Put To Good Use

At the end of this month the Chilliwack Spinners and Weavers Guild is saying goodbye to two valued members. Both ladies are moving to new communities where they will be closer to family members. We will miss them here, but wish them well in their new adventures.

As always seems to happen with a move, some downsizing and purging is done. I was the recipient of one departing member's destashing of some cotton yarns. I'll put them to good use! I made the above fringed cowl using a lovely cotton/linen yarn that was part of that destashing. It was put up on bulky large core cardboard tubes and I felt the best way to store that was to not store it at all, but to use it immediately.

I'm going through the smaller remnants of cotton with a similar thought, making up mixed colour warps to empty as many of the cardboard cores as I can. The first warp is for a run of plain weave towels in colours I'd not likely want to use for clothing.

I also pulled a few colours that happen to coordinate well with the floral print of pinafore I sometimes wear. This Inkle band will be made into another interchangeable band for my medical information tag.

Thank you ladies for the time you've spent with the guild and the service and friendship you have provided. You shall be missed.

Monsoon Calamity Indulgence

I was given a lovely gift of a huge 1050 yard cake of MonsoonCalamity gradient yarn in the "I Must Be Crazy" colourway. It's a fingering weight yarn made up of 4 finer strands held together. The colour changes gradually throughout the ball.

As soon as my loom was free I wound a warp to coordinate with it.

I put a few stripes of the gradient yarn into the warp and then for the remainder of the warp I chose mercerized cottons that harmonized with it.

The warp was then woven with the lovely gifted yarn as weft, keeping the colour gradient in order.

Final result after wet finishing is 16" wide x 4.72 yards in length. Or in metric terms it is 41cm in width and 4.32 metres in length.

I haven't decided yet what to make with the finished yardage. I think ti could be lovely clothing of some sort. It's soft, has great drape, and washes up beautifully by machine.

Testing Testing

A peek or two at what I'm working on now.

The weaving was done quite some time ago, years perhaps. It's denim strips woven alternately with picks of an indigo dyed cotton yarn.

With the ANWG Conference (Association of North West Weaver's Guilds) coming up in June I've decided to make something of the fabric and submit it for exhibition. No guarantee that it will be accepted of course, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

These photos are just teasers. Some experimenting, trial and error and testing of ideas is going on.

The above is a testing muslin for a bound pocket. It's not perfect but I learned a few things I can carry over to the real project.

Squirrel!

Squirrel! This project takes its name from the calendar picture I used as colour inspiration. 

The photo was a birthday gift given to me by my nine year old granddaughter.

I'm very pleased with the way this Nobius Cowl turned out. "Nobius" is a name given by a Saori Weaving forum member to a mobius cowl that has no twist and therefor doesn't have the classic mobius shape. I prefer mine without the twist since they look about the same when worn but are easier to fold and store flat. 

My home is decorated in the colours present in the cowl, but they aren't colours I wear, so once the year end guild luncheon with it's "photo inspiration challenge" is over I'll be selling it. I sell them for $75 - $80 Canadian, usually at the Chilliwack Christmas Craft Market in November. 

Back at the Loom

After a long hiatus my Creative Muse has finally led me back to the loom.

My weaving room was a mess so I had been avoiding going in there even though a deadline for a guild year end challenge to "use a photo as inspiration for a project" was getting closer. I could have spent hours looking for just the right traditionally "pretty" photo for the challenge, but in an effort to tidy my weaving space I came across this calendar picture given to me by my youngest granddaughter for my last birthday. Spontaneously I thought, "Sure, why not?", and selected it as my inspiration photo for the guild challenge.

That was yesterday. That evening I chose yarns from my stash using colours from the photo to guide my selection and then wound a warp. Today I got the warp sleyed and threaded and then beamed and tensioned on the loom.

This afternoon I wove the entire length for a mobius scarf. Even I was surprised at how fast that went!

I'm not yet finished the weaving. There is still the "catch and turn" to do. That's an interesting little maneuver where the  beginning of the warp is freed, the warp is caught under the apron rod and  retensioned, and then all those beginning warp ends are woven into the end as weft. Tricky, but turns out great. I'll be doing that tomorrow.

Once the project is cut from the loom it still must be "wet set" (washed and pressed), and all the little end tails trimmed, inclusions tacked down, and fringe twisted. I'll be back in a few days to show you the finished scarf. Although the soft greys, beiges, cream and soft gold look lovely together they are not "my" colours at all so it will eventually be for sale. 

Another Upcycle Sewing Project

I've been enjoying doing some "upcycle" sewing projects lately. Repurposing textiles that have been donated to thrift stores keeps them from the landfills and that in turn protects our planet from the abuse of the excess textile manufacturing that goes into today's "fast fashion", mass produced clothing not designed to last more than one season. 

I found a lovely, brand new, blue/black, high quality, polished 100% cotton sheet at a local thrift store. I sewed it up into a Les Etoiles tunic (pattern by BMannbyBridget) and a pair of pull on pants (pattern Jalie 3243). I quite like the pair worn together. They look kind of elegant in an easy fitting, comfortable sort of way.

I had originally intended to wear it with this short handwoven tabard  I made long ago, but the colourful tabard was not really made to fit over a tunic that is loose and flowing. It pulls the tunic in and makes it bunch up. I do love the splash of colour it gives the otherwise monotone outfit though.

Naughty Tales!

As we were taking down and packing up the exhibits from the "Fibre Flair" display at the Art Room there was a last minute sale. This lovely young lady was helping with the dismantling of the show and she tried on my "Naughty Tales!" waterfall vest.

It looked fabulous on her and ended up being the item she chose as a birthday gift from her grandmother, who is a member of our guild and one of the members of the art show committee. 

This had been a last minute finish for me, only completed the night before the deadline for jurying of the submitted items. 

I only remembered as it was about to go out the door today that I had never taken the time to photograph it. I like to keep a photographic record of all things I make so I was very happy that she agreed to model it for me.

This is an all cotton vest with travelling inlay and clasped weft patterning. It is sewn in the waterfall style with a hi/lo hemline and the added interest of knotted tails, hence the name, "Naughty Tales".

Bathed and Pressed

The Dogwood Blossom yardage has been bathed and pressed for quite some time but I only just remembered now to take a few photos for Ravelry and my blog.

I haven't decided yet exactly what it will become, but most likely some sort of Saori style art clothing. 

Likely a layering piece to be worn over a "uniform" aka Anita Luvera Mayer style. 

First it will make its public debut at the Chilliwack Exhibition.

A Bit Each Day

With so many other projects urgently needing attention I haven't been knitting a lot lately, but I do try to put in at least a little each day so that my granddaughters will get their sweaters in a reasonable amount of time. Lately my knitting time has been confined to the 30 minutes or so that I sit with my morning coffee. Still, it's adding up!

I only have the front bands to do and the youngest granddaughter's sweater will be complete. It's miles too big for her. We've had a couple of try on sessions. Better too big than too small at this age though! She's growing like a weed.

Even though the sweater would likely fit the older sister right now the colour and mood of this one would be all wrong for her. Wildly colourful with lots of pattern and variety is in keeping with the youngest's personality. I'll come up with something less busy for the older sister!

On Sunday when I wrote the post about the handwoven hat I did not have a picture of the inside to show you. So here you are, an inside shot. The hat is fully lined with a fabric labeled as "mixed fibres", but seems like a polyester to me. It's the perfect weight and colour for this hat, has a nice hand, and doesn't fray or wrinkle.

Carefully Chosen

My youngest granddaughter was over yesterday for her regular weaving time. This is the first warp she's worked on where the colour and all of the yarns in the warp were of her own choosing.

She chose the yarns last week and was a little disappointed that she wouldn't get to weave with them right away. I told her I still had to wind the warp and get it onto the loom. It was all ready to go when she arrived yesterday. 

I think she's really enjoying working with a warp full of colour and texture, rather than the plain black prewound she's been using so far, though she's finding that having pompom yarn in the warp is a little troublesome.

It just so happens that her warp is pink, just like the weaving I just finished! We even used some of the same yarns.

The yardage below is my Dogwood  Blossom weaving, now off the loom and ready for its wet finishing.

I plumped up the fringe ends by adding in extra yarn before twisting them.

Handwoven White Tunic

That white warp I wrote about in February practically wove itself.

I had a compulsive desire to weave, weave, weave the entire time it was on the loom.

It only took about 2 days to weave the entire six metre length.

from the pompoms inserted at the very beginning, 

to the serendipitous evolving of a corded neckline trim, 

and beaded lace accents,

the warping, weaving, sewing and embellishing,

was a joy filled experience.

A Surprise Ending

That there is another "warp as weft" cowl/scarf is no big surprise,

I enjoy weaving them and they are a good use for little bits of this and that in the yarn stash.

But when I wound the warp for this cowl I intended to weave a hat from the same warp. That is not how this warp ended. Although this warp made a pretty cowl with a light, spring like look, it just didn't seem right for the intended hat. I also had more than enough for just a hat.

When I cut the remaining length into three pieces and sewed them side by side they made a piece exactly the right size and shape to become upholstery fabric for my loom bench.

I backed the handwoven fabric with heavy fusible interfacing and padded the seat with 1" foam layered with a little extra in the middle.

It makes a super comfy and very inviting place to weave. 

Pompom for the Finish

My CH60 Saori loom came with a 6m long black cotton warp. I wove it all off within a short time, mostly just as handwoven yardage to be used at some later date. 

For one section of the warp I used an unlabeled black bouclè yarn.

After seaming and then gathering the woven piece and creating a turned back a cuff, it went into my knitting basket were it lingered waiting for the addition of a hand knit, ribbed band.

Today a pompom that matches the ribbed band was added.

I quite like the look!