You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2009.
Warped, woven, washed – but not without a bit of struggle.
It was a bit of a fight to bring my first real weaving project into existence. I wound the warp onto the back beam crookedly and had to rewind it – with all the ends still in the heddles. I then finished warping – before realizing I had the wrong reed on the loom. I stubbornly insisted on using a fine silk weft that almost took over the warp. I made mistakes. I persevered. And here it is.
The warp for this scarf is commercial merino and my handspun polwarth, both my hand-dyed, plus a skein of Felicia’s 50/50 merino silk singles. The weft is 12/2 silk, also hand-dyed by me.
I put it in the washing machine to full it – to clean and open the fibres – for only a few minutes. It wasn’t until I dried it and tried it on that I realized it had shrunk 10″ in length. Yet it’s still long enough to wear and I’m so much happier with the plumpness and softness of the fulled fabric. But I believe I will consult an expert to help me figure out if the scarf is, in fact, over-fulled so I don’t make the same mistake next time.
A birthday cheese and olive plate
Well, it’s been awhile…and I’ve been busy but I’m not quite ready to show off my almost-finished projects.
What have I been up to? Well, we had a very nice trip down the Oregon and California coasts to San Francisco. We went surfing, explored cute little towns, rode the cable car, and celebrated my birthday at the amazing Greens Restaurant on the San Francisco waterfront.
Since I got back, I’ve been working away on some knitting and weaving which I’ll be able to show off soon. But it seems I’ve been doing much collecting of supplies for future projects:
Kid mohair, silk, linen, and wool collected at the Gibsons Landing Fibre Fest
I’m most excited about the grey skein in the lower left corner: silk and yak from Treenway Silks. It’s so soft, you really have to feel it to believe it.
A few skeins collected in San Francisco - silk (reds) and wool (greens)
Stay tuned – there are good things coming up!
