Reasa's Scarf

I have fallen terribly behind on keeping track of my projects, so it's time to catch up!


This scarf was woven for my cousin Reasa. The warp is painted by Carrie May in her Autumn Harvest colorway. It is 8/2 Tencel sett at 24 epi. The weft is brown wool crepe from Habu.

The draft for this scarf was inspired by and is very similar to Jill's scarf. It is a straight threading on 12 shafts, with a plaited tie up and an advancing twill treadling. When I wove Jill's scarf (and its sample), I noticed that it had a tendency to collapse slightly. I thought that maybe I could use the same thing successfully with an overtwisted weft, and it worked! I love the way the plaited tie-up created subtle curves, rather than the straight linear pleats seen in an eight shaft 3/1/1/3 collapse piece. Bonnie Inouye's Advance! workshop really gave me the tools to design this.

"It is more blessed to give than to receive"

It's the time of year in which many of us think about helping those in need. This year, in my town, where the local economy depends heavily on Chrysler and GM, there is no shortage of opportunities to give. I was afraid that this year, having taken a cut in pay, I wouldn't be able to help much, but when I received a list of needs for some local senior citizens, I was inspired. The list included the normal socks, puzzle books, sweatshirts, and... knitting supplies! I immediately thought of my stash of handspun. Over the past couple of years, I have accumulated quite a few skeins for which I had no particular project in mind. So I washed the skeins that looked useable (not my beginnery handspun), wound them into balls, and took them to work to be included in the gift bags for the seniors. I can't tell you how good it felt! After hearing the stories of some of these seniors, many of whom have no family or friends to care for them, I was amazed to think that something I made could touch them.

Earlier this year, I decided to play with echo weave. I wove two scarves on one warp using Mora yan. They turned out pretty well. Since I'm getting to the point where I have more scarves than I can wear, I decided to donate them to a local charity auction, and they were sold this weekend. Those scarves are pictured below:

I was hesitant to write this post because I don't want to pat myself on the back and talk about how good and generous I am. But my hope is that someone may read this and be inspired to use their own talents to reach out to others in their own, individual way. If you aren't sure where to start, I would suggest contacting a local church or the United Way in your area. They can surely direct you to someone who would be encouraged by your gift of fiber (or whatever else). If you have any other ideas for giving, please leave a comment!

Iris's yarn

The roving I'm spinning reminds me of my rabbit, Iris.

The yarn, not so much.

The fiber is Cormo and Cormo X. I got it from Cormo 24/7 at Greencastle. It is sooo nice to spin. Very clean, very soft, and very fine. I'm naming the yarn for Iris, anyway.

Greencastle and Greeting Cards

On Good Friday we went to Greencastle. I was thinking I wanted some nice, natural fibers, and that's just what I came home with.

A Romeldale-Merino fleece

Cormo, Cormo-X roving

Natural Bluefaced Leicester roving

Dyed Coopworth, Silk roving

Wow, I have a lot of spinning to do!

This weekend, the program at our guild meeting was about making greeting cards with handwoven fabric. Eleanor and Sue gave a lot of practical advice about making cards and showed their impressive collections of cards they had made and recieved over the years. Then we all got to make cards with scraps of fabric that we had brought. Here is what I came home with:

It was a fun program, and the ladies did such a nice job!

Lesson learned...

Always, always give washing instructions with handwoven gifts! The burgundy and brown wool scarf shown here was, with the best of intentions, thrown into a washing machine. It's small and stiff now. I guess there's always next year...

Christmas Presents - Part 4

The last gift I wove was a scarf for my sister. The warp is Silk Thread from Blue Moon Fiber Arts, in the colorway Kavu Kavu. The weft is black jaggerspun merino. The contrast between the shimmery silk and the matte wool is really cool. The pictures don't do it justice. Once it was off the loom, the shimmer of the silk and the plaited twill design reminded me of fish scales. Anyway, the final product had a really nice hand. The silk warp and wool weft made an interesting combination of fibers, something I'll have to play with in the future.

Christmas Presents - Part 3

The next gift I wove was a scarf for my mom. This was woven on the Megado at Tabby Tree Weaver. The loom was already dressed with a navy blue tencel, ready to weave a Sharon Alderman draft. I chose some taupe colored Jaggerspun Zephyr. I found it somewhat challenging to keep an even beat. I'm not sure whether it was because of the structure, the fibers, or both. Even so, it turned out nicely, and my mom was pleased with it.

Christmas Presents - Part 2

I spun and wove coordinating scarves for my sister and her daughter. This is the first project in which I've used all handspun yarn. The warp was a blend of wool, mohair, and angora. At least I think that's what it was. When I bought it at Greencastle this year, the vendor didn't have the fibers written down, so she told me that from memory. I think she dyed it with kool-aid since it smelled a little fruity whenever I spun it. Even though it was dyed with kool-aid, the colors were nice and soft pastels, pink with a little green and orange. The yarn wound up around 18 wpi, and I wove it at 10 epi. If I were to do it over again, I would probably weave it at 12 epi because the end fabric was a little loose for my taste in many places. Since I had a limited amount of yarn for warp, the scarves were a little narrow, but not bad. The weft was handspun corriedale cross. I used a point threading. For the first scarf, I used a straight treadling, and for the second, a point treadling. The main thing I learned from these scarves is that my spinning needs practice to become more consistent. I'm sure that will come with time. The scarves turned out nice, soft and warm. My sister and niece liked them. I think they will appreciate having them during their first Indiana winter after years of living in Texas!

Christmas Presents - Part 1

Since Christmas is over, and all the gifts have been given, I can now post pictures of some of the gifts I made. For my dad and boyfriend, I made scarves of 8/3 Jaggerspun heather. For heavier yarns, I think four shaft patterns often work best. For these scarves, I used the Herringbone Plaid #2 threading from page 27 of Davison's green book. I was going to use the first treadling, which was tromp as writ, but when I wove the sample, it seemed that there wasn't enough contrast to make the pattern stand out. It just looked kind of cluttered. So I wound up using a straight treadling for one scarf and a point treadling for the other. Here they are before fulling:



And here they are, thick and soft, after fulling:



Now I feel compelled to share an irrational pet peeve. Occasionally, as I am finishing a project, or shortly thereafter, I will see something similar in a new Handwoven. In this case, while I was finishing with these scarves, I got the new Handwoven, chock full of articles on fulling. Last year, I wove several tencel scarves in huck lace and then saw an article the new Handwoven about tencel scarves in huck lace. When that happens, I feel like I have to tell everyone that my projects were my own ideas and that I did not get them from Handwoven. I think Handwoven is an excellent publication, and I am always excited whenever a new issue comes. I have thought about why this would irritate me when I should be proud that some of my ideas are in league with those published in my favorite magazine. I realized that before I began weaving, I had no creative outlet and did not consider myself a creative person. Now that I have discovered this creativity within myself, a creativity in relative infancy, I feel like a protective mother, needing to always defend it (and sometimes brag about it, the way mothers do). I have concluded from all this that to mature, I need to be more open about sharing my own ideas and about receiving ideas and inspiration from others' experiences.

Straight draw scarves

At Saturday's guild meeting, several of us presented a program on straight draw. For my part, I focused mostly on the versatility of straight draw on eight shafts and the many looks that can be achieved just by changing the tie-up. I started off with the second set of three rayon scarves that I wove for my grandma. These are all 5/2 rayon, threaded 1 - 8. The one on the right is a waffle weave on straight draw, which was fun to weave. The one on the left is my favorite; it looks the most fluid.

Then I showed this scarf, with a buffalo warp and a handsun alpaca/shetland/silk weft. It is herringbone, but I threaded it as a straight draw on eight. I don't usually weave with wool this heavy and started weaving with a much too heavy beat. I was then so conscious of not beating too hard that my beat became progressively light. The other end wound up rather sleazy. You can see the difference between the two ends in the picture. The lesson I learned from this scarf is that when I am unsure of my beat, I MUST NOT be too confident to get out the ruler and check the ppi.

The last scarf I wove, just for fun, in plainweave with a crammed warp, following a recipe in an old Weaver's magazine. The structure is so simple, but the scarf turned out so nice. The crammed stripes are handpainted 20/2 silk, the remaining warp was 20/2 Jaggerspun Maine Line, and the weft was 20/2 silk noil. This turned out to be a nice, airy, light-weight scarf. I am really pleased with it. If I were to do anything differently, I would beam the wool and silk warps separately. Toward the end, there was a definite difference in tension.