The first weaving-themed novelty t-shirt I’ve ever seen

Via metrode … oh weaving humour, not far off from the weaver’s handshake.

In search of a bench and instead             

One of the great things about being in a weaving guild is the weavers I’ve met when I’ve bought equipment from them – recently a long time professional weaver was selling up most of her things and I was hoping to get her bench, but unfortunately it went along with the loom she sold so instead I went to her house intending to just buy her temple and instead came away with the temple, a warping paddle and another Leclerc shuttle. She also gave me a copy of her final thesis she did at Concordia about finishing wool, it’s a beautiful little publication with samples inside and actually quite helpful for me in regards to fulling and finishing wool blankets. I love buying tools that have long been used by a weaver before I’ve started using them.

Rugs, blankets and a shawl        

Above are some pictures from a one-evening exhibition I did at the apartment of two friends of mine. We hung all the weavings on dowels that we attached to the wall using L hooks which I think worked really well, the next time I show some new weavings (which will be in November) I think I’ll do something similar but with a more special wood.  Seeing a selection of recent things all together on the wall has given me a tonne of new ideas for rugs, I just have to finish weaving two more blankets and then I am free of only using natural white and nature dyed wool…!

Teatowel, raddle, drawings    

I had a good amount of warp left on my loom after I cut off the shawl I just finished, so  I re-sleyed the reed from 16 epi to 22 epi and whipped off this little teatowel for a trade with another friend. I still have two more blankets to go and knew when I started measuring the warp for the first one that I was running out of wool, but decided that I would get the partial warp on as the remaining warp will be made up out of the handspun dark brown undyed wool from last summer. I might have to use Cascades wool for the remaining blankets, no one in town stocks Briggs and Little Heritage, and I don’t have enough time left to wait to order it. I don’t quite understand why no one stocks B&L! It’s Canadian and so much more affordable. So since I had run out of wool I spent some time working on some new rug ideas instead.

Sunset, sweater, scarf  

I’ve decided I have to finish the sweater I’ve been knitting all winter before it actually gets warm out – after reaching a point of complete ennui with it I’ve picked up speed again doing the chest, as it’s actually get smaller now. I am using Elizabeth Zimmerman’s EPS pattern, which amazingly does seem to work. I decided to do the raglan decrease as opposed to yoke decrease which is working out well, I think it looks nicer to have the decreases following a straight line from the underarm to the neck. I’m using the undyed handspun wool from last summer, it looks like about 4 different fleeces have made it into the sweater.

And a view of the scarf I’m weaving as a trade – the colours of this one are totally from another world than the one I usually work in.

Rugs, raddle

When I finished taking pictures of the two new rugs, they ended up in a nice random arrangement with the first kilim. And the raddle with the threads for the scarf I’m weaving as a trade for the photography a friend did of my weaving a while ago, it has a warp of 22/2 peacock cottolin, it will be the same style as the other shawls I’ve done with Briggs and Little singles for the weft.

Linen

My friend Hannah sent me this photo of all of the linen her mom found for me (!) at a flea market in Poland.

New kilim

Today is my one 100^th post! Who knew. And I finished the first of the two rugs I just took off the loom, I’m pretty pleased  with how this little kilim came out. Annoyingly I forgot to remove the floating selvedges I had warped for the broken twill striped rug I wove before, so the edges of the kilim aren’t totally up to snuff.

Mess, fulling back-up, reading  

Although I do like working at home, sometimes I think it would be nice to have a studio so the day’s incumbent mess wouldn’t take up so much space in my flat. And the two finished blankets, one with goldrenrod stripes and the other with rusty nail stripes, are sitting on my chair waiting for me to summon the energy to full them both. I wish I had my OWN top loading washing machine, that way I could full the blankets in a machine as opposed to by hand, which we would much less effort and wouldn’t leave me forever squeezing out the water of heavy blankets in my tiny bathtub.

I’ve been reading the brochure from the textiles show at Raven Row I mentioned in an earlier post, that is until the latest issue of Handwoven arrived.

Bowls, socks

The last things out of the kiln were a ‘set’ (I use this term loosely given how much each bowl differs from one to the next) of six bowls, all of which impart unending pleasure to use. And the second pair of socks my mom knit with the wool dyed from the summer, with her own design of stripes of blackberry and goldenrod. They look nice with their cousin pair knitted out of the black walnut-dyed wool.