Q3'23 finished things (7/17)

Done:

• 

  Two yards of 1/2" band

  Camp shirt from Kuala Lumpur batik
• Camp shirt from paper yarn
• Afternoon Tea Shawl 
• Sample from Inge Dam class at CNCH
• Card Woven Band
• Knitted Cowl
• Diversified Plain Weave sample for the study group.

I was listening to KQED a few weeks ago and heard an interview with  Jennifer Breheny Wallace, on her book "Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic -- and What We Can Do About It"

The talk focused the effects on our children of expecting constant achievement from them. What occured to me is that the people I'm in weaving classes with are likely the same parents she talks about. These are the people that expect to produce an expert piece the very first time they try a technique and who do not give themselves room for experimentation and the possibility of failure. This is just my opinion, not having read the book, but the same parents that are expecting this of their children are expecting it of themselves. 

Two key phrases resonated with me. One, that our "failures and setbacks become indictments of our worth to ourselves and those around us". The second was the affirmation that "I am not my achievements and I am not my failures."

I bring this up in the this blog because I am often paralyzed by the need to produce the perfect piece and I don't give myself enough room for experimentation. I'm not currently okay with mediocre or failed results, and I think that blocks my growth as an artist.

Given all of that, is counting finished projects on a quarterly basis toxic for me? I don't think so. Failed projects count the same and successful projects, and I need a representation of what I've been up to.  So I'll happily continue with this, but will also try to stop the dithering and get stuff done!

In the Queue for Q4 and beyond:

Weaving:

• 2 rugs on the big loom.
• The piece from the Mary Z class
• A double faced cardwoven band.
  

Knitting:

• Sand and Sunsets
• Shiny sweater

Quilting:

• There are a couple of quilts I'd like to finish. And I want to continue to explore continuous line designs with my embroidery machine.

Sewing: 

• Stash reduction (this would go better if I stopped buying fabric).
• Sheep shirt
• Shirt for Scott

Other:

• There are mosaic and linocuts I'd like to work on. I've started on the dancing girls. And I worked a tiny bit on the table.
• It occurs to me that I have a minimum of 2 nieces, their spouses, and 2 grand-niblings that live in cold climates. Maybe scarves this year? I suspect I'll also have to start thinking about a baby blanket...

Diversified Plain Weave

 I finished my DPW sample... And I'm super glad I just sampled. 

My idea of using a relatively smooth yarn and a boucle yarn of the same color was interesting but I don't think there's enough texture variation to make it cloth I'd like to weave, which is super disappointing as I was in love with the idea.  Plus it was super hard to weave.  If I want to do this, I need to start with a light colored 8/2 cotton that similar to the boucle so there's a color contrast as well as a texture contrast. I haven't included a photo of the fabric with the boucle as it just doesn't show the pattern at all. 

Warp runs side to side (sorry!)

From the right to left, then weft thread is solid in gold and dark green, then a very pale grey, followed by a very unevenly dyed light pastel green; I really like the painterly effect.  Yes I see the threading error. Had this not been a sample I would have fixed it but didn't find it necessary in the sample.

Warp running top to bottom

This is more of the green plus two different pinks with the same blotchy dye job. 

I also sampled with tencel; it looked very similar to the solid samples, with slightly more luster; it felt like it had a better hand for garments. The tencel gives it drape but the cotton gives it structure. The 8/2 cotton may be too thick for the type of garments I'm currently sewing.

It would be interesting to play more with thicker threads (maybe some wools?) to see what that does. Also the idea of using different colored thin threads is something to consider.

I'm proud of the fact that I started with an idea, created a profile draft, then created a full draft from that.  Now that I know a little more about the structure, I can go back to the other draft and see if I want to continue developing that idea.

I did flash on the idea of making bibliographies for the structures we're studying in my study group... and to put those in the Guild library. Here's the first one, for DPW

Too much basil

I harvested the basil while I could and found that I had way too much of it... I made a double batch of pesto but ran out of pine nuts and olive oil, so augmented with pistachios and regular oil. I added in yeast instead of cheese to make it vegan. I don't think the subs helped but I won't use that recipe again, it's not quite pesto... but is a wonderful sandwich spread. I was left with a lot of basil, so next up was basil salt. I found another recipe with a 1-1 ratio of basil to salt; I made it without the dried garlic; I made two batches and have been giving it away! It's been great on veggies and especially on tomatoes.

As for the rugs, I was happily weaving away with more weft and finished a section only to look at it and realize it's too much weft. I'm debating whether to take it out or not.  

Meanwhile, I need to get one of the two looms cleared off to weave for my ikat class, so I've been working on my Diversified Plain Weave sample piece with half drop dots on it... I switched to using leftover bobbins of random 8/2 cotton as weft to see what different colors look like. My favorite so far is some hand-dyed pastels; it has a pleasing painterly look to it. Looks like I need 6-8 inches of weaving in a new structure to be comfortable with it; when I'm comfortable the beat is more even, the selvedges are better, it's more fun. I'll try to complete this and wet finish it before my study group meeting next week.

I have a tencel warp ready and tied to go in the dyepot for the shifted ikat class, I just need to do the dyeing.

Band in progress

Last weekend, I taught a mini-"class" in how to do a continuous warp for card weaving on an inkle loom; a few folks ended up sick, and few had other commitments, and there was one no-show... and A., my co-instructor had car trouble and ended up showing up just as we were starting to weave, but we did it.  I am not a natural teacher and I am not sure I enjoy the process; because of the class size this was a lot more like showing a couple of friends than teaching a class, and a couple of folks went home warped and ready to weave. I wove off the rest of my demo warp today.

Just a note on the colors for the band. The dark color is equal amounts of a dark loden green and a dark brown together... the white is a white and natural. I cannot see the difference in the band; maybe the whites, if you look very closely? I came up with this a few bands ago because I was lazy. By using two seperate cones, I didn't need to wind off a cone of another color. I think it enhances the look of the band, making it look more dimensional. The key is to use colors that are the same value,  and I think similar in color, although I've never tried it with dissimilar colors with the same value.

I also finished the cowl I was knitting; I never wet finished the yarn so am expecting it to draw in a bit with finishing, but that would be fine... I've got plenty of room to drape it attractively!

There's been some plying on the wheel, too... 

Notes on the Rugs

The rugs have been giving me fits... I've never done an rug on the big loom that's weft faced (I've done a couple of small items using Navajo techniquest) so I'm a bit at a loss for the right technique here.

There have been 2 main issues; the weft doesn't always cover the other color and the sometimes the warp, and the center is occasionally dipping giving me an uneven fell line.

I did some research and found another weft faced rug in Summer and Winter, and in the sections where there are multiple colors, both colors are visible. So I assumed I was doing it correctly. I had no idea what happened to my fell line. Yes I could ask for help but without asking a rug doctor to make a house call, or taking a class, I was a bit at a loss.

I had to pull out 1 1/2 inches today to fix an error; it would have always bothered me. After I'd backed out the error, I had the issue of coverage again and started wondering if I was bubbling the weft enough so that there was plenty of yarn to cover...  Also, I was creating a bubble (about 3" bubble) and pulling it down at the center of the weaving. As I started reweaving, with a larger bubble (about 5" bubble) and pulling the bubble down at the 1/3 and 2/3 points, I noticed that the coverage was MUCH better, the uneven fell was cured and the rug was a bit thicker.

I'm going to continue with the last 1/3 of the rug using the new technique and see if I keep getting good results; the rug will be uneven, and I'll put it on the least visible side of the bed and I will celebrate that I've learned a lot about weaving rugs. The 2nd rug will be better and hopefully more consistent.

On the subject of rugs, the other pattern I found has very different tie up and treadling. I haven't investigated enough to determine if it's really just the same old thing presently differently, or if there is a difference between the two... I'm thinking of trying the latter method for the 2nd rug. I'm also thinking of adding a card woven edge to make it smooth and pretty.

I've been struggling a bit with motivation and was afraid with S. travelling that I would lay on the couch, feel sorry for myself, and not do anything. I let myself be lazy-ish Friday, and yesterday I was in a class most of the day but today I did a bunch of stuff. 

• Worked out (yay!), swam and covered the pool. It was cold and now the pool cover will do its magic. I also made a detailed todo list for tomorrow as tomorrow will be complicated.
• Picked out the errors on the rug, wove it forward, and am now ready for the 3rd color. I also made sure that I'm okay with the likely outcome (imperfect).
• Retensioned the diversified plain weave (more on that later) and wove a bit. I'm trying to differentiate the pattern with texture but I suspect this will be difficult and frustrating to weave. I'll do part of the sample with color.
• Cut out camp shirt #4 out of Japanese double gauze.
• Realized I'm dyeing next week so I dug out the two shirts that need overdyeing and am doing a stitched shibori on them. I started the stitching but will likely finish it at knit night tomorrow.
• Searched for and found my lino cutting tools; now I can cut some lino!!!
• Realized that the pattern I came up with for my ikat scarf isn't great for a Shifted Ikat class (it didn't want shifting) so I came up with Plan B based on the Ikat photos from a book I got in Tokyo. I think I'm ready to wind a warp.
• I added all this info to my blog.

Other things going on:

• I'm knitting on a colorful cowl from handspun that will coordinate with my hiking clothes.
  
• I might take a Jane Dunnewald class with T. in color.
• I do want to take the online quilting class in how to use the Bernina pinpoint placement.

I am holding off starting anything else, as this is a lot; I do tend to overcommit; we'll see what happens in the next few weeks, what with S. out of town and me holding down the fort.

Speed Blocking

Afternoon Tea Shawl

I finished my second Afternoon Tea Shawl and forgot it was soaking in the sink... DH noted it was there and I had 30 minutes before I had to leave for an appointment; how long does it take to block a shawl anyways?

The answer is, longer than you expect. I worked through that shawl VERY QUICKLY, called it speed blocking and got fine results. I barely made it to my appointment on time.

I also finished the piece from the Inge Dam CNCH class; I showed photos of it on the loom and it looks about the same off the loom, so no additional photos of that at this time.

Wheely handy

With the Mac cleared off, I folded it up to take glamour shots of the loom "skateboard". It's basically 4 castors on an old shelf, with some stops to keep the loom from moving while wheeling it about. I used a strap on it when I move it at CNCH.  

Finally, I believe I've made it clear that there will be some cat photos on this blog... Owl has found a new place to nap, when I took out a bag of blocking tiles and left the cabinet open. 

A new source of fiber?

CNCH recap

There's the cards, right in
the middle of a piece of twill

I took Inge Dam's class on weaving a card woven band inside a twill at CNCH last weekend... it was fabulous! Her weaving is amazing, her card weaving is amazing, her dyeing is amazing... And the class, of course, was amazing.

Inge doesn't usually do threaded in patterns for her card woven bands, and they're a pain in the ass to set up... getting the card warp on the loom was a little frustrating but the magic was in what happened once both warps were ready...

Her handouts suggest how to space the card warp in the reed; it's wider than card weaving on it's own, so the usually invisible weft showed through in spots; Inge's told us that wet finishing will solve that. The sparser set makes the hand of the card weaving closer to the hand of the background fabric.

And on the fabric side of the reed

Some notes from when I got home; this may not mean a lot to you but it's good reminders for me.

• Adjusted water in the weight bottles so that the fell line was better; ended up being about a liter for 7 cards. I weighed the filled bottles so they were all the same. AM had recommended I put less water in to fix my fell line and it did. My weaving is more even, too. 
• Keep the card warps in line off the back so they don't tangle with adjacent heddles.
• Use a extra card on the table next to you and turn it front (roll forward) or back (roll backward) to remember which way I'm going
• JN said to trim the ends every time you adjust the warps as she finds it reduces tangling. 
• I'm sure I'll think of something else to note...

I did have some issues getting Baby Mac up and running again; some of the lamms had skipped their track and gone into other tracks, and they were hard to relocate. Also, all of the jacks had fallen out of the frames. I mentioned this to a new-to-me group of weavers and one sent me her detailed how-to-pack-up-a-baby-mac instructions and one thing I think could help would be to relocate the wires at the top of the castle to their bottom position. I have no more trips in the near future, but it's good to know :)

The new weaving sequence (turn cards, treadle, throw shuttle) has started sinking in and it's going faster. Also, I'm finding it easier to detect and fix mistakes I've made with the card warp, so feeling pretty good about this!

My paper shirt made its debut at the conference as well. The bulky underarms were a little uncomfortable at first but either I got used to them or they softened a bit with wear. I feel that the shirt was well received.

Foggy Evening in Morro Bay

All the Paper Shirt deets, all in one place.

In the Fall of 2021, I attended SOAR at the Boulder Colorado Chautauqua; one of my classes was on how to spin paper, taught by Judith Mackenzie. It took a bit of work to get the hang of it but I left the class with a firm resolution to spin some yarn and make something out of it.

Mulberry paper has been spun into thread and woven into cloth in Japan (shifu) for centuries; there are a number of descriptions on the internet of how it’s done.  We used a similar but not identical method to cut continuous strips of tissue paper and of old tissue paper sewing patterns and spin them into yarn! 

For my project, I used some of the old sewing patterns in my closet, and received some from friends. When I discovered I needed more, I went to Fabmo, a local “Non-profit that finds & sells reclaimed fabric” and found a bunch of intact patterns; I choose 1980’s patterns with large shoulder as they were unlikely to be reused.  Here are steps I took to spin the paper:

• Crumple the paper to make it more pliable.
• Check paper grain by tearing a strip or test spinning a strip; make sure you’re cutting with the grain or it will not be spinnable!
• Cut into 1/4” strips with a rotary cutter, then separate into continuous strands similar to shifu cut, then spin.
• I chose to ply with a very thin silk single for strength. 

Close up of finished fabric! 

I spun a 10 yard sample and wet finished it; the yarn was stiff and unappealing until I wet finished it by gently agitating it in a sink full of cold water.  It held together, and softened up enough to be used in a garment, so I kept spinning, 

My yarn was not suitable for warp but looked like it would work well for weft. My yarn turned out to be approximately the same grist  as my 8/2 cotton. I also tried knitting a bit but decided I’d rather weave with it.

I decided to weave the fabric in plain weave for the maximum number of interlacements so that the paper would be well supported. I sampled with a 8/2 cotton warp set at 16 EPI (because that’s what I had on my loom). I tried all paper weft, pick and pick with 8/2 cotton, pick on pick with a thin cotton boucle, and every third pick in paper. The fabric was stiff and unpleasant. I then machine washed the sample in cold water, to make sure it would hold together; it did; I line dried and ironed the sample and decided the pick on pick suited my purposes best. 

 

I had not yet picked out a sewing pattern so I guessed at the width I’d need for a camp shirt and warped up 5 yards of 8/2 cotton (natural color), 14.5 inches in the reed, and started weaving.  Meanwhile I started working on a pattern.

I ended up choosing the Natalie pattern by Seamworks, which unfortunately has a dart; I decided I didn’t want a dart in this bulky fabric… I redrafted the pattern without the dart and made a muslin, then a test garment from linen, and a second test garment from a Malay Batik my husband brought back from a business trip.  By this time the 5 yards of fabric was off the loom so I was almost ready to sew!

Sewing the shirt

There were a few sewing design decisions to make. My fabric had drawn-in/shrunk 13% down to 12.5 inches, so was not wide enough for my pattern pieces.  Also, I didn’t want to put button holes in this fabric, so I solved the problems with the front by making the button bands of unbleached muslin. To complement the look and so that I didn't use the bulkier paper in the collar, I made the collar from muslin as well. The two pieces that would make up the back were also not wide enough, so I put a stripe of double thick muslin down the back (to approximate the same weight as the paper fabric). I followed Daryl Lancaster’s suggestion of using a Hong Kong finish on all the pieces to stabilize the seams before  sewing them together; this worked very well except I had to fuss with the underarm seams to eliminate some bulk.

My biggest surprise was that the plain wood buttons I’d bought for the garment simply did not work. I dug through my mother’s button jar and found 5 silver toned buttons which were perfect!

I wore the shirt open with a tank top underneath to the CNCH 2023 Barbecue and Fashion Show and to my delight it was comfortable and perfect for a summer evening.

Many thanks to Judith and to the folks in that spinning class for the inspiration and to my Sewing with Handwovens Study Group for their suggestions and encouragement!

So happy it's done!

Big swath of muslin in the back