Weaverly

In Search of Heddle Equality

There are a few jobs in the studio I try to avoid at all costs. High on the list is transferring heddles from one shaft to another. This is such a hated task that I tend to design for whatever number of heddles is installed on any given loom. My looms are generally set up with an equal number of heddles on all shafts. 

Here's a draft I came up with in order to use roughly the same number of heddles on each shaft. It's a lampas with plain weave as the primary cloth, threaded on shafts 7-16, and 3-end (jeans) twill as the secondary cloth, threaded on shafts 1-6. I could have restricted secondary ends to shafts 1-3 and put primary ends on shafts 4-16, giving me more patterning scope, but that would have thrown the heddle count out of balance. Am I crazy? Maybe, but avoiding the transference of heddles was my major goal.

The Good, the Bad, and the Indeterminate

Recent warps that have made me happy:

A warp, shredding badly, that makes me furious (because I should have known better):

A visit to the South Carolina Botanical Garden that made me very happy:

A neighborhood dog that bit me three times and ruined my day (and my week) and made me furious:

And a beloved dogwood tree that has shed its petals in this morning's rain and made me pensive:

 

The Spinners Take to the Woods (Again)

Now that we've done it twice, I guess you could say that we have a monthly spinning thing going. Yesterday was the most gorgeous Spring day and a few of the OLLI spinners went to Paris Mountain State Park for a walk along the Sulphur Springs Trail, to the old reservoir. We stopped at a gazebo along the way for some spinning, and a hiker passing by was kind enough to take our picture:

Here we are further along the trail.

Low Tech, High Tech

Two scarves in process today. The first one is a mélange of "rescue" yarns from my knitting stash, on the rigid heddle loom. Lots of flashy glittery tie-dye stuff here, with a minuscule neutral weft

The other is a piece I just cut off my 16 shaft dobby loom. Have yet to twist the fringes at the other end. Silk, tencel, bamboo. Network drafting with a blended threading.

An Increase in Elevation

At the beginning of the week I managed to snag some time between feeding the turtles and keeping up with the laundry and warped a rigid heddle loom for a pickup sampler. But the outdoors called.

 

 

We drove up to Mt. Pisgah for a brief vacation of hiking (strolling, in my case) and enjoying the early spring vegetation. It's such a pleasure to see the bare trees and sky without the power lines! My companion insists that Photoshop takes care of power lines, but I am not convinced.

 

This is the beginning of the trail from the Pisgah Inn to Mt. Pisgah. The wonderful thing about spring hiking is that you can see the contours of the land and the shapes of the trees. When the leaves come in the experience is totally different.

 

Here's the view from our porch at the Inn. Now can you see why they call this area the Smokies? This was taken on a totally sunny afternoon!

 

Looking from our porch in the other direction:

 

Then on a whim we stopped at the Biltmore Estate on the way home. Only the totally deranged would choose to drop in at the Biltmore during spring break. The size of the crowds was enormous, but the Biltmore staff is very good at keeping things rational, and it was worth the minor inconvenience in order to see the incredible tulip display at its peak. Here's a distance view of the tulip beds from the mansion with the conservatory in the background:

 

And here's a small portion of the display closer up:

 

And closer still. Unfortunately the daffodils are turning their backs on me. Didn't notice that at the time.

 

Cut Off

Here's the lampas diary just after cutoff. I spread it out in the back yard for a quick photo. It'll be around 5 feet tall after hemming, and I think it will fit in an exhibition space somewhere. I have another one from 2010, and they will make a good pair. 

Meanwhile, on a rigid heddle loom, I'm weaving leno samples for a class I will be teaching this summer. It's at least 25 years since I've done leno, and it's just as relaxing as I remembered.

Elsewhere in the neighborhood the dogwoods have popped out. I used to have dogwood, but no longer. I miss them.

In the Department of Spinning, I've been finishing a batch of Corriedale/yak/rose fiber while watching basketball on TV. This gorgeous fiber comes from Hilltop Cloud, in Wales. 

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Weaverly: Holiday

Weaverly: Catching Up

End of the Lampas Diary

 

After I wove this, I realized that "by her own hand" can have an ominous meaning, which was not my intention. I was thinking of the embroidery samplers woven by young girls, with charming mottos as part of the design, for instance, "I with my needle wrought she fame," in a sampler by Charlotte Wood in 1774.

However, it is done. This is the final entry in the lampas diary.

Hemming and labeling will follow. Then on to other projects. I have a strong urge to be outdoors.