Weaverly

Baseball and Light

Karl played his first stint as catcher yesterday evening. He did well. Afterwards he described his gear to me in great detail, including how hot it was under all that padding in the 90º heat.

After the game, I managed to snag this picture through the chain-link fence with my phone. I love the glow of the evening light through the dust clouds.

Later on, when there was hardly any light left at all, this caught my eye:

He was waiting, but for what? This was at a slow shutter speed and an unbelievably high ISO, and was punched and pulled with Photoshop, but there is still something left that I like, in spite of all the mangled pixels.

Foxfire Museum, Part II

Among the many interesting sights at the Foxfire Museum yesterday was the studio of Sharon Grist, known as The Village Weaver. Housed in The Tiger House, Sharon's working environment is an organic part of the Foxfire Center. She weaves, spins, dyes, and sells her weaving here. It's such fun to watch a production weaver at work. Not a wasted motion. Everything is smooth and fluid. At the low light levels in Tiger House on this gloomy day, Sharon's hands outpaced the slow shutter speeds I was forced to use, but the blur is an indication of her weaving motions.

In another Foxfire building, the display of handmade toys and other folk art kept our group of ten photographers busy while the rains continued ouside. My special favorite is this doll family and their oatmeal box cradle. Friend Greg said I would get a better shot if I lay down on the floor, and he was right. But I did need a bit of help getting back up.

A puddle collected in a sawed-off stump reflected the sky here:

And I was attracted to all the diagonals in this barn door:

Here's one of the photographers in our group (you may recognize him):

I can't end today without mentioning that softball season has started. Here is the umpire giving last minute instructions (love the socks). Mary Beth's restaurant is their sponsor. Our gal is #2.

 

World Series Spinning

Here's the yarn I plied while watching the World Series. I just washed it. My team didn't win, but the yarn is nice. Merino.

I don't know how to segue into this, so I'll just post it bare; I found this in my driveway. Thought you'd like it.

What I Do While Watching the World Series

This is half a bobbin of plied merino. Mindless. Relaxing. The best thing to do while watching baseball on TV (except for knitting).

Baseball (Home Style) and Repper

Thursday was Little League night. Heavens, was it cold! And this fellow played without a jacket. Says he can't pitch in long sleeves.

His sister, in another part of the park, played right field. I think everyone was glad to get home and warm up.

Next day, in my nice toasty studio, I wove a few more Repper samples. Here's my favorite, seen from afar and close up. These are jacquard double weave.

The dobby box is on its way west for an upgrade. Hope that will solve the recurring solenoid problems. 

Sail Away

Willy loves to build wooden boats, and this year he is working on a sailboat for Catalina. He asked if I'd like to join them in making the Dacron sail. It's a kit from Sailrite. I brought my trusty old Bernina to their house and we set it up on the dining room table (a lovely large working surface - thank you, Mimi). With the help of basting tape, Dacron thread, and heavy-duty needles, here we are partway through:

Zigzagging the reinforcing patches:

Midway through the afternoon the sail was assembled. Hems still to be done. Bernina not very happy, but she got the job done.

After the hems & reinforcement tape, Willy set the grommets. Sail finished! Dinner courtesy of Mimi. Apple crisp for dessert. Yum!

Boat nearly done, but not quite. I'll keep you posted.

A Peek at a Micro Mill, & Some Animals

A couple of days ago, N. Miami (who is always on the lookout for interesting fiber content among all the automotive stuff - thank you, sweetie!) reblogged a great video about a bicycle loom. I traced it back to its source, and now offer the original blog to you: London Cloth Co. It's definitely worth a look, both for the videos on the foot-powered Hattersley loom as well as for the great videos on the sectional warping process at this startup micro mill.

I've woven a number of blankets for family members, partly as a way of using up some of my handspun yarn (which proliferates at an alarming rate). These blankets are strip woven in random width stripes, then sewn together by hand with a triple baseball stitch. My brother was the recipient of one of these blankets around ten years ago. He has moved around a lot since then, but I recently visited him at his current place, and I found that the blanket was alive and well, and being used as couch upholstery. His girlfriend's cat especially likes this arrangement.

And speaking of animals, I was doodling this morning and came up with this 8-shaft networked twill. I think it looks like rabbits!

If you'd like to try weaving the draft, here it is in wif format:  Download Rabbits. It's for your personal use. Please do not republish without permission. If you sell objects based on this draft, please give credit.

On Deck

This morning was the Y League game, which means I still don't know the results of today's stage in the T de F. Don't tell me! Please! I will watch the recap tonight. Meanwhile, here's our guy waiting for his turn at bat. 

The morning started out pleasantly warm with a cool breeze, but by the time the game was over it was blisteringly hot and humid. The rest of my day will be spent in my nice cool basement studio. I'm going back to dobby work for a while, and I'll let you know how it goes. 

And to all you spinners (I mean the bicycling kind): allez, allez!

My Own Personal Alpe d'Huez

It was a very exciting stage this morning (or afternoon, if you are in France). In general, this year's race was quite absorbing, and I got a lot of spinning done. Here is my own personal Alpe d'Huez, 17" high, which represents the spinning efforts of the past few Tours de France. Actually, there's more, but they are partial skeins and not as pretty to photograph. What about the bananas, you say? They're there for scale. Sometimes a banana is just a banana.

Plodding

Just finished pick 2900 out of 4500. At my current rate of 400 picks per day I should be finished in four more days. It won't earn me a maillot jaune, but my goal is merely to finish the race. 

Warmup exercises include composing at least one new draft per day. This one is two drafts side by side in a 32-shaft liftplan. One draft is a 16-shaft crepe, and the other an 8-shaft granite weave (a satin derivative) repeated. A straight threading on 32 shafts would do fine for this pattern, although it could also be woven on 24 shafts by repeating shafts 13—24.