Waffle Weave

In our guild room, there is a bag of warps, wound off and ready for a project.  While one was a salvaged warp, from a project gone awry, I'm not sure anyone remembers what the project that the other warp was intended for.  I think it is 2/8 cotton and a call went out for possible projects.   I suggested waffle weave wash cloths, and was suddenly expected to put this project on the loom right away!  Yikes!  I have to say that if I'd thought it through and realized that any suggestion would be followed through with the request to put it on the loom immediately, I probably would have kept quiet like the rest of our guild.    It sort of startled me since only one person seemed to consider that the suggestion had any possible merit.

Regardless, having never woven waffle weave of any kind before, I decided that I should try it first, before I dressed the loom for a group project.   Most of our 4 harness looms are counterbalance looms and waffle weave it a bit of an unbalanced weave, so a bit trickier to weave on one of these, though by no means difficult or impossible.  Just have to compensate a bit on some of the picks.  Besides, I'm pretty slow at dressing a loom, tending to work in short sessions, with breaks in between, so if I included travel time, it would take a while and I wanted to be certain that I had it all down pat.

Lessons learned -
First, after doing the math, I realized that in no way would that stray warp be wide enough.  It would need at least another 100 threads or more.

 Second, after checking all sorts of different projects descriptions, I used a sett of 20 for my 2/8 cotton,  but after weaving, I think that a sett of 24 would have made a nicer fabric.  Not that there is anything actually wrong with this cloth, but the waffles would have been tighter and the floats smaller.

Third, machine hems totally rocked on this project.  It saved so much time and looks just fine.

The wash cloth went through the washing machine and came out quite lovely.  It will be very useable.  I'm to to whip up a quick batch of soap and maybe a few candles for a quick gift for the girls in the family.

Fourth, what was I thinking?    I put on 5 1/2 yards of this stuff.  I'm on face cloth number 4 and it looks like there are still miles of warp on the loom.... gah...

Fifth, I really want a loom with more harnesses .   I am hunting around for a reasonably priced 8 or 12 harness loom.  Ya know,  'cause a gazillion yards of repetitive face clothes isn't daunting enough!

Finished Scarves and Spinning

Wool/silk scarves with painted warps.

 The scarves are off the loom :).  They are a wool silk blend, with hand painted warps using weak acid dyes. These were the very old mixed dyes that, despite being a bit gelled and flakey, worked just fine.   I wouldn't use the old dyes for precision dyeing like percentages or specific colours, but for a random dyeing experiment like this, they were fine.

50% alpaca/50% merino blend

Carol gave me a lovely bit of alpaca carded batt that she had gotten back from her processor as unsuitable for spinning.  However, it's lovely stuff and here I've blended with Merino to make a 50% Alpaca/50% Merino blend.   I just weighed out 10 g of alpaca and 10g of Merino and after 2 passes on the drum carder they were nicely blended and awesomely soft batts.  They spun like butter, save for an occasional little nep or fluffy bit.   This fibre is definitely a handspinners delight.   I had some natural black Merino in my stash, which wasn't actually black, but a dark brown and it fit perfectly with the brown Alpaca.

Kevin doing his annual autumnal plant inspection.

I have a lemon and a time tree which spend the summer out on the deck.   Sadly, the nights are cool enough now, that it was time to bring them back in.  Kevin always find some sort of interesting poking about when that happens.   The lime tree is a key lime and is loaded with fruit!   I sometimes wish I had  gotten a persian lime, because they are thornless and the key lime is quite spikey, but it also seems to be a prolific fruit bearer, so I can't really complain.   They lemon tree however, came with a notice that it would never be a tree, due to how they'd pruned it, so it is just a messy little thing.  It looks like someone just stuck a branch in the ground and it rooted, but it bears lemons and that in itself is pretty awesome.

Today's Excitement

Look what followed me home today!  It's small, supposed to be very fuel efficient, has the few options I wanted and is a pretty peacock blue.    Hopefully it will be easy to spot in a parking lot, amid the sea of grey and brown cars which seem to be so popular locally.

It really is small though and a huge difference from driving the truck.

  I have some pretty awesome friends who didn't mind picking me up when I was vehicleless, out here in the boonies, but it will be nice to be able to pop out when I need to run an errand or want to visit, without having to beg a ride or get up stupid early to drop people off at work, just to have a vehicle for a few hours. 

My sweetie found double roll of charming flocked, metallic gold wallpaper while routing around in the basement, fixing up some weird wiring in the kitchen.   He thinks there might be a second roll hidden away.   You sure can't find paper like this too many places anymore. 







 Drywall is going up in the kitchen...yay!!!!  It's half up and the rest of the framing is almost complete.    Next up is the vent for the range hood.   When this was first planned, we weren't sure how the outside wall would need to work.  Cabinet placements and sizing were supposed to make a difference in how everything would fit together.  However, with minor adjustments, the outside wall will now have a decent amount of insulation in it.   That is a good thing too :)

Painted warp scarf progression

The second scarf was a red, orange and black warp.  While the black looked quite black while still chained and in choke ties, when it was spread out on the loom, it definitely showed as various shades of grey.   I used a dark grey weft, which really showed the colour transitions nicely.

The next scarf however, was a lighter pink and black.  I tried the dark grey again and after a few picks, I took it out.  It made the scarf heavy looking and totally drowned out the pink.  The lighter grey looked awful as well because neither the pink or the black showed up with it.   After several more tries, I realized that I didn't have anything which would look good.  So I did the math (incorrectly so it seems, but it worked out okay anyway), wound off a couple of skeins.  I decided to do a pink for the pink /black warp and a blue for the next scarf which would be blue/green.

I actually did the math for the required colours and immediately forgot that the blue was a 2% solution.  The dye struck almost immediately, so I was rushing around madly, winding off an extra skein of yarn, squishing water through it to wet it and tossing it in the dye vat to take up the last bit of blue.  I ended up adding a few more mls of blue dye, just to deepen it a bit and both colours work with the blue/green scarf - phew.

The pink really was a lovely accident though.  The solution for a medium pastel, was darker than I'd anticipated, so had to do the same frantic skein winding as I'd done with the blue.   However the shade of pink I got from the second skein was exactly spot on the pink in the scarf warp.  Yay!

The math - I calculated the number of inches I'd need - then added about 25% and still came up just a tad short.   Luckily there are ways of using 2 different colours in one warp, so I managed.

The black warp sections show up better in real life than in my photo.

This scarf is gorgeous.  The green sections show nicely and the blues fit well with the warp blue.   Boy, will I have a lot of fringe twisting to do once these are off the loom.

Painted Warp Scarf Project

Soooooooo...........  the painted warp is finally on the loom.  This is a project which has so far, taught me many lessons.

First, I decided to put on a dummy warp and decided to do a sample scarf with it, to check the weave structure.  I was going to use a diamond twill, but in a flash of inspiration - thanks to Debbie and the last guild program - I opened up my copy of A Handweaver's Pattern Book.  I gave myself just a couple of minutes to scan through the drafts, find one which used both the required number of pattern threads I'd originally planned for and looked like it would work for a scarf.   Once done, I dug up some yarn to use for the sample warp, only once I actually compared it with my wool/silk blend, there was too much of a different in grist to use.  The only yarn I had close was a skein of in hindsight, too stretchy sock yarn.

I pushed on, winding the warp and when the written yardage wasn't quite as much as was indicated on the label, I added in a few threads of another nicely contrasting yarn.  I dressed the loom and wound on that warp and realized then that the elasticity of the yarn would need to be accounted for when I set the weft threads.  After all those rugs, beating lightly to place the threads, was an interesting task.

The scarf wove off quickly, although I miscalculated with the stretch and wove a long scarf and left only a barely workable amount of loom waste for tying on.

I used a deep grey for the weft which worked nicely with the colours of the sock yarn.  I think I got the beat down quite nicely, considering I had to guess as the finished scarf is really quite nice.

I went to tie on the painted warp -  that was a fiasco.   First, I had started my painting at the wrong end, so that the cross was at the front and not with the loom waste!  So I tied on some lease sticks, and wound the warp onto the front beam.  I was using packing sticks, but not only did I wind the warp on a bit of an angle, but didn't use enough packing sticks, so when I went to tie on the warp, there was a different of about 18 inches from the left to the right sides of the warp.  ARGH!

With unwinding, a few choke ties and patience, I got the warp on the loom, with little problem.

Now I'm weaving this lovely pastel scarf.  Those colours sure looked more intense when they were wet and when they were side by side.  However if you're a pastel person, or really like subtlety, this scarf would be for you.  It might be the last pastel anything I ever weave though.

Draft is 2 Fold M's and O's from The Handweaver's Pattern Book - Marguerite Porter Davison.  With 3 different suggested treadlings, I have options to play with.

Carol's Alpaca Days

This little girl was humming away in the barn.

 One of our guild members, Carol, has a small herd of alpaca.  This weekend was her open house.  While a small event, it was loads of fun, with family activities, treats and of course friendly alpaca.  The farm is extremely beautiful, in a gorgeous setting.  This would have been a fun, family activity.

I was  spinning and was set up in the garage.   It was a great place to spin, with lots of light.  The day was breezy though and it came right through the back door and kept blowing the fibre off the table and out to the driveway, where it rolled around like tumbleweeds until it could be retrieved.

Look at that gorgeous red/brown colour and cute facial expression.

This girl spent the afternoon eating apples from the tree.

 Carol had gotten a huge bag of processed fibre back from the mill and I had the opportunity to spin some of it for my demo.   I didn't get a photo of it, but just saying that this fibre was rejected and if it was, I was curious to know why.  The black was from an older animal, so it was a little coarser, but still it was a dream to spin.  The brown left me puzzled though as I could see no discernable reason why it wasn't deemed suitable fibre.  They were both really nice to spin and made awesome yarn.


   I met some super nice people.  I was able to spin some lovely fibre and meet some precious beasties.  It was a super fun day that I'd certainly do again.

Interesting colour experiments

The blue jersey rug is off the loom.  The little bits of colour were added randomly.  I kept the balls of colour behind me and just grabbed one whenever I wanted to put in a shot of colour.
I liked working with the jersey fabric strips.   I pre- stretched the strips when I cut them and then again when I wound them on the shuttle.  I think this helped mitigate any stretching problems.
I shudder to think how boring this rug would have been without the little shots of colour.   The fabric had some uneven fading, which has made for a nice variation of blue tones in the background.  It makes the rug look rippled, when it is quite flat.

I decided to wind a long warp for some scarves.  I used a wool/silk blend which was a natural white colour.   My goal was really just to use up some old dyes and try my hand at painting the warp.   I wound off a 10 yard warp which was calculated to give me 4 scarves.  

I set up my work space out on the deck to help contain any mess.  I didn't think it would be a good idea to have my big girl camera out on my work table while it was covered with dyes, a bucket and a jar of water, so instead I stuck my camera in my pocket so that I could take photos of the process.   I neglected to actually take the phone out of my pocket for any photos at all!  

I spread old newspapers on the table, laid out a strip of plastic wrap and put the warp on top of it.  The warp had been soaked in vinegar, water and a tiny bit of dish soap for a couple of hours.  I have synthropol someplace, but in the kitchen reno, I've obviously moved it to a hidden location.  Either way, dish soap or synthropol, 1/4 tsp is all you need to help with the wetting of the fibre.

My dyes were really old.  Some were gelling and separating.  I did a lot of shaking and mixing and ignored any flaking. I took no notes nor did I accurately measure since I wasn't sure if my dyes would work the way they should, being that old.   I was pretty sure I'd get some colour though.  The results might just not have been what I totally expected.

 The only bit which was a very nice surprise was the red/light orange/black combination.  It was supposed to be a dark green instead of black, but I grabbed the wrong jar of dye.  However, the red and black ran into the orange, darkening it enough that it no longer looked like a rendition of the German flag.   I really watered down the black, so it should have been a much paler grey.   Regardless, the colours are gorgeous and I'm really happy with the outcome.    I'm looking forward to weaving this set of scarves.    Now to finish up the rest of the rug warp on the loom and re-adjust the project queue.