Old and New

I got one towel and a bit woven with the #10 linen singles before I threw up my hands in frustration. Well a little bit frustrated anyway. The original textile sample with this weave structure was found in wool. The way the pattern was weaving meant as I wove more length, the tension of the threads with the floats kept getting looser and looser. Because there was little take up (the amount of thread used up by bending over and under each shot of weft), it was getting harder and harder to weave. I figure out that this was the problem when I ended the first towel and did a bit of tabby weave in the hem area, so it would be smoother and easier to hem! After a few inches into the 2nd towel, when it was becoming apparent that I wasn't actually spending any time weaving as it was getting less enjoyable with each shot of the shuttle I decided to make a change.

I was going to cut off the first towels and rethread the whole kit and kaboodle with a new pattern. Before I could change my mind, I grabbed the scissors and off it came. The linen is now - finally 'cause it took a while - threaded in a similar huck pattern with tabby bordering each set of huck patterns. This seems to allow the tension to get back to normal before I start the next pattern picks. Of course I won't know for certain until it is off the loom and wet finished but since the whole thing is now an experiment, I'll get what I get. At least I'm back enjoying the process. Next project will be wool though. I think for now my appetite to play with linen is sated.

I finished up the small naturally dyed skeins that I'm bartering for a riveted steel pot. I'm planning on using the pot to dye wool in on open fires. I thought it would be a good demo tool as well as another aspect of dyeing to play around with.

Then I got a call that the fleeces I'd sent to Wellington Fibres were done. They do an amazing job of processing fleeces although because of that it does take a while to get them back. These were dropped off at the end of June '08. The fibre is nice but full of chaff or vm (vegetable matter). They were lambs fleeces from Earendel Farm's Grainney and Foote - well half of Foote and all of Grainney or was it the other way around? They came back really nice though still pretty heavy with vm. At least it is fairly easy to pick out once I actually put my glasses on and can see it. This one partial bobbin has taken me more hours to spin that I'd expected. It's pretty thin though and right now the aim is a new weaving project sometime in the future, whenever I get it all spun up.