Random Project updates

 The linsey woolsey is off the loom.  It's been wet finished and heavily pressed.  It's an okay fabric and will make a decent apron.  The reed marks didn't disappear which is a little disappointing.  It makes the fabric look like it has more inconsistencies than it really does.   It's a pretty fabric though and the stripes are fairly even.

I need to cut it up and sew up the apron to be able to tell if I'm really happy with it.

More proof of Kevin's loom antics.  I caught him in the act, again.  I'd meant to cover the warp before I went to bed, but forgot.  This is how I found him in the morning.   I've never seen him do this when there was a project on the loom before, so who knows why he chose this particular one, when it being well executed meant more to me than any of the others I've done since he  "enriched" our lives.  Silly cat!

 We've pulled the spiles from the Maple trees and ended our syrup season.  We might have gotten a few more boilings done, but it's a lot of work.   The melting snow has flooded the fire pit, so boiling the sap down, is a wet, muddy and not such a nice experience.   We've gotten 4 litres and a bit,  so not too bad a haul for our first try.   The syrup is pretty tasty and will likely last most of the year, depending on how much ends up in my daughter's pantry.
 Maple syrup drizzled on oatmeal makes an awesome breakfast!

Gluten free chocolate angel food cake, with chocolate drizzle was today's way to use up excess eggs.  It was pretty delicious, as well as pretty to look at.  I just took my regular angle food cake recipe and substituted 1/4 cup cocoa for an equal amount of gluten free flour.  Instead of lemon flavouring, I used vanilla, so it has a really interesting depth of flavour.   This one was a huge success.

This is how we roll

to steal the words from a currently popular song..
Despite the helper kitty, who is breaking more threads than he fixes, some weaving is getting done.  Okay, Kevin doesn't fix any threads, but he is indeed breaking them as he walks around on the warp beams, parks himself to have a gander outside or just pretends he's playing the harp with the warp threads.
  This photo is of him practicing just as I was about to start dressing the loom.  He's decided that my loom is his personal gymnastics equipment.   It has created a few minor problems with the project, but not insurmountable.  Certainly not as bad as my first few woven inches, when I realized that the tension kept releasing.   Linen thread needs to be kept under an even tension.  The brake kept slipping, releasing the tension, making weaving almost impossible.   After crawling around under the loom, changing tie ups and fiddling about, I checked the Leclerc online info about brake assembly.  

It's a really simple piece of equipment consisting of a drum with a tensioned metal band around it.   There seemed to be only 3 main problems.  The band could have stretched; it looked fine to me.  The drum could have gotten some oil on it or the band could have smoothed the drum.  Either way, my brake drum has a light layer of rust, so it's neither been lubricated in any way nor is it too smooth.   Finally I noticed the turnbuckle in the brake assembly.  It felt loose, so I twisted it around a few times until it was much tighter..  I was really careful about making sure it went the right way and I didn't unscrew it completely.   That would have been a horror story and project wreck at the same time.

However, it worked.  I ratcheted down the brake band and it tightened up perfectly.  No more slipping and my warp is lovely and tight.   I can weave properly and my fabric is nicer.     It's a much nicer experience than the frustration of the loose warp.   Now if I can only convince Kevin that he doesn't want to hang out on my loom while I'm weaving this.

Linsey Woolsey/ Wincey Planning

I've decided on doing some Linsey Woolsey yardage for my 75 hour project.  My rejigging my pattern design, I was able to reduce the hours needed to finish, enough to get close enough to 75 hours for me.    Linsey Woolsey is an old fabric, also called Wincey, which has originally a linen warp and a wool weft.  When it started being made in cotton growing areas in the U.S, the warp was often changed to cotton, depending on what you had on hand.   You can find examples in both tabby or plain weave and basic twills. 

  You can find examples of solid colours, lots of stripes and a few checked type patterns.   The wools were able to be easily dyed while the linen and cotton, were much harder.  Cellulose fibres require a different mordanting process, which I've not yet delved into.    I'm guessing that the checked warps were blends of scoured / not scoured patterning of linen but I've not gotten that far on my research yet.   To combine the linen and wool in the same warp would create inconsistencies in warp tension as the linen and wool threads would stretch at different rates.  However, there is plenty of evidence for horizontal stripes, meaning the wool was dyed.  Protein fibres dye easily with natural dyes, so it's a no brainer.  Look at some of the 17th C pictures and you see skirts/petticoats with stripes, most likely made from using a length of yardage, with the selvedges being used for the hem and at the waist. 

Linsey Woolsey seems to have been used for quilt backs, functional fabrics and for everyday clothing.   I'm making an apron.  It's a bit of a stretch for linsey woolsey as I think a work apron would have been cotton or linen, so it could be easily washed.  A fancy apron would have been silk or fine cotton.  However, I only have 75 hours and I can make a serviceable, if needing to be hand washed apron in that time.  The fabric would be period  correct and I'd use it.  Those are two of the major factors in any project I make... well the will I use it part, anyway.

 On Tuesday night, the guild had spinning night.  It was much fun and camaraderie.  It was good to get out and play with friends.  I took my smaller wheel, which fits in the truck between the jump seats and grabbed a handful of the wool that I wanted to use for the 75 hour project weft.   I was certain it was the fleece from a Shetland sheep called Kinread ... I'm sure I'm spelling that incorrectly.  Anyway, he's a whether sheep ( means he can't breed) with a decent,older style Shetland fleece.  He's not pure white, though his fleece cleans up much whiter than I expected, with just bits of brown and black in him.   I start happily spinning away, wondering why the fleece seemed a little on the coarse side.   In the past 3 days, I've spun 8 hours on the wool not to mention the time I've put in on spinning flax.  My handful of wool was done and I went to get more.  It was a bit that hadn't had all the lanolin washed out of it so I went hunting for the remaining bag of fleece which was in the sunporch, so I could wash up a bit more.  I was certain that it had been labelled, so when I couldn't find it, I grabbed the only bag of fleece which was what I thought, the right colour.  Except that I didn't remember Kinread's fleece being bi-coloured.  In fact, I was pretty certain the only bi-coloured fleece I had was a Romney/Icelandic X, which had some pretty defined colour shifts, from brown to light tan, rather than being truly bi-coloured. 

I started washing and realized that this was indeed the Romney X and not the Shetland.  A quick, more careful hunt, found that the bag marked Kinread, had fallen behind something and was a bit damp.  If I didn't wash it right away, it would be toast.  I've spent my day washing fleece.  Every flat surface with ventilation has been covered with screens and towels and of course, fleece.  I've still over half a bag of Kinread to wash.  As well, I've washed up more of the Romney X, in both the lighter and darker shades. In my first project draft, I was going to dye stripes but had to eliminate that due to time requirements.  Instead, I'll get my stripes naturally, with the fleece and only need the one fleece to boot.

What is the only drawback here?  The yarn on the niddy noddy is the Romney X wool singles.  The bag of skeins is the spun flax or linen singles.  Notice the colour?  Yep, where was my brain when I started this?  I'd wanted a change in spinning colour?  It won't happen until I get to the brown.   On the other hand, the linen will scour up to a much lighter colour and that will make for a pretty patterning on the fabric.