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February 29, 2020

The end of many things

A stupid spammer hit my blog comments so I had to change some of the settings.  My apologies if it's a bit inconvenient, but spammers... ugh!

 The Weaver and Spinner guild challenge for the winter and spring was to choose a holiday card, take some colours from it and make something.   The card I received from my daughter this year was white with black and red.   As I didn't have any black thread on hand, I chose to spin instead of weave.   Here is what I came up with.  Black, Red and white Merino, carded into rolags and spun with a long draw.  It's a fluffy, airy yarn.  It was a fun project.
 I cut the pickup inkle project off the loom at 84 inches.   I could have done another 10inches maybe.  It would have taken a bit more effort for iffy results.  There is a lot of take up on the grey, skinnier threads and not quite as much on the thicker red threads.   Every once in a while, there was a hiccup in the pattern and the non-picked up threads would show in the wrong place, or pop up where it shouldn't and that was despite re-weaving it.  By the last couple of repeats, it was obvious that the tension differences were just becoming a bit of a regular issue when weaving.   So, instead of letting myself get frustrated, I chopped it off the inkle loom.   This is not a project to get frustrated over.

The ramie is spun and plied.  I have a bin for my spun cellulose fibres.  This includes cotton, linen, ramie and bamboo.  One day, I'll have enough of any one of those fibres to weave something.  Until then, I just keep tossing in spun skeins.

I'm whipping the edges of the hooked rug and I'm looking for a new project.  Hmmmmm, what to do next?

2 comments:

  1. I am a bit at a loss right now myself... finished the cal blanket, finished two gifts, but now I'd really like to do a bigger project (with less sewing involved!) - and yet I cannot bring myself to decide what to do next. everything just seems to fiddly to bother with! so - I am using leftover fine cotton to make dishcloths:)
    anyway, I've only ever spun undyed ramie top, so luckily no dirty fingers. I love how it feels, a bit of lustre, but not like silk. a bit like cotton, but much easier to spin... I only knit a lamp shade though, maybe I should spin some more for a summer sweater or t-shirt?
    and I love the look of your ribbon - very celtic in style? I don't see mistakes in the photo either:) many moons ago I bought cards for card weaving, but apart from a brief workshop with the olg I haven't done anything with it - so far:( too many pots on the fire?:)

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  2. One can never have too many dishcloths! I've a list of projects to do, and I need to choose just one to get started. Sometimes that is the hardest part, lol. I think ramie would make a lovely t-shirt.

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