I am practicing amalgamation in TempoWeave. Learning a new program is like learning a new language, but doing one draft a day is helpful. This one is for 8 shafts.
I love viewing the cloth this way.
My 4-shaft project (seen in the background) sits idle. I did take time out to bake a loaf. I am practicing scoring.
After the rain, the landscape reformed itself, with reflections and new colors.
Mostly a range of browns, but here and there a green.
In the kitchen, more green. Swiss chard added to the soup pot. Later there would be winter squash and green peas.
On the loom, a new warp of red, orange, gray, yellow, black.
And of course, weighty matters!
A few different twills working together. Four shafts.
Just finished reading Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry. Highly recommended.
Over the weekend I took a break from weaving and printed a huge stack of up cycled papers on the gel plate with found objects (odd stamping tools, puzzle pieces, etc.). I used these to cover some boards (also up cycled) and had a fine time sewing up these two coptic bound books. It feels so good to be working with books again. I really missed the practice. I love everything about making books—the tools, the materials, even the smell of glue.
There's always something appropriate in my button stash.
A good time this morning with the bread machine. It's cooling on the rack and still too warm to slice. I invented a new recipe and taste will tell. But I give it good marks so far for not having the dreaded dip in the middle and no ski slope either. Spoiler alert: it includes a tablespoon of cocoa powder.
Department of Books
Just finished reading The Chateau by William Maxwell. Not as wonderful as some of his others, but nevertheless worth reading. I love this author.
I may go to the bell ringing this evening. Or I may stay home and read.
Did you ever get so stuck that it's just better to start over?
That's what happened to my beloved Monstera. She was my companion for four years, but it was just time to move on.
I need a weaving break. Today is spinning day. This will eventually be plied.
It's wool and Stellina from Paradise Fibers. Quite a bit of glitter.
And in the kitchen, a loaf of multigrain bread, just out of the oven. Wheat, rye, oats, millet, & a variety of seeds. Olive oil. Sugar. It's totally vegan. Just sayin'.
Also on the kitchen counter, I'm saving these for the nice person who gave me the flowers. He wants the seeds for next year.
And in the Department of Books:
Just finished reading I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai.
A couple of days ago it was cool enough to walk on the Trail in midmorning..
...but not today. I did get my greens in with this snapshot in my breakfast room (a.k.a. dining alcove). The greens are from the extraordinarily healthy hydrangea just outside the window. I didn't know it would impede my view when it was first planted, but that's OK. It's actually quite fun to watch its daily progress.
The three towels from the previous post were cut off, hemmed, and washed, and they are posing here for their group picture. From left to right are the white and green wefts, and the natural hemp weft.
My favorite is the hemp version. It feels like the kind of towel you would use to dry off a baby after her bath. No babies hereabouts, but you get the idea. Here's a closeup. Click to enlarge.
I retied the treadles slightly, and started another towel with a black weft this time. Tromp as writ. Here's a warp drawdown of the structure.
And here it is on the loom.
I completed the weaving this morning before lunch, and this afternoon, after a quick shopping trip to pick up a bottle of Campari, I started the following with a rust cotton weft. It just occurs to me that there's an interesting connection here.
In this version the tie-up is changed again and I am using a simple rosepath variant in the treadling, for a striped towel.
P.S.
I posted the wrong draft at the end of my post a few minutes ago. Above is the correct one.
On this miserable, rainy day it feels right to welcome brown and its many warm friends: amber, chocolate, burgundy, mud, and gold, to name a few.
My favorite photographer and I had lunch at the Asia Pacific. I started with a pot of lovely oolong tea.
Then there was stir-fried squid and vegetables. Delicious. The sucker pattern on the squid tentacles is noteworthy.
Just by coincidence, the Park weave I am doodling with this afternoon has its own pattern of little circles in half-drop pattern. Or maybe it's not coincidence.
In Studio Annex Three (otherwise known as the guest bathroom) I am giving the Conestoga project a nice warm bath.
We do have a cold season in South Carolina (I mean thermally cold). It's officially here. There was frost on the ground when I walked on the Swamp Rabbit Trail. It's very pretty. You only get to see it in the shadows. As soon as the earth turns a little bit the frost is gone. You have to be quick.
This is a good time for blanket weaving. I've never woven a double width blanket before, but I'd like to try one now. It will help me make inroads into my stash of handspun. A sample is definitely in order. I made a small (8"wide) warp out of bits & bobs of handspun wool, following the instructions in the latest Handwoven, following Malynda Allen's instructions. So far so good. The fold is on the left. You can definitely see the two layers in this picture. I'm using two ends per dent in an 8-dent reed, for a final sett of 4 epi.
Hereabouts the pastry chef is going all out. This was the scene in the dining room today. It looks like some residents have been nibbling on the curlicues over the front door. Hm-m-m.
And at our little private Tuesday night gathering, we enjoyed brisket and noodle kugel and lit candles on the menorah. It's hard to take a selfie of five people (some of who are very tall) and get the candles in the picture, too, but she did it.
I wish all of you joy in this festive season and in the new year, whatever celebrations are on your calendar. And of course, Happy Weaving!
The gray warp is all woven and cut off. This morning I sat on the back porch and tied fringes.
The paperback I am using as a weight is the first one that came to hand, a weighty tome from my cookbook shelf. The New York Cookbook was recommended to me when I was researching the best recipes for a NY style Jewish rye bread, which some in the North call corn bread.
Apparently the term "corn bread" in this context is not the Southern style made with mostly corn meal, but a dense rye bread with a little corn meal, and a good sour flavor.
In her introduction to the recipe, Molly O'Neill quotes Terry Kornick, " My mother learned to make this from her brother, Izzy, who immigrated to New York from Poland, where he had been in the shoe business."
That's what I love about this cookbook. It's full of little personal gems. Out of print, you can still find plenty of used copies.
And now a closer look at the scarf.
And if that's just too much orange for you, here's a little purple from yesterday evening's jaunt to the lakeside to see the iris in bloom.
Finally. A loaf of bread without a sinkhole in the middle. I'm not sure about the science behind sinkholes, but here's my story. For the past ten or fifteen years I've been making bread in a bread machine. It's not that I can't make bread by hand, just that I find it more convenient to throw the ingredients into the machine and push a button. And if it's more convenient, that means I'm more likely to do it often.
I keep track of my bread recipes in a journal, date every entry, and modify as needed. Sometimes I follow the recipes of others, & sometimes I make up my own. My first journal got lost. Very sad. My second journal is filled up, and last year I started my third journal. This is a handmade book. The cover fabric sports a design by my granddaughter (when she was about 8 years old) that I had printed onto linen at Spoonflower. The book itself is case bound. The pages are a paper stash I inherited from my father, who liked to draw.
I love this book and I enjoy writing in it.
The most recent journal entry documents that loaf of bread you saw at the top of this post. As you can see, I declared the experiment a success, and will be repeating the recipe in future bakes. By the way, I get the harvest grains blend and the rye flour from King Arthur. Click to enlarge image.
Last Sunday was the final Formula 1 race of the season, and all other work came to a halt.
I tell myself that I can knit without watching my needles, but this is not always the case. While the drivers were circling the track in Abu Dhabi, I was doing more frogging than knitting, and finally quit knitting.
OK, Formula 1 is over for the year. Back to the great outdoors. Progress is slower than 200 mph, but every step counts.
Rhododendron everywhere.
Here's where you must pay attention. If you don't turn right at this gate, you have to go through a swampy area where Carolyn has seen copperheads.
And the final turn to the homeward stretch is just after this birdhouse. It's easy to miss because it blends in with all the grays and browns of the woods in winter.
Back in the studio, I am still working on the 16-shaft amalgamation warp. At this point I am close to the end, and trying to use up some of the full bobbins.
Here's a monochrome version, a different way of combining tonal values: light with light, dark with dark.
And in desperation, I wove each repeat in a different color weft.
At the bitter end, I tried just treadled a point twill until I ran out of warp, using the same yarn as in the warp. The texture is nice, if you look at it with sidelighting.
And then I could finally cut the darn thing off.
After hemming, washing & ironing, we have this, in part:
Now for my 4-shaft loom, I'm looking at another stash-busting project. I've got several pounds of bleached and natural white 10/2 cotton, which I'm combining randomly in a dishtowel warp.
In this view you can get an idea of the very subtle stripe effect.
Ready to raddle & beam. Maybe tomorrow.
But wait! There's more!
The infamous ski slope profile, but a very tasty loaf. It's an experiment. Molasses & cocoa, with rye and six other grains.