While my summer sewing plans are perhaps overambitious, I have a conference coming up in May that I’d like to have a couple of outfits ready for. It’s being held in a warmer climate than the one I inhabit, so I’m not quite sure what conditions to expect, but I should be able to cover my bases with a couple of sundress-and-shrug ensembles.
Planned Outfit One is a Hazel in a rose-colored linen. Current challenges include moving the bust darts and increasing the back width. (I am a very beginner sewist, so this is requiring an embarrassing amount of effort.) I’m planning to top it off with Aynia in both the recommended yarn and the recommended colorway (!), which is the very light silvery blue pictured below left:
Planned Outfit Two is a Crepe in an indigo batik print, to be trimmed with gold bias tape and covered by the Wispy Cardi in the gold Malabrigo above right. This colorway was the closest match I could find for the very specific shade of yellow I imagined. I’ll save this knit for last, since I should be able to wear the Aynia with both dresses. (It will also be nice to knit on the plane.)
In other news, I’m scrambling to finish my Flemish(ish) garb for upcoming SCA events, and a weaving project for a very patient friend. The latter project has been a tangly mess in the corner for a depressingly long time. I finished my other commisison, however, and here’s a glimpse:
I also finished my post-holiday present-to-myself project. It sat on the needles a bit longer than intended, but I’m quite pleased with the outcome. It’s a Cowboy Cowl modified to include the cable from the Hayden Shawlette. I had only a vague plan for finishing off the cable until I actually knit it, but this seemed to work:
Of course, my favorite part is on the back.
Dorset buttons!
And one day, when all these projects are under control, I’ll be able to tidy up.
I have a feeling that this series may be somewhat drawn out.
However, the first fitting shell is on my (new!) dress form, who needs a suitably silly name to compensate for the fact that there’s a disembodied torso in my living room. Here she is modelling my in-progress Flemish garb:
Yes, there are going to be more layers.
I finished the first of two commissions that have been hanging over my head for a while. I’ll put up some photos in my next post. In the meantime, would you like to see who I got to hang out with this weekend?
I thought you would.
MILK PLEASE. (Or rather, milk substitute: this little girl is a bottle lamb.)
These sheepies live at Shelburne Farms, a lovely and special place. On rainy mucky city days like today, I feel better knowing it’s there!
I’ve been sick the past few weeks, which has had me mostly miserable on the couch with hands idle. I have been working on a few small things, like Dorset buttons and cotton spinning:
And I’m sampling laces for a reproduction Elizabethan hood:
Other than that, things have been as quiet craftwise as they ever are around here. But once I’m up and around again, there’s a laundry list of things to be done, so I am trying to enjoy the break while waiting for spring to arrive.
(I’ve been sitting on this post for ages, trying to take new photos with better lighting. Since it’s February, I’ve given up.)
My friends and I talk about yarn the same way normal people talk about food.
“I broke my diet again, but the MadTosh was too delicious to resist.”
“Eh, it’s little bland, but the texture is unbelievable!”
Perhaps not coincidentally, one of my more frequently used comparisons of weaving and knitting is as follows:
Knitting is like cooking. You’re always moving around, keeping track of five things at once, and it makes me immensely frustrated. (Note that this aspect of knitting is less true the more I practice. I’m getting better at the juggling act.)
Weaving, on the other hand, is like baking. All the hard work is at the beginning, and once everything is set up and running smoothly, it’s only a matter of time before you have a delicious finished good.
I suppose spinning is equivalent to making tea, all soothing and repetitive. And bobbin lace… is confectionery?
Sorry. I’ll quit torturing the metaphor. Here’s a guinea pig.
It’s time for the annual Christmas gift roundup, but it’s going to have to wait until after the workshop I’m giving this weekend to my weavers’ guild. In the meantime, here’s a sock I accidentally made.
Oops.
Started just this weekend and finished… yesterday. Amazing! I gave those tiny Addi Turbo circulars a try, and I don’t think I’ve ever knit anything (certainly not a sock) so quickly.
Between twisting fringe, washing fleece, learning to crochet, digging through dormant works-in-progress, winding warps, and planning new projects, this past month has been a busy one. A few days ago, I made a happy discovery while idly browsing Etsy*: the manufacturer of my baby loom! It’s a toy loom from Brio, and at least one other adult weaver has succumbed to its charms. I wasn’t able to identify it before because one supporting beam, which would have been marked Brio, is missing. It seems that later versions of this loom used a rigid heddle, but mine is definitely an older model.
In fact, it brings back hazy memories of a toy loom I had as a child. Maybe it’s the same one.
Once I knew its manufacturer, I could find a PDF version of the instruction manual. To my astonishment…
…it folds! When I saw it in the weaving shop, I tried to collapse it for transportation, but when nothing moved, I assumed the loom wasn’t made for it. Actually, it was just that the screws on which the braces rest had rusted, and just needed to be loosened slightly.
Now it can come with me wherever I go. Or, at least, places that my Fanny couldn’t. So, with an upcoming weekend trip in mind, I warped it up again. Using a finer yarn than last time meant tying another 40 string heddles and using two ends per dent, but as a bonus, this made the log cabin threading a piece of cake. The yarn is Lion Brand 1878, which is a new one for me: a review on Amazon compared it to Harrisville Shetland for half the price, and so far it’s very nice, though I did find one knot and one weak spot in the eighty meters I wound for this mini-project. I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out.
Meanwhile, the laboratory kitchen was taking on a suspiciously sheepy smell, so I could justify spending time happily washing fleece in lieu of dishes. Below, a smidgeon of California Red and Targhee from the Spinning Loft:
Fresh fleece is so delicious and squishy that I’ve contemplated using it as a pillow. Or just sticking my face in it.
The Targhee has a good bit of VM, so I’ll be spending some time picking by hand while plotting to build a box picker. I think I’m going to card the stuff and spin it before dyeing, but I did toss some commercial BFL roving into the dyepot. Having done all the samples for my gamp at once, now I’m focusing on one dyestuff at a time.
In addition to deepening my knowledge of natural dyes, it’s much easier to coordinate.
Since it’s been a while since my last post, and the holiday season looms, there’s plenty else in the works: a hairpin lace shawl, a crocheted hat, a knitted sweater, and a 600-end Mystery Warp, all to be revealed in due time. But for today, I’ll leave it at that. Hope you’re having a nice November!
I’m still down with the knitting bug. (This bout is lasting a while.) I made myself a cowl this week out of the yarn rescued from that ill-fated blue mitten:
I grew up calling these “neckwarmers” and thinking of them as fairly hideous cold-weather necessities, but now I can see why they’re so popular in the knitting community. It took just a few days of here-and-there knitting time, and it’s a cozy, useful item. Meanwhile, the knit-along shawl is still knitting along.
This was supposed to be done by the end of September, but I’m, uh, reevaluating my goals.
Otherwise, small-loom weaving has been the norm around here lately. I need to squirrel away my yarn for the winter! Here’s the naturally dyed color gamp that I mentioned planning in my last post, woven on the resurrected table loom:
There’s enough warp left to weave a couple more of these.
I also set up the inkle loom for some tablet weaving. This was the first kind of weaving I learned, so it brings back fond memories, and the potential weave structures boggle my mind all the more now. I’m using a threaded-in draft from the Candace Crockett book that leaves some of the holes empty, producing interesting results. Photos to come!
Not much of note in the dyeing and spinning departments, though I picked up some indigo powder at Vermont Sheep & Wool, and I’ll be experimenting with that as soon as I get my hands on some washing soda. I’ve also been fiddling with some of my dyed wool on the spindle. But there’s another new project I’m excited about: learning to make hairpin lace! I got a secondhand Jenkins lace loom and am trying to get my hands used to a crochet hook.
I haven’t done much crochet of any kind before, but there are also a few non-lace patterns I’ve got my eye on. One is for a crocheted guinea pig, because of my new furry friends:
Meet the noble and dignified guinea piglets Archimedes and Sir Gawain!
It would be tough to spin their fur, but otherwise, these little guys make the perfect pets: they sit tamely on your lap and make endearing noises while you knit. What could be better on a chilly autumn evening?
You may think I’m kidding, but the fiber arts can lead you down a perilous road. Mostly due to the interesting diversions along the wayside.
See where this stuff gets you?
My friend chopsticknitter has already posted a batch of pictures from the Twist festival in her blog, so I’ll be brief in my review: it was lots of fun, and it has indirectly provided me with more potential blogging content than I know what to do with. In terms of fiber, I stocked up on Shetland, Cheviot, alpaca, and even a bit of bison. (For the sake of my dignity, this indecent haul will not be pictured.) My favorite, though, is the tiny sample of qiviut that is now occupying my supported spindle. This is shockingly beautiful stuff.
The skein in the background is the delicious Handmaiden Camelspin in Pewter, which is on its way to becoming a shawl for a real-life knit-along.
Of course, I have to mention our trip to the loom room. After the greedier other members of my group appropriated the most exotic looms, I found my way to a Fanny just like my own, but pre-warped and conveniently unattended.
Delighted weaving ensued.
We also passed a room that had clearly been occupied by a dyeing workshop, which would have been fun to take. I’ve always been fascinated by natural dyeing. After getting back from the festival, and having picked up all that springy Cheviot, I wound off a batch of ten-yard skeinlets for my schemlets.*
The results of my headfirst dive into the dyepot: lots of yarn and a mild headache.
To date, I’ve experimented with lac, madder, cutch, logwood, pomegranate, turmeric, chamomile, and some rather unsightly black beans. Aside from the lac, these are all plant dyes. (Lac dye comes from a bug-produced resin, making it less icky than dyeing with cochineal, which involves grinding up bugs. I might not mind, but my significant other is concerned that we might find dried insects scattered around the kitchen. He’s probably right.) Anyway, I think the sample skeins will be perfect for weaving a color gamp or two.
“But, tintinnael,” you may ask, “how will you weave any gamps? Isn’t your loom already occupied?”
Well, yes, it is:
This is the scarf that never ends. Please don’t ask how long it’s been on the loom.
But on Saturday, my mother happened to come across this dainty creature gathering dust in the corner of a weaving shop in Vermont. As soon as I saw it, it was love.
It’s a two-shaft counterbalance table loom, toy-sized but fully functional. I’ve seen similar looms on Etsy and eBay, but usually in worse condition for higher prices. (Worthy of note: this one was twenty bucks.) It came intact with a wooden reed and two functioning ratchet-and-pawl mechanisms on the front and back beams. The only things missing: heddles and heddle bars, i.e., string and sticks. So I spend an hour tying string heddles and hacked some dowels to size. To stabilize my makeshift shafts, I tied the lower bars to one another, going underneath the roller at the center of the loom. I’m not sure if this is the originally intended configuration, but it seems to work just fine. And to change the shed, all you have to do is flip the lever on the top of the loom.
Here are some close-up shots of the riggings:
Although it looks delicate, I am pleased to report that the little loom holds up to a good amount of tension. I wouldn’t use it to make floor rugs, but tiny tapestry samples are not out of the question. (Also, I’m careful to take the tension off the warp after every weaving session, a suggestion I read somewhere and have internalized to the point of neurosis. Fellow weavers, is this good practice?)
So, my next project seems likely to be a natural-dye gamp on this little charmer. See how one thing leads to another? There’s no hope for any of us fiber folk.
If you’ve made it this far into my rambling post, you may be interested to see my brand-new Twitter page, also linked from the sidebar to your right. I’m starting to get into the tweeting habit: if you’re there, let me know!
My half-handspun Nightingale adaptation is now progressing nicely. I think the design is more succesful with this combination of yarns, at least on an aesthetic level, but I’m not sure the mittens will fit my monstrously large hands. I’m holding out hope for a bit of blocking magic.
Also on the Coffee Table of Crafting, a small piece of cross-stitch that I made from a kit picked up at the local Highland Games. Making something from a kit led to much rumination on the nature of creativity, and whether I was actually adding anything new to the world, and whether making a project from a kit is the same as using someone else’s pattern and following their yarn specifications, and whether there is any point to changing something just for the sake of changing it, and why it’s easier not to follow “recipes” in weaving (no shaping! …generally), and then– I decided not to worry about it. So here is my Wee Hieland Coo. (I kid you not, that was the name of the kit. This may have played a role in my purchasing decision.)
As it turned out, I did wind up placing my own personal stamp on the project. After a few days of carefully managing every last thread, I misplaced the whole glob of it just as I was finishing the cow’s head. Rather than wait until the weekend to go thread-hunting, I dug into my embroidery box for some close-enough floss. So, this is a blonder Hieland Coo than some– but according to Wikipedia, they come in all shades of orange to yellow! Of course, I found the missing floss immediately after completing the project. (It was stuck between the pages of my mitten pattern.)
Also on the coffee table, another knitting project has mysteriously appeared. I can’t figure out how this happens. I keep telling you, I’m not a knitter!
Socks. This yarn will become socks.
In loom-land, my warp is still… well, with another half hour’s work, I should be up and weaving again.
Now, on to the museum. This is becoming something of a theme on the blog. Last weekend I went to this delightful little museum, which fills up the floor of an old stone church with beautiful stained glass, various artisanal works, and a few artifacts of interest to textile folks:
My significant other thought it was funny to see a glass case full of things that I use all the time. (He’s learning to identify the different tools and even to recognize quality!)
Sadly, there were some errors in the labelling, in both French and English. This cute little artifact was identified as a spindle, though it is, of course, a distaff. I am considering contacting the museum to let them know.
But the real treasure of the visit was from the gift shop:
Yes! A book all about the ceinture fléchée, complete with instructions for finger weaving a number of different traditional designs. I think this is becoming a mini research project of mine. They had a nice example on display, too:
I believe this dates from the early twentieth century, but I’m not certain. Next time I’ll take notes.
Already I’m eyeing my baskets of yarn bits and dreaming of inkle-loom adaptations. But it will have to wait for a bit: tomorrow it’s off to the races, by which I mean the Twist fiber festival, with friends chopsticknitter and starweaving.
And yes, the inkle loom is coming along for the ride.
Alas, the blue mitten is no more. I picked it up again this week and came face to face with a dismal truth: the colors just weren’t going to fly. The colorwork bird was completely indistinguishable.
I wouldn’t fly either if I were that muddy.
Dismayed perusal of other blogs and various media led me to the conclusion that I should have used different colors in the first place. Other possible fixes– say, swapping the main yarn and the variegated yarn– wouldn’t solve the real problem: there just isn’t any contrast in hue or value between most of the colors (while the lime green contrasted rather too enthusiastically).
This time around, I’m trying the variegated handspun on a white background, although I admit that I didn’t rip out the sad blue mitten until I was well into the new version. It’s something to do with potential: I couldn’t bring myself to take apart the old mitten until I was more invested in it being a ball of string than an object, even a flawed one. (Does that make sense? Are you the same way?) At any rate, here’s how the colors look together:
As of this writing, I’m nearly at the end of the thumb gusset, and am pleased to report encouraging results thus far.
Despite my frustrations in the knitting realm, I seem to keep coming up with new reasons to knit. A few days ago I finished the last spinning project that was started during the Tour de Fleece, a hefty skein of 3-ply that’s really a knitting yarn. What would you do with a couple of hundred yards of strongly marled (say not barberpole!), worsted-weight merino?
Spun out of some nifty fiber from Paper and Yarn. Actually, I’ve noticed that it looks really nice sitting next to the rewound blue yarn from the ex-mitten. Hmm…
Otherwise, spinning has slowed down to a more manageable pace. I rearranged the living room furniture last weekend so that I have a Weaving Corner and a Spinning Corner, but since my supported spindle came in the mail a couple of days ago, I’ve spent rather more time in the Couch Corner.
I have a chained warp sitting on the loom bench, just waiting to be beamed and threaded. I’ll tackle that as soon as I can, since this month may be the calm before the fluffy storm: I’m hoping to go to three of the fall fiber festivals this year, and to join the local weaving guild as soon as mysterious renovations to their location are completed, and embark on myriad small projects. If all goes well, some of them might actually get done.
The Fibermouse 