Getting ready to wind up the year a bit early...

Well, I'll be away from the studios for a few weeks so before I go I might as well share what I've been up to.

Inked up rubbing plate and brayer

First, I needed some holiday cards and couldn't come up with a design... but I flashed on the fact that I had ink, cards, and some clever rubbing plates from Dharma Trading.  The cards are crappy cardstock from Michaels, but it wipes out my stash of them (yay destash!) and I like the look. I even printed the envelope backs! Here are some of them.

The non-denominational holiday card

 I also did a test print of the linked figures (or dancing girls) but the plate needs a little more work before printing; and I want to figure out the registration tabs I bought. I suspect this will be next year's fun.

The rugs are also off the loom but I'm not pleased with them. The selvedges are wonky, the beat is uneven and I can't get the edges sewn under in a way that is pleasing to me. There's a lot to learn about rug making that does not come naturally just because you can weave other things and I fear that I am not the kind of person who can learn this from a book. I'm looking for a class and have identified a few locations but I'll have to travel and 2024 is looking pretty busy! Meanwhile I'm going to watch Tom Knisely's video and I'm stalking another online class. I'll post photos of the rugs in another post and I think we can expect more rugs in the future. Regardless of my disappointments, once they're on the floor they look good and they're squishy soft and warm to walk on!

On the other projects, 

• What happened to the ikat? I'll give that little disaster it's own post later. Let's just say I rage-cut it off the loom when it became problematic so I have a piece of fabric, not a scarf.
• I'm stalled on the table to figure out the background; I have a few ideas but haven't settled on any yet.
• I'm part way through threading the Yarn Palace Graceful to do a test weave. 
• I'm still knitting on Shiny, which will probably become vacation knitting.
• The sheep shirt is still stalled.

I don't know if I've mentioned in this blog that I'm declaring 2024 a Stashdown year. That's where I use up as much stuff as I can from stash, adding as little as possible to compliment the things I have. I'll also try to complete some semi finished projects. I need placemats and runners for the Lodge, a few more rugs, maybe some tapestry, some towels, yardage, maybe a handspun blanket... I'd also like to work with some of the quilting fabric and some of the garment sewing fabric, and make a dent in my glass and tile stash. Let's see where this goes!

Calculating Sett from YPP for Graceful

A picture of a yarn ball is better
than no picture at all

I've been wanting to try to weave with The Yarn Place Graceful in my stash for YEARS but have been afraid to 'cause it's super thin. It's a "cobweb" weight yarn that very slowly changes color; looking at the colors on the ball leads me to think weaving it on itself would give me some splendid iridescence. I decided to give it a go as one of my looms is empty so I am trying to guess a sett based on YPP... 

The label says 1804 yards/100g (Why? Why? Why do they mix imperial and metric?) 

My rounded calculations gave me 8190 yards/lb, so I went to the Master yarn chart. It's between these two entries but obviously much closer to the 36/2. It's interesting that the recommended setts are the same.

36/2 wool; 8,950 yd/lb (18,025 m/kg); 24, 36, 45

28/2 wool; 6,880 yd/lb (13,885 m/kg); 24, 36, 45

Then I thought of the Ashenhurst formula? It's a way of finding diameters per inch (WPI) including a fudge factor for yarn squishiness...  Here's a couple of lightweight articles on it:

https://notsorigidweaver.com/posts/ashenhurst-calculator/

https://www.schoolofsweetgeorgia.com/avoid-the-wrap-how-to-use-math-to-estimate-yarn-diameter/

Then you calculate a sett number based on interlacements (i.e., closer sett for twill than plain weave as there are less interlacements). Or just follow the suggestions on either of those web pages.

I think I'm going to sample with a turned twill at 36 TPI, I suspect that'll show off the changes in the yarn color nicely.

Left is 30 EPI, plain weave over twill
Right is twill at 35 EPI

Updating with sampling results... I have a turned twill sample at 35 EPI, and turned twill and plain weave at 30 EPI. Both are soft, supple and very very light. DH's comment was "this would make a good summer or fall scarf". I wet finished both by aggressive rubbing it against itself in cold water with soap. The 35 is very appealing to me and the 30 feels just this side of sleazy (yes, that's a weaving term). I'm going to show the samples to friends and to my weaving group and make a decision from there.

I chose the twill to hide the color changes but I'm surprised I don't mind them in the plain weave.

Round poppy table, playing with options..

Poppy's progress

 I've been working on the round poppies table, to sit next to the grill... I finally got the side and edge pieces on and started adding poppies. They are not perfect but I'm pretty pleased with them; I just need one more.

My initial thought was to create an army of leaf shapes and to fill the complete background with that. I still haven't decided if that's how it's going to go or not... but I do want some type of gradient for the background as opposed to 2-4 shades of green put in willy-nilly. I've been thinking a lot about this, and finally decided I needed to mock it up, but how?

After looking at several drawing type programs which were much more complicated than I needed, I landed on just using the markup function from the photos app on my iPad. It won't give me a lot of detail, but right now I'm looking for an overall feel for the piece and I think I can get that with markups. Here's the current three candidates.

I wondered if dark or light was better around the poppies? I don't think I like the dark, it looks like orange flowers on a bush. All of the color fields would be mixed and the edges blended...

The concept here was more mixed, but fading from a light center to a darker perimeter.

The third was  pretty much opposite of the first.

Of the three, I don't care for the first; the second is my favorite; but I haven't ruled out the 3rd, although it'll be hard for me to get the dark center round enough to look right... 

I've got some decisions to make on color and and andemento and hopefully will start on the background later this week! I'm hoping to have the table done as the grilling season fades into the rainy season... Bad timing, I know, but at least I'll be ready for next year!

In other news, I'm 15 inches or so away from finishing the rugs, 1/3 of the way through weaving the ikat scarf from the Mary Z class, working my way through the Shiny sweater, and have carved the lino block but not test printed the "linked figures" ("dancing women"). The sheep shirt is stalled, I was confused about setting in the sleeve but I think I'm good to proceed now.

G&M visited as well and brought a Barbera that G had crafted; it won a Gold medal at a local prestigious competition. The Internet told me the best pairing would be wild boar ragu; I "hunted" some down (finally found some in Dittmer's freezer, labeled both wild boar and feral swine) and used a NYT recipe... served with a simple green salad and polenta. It was excellent. The wine was incredible. The pairing was solid. And such a joy to see G&M.