woven using Berroco Ultra Alpaca in various browns and rusts for the warp and Ultra Alpaca Light for the weft.  For this shawl, I chose a fancy point twill on eight shafts.

Alpaca Autumn - detail

Alpaca Autumn

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This last shawl is woven from Mountain Colors yarn - River Twist (Spring Creek) for the warp and Mountain Goat (Harmony Plum) for the weft.  The 8-shaft twill was a very extended point twill.  

Mt Colors Purple

Mt Colors Purple - detail

There are bound to be many more months of self-isolation this winter, and there is a lot more yarn.  I will most likely be weaving more shawls.  

Pandemic Towels

Having been in lockdown for eight months, I thought I would review what I've been weaving during the time of COVID-19.  I have a few towels that were woven before March 2020, but most of these were made since then.

All of the towels were woven using 10/2 mercerized cotton in both the warp and weft, sett at 30 epi.  Each set of towels were woven as some sort of point twill - most of them were different - on eight shafts.  The tie-up for all was a 2-2-1-1-1-1 twill.  

I am still using pictures as color inspiration and creating random stripes as the color design.  An online random stripe generator is very useful when designing the stripes, although I do tweak the color order and stripe size a bit.  I work toward proportion of values across each warp that emphasize the medium value colors and use less of the high intensity and dark value colors.

The latest towels off the loom, I called Lupine towels - inspired by a picture of a mountainscape with flowers.   

Colors for Lupine towels

Lupine Towels edge

Lupine Towels

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The Golden Gate towels were inspired by a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge over the Bay.  

Golden Gate Towel Inspiration and Yarn

Golden Gate Towels

Golden Gate Towels - edge

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The Beach Towels resulted from work I did to put together a presentation to my local fiber guild.  I talked a bit about my process for designing these striped colored towels.  To give an illustration, I chose this picture of Honolulu.  I liked the colors so much that I wove towels using the color choices.

Beach Towel Inspiration and Yarns

Beach Towels

Beach Towels - Edge

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The Mountain Meadow Towels were an attempt to use more green - not my favorite color.  It wasn't a lot of green , but more than I normally use.

Mountain Meadow Color Inspiration and Yarn

Mountain Meadow Towels

Mountain Meadow Towels - Edge

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I have a few random towels left over from various warps.  The Candy Box towel was design with the same striping as the others above.  The inspiration was a box rather than a picture.  The Turned Taquete was the result of a group study of the weave structure.  

Candy Box Towel Inspiration

Candy Box Towel

Turned Taquete

I have always loved natural bleached cotton yarn as a basis for towels.  The Russian Cloth Towels are woven on 4-shafts using a fancy 2/2 twill pattern.

Russian Cloth

Although the pandemic has been catastrophic for so many people, it has given me a chance to weave more than usual.

Scarves with Doubleweave Hems

 The pandemic is still happening and I am still weaving scarves.  I had a friend ask if I ever wove scarves without fringe.  I hadn't but I knew there were ways of approaching that.  I wasn't interested in doing a turned hem because of the potential bulk.  I have weaver friends who wove scarves that had what is called a doubleweave or tubular hem.  

The technique involves weaving two layers of textile at either end of the scarf, i.e., doubleweave.  Once finished, these two layers are folded inward and the folded textile is sewn together.  This gives a nice hem that hopefully isn't a lot bulkier than the scarf itself.  

Since I had been having success with tencel scarves, I decided to use 10/2 tencel Just Our Yarn yarn for this type of scarf.  The plan for the first scarf was to have the body woven as a 2/2 twill with a plain weave hem.  That way, I could weave this on my Baby Wolf.  I threaded the warp as a straight draw on 8 shafts.  The tie-up was a 2/2 twill (treadles 1-4) and the configuration needed to weave doubeweave on the hems was on treadles 5-8.  

Pink Scarf Drawdown

The warp was sett at 36 epi, the same sett that had been used for previous scarves I wove with this type of yarn. The warp yarn was a light peach/pink and the warp a medium dark red-fuschia.  

The weaving was straightforward.  I even hem-stitched each layer of the hem, so that it would be easier to manage after it was off the loom.  

Finished Scarf Hem

The resulting scarf worked.  I did get a slight bit of draw-in - more so at the end than the beginning of the warp.  The two layers of hem turned in ok and they were sewn together to look seamless.

Pink Scarf with Doubleweave Hem

Nice scarf, nice colors.  However, in looking at how this scarf turned out, I decided that I wasn't happy with the plain weave hem versus the twill scarf.  I also wasn't excited about how the short color intervals in the 2/2 twill design.  

Now that I felt comfortable with the technique, I thought about how I could select a different draft to improve on those areas that I thought could be improved.  

Since I wanted to have a more interesting scarf, I chose to use a 2-2-1-1-1-1 tie-up (treadles 1-8) with the straight draw threading.  The hem was to be a twill rather than plain weave.  This called for eight treadles instead of the four needed for the plain weave hem above.  These are treadles 9-16.  This could be woven on a standard 8-shaft loom if you changed the treadles before and after the hem.  However, I have a dobby loom, so it was much easier to weave this scarf on that.  

Here is the drawdown with focus on the tie-up for the hem and scarf. 

Blue-Fuschia Scarf Drawdown - partial

The yarns I used for this scarf were 10/2 tencel from Just Our Yarn.  The warp was a mixture of ends of skeins that ranged from blues and fuchsias to oranges and greens.  I alternated two of the color ways together.  I decided that since there were common colors on the different skeins, this should work.  The weft was a blue-fuschia variegated 10/2 tencel.

Blue-Fuschia Scarf Warp Colors

For this scarf, I used an advancing, irregular point treadling.  

Blue-Fuschia Scarf Draw Down - Full

Weaving the hem took a little bit more care for this scarf.  It was easier to pack down the twill weft picks than it had been with a plain weave hem, so I had to be careful not to beat too hard. Again, each layer was hemstitched while on the loom.  The two layers were turned in and the folded edges stitched together.   

Blue-Fuschia Scarf Hem Detail

The finished scarf looked good and the hem more closely matched the rest of the scarf.

I think this was fairly successful.  I will definitely try this type of hem again.

Scarves, Scarves, Scarves

I realize it has been a while since I've posted here.  I have been doing repeats of many of the things I have woven before - towels by the dozens; shawls and some baby blankets.  I wasn't sure that I had anything new to offer.  

During the current shelter-in-place, I have been weaving a lot:  a dozen towels, two shawls and some scarves.  The scarves were a bit of a departure for me. Typically,  I have used a merino or merino/nylon blend for scarves.  

In thinking about all of the yarn I have, I thought about a promise I made to myself several years ago.  After a fabulous meeting with a dozen other weavers, many of us came away with the mantra to use our good yarn.  I even went so far as to decide that when my old weaver yarn sale happened, people should be disappointed about the quality of the yarn available.  I decided that there was no time like the present and I should seek out the silk yarn I've acquired.  Fortunately for me, I took a bit of a detour and came across some 10/2 tencel yarn I had bought from Just Our Yarns.  

I hadn't used tencel yarn up to this point, although I know lots of weavers who love it.  It just hadn't happened.  Just Our Yarns in no longer in business but the owners dyed their yarns with fabulous and interesting color combinations.  I decided I had had this yarn long enough and I should use it.

In the end, I wove three scarves using the 10/2 tencel:  three different warp yarns and two different weft yarns.  The designs were all 8-shaft point twills, sett at 36 epi using a 2-2-1-1-1-1 tie up.  

For the first scarf, I used an extended twill and an advancing treadling.  The warp was mostly red/fuchsia and the weft was blues.  

Fuchsia Scarf Drawdown

Here's the first scarf.  

Fuchsia Scarf

A more detailed view.

Fuchsia Scarf Detail

The second scarf was woven with a light green warp and an orange/green weft.  The treading was an 8-shaft extended point twill.  The treadling was the same as in the first scarf.  

Light Green Scarf Drawdown

Here's the second scarf.

Light Green Scarf

The last scarf was woven with a green and fuchsia warp and the same green/orange weft as in the previous scarf.  The treading was the same as the scarf above, but the treadling was a regular point.

Green Fuchsia Scarf Drawdown

Here is the last scarf.  (The fringe hadn't been twisted yet in this picture.)

Green Fuchsia Scarf

All of the scarves were woven to 82 inches.  Off the loom they measured around 76 inches and after washing were between 71 and 72 inches long.  The scarves were washed on a gentle cycle and laid flat to dry.  The scarves were a bit still just off the loom but softened up nicely with washing.  

It was a great experience and I love the results.  I guess now I need to seek out more nice yarns.    

Towels are Still Being Woven

I realized that it has been quite a while since I posted on this blog.  I have been weaving, but since what I'm weaving is similar, I haven't thought there was much to say.  But I am still weaving towels.  A friend ask me if I wasn't tired of towels yet, and I guess I'm not.

Since the last published towels, I have woven several sets of towels, still exploring color as I go along.  I took a short break from color to weave some 4-shaft twill towels using 12/2 unmercerized cotton in a natural color.  The pattern is a fancy twill and the resulting towels are soft and subtle.  I also wove a few of these with 10/2 cotton.

All of the other towels have been various combinations of colors.  They are all woven using 10/2 mercerized cotton in warp and weft, sett at 30 epi.  They are threaded to a variety of 8-shaft point twills and the tie-up is a 2-2-1-1-1-1 twill.

It is fun to combine different colors for these towels.  I typically use a picture as inspiration, but not always.

The next set of towels on the loom are in shades of blue.