June is busting out all over! It was so nice to be in Wyoming and see actuall green fields and hills. many of the rivers and creeks are already bank full or over and there is still a ton of snow on the mountains. They need the water but I am afraid there will be bad flooding. The lilac bushes are in fjll bloom and smelling lovely as are the apple trees and the russion olives. Now that vacation is over I will be sticking close to home for a bit - no  ore time off accrued for a month or two and no money in the bank! So I am going to force myself to do some stash busting as well as get busy knitting baby booties, socks, hats, sweaters. I have four babies coming due this fall. . .  three boys and a girl! I am hoping for a productive summer. Looking forward to seeing all of your projects as well - you are all so inspiring - weave on!

Tina

Comments

Erica J

This warp, or possibly my new to me loom, has been fighting me every step, as have all read! I've tied on today and nearly have the loom tie up done. The weft has shipped, so hopefully I'll be weaving away soon. Fingers crossed the beaming was good and the tension stays even. Is there an emoticon for knock on wood?!

laurafry

If there isn't, there should be!  ;)

cheers,

Laura

sally orgren

I started imagining this project with art deco colors, but now I am migrating westward quickly with this Southwest palette.

I've woven about 2 yards so far on my 8 yard warp of 20/2 @ 36 epi. It's going very fast. I needed to cut off samples for the guild exchange on Wednesday evening, so here I am painting glue and water on my cutting line (and next to the dowel, just for added insurance.) Once dry, I cut off the fabric at the red thread line, then relashed the apron to the dowel maintaining the perfect tension, and resulting in only about 1.25" of loom waste.

tien (not verified)

My weaverliness looks like this:

eight chocolate flavors

OK, it's got nothing to do with weaving, but I thought y'all would enjoy a chocolate treat! These are eight flavors of chocolates that I made this weekend, to test out my new chocolate tempering machine. It was also a great chance to test out the seven flavors of jam and marmalade I made last weekend by putting them into chocolates.

I still haven't tasted the finished chocolates, though - too tired to really evaluate the flavors properly, so am waiting until morning to try them out. Mike, however, assures me that they are delicious. ;-)

endorph

delicious Tien - these would help my weaverliness

Erica J

Sally's weaving and Tien's chocolates both look gorgeous! What inspiration!

Queezle

What a clever idea - the dowel - for retying.

So to make sure I understand - plain weave stabilized with glue on the cut side of the dowel, and you just lash the sides of the dowel to the apron rod?  Very clever.

Artistry

Yes, Sally, I say very clever, Indeed! Plus the samples Look Great! Tien your chocolates look to die for ! I'm setting up the tablet loom tomorrow, as I'm in Michigan away from my projects. More bookmarks for my daughter whose up to her ears in research. My idea is to make batches so she can color code her research books :)

ReedGuy

Mmm, your weaving looks delicious Tien. I wanna. :)

Your project looks great Sally, I like your clever idea.

Not been weaving here for awhile, just strolling through the forum.

ReedGuy

Something, somewhat weaverly to add. I ordered a 300 yard spool of Orvis braided Dacron fishing line backing, to use for hand tied heddles for times that one gets out of place when threading. :)

Orvis is a rod and reel company in Vermont. I have a very old bamboo fly fishing rod that was my grandfather's. He was a guide. A new one is $2500.  You can look them up on their sight for kicks. ;)

tien (not verified)

My weaverliness for yesterday: I got the auto-advance installed on my loom! (With lots of help from Mike, who is more mechanically minded than me.) Today's adventure: installing the fly shuttle. This involves a few alterations to the loom (moving the rear beater bumper towards the front of the loom by about an inch). Then I have to figure out how to reinstall the rolling temple, which doesn't quite work with the auto-advance as it's currently set up. I'm going to have to move it back towards the reed by about half an inch.

All that will cost me an inch and a half total between the reed and the fell of the cloth - hopefully I will still be able to fit the fly shuttle through the shed! If not, the fly shuttle will probably be the thing to go. I haven't had to weave wide very often, so it's less useful to me than the other two.

The good news is that this is just about all the loom widgetry I'm going to need, so no further upgrades for quite awhile!

tien (not verified)

ReedGuy, $2500 for a bamboo fishing rod??? What makes a bamboo fishing rod so awesome that someone would shell out $2500 for one? (And why wouldn't they just make their own out of bamboo?) I guess weaving isn't the only hobby that can get expensive!

Artistry

Going fly fishing with Dad up Campbell River , B.C. This August, I love It! It may be so expensive because it has a really good "whip" to it? ReedGuy will know.

sally orgren

As I was weaving off these towels of 20/2 cotton at 36 epi, I was reflecting on a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a very good weaver in the Philly area. She told me about one session at Vavstuga where they spent the whole day focused on weaving great plain weave. I have to admit, that sounds kinda boring, but let me tell you, it actually DOES take focus! Here is the next set of towels and the plain weave area in the middle. (FYI, 22" wide, no EFS and no temple on this one folks.) It takes me about 1.5-2 hours to weave a towel (about 1 yard). I feel like I should be faster...

And, here's a detail image of the tie-on method, lashing to the inserted rod when you want to cut off a sample and keep the warp tension. Gee, I thought everyone knew about this? (Big thanks to my guildmates for showing me this trick!)

endorph

are looking great Sally.

My brother used to make custom graphite fishing rods - they took an amazing amount of time to construct - had to get the balance just right, the guide eyes had to be in just the right spots, the length had to comform to the person it was being made for and how they cast, etc. So I guess I could see how a rod could cost big bucks.

Fly fishing can be one of the most relaxing and frustrating activites at the same time!

ReedGuy

Tien, I have no idea why they are so expensive. But my grandfather bought his decades ago and it was expensive even back then. I have it here.

What makes a basic floor loom $5000? ;)

kerstinfroberg

"What makes a basic floor loom $5000?"

Hmmm - the idea that someone (enough ppl) would be willing to pay that sum?!? (I think some call that "market value". Others would call it "greed", but it doesn't work if not enough ppl were willing to pay)

ReedGuy

Yes "market value" would be appropriate. ;)

pammersw

Sally - beautiful temple-less selvages!

tien (not verified)

Reminds me of a guy who did an iPhone app called "Ruby". It did absolutely nothing and cost $5000. He was up-front about it in the description, too - said it did nothing. It made the tech news because some people were dumb enough to buy it and then got incensed because it did nothing.

There's another born every minute...

tien (not verified)

My weaverliness for yesterday: got the auto-advance unit on and the rolling temples back onto the loom! Today I'm going to try weaving with the auto-advance. Once I've got it adjusted properly, I'm going to work on putting on the fly shuttle mechanism. That will be trickier because I'll have to adjust the bumpers behind the beater and connive some way to adjust the pulley so the fly shuttle cord isn't rubbing up against the fly shuttle - not sure I can do that and still wind up with a decent shed, but we'll see.

Also, I got these lovely shuttles from Bluster Bay yesterday! They are my bocote and curly maple shuttles, and they are just gorgeous. Especially the bocote - the colors are rich and shift slightly depending on angle - reminds me of my favorite gemstone, tiger eye.

bocote and curly maple shuttles

bocote and curly maple shuttles

Artistry

Not off to a good start with my card/tablet loom. Got all the tablets threaded and as I was working out the knots at the end for the tension, whoops! There goes my Coke Zero! All over my linen ends on the loom, all over the cones, all over the cards! I wiped everything up, squeezing the excess out of the linen, no dice. So I just took some water and thought what the heck, and put it on top of the linen to dilute the Coke! I hope it won't be to sticky to work with ! I think it's time to read my book !

sodenashi (not verified)

No actual weaving activity this past week...but lots of weaving-related  things (those count, right?).  I taught my Western Sakiori class at The Mannings last weekend (full report and pictures here), and my first guest post on the Weaving Today blog went up this morning.  I had a lot of fun with both the class and the writing, and now I get to enjoy actually making things for awhile....life is good!

 

endorph

things go better with Coke - I guess that doesn't include linen!

Artistry

Tina, Lol, you've made my day ! Everything is looking much better now !

endorph

very welcome Cathie - my excitement for the day was finding a snake in the Research Center's stacks - ewwwwww - we do not have a clue how it got there!

ReedGuy

Maybe a prank, Tina?

Looks like a big oops there Cathie. :)

On another topic: today is dad's burial. Died Dec 21, aged 75.

Artistry

I'm sorry to hear that ReedGuy. Starting my project over sans coca cola, it was such a sticky mess this morning, it wasn't worth the aggravation ! My coffee was sitting on a table way far away:) A Snake! Tina, I don't mind snakes but it's just when they surprise you, ugh!

endorph

it was a prank ReedGuy but I don't think so - luckily it was a small snake!

Sorry to hear about your dad ReedGuy

Good luck Cathie - yes keep the drinks far, far away!

Today is my knitting group - at least for the morning - don't know if I will stay for lunch or not. Still trying to catch up from vacation!

sally orgren

I was out helping with the Macomber donations again on Friday, and finally remembered to take some photos of the looms. There are THREE rooms of these babies, I think 11 or 12 looms in all! Studio assistant Jesse was loading up the shelves with the yarn stash when we arrived.

Also, in case you forgot, Tommye S will be teaching a tapestry class here the weekend of June 20-22. There is a warp painting class coming up, and of course a workshop by Daryl Lancaster, because she's nearly local. To check out the fiber offerings this summer, visit www.petersvalley.org

If you are taking a class, let me know — I'd love to see you when you are in my part of the world! FYI the historic venue where I coordinate the weaving volunteers is just down the road about 30 minutes from this site.

Artistry

Hey Sally, I'm taking Tommye Scanlin's Workshop June 20-24, I'll be coming in the 19th and leaving the 25th. I am so excited, it's tapestry. Of course, and it's about Color! Heaven! Maybe we can get together?

sally orgren

I can't let you guys get >this< close and not pop over! We'll have to work something out. 

tien (not verified)

So sorry to hear about your loss, ReedGuy. I hope you have many happy memories of your dad!

I have finally started winding the warp for my next project! It will be shadow weave in diagonal waves on 40 shafts. About 31" wide, 2800 threads at 90 epi. The color scheme is going to be horribly complex but will hopefully come out well. I'm about 3/4 of the way through winding the warp already - so it will be about 5 hours to wind the warp, total. It does help that I'm winding it off 10 cones. :-)

I'm a little worried because I'm combining yarns from three different sources in the warp: 140/2 silk from Robin & Russ, 140/2 silk that I bought from Lillian Whipple, and 120/2 silk from Mint Fabrics. They may shrink slightly differently and cause some feathering in the color changes - but I figure that isn't really a bad thing. Just hoping it works!

Once I finish winding the warp, I'll need to dye it in two different colorways - the dark one will start out black and shade gradually to orange, the light one will start out garnet red or scarlet and shade to lemon yellow. Hoping to get some really nice color contrast out of it.

And then I'll need to knit and dye two blanks for the weft, so I can get coordinating color changes. Good thing I have a year and a half to finish this!

endorph

my eyes crossed just reading about your project. I cannot even imagine doing something that elaborate. I look forward to seeing this project unfold. Good luck - eat some chocolate!

tien (not verified)

Thanks Tina!

I just realized that I never posted my vision of what the finished cloth would be. here is a draft that shows roughly what I'm hoping for:

shadow weave draft in fiery colors

This will be cut on the bias to make the flames for this skirt:

Phoenix Rising mockup

Hoping it works out - if it does, it should be stunning.

And elaborate is as elaborate does - once you break it down into pieces, even something really complicated becomes simple and approachable. Some things just require a bit more breaking down than others. ;-)

Queezle

Stunning is exactly the right word.  Or breath-taking.  Wow, and I cannot wait to see it.

sandra.eberhar…

I have a good friend who makes bamboo rods.  The cane is precisely cut tapered, and glued together to make a hexagonal blank,  Then a turned wooden tube (usually a rare hardwood) and cork handleis added, and the hardware is added.  As mentioned earlier, it has to balance and flex properly.  He gets about $2000 for his, and they are gorgeous.

endorph

you'll be using the phoenix fabric with this - correct or am I thinking of something else? And I get what you are saying about elaborate is as elaborate does - everything can be simple once you understand what you are doing. Still. . .  that's quite the project!

Artistry

Sally, Great, let's pm each other before next Thursday and exchange cell # Tien That's a beautiful undulating shadow weave. It will be stunning! Big White Sofa Dog, I got to use a bamboo rod briefly once, it was my guides'. It handled so beautifully, it had this kind of " action" to it , made everything else seem clumsy! Back to dyeing my gray scale tomorrow , almost have it. Just a couple of holes I want to fill in.

tien (not verified)

Hi Tina,

Actually, I won't be using the phoenix fabric in this piece. The phoenixes are lined up in neat order (forced by the point threading that allows me to weave them), and are big enough that cutting into them would be inevitable for a fitted garment. That wouldn't look very good, and the phoenixes would distract from the overall lines of the garment, so I'm leaving them out. Most of the piece will be relatively simple fabric - yes, I'm weaving the shadow weave on 40 shafts (because I have them), but you could probably do something very similar on 8 shafts. And the top will likely be a simple painted warp. The blue fabric underneath will be a crinkle cloth woven using woven shibori with some polyester thread in the weft, then pulled tight and steamed to set the pleats.

I know that sounds complicated, but it's less complex, pattern-wise, than the phoenixes!

tien (not verified)

My big weaverly news for today is a WOW! Google bought my startup (Skybox Imaging) yesterday. While I won't retire on the proceeds (I'm not a founder), my pipe dream of a jacquard loom now seems very much within reach. It will still take a year or so to save up enough to get the loom, but at least it's possible! I am over the moon.

Weaving-wise, I have wound all 2800 ends for the shadow weave warp, and am starting to think about how I want to dye it. I need to do a bit more research into colors - picking colors that will contrast well and produce a clear pattern in the shadow weave.

Woot! Woot! For years I have been saying "I'll buy that jacquard loom...after Google buys my startup." (Which is Silicon Valley-speak for "When I win the lottery.") And now it's actually happened!

Queezle

You totally rock!  I'm so happy for you.

endorph

How exciting - not just the sale to Google but being so much closer to a Jacquard loom!

tien (not verified)

Thanks Cathie, Queezle, and Tina! I went out last night to celebrate with a good friend and his girlfriend (Mike is out of town, so he and I will celebrate later) - and this morning I booked plane tickets and hotels for Convergence!! I will not be taking any classes, instead I'll be hanging out on the vendor floor with the TC-2 folks for three days. They've offered to train me on using the TC-2 (as well as letting me weave on it) in between talking with other customers - the equivalent of a workshop on the TC-2!

And I am running up to AVL the few days before Convergence to play with the Jacq3G.

While I am still about a year away from the jacquard loom of my dreams - at least it's a *possible* dream!

Queezle

Dreaming Big!  I am impressed, still, Tien.  My modest dream is to get my warp dyed for that baby blanket, and woven before the kid is grown!  Actually, I think I successfully negotiated a primo room for weaving in our in-progress-remodeling (the room we call "the-room-formerly-known-as-the-dining-room").  It has some expansive views of mountains and the city, and would be a practical spot in our house.  Far better than the half-bedroom in the unheated basement!

Artistry

Tien, Looks like you're going to have a blast at Convergence! Queezle, Your potential weaving spot sounds spectacular! The stroller blankets are waiting to be hemmed, should be finished tomorrow. Dyed the remainder of the dye scale today, plus redyed some skeins that didn't exhaust the dye well. Hopefully everything will look good when it cools down!

ReedGuy

Congratulations Tien on the sale. You will surely have that loom. :)

Nothing new here on the weaving front. But, I have been selling off a few items on Kijiji. It's a free ad service here in Canada. I think afilliated with ebay. I sold two sets of fine china this week (Bilingsley Rose by Spode and Royal Copenhagen) and I have a washer going tomorrow. I'm just trying to get rid of some loot.

Anyway, off to browse the forum. :)

sally orgren

I visited the Handweavers Guild of Bucks County (PA) meeting Wednesday. Their guild was lucky enough to obtain a few old draft books from a professional in the industry. Deb Holcomb gave the presentation, and it was stellar. One of the German books was primarily 4, 6, 8 shafts, 2000 patterns! The variety one can get with fewer shafts was pretty remarkable. When Deb applied color and weave effects with her software, they took on a whole new dimension. (Below is just one of the series of samples woven by Deb from the draft book.)

Tomorrow I am going to visit an active mill in Garfield, NJ. Apparently there was a fire in the 80's or 90's resulting in the replacement of their dobby looms with jacquard looms. We'll be accompanied by one of the retired mill workers and his daughter, who is learning to weave. Gee, I hope they let me take photos! I am sure the scale of operation is likely to be overwhelming. 

Ongoing — I have been working on finding out more about Nadeau looms. Well, at the PA meeting I discovered two of their members also have Nadeau looms, so there will be a gathering of the "triplets" next week for a comparison and group rehab effort. Thanks to Ellen T, I got to see a 10 yard bolt of the original fabric woven one on these looms. The warp was a finer cotton (but probably not 20/2), and the weft appeared to be more lofty wool. 

Group Audience