February 17, 2003

Snow day - again! School is called off for tomorrow due to the massive amounts
of snow we got in the last two days. Here's the pics of my last two weaving
projects.

My brother's blanket is
ready to deliver. The Encore was a lot easier to work with than I thought,
but it was a lot more expensive since I had to buy 10 skeins. All of the other
blankets I've made came from the stash. They probably cost the same, but it
was money already spent.

My niece's scarf is complete.
Again, this was acrylic - didn't think she'd take care of wool. I'm really
happy with the selvedges, except for where the color
changes took place. Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong? This was such
a quick item to weave, I know why so many people like weaving them. It's a
great way to sample different structures.

Back to winding my warp.

February 7, 2003

posted 9:09 PM

Boring. I can't believe I've made three basically identical doubleweave blankets.
It seemed like a good idea at the time! I am halfway finished the third -
my brother's blanket, but I'm really pushing myself now. With any luck I'll
have this off the loom tomorrow.

Next up is the scarf for my niece Kori. I didn't even know what a Burberry
scarf was when she first asked me to make her one. Of course, now I see them
(and purses, etc) all over the place. I think half the girls at school got
something Burberry for Christmas.

Any ideas for baby blankets? My nephew and his wife leave next week for Kazakhstan.
They want to adopt two children, but the agency said that the country is going
to start limiting adoptions to one child at a time. They hurried the paperwork
through, so hopefully they will get there before the limitation starts. They
don't know what sex or what age, but I'd like to start soon so I can have
them finished by the time they get back (should take 4-6 weeks) I'm certainly
tired of plaids; maybe huck or honeycomb? I'll probably use one warp for the
two blankets to speed them up too.

Wheel Update: UPS tracking has the wheel less than one hour
away. Wonder if I can just go pick it up rather than waiting until Monday?

posted at 8:50 AM

I'm enjoying this day at home. I can sit at the loom and look out at the
birds at the
feeders and the snow still coming down at a fast clip. Of course, nothing
like the amounts Linda has been
accumulating!

The Encore blanket is moving along quickly. Here is a picture of my progress,
along with my new 15" shuttle. It holds a 6" bobbin and an incredible
amount of yarn, but I didn't consider that it would also be heavier. All in
all, the advantages of fewer bobbin changes outweighs (pardon the pun) the
disadvantages, especially when using an acrylic so I can't spit splice. Here's
a closeup.

posted at 5:20 AM

Snow Day! I can't get back to sleep (thinking snoring spouse) so after a
BIG cup of coffee I'll be at the loom. I'll take pictures of the new blanket
and post them later this morning.

January 30, 2003

Lots of good movies helped me get a couple of things finished up this weekend.
I saw Signs, then watched the 1934 The Rise of Catherine the Great
on History International, Analyze This, Finding Forrester, and
finally, The Mummy. It was a great day, my family all had plans to
go out to different parties to route for the Eagles, unfortunately that didn't
have the desired results. I finished weaving the brown
and white plaid blanket on Saturday, and twisted the ends and washed it
yesterday. I finished the second
scuff (Nancy Lindberg pattern) for my youngest son, Josh, yesterday and
fulled and fitted
them before he left to watch the playoff games. The
mohair shows up iridescent on the picture, but they are not so glowing in
person. He likes them, but I think I'll try the Fibertrends
clog for me - it seems to come up on the back a little more. I have the bootie
slipper, but I want something I can kick off.

I got the 6" Schacht bobbins for the old shuttle
I had, but I guess I didn't measure right, because it has the little flanges
on the ends and it just fits. But did I think it through before I forced it
in? I think you know the anwer to that! So now I have to either crush the
bobbin, or try to get a hacksaw blade down in there to cut the metal. I think
I'm going to have to sacrifice the bobbin since there's only about an 1/8"
on either side. Duh... The good news, I've ordered a new Schact shuttle that
will accomodate these 6" bobbins. I want to be able to cut down on bobbin
changes when I'm using thicker weft yarns. Speaking of shuttles, I love my
new Bluster
Bay shuttle. It just shoots across the loom, but since I won't be using
the 15" shuttle that often, I really don't want to put out that much
money.

I have about 25 rows left on my Pi Shawl. I haven't decided what border I'm
going to do yet. I've been using the alpaca from one my UFOs
and it is so soft and drapey. I've been thinking about my next shawl and although
I haven't narrowed it down yet, I think it will be from Folk Shawls.

Once I get three scantron keys filled in for 3 different 200 question midterms
AND my eyes begin to focus again, I'm going to start spinning
some more Beast. I find that if I use a tennis elbow strap on my arm and alternate
projects my tendonitis is minimized. Besides, I know I'll want to play with
my new Schacht as soon as it gets here, so I won't be up for any thick yarn
on the Louet for a while.

January 15, 2003

I'm working on another doubleweave blanket. The benefit of making all of
these with thick worsted weight yarn is that I can wind less than 400 ends,
even for a 52 inch blanket, and get lots of warping practice. Although I have
bagged up enough yarn for 3 or 4 more, I am starting to get a little bored.
I'm going to make one more (for my brother) and then start something new.
I've been thinking about an overshot coverlet (thanks for the book, Kate)
or a doubleweave bathmat. We just finished painting our bathroom and putting
up a new cabinet. I thought I'd try a doubleweave where the two layers are
interlocked and exchange colors - maybe 6/2 cotton for the warp and 8/2 for
the weft. I also promised my niece (and goddaughter) a Burberry-ish scarf.
I'm waiting for the yarn to come in, in the meantime I can't decide if I want
to do that in twill or plain weave. Gotta keep weaving though, because once
my new wheel comes in I know I'll be abandoning my loom for awhile!

Three day weekend coming up........

January 8, 2003

Talk about learning experiences -- well, duh, I guess when you forget to
factor in loom waste you're going to get a rather short blanket! Luckily I
had planned on a rather LONG blanket, so I ended up with one measuring 52"
x 52". I thought I'd just put it in my car, but my son says it's just
the right size for when he watches a movie sitting up <g>

I was happy with the way my fold line ended up. When I first took it off
the loom and opened
it up, you could see that it was rather loose from having fishing
lines running along with the last two threads. (that was a change from
my last double weaving where the But after washing and pressing it looks great.
HOWEVER there's another problem I hadn't thought of. The plaid
reverses when it gets to the center. (see
finished blanket here)I knew the bottom layer had to reverse for threading,
but it never occurred to me that I had to reverse the stripes in the warp
so that it would follow the same pattern as the top. Oh well, it's warm -
if slightly short. Now on to the next one.

January 1, 2003

The blanket is starting to pull together. At
6-7 ppi it is weaving up quickly (even for doubleweave). I hope the fishing
line going through the last two heddles will do the trick on the fold. I
like that I don't have to worry about going over on the way out, etc.

I found a threading error after about 5". I was going to try and fix it
after it came off the loom, but decided to bite the bullet and unweave. The
wool was really sticking together, but I gave it another spray of starch before
I started again, and it's been smooth sailing.

Doubleweave Blanket

Happy New Years! And Happy Anniversary to us! DH and I just celebrated our
30th anniversary. Sometimes it seems like just yesterday, but then I look at
our four kids, 27, 26, 24, 20 and I can easily see where the time went :-)

This is what I'm working on now.I
finished threading it and tieing up and gave it a good spray of starch. Someone
at spinning recommended spray starch for sticky doubleweave warps. She said
that all the starch will wash out, and that it really slicks up the yarn and
allows it to gide past each other.

I was a little worried about the fold, but I really didn't want to use a fishing
line floating selvedge as I was afraid I would mess up the over/under thing.
One of the hints in the Handwoven Doubleweave Issue (J/F 2002) was to thread
the last two ends on the fold with 25# fishing line and tie it to a 2# weight.
I just happened to have the foam covered weights that you can strap over your
hands (haven't used them for working out in ages) so I put them right to work.
Then I suppose I just slip the line out when I'm finished. I'm hoping that will
keep the fold even.

After some help from the Weaving List, I've got my Idiots Twill doubleweave
worked out, so with any luck I'll get to that next week. Pretty high goals considering
I'm back to school on Thursday, huh?