A New Twist on an Old Design

So, I've fallen in love with this fantastic Mongolian cashmere that I found, as you may have noticed... And I'm also still really intrigued with shadow-weave (most of my bamboo scarves that I made over the past year have been in various shadow-weave structures). I did play around with using the cashmere as the weft in some mixed-twill scarves, and liked that, but I really do enjoy designing/weaving shadow-weave a lot more than just twill. (Who knew I'd ever find a structure that would keep me this occupied!)

So, I decided to give a mixed warp of Bambu7 and the 2-ply cashmere a whirl... I normally sett my Bambu7 at 16 epi (a little loose, perhaps, but I like to give the yarn room to move when I wash it), so that's where I started.

There it is, going into the sink to soak! The black yarn is the cashmere, and I used a couple shades of Bambu as the lighter blues and greys (hard to tell in this photo). It came out nicely after the wash (it's air drying at the moment) and now I'm warping another one to sett at 20 epi instead of 16, just to see how it turns out. I'll keep you posted!

It's fun to be back to weaving a little bit after the busyness of last week... we have Open Studios at WAS this Saturday, but I have nothing, basically, to sell! Eeks! Ah well, it's always nice just to chat with the people that come through, and get some work done, too.

Just Listed... And A New Project On The Loom

I just listed this scarf in my Etsy shop! It's the third and final piece from this warp. A different treadling pattern, of course, from the other two, and it's a bit more green - I used the green in the weft for this one.

I'm also working on a new lacy scarf using yummy hand-dyed laceweight yarn from etsy seller Chewyspaghetti. Since I botched the last one I tried with this yarn, I'm being a bit more careful with this one...


Aren't the colors great?? Gold, mauvey-pink, hints of light purple... She did a really nice job dying this yarn!

It's a hand-manipulated lace structure called Danish Medallions that I've been meaning to try out for some time now. I'm interspersing it with sections of plain weave (otherwise the scarf would take 15,000 hours to weave.) And since spring is rapidly approaching I thought I'd make some lacier scarves... It was actually still light out here at 5:30 p.m. yesterday, wow!

Another Scarf Sold...

Sage green/smokey blue, shadow weave, and it's off to a new home!

I had a disaster in the washing machine the other day... Wove a ruffley scarf using this amazingly yummy silk/wool yarn from Chewyspaghetti and I basically killed it. Wah. I knew the silk/wool wouldn't shrink at the same rate as regular merino, so, it went through twice. And shrank too much. Live and learn! LOL! Happily, I have a bunch of the yarn left and I'm going to use it in a lace scarf, I think...


Poor Ms. Madeline cat has had a tummy ache. The vet had us give her Pepcid A/C - who knew?? She's obviously feeling much more like her normal meow-y, talkative self today. Hooray! We've had enough kitty cat tragedy around here for the next couple of years, thank you very much.

Productive Day

I've actually been productive today! I managed to take photos of the first of a couple scarves from my latest project on my little loom:


It's smokey blue, sage green and kind of an off-white putty-ish sort of color. I even got it listed in my Etsy shop, wow...

I changed my listings, too, to reflect accurate shipping costs overseas. Man, shipping is expensive!! I sent a custom scarf to a lovely customer in Australia - thank goodness it fit into a flat rate Priority Mail envelope (for $11), if I had boxed it up and sent it in a Tyvek Priority Mail envelope as I do for domestic shipments, it would have been $21! That's outrageous!

And, last but not least, I have another ruffle scarf (pink and black this time) getting ruffled in the washing machine as I type.

Can you tell that both kids are actually napping at the same time?? (This is as rare as a Red Sox World Championship, lol!)

Caliente...

Camera emergency!

My much-beloved Olympus C-3030 croaked on Friday morning, much to my consternation. I've been doing tons of research on what to buy, and, in the meantime, my Mum very kindly brought her neat little Canon Powershot A620 along with her on Friday.

So, I managed to take photos of two scarves for the EtsyFAST (Fiber Arts Street Team) January Challenge and post them. January is the last month of the Elements Challenges, and we are creating items inspired by the element of fire. Want to see mine?

First is a full-length scarf in Hayes Primrose shadow weave, using a nice bright red, orange and a soft tan bamboo to take down the heat a little bit. So... Un Poco Caliente (A Little Hot).


I think I'm going to have to redo the photos of this scarf. That's a white towel it's sitting on - you'd never guess it, it looks kind of blue, doesn't it?

And, next, on the same warp, but using a different treadling sequence, a little scarflette. Un Poquito Caliente (A Little Little Hot) (Isn't Spanish fun? Love those diminutives.)


If you want to find other folks' creations for the January challenge (there's some really scrumptious hand-dyed yarns, e.g.), just search for the EtsyFast and/or January Challenge tags on Etsy.

I wound up ordering a Powershot A720 from Amazon - should be here on Wednesday! Can't wait! I really miss having a camera, I hadn't really realized how much I use it...

PlayDoh and a Pillow

I managed to make this pillow last night from some bamboo fabric I made a while ago... It's cute but the corners are really wonky. :) Bamboo fabric is stretchy! And I'm not the best seamstress in the world, so the corners came out goofy.


It's my own fault. I got lazy and didn't put interfacing on the fabric before sewing it up. I learned that lesson! Still, though, I like it, and it was fun to make. Lots of fabric left, I'll give it another whirl - with interfacing this time - maybe tonight.

In the meantime, Conall is down for a nap (hooray!), and Bella and I made her some playdoh. Can't remember where I found the recipe, but it takes about three minutes to make and it actually lasts longer (and has a nicer texture, I think) than the commercial stuff. I cut the original recipe in half, which still makes a nice sized ball. So here's how we make it:

Combine in a small saucepan:

1/4 c. salt
1/2 c. flour
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 c. water
1/2 Tb cooking oil
a couple drops of food coloring

Stir over medium heat until the dough comes together into a ball. Turn it out onto a cutting board and knead a couple of times. Let it cool, and, ta-da! Long-lasting playdoh. We wrap it up in freezer paper and it keeps for quite a long time. She has a great time helping me measure out the ingredients.

Earth Challenge

So, etsyFAST (Fiber Arts Street Team) has a challenge theme each month - and this month's theme is the element Earth. So, I wove this scarf (bamboo again):

And finally listed it yesterday. :) Brown tones, and for some reason the pattern reminds me of crops/fields. Here's a closeup:

The squares appeal to my structured side. I think I'm going to have to play with this structure and more colors at some point. Probably *after* the Weavers Guild Sale!!

WeaveCast and an Unhappy Project...

So, I've been working on a really pretty 8-shaft shadow weave scarf on my big loom. It's made of 18/2 Jaggerspun wool, in teal and silvery grey - quite a nice combination, it has turned out, for a men's scarf. BUT. Sigh. Partway through, I snapped a warp thread. Phooey. Repairable, but I don't like to sell anything with an error like that in it. So, I thought, ok, I'll give it to Carlos for Christmas, he'll like it, he's already looked at it and said he likes it. And then, partway through, my pattern starts getting all out of whack. What on earth?? My treadling hasn't changed, I haven't got the shuttle order backwards (you use two shuttles and to weave shadow weave). Weirdness.

Turns out on of the cords that tie-up my one of my treadles (the 8th one, actually) had come undone, so whenever I opened the shed with that 8th treadle, the first shaft wasn't rising. Hmph. My big loom lives in the basement (poor thing) and the lighting isn't spectacular (poor me, lol), or I might have spotted it earlier, there's a definite weft float in the pattern for about half of the scarf. Argh!

So much for my powers of observation.

I'm going to blame it on Syne Mitchell.

Syne has a wonderful (free) podcast all about weaving - WeaveCast. It's great! Go check it out now!

At any rate, I've been listening to it while weaving this scarf (weaving with 18/2 wool is a slooooow process) and was having such fun listening - and laughing - that I wasn't paying enough attention to my project.

Does this mean I'll leave the iPod behind while weaving this evening?

Nope. :) I'm only through episode 2 of 18!

A Drafting Oops This Time

Good grief. It seems to be my month to make mistakes.

I'm in the midst of another shadow weave project (been a little while since I did one, I was in the mood again). I wound warp, got it on the loom, threaded, etc., and started to weave:

The colors are actually nicer than this picture shows - white, two shades of grey and a steel blue, with accents of deep red running through it. (I realized after the fact that I had unintentionally used my alma mater's colors - red and grey.)

Anyway, do you see the big fat error on the right side? It's not symmetrical. Bugs the hell out of me. This isn't a threading error - I threaded it the way I meant to - it's a drafting error. I needed a mirror image of the left side on the right side and I blew it. Whoops.

Mr. Conall was actually in the mood to nap yesterday. Amazing. After two weeks of never napping more than a half hour (kill me now, lol), he actually took a two+ hour nap yesterday mid-day. WOW. Gave me time to fix this!

So, I unwove (is that a word?), took that little hunk of 11 ends back through the reed and heddles, re-threaded them, tied on again, and started over:



Ta-da! Better, right? Can you see the difference? I sure can, no longer bugging the heck out of me. I think the whole thing will relax a little when it's off the loom and I wash it, but I like the Xs and Os, this is a fun pattern.

Hopefully, that's the end of the mistakes for a little while!

Pretty or Ugly?

So, I finished the pink/white/chocolate Ms&Os scarf - just need to take some photos of it and I'll get it posted here... I actually wound up liking the stripes in the end, they're quite nice.

And, of course, I have a new project on the little loom. I've had some lime green alpaca/silk yarn lying around waiting to be used, so I combined it with some fuschia (sp?)-ish alpaca/silk yarn and black bamboo and am weaving an old stand-by pattern (shadow weave). I think I like it but I haven't decided yet.



Hmmm, the lime looks a little lime-y-er in real life, I think. So, pretty or ugly? :)

A fuzzy scarf and a dead computer...

My poor laptop was on the fritz for quite a while there - we finally figured out it was the keyboard. All sticky and ooky from toddler fingers and Little Girl's (black cat) habit of sitting on it in the winter because it's warm.

Wonderful hubby Carlos ordered a new keyboard for me and replaced it. Hooray for nerdly husbands. Should we take another gander at his nerd score??



LOL! (Not that I should laugh too loud... see my score if you want.)

In the meantime, I finished the first scarf that I'm making with some yummy pink yarn from YarnChef at etsy. That same shadow-weave pattern with the pseudo-circles, I keep using it!

Anyway, I combined the pink merino with chocolate colored bamboo and fulled it a bit unintentionally when I finished it - but I like how it came out.



My only complaint is that it's hard to see the lovely variegation in the pink yarn - I'm currently weaving another scarf in Ms&Os that will show it a bit more, I think...

Although I'm also thinking I'm going to back up quite a bit and start the second scarf over - I don't have enough of the pink yarn left to use as all of the warp and all of the weft, but I do have enough for the warp plus some weft. So, I wove about five inches using the pink as the weft and then switched to a white Zephyr:


The idea is to then duplicate that pink portion at the other end of the scarf. It's ok, but I'm actually thinking of backing up and making pink and white stripes at the ends with white in the middle - less jarring, but I'd still get to use the pink yarn in the weft too. Off to unweave...