Sheep to Shawl

I wasn't really supposed to be spinning alot as I'd pulled a muscle and was supposed to let it rest. However, I got the medical okay if I followed certain conditions. I was part of the Guelph Handweavers and Spinners Guild team for the Sheep to Shawl competition at the Royal Winter Agricultural Fair, which competed in the Sheep to Shawl competition last weekend. It was a huge amount of fun and an equally huge amount of work.
We had a lovely hand dyed warp on the loom with very fine wool. We had to spin a fairly freshly shorn Ramboulet fleece (or so we think) to match not only the warp but each other's spinning. We had 4 hours to make a shawl that was about 24 inches wide by 72 inches long, not including fringes. It took us almost 3.5 hours to get the necessary wool spun and a few more minutes to get the shawl off the loom, checked over and on the judges table. We scored 97 of 100, garnering perfect points on the display ( it was awesome, interactive and beautiful) and losing 1 point each for timing ( we were the 2nd shawl on the table by a time of 1 minute), the spinning and the weave structure. The shawl was woven in a plain twill, with undulating stripes from grey to blue. It was soft, draped well and was so pretty. Our shawl won 1st place. We won a nice monetary prize for our guild and each received a pretty rosette to commemorate the occasion. It was so much fun!

sewing and cattiness

I've been sewing, and sewing, and sewing and sewing. By hand. I don't find spinning fine yarn tedious, no matter how long it takes to fill a bobbin. I don't find any process of the weaving tedious, although I do get a little impatient sometimes near the end of a project when I wonder why I put such a long warp on. Handsewing though, I find to be on the somewhat tedious level. It looks nice to have the handfinished seams, but this gown seems to be taking longer than any other I've done. No pictures yet because.. I'm still sewing the darned thing.

Today the cat jumped on my hubby at dinner time and stole a chicken leg right off of his plate. If the dog did that, he'd be told no and not allowed to eat the food. He ( the dog) is much too well behaved to steal off someone's plate. He just waits patiently while drooling on your knee. Did the cat get told no? No! Instead, hubby let him lick the chicken and then peeled off a little bit of meat for him. Can you say spoiled rotten cat?

Mad about Madder

I've been playing with madder again! This time I used madder roots from the garden. I cleaned them off and poured water over them. After soaking for a few minutes, I noticed that the water was quite yellow. I poured that water off and put fresh water over it. After a day or two, I noticed that my pail of soaking madder was bubbling. As long as the pail had a bit of a fermenting happening, I was fine. After about two weeks though, it looked like something solid was forming. That was my cue to heat it slowly and buzz it through the blender a bit to make the larger roots into smaller bits. I kept the dye vat temps below 75C and mainly kept it at about 65C ( 150 F or so ). I also checked the PH and popped in a few pinches of baking soda to get the dye vat a tad more alkaline when it started looking brownish/orange. That dragged it back to the red side. The pic shows the carded batts to be a tad pinker than they really are. Still I'm happy with madder red. It is a pretty colour.

So far from madder I've gotten a range of colours including rusts, oranges, salmons, corals, reds, maroons, pinks and plums. Phew! That is a mighty versatile plant root!

Not only that but I've harvested a goodly number of madder seeds this fall that are almost dry and ready to share!

Kitty Pictures

Such a cute kitty, wrapped up in wool.






No, he's not sleeping. He's terrorizing the fabric. He attacked it and held it between his front paws, while biting the wool and rapidly batting his hind paws on it. Not quite so cute, but he doesn't use his claws much when he does this. Just playing as he absolutely loves wool.. roving, fresh off the sheep and obviously, freshly woven fabric. I can't fault him there. I totally agree with him.

Now the cat is in my colour samples. I had them out to pet them and drool. It seems that he wanted to do that as well. The moment the wool was out of it's bag, the kitty was in the middle of it. I guess though, he is the right kitty for this family. I can't imagine having a kitty that hated wool.

Madder again

I believe in the dye gods. My friend Karen says they are dye goddesses. That I can believe most of the time, except when it is obvious that Loki has been up to tricks again. His antics show mainly when I start dyeing with madder. I of course decided to do up a quick madder dye vat ( is there a quick dye vat?) and was going to only do 60 grams of wool to try for that red. I've gotten 240 grams so far, using the exhaust vats and I think if I really wanted more pale pink, I could get another vat or two before it totally exhaust. The first round gave me the dark purple, which was a bright and scary fuchsia before it dried. I realized that my madder vat was on the alkaline side, so I started adding capfuls of vinegar until it tested more neutral. I know that an acidic madder bath will get you orange and I didn't want that. My second try gave me red, albeit a tad on the purple side with successive tries were pink. They are pretty colours and I was thrilled with the results.

After this weekend's rains, I was able to dig some fresh madder. One three year old plant and two year old one. The two year old plant was in a garden bed which was really well prepared. It had larger roots than the three year old plant. I rinsed them well and took off all the new shoots which were surprisingly orangy yellow. Then I soaked them for about 5 minutes and realized that the water was bright yellow. I quickly strained the roots and tossed that first soaking water. I really didn't want lots of yellow pigment. The plastic bucket that I'm using to soak them had a yellow stain where the water reached already. Of course, this is a holiday weekend here and all the stores are closed, so I'm unable to get more distilled water. I wanted to use distilled to get rid of any effect that chlorine might have, since our city water is well chlorinated. Instead I had to boil water which I've been told would remove much of the chlorine and the resulting soaking water is reddish now. Phew... I don't want another orange madder vat!

Almost done

Here is what the back beam looked like when I started this project. Yesterday I went on a weaving binge. I wove and wove and wove.... I did have to start using bits and pieces. As well, I used some light grey icelandic wool, blended with black and darker grey shetland to mix in with the last bit. I've been weaving alternate threads. Luckily I did a pretty good job of colour matching so it doesn't look out of place.
I got a fair bit done and now am starting to see that light at the end of the tunnel. Who knew though, that one could get sore muscles from weaving. Throwing shuttles and treadling use a bunch of muscles I was only slightly acquainted with before!This is what the back beam looks like now. Woo Hoo, I know I'm getting close to the end.

Will I miss this mega project? I don't think so. I like the planning of the projects, which includes researching it. I like the playing with the material, be that spinning the fibre or warping the loom with purchased threads. I like all aspects of dressing the the loom and possibly the only part of weaving that I like a little less, is the last metre or two of a project on the loom, when I get a little impatient to see it off the loom. Then I can play with it some more by finishing the fabric or starting a new project. Please notice that I've said nothing about fringing. I'm not fond of fringing by hand as it wears your poor finger tips to nubs.

Still Weaving

I'm still weaving. Turns out it is a huge amount of weaving. Somehow I thought it would go a little faster than it is. I think it is like watching your pot boil. Whenever I check my back beam to see how much is still there, it looks like I've done nothing! I am however, almost out of spun yarn, so I must be accomplishing something. I had hoped to have it off the loom today. I'm thinking more realistically another week or two, if I'm lucky. It seems to be alot of weaving. I still love the colour though. I've caught myself petting it time and again.