Weaverly

Interleaved, Again

After I finished the most recent scarf on this warp, I had a computer failure. It was a very old laptop and in the words of my late mother-in-law, "it didn't owe me anything." Fortunately I had another old, but functional laptop waiting in the wings, and after some minor software skirmishes, I was back in business and weaving another scarf.

This warp, as you may remember is end-and-end yellow cotton and bright pink buttonhole silk, with an interleaved threading.

For the weft on this new scarf, I chose bright orange bamboo. The cloth shows incredible iridescence, so I am showing it to you here from several angles. 

Frankly, I was surprised that this particular combination worked so well. I still have a lot to learn about iridescence. 

In other color news, the gardenias at my side door are blooming madly. This New Jersey girl, even though she has lived in the South almost 50 years, still can't get used to bushes that bloom in October.  Bless her heart.

By Water and By Fire

The handspun yardage was cut off this morning, washed, and is hanging out to dry on the deck. 

It's all handspun wool and wool blends, both warp and weft. Plain weave.

That was the water part. Thursday we drove up to Asheville to celebrate an anniversary. 

Here are the rapeseed fields on the Biltmore estate. Rapeseed is the stuff they use to make canola oil, I learned. 

One of the gates near the main house.

Now for the fire part. We spent the evening viewing installations of Chihuly glass art on the Biltmore property. The strategically placed lighting enhanced the glass in a dramatic way, both outdoors and in. The next picture was just as the sun was going down.

Here's the only indoor installation.

My personal favorite was in one of the ponds, and the water added greatly to the effect with mysterious reflections.

Click here for more information about artist Dale Chihuly and for more information about Chihuly Nights at Biltmore, take a look here.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Yesterday, at spinners' day out, Ruth and I chose to do our walking through Falls Park, and wound up at the new trail extension, the Cancer Survivors Park. There are trails, bridges, gazebos, waterfalls, and flowers galore. Here are Ruth and me on a lookout area, casting our shadows.

It was really hot, even in the morning, and we eventually found a shady bench in Falls Park for our spinning. In the afternoon, I continued weaving on the rigid heddle loom. This project is a result of stash-diving: a little bit of silk & cotton knitting leftovers, a few yards of handspun wool, and some fabric strips. I was practicing my leno moves so that I can teach them next week.

This morning I finished warping the dobby loom with some cotton for deflected double weave, a structure I have long admired but never tried for myself. It is addictive!

Sixteen shafts. It will be exciting to wash the sample and see them do their magic.

Blue, Red, Green, & a Baker's Dozen

Thirteen new scarves from the rigid heddle loom, ready to serve as samples for the class beginning June 6:

The RH loom can really gobble up yarn stash, with minimal waste. 

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:

 

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.

 

Trouble Trouble

It seems that several of my recent posts have gotten swallowed up in the ether. Some of them trivial, some not so. I'll just dump a bunch of pictures here and we'll call it a truce.

Yes, the daffodils are out all over the neighborhood. There must be a hundred different varieties, just on my street.

This is the view from my kitchen window. It's a camellia tree! Seems like a tree, anyway. It was here when we moved in, over 40 years ago. Never required a minute's care. 

I've spun up all the roving designated as tapestry fodder weft. Now I've got to work on the cartoon.

Then there's the BFL roving I spun up while watching the ice skating finals. It's almost dry.

We had to remove a dead pine tree from the back yard. The arborists and tree removers were here yesterday. Very noisy business. I added the experience to my lampas diary.

And then there's today's entry. 

 

 

 

A White Warp

I hate to see a naked loom; over the weekend I remedied the situation and made a white warp for the erstwhile green-warped loom. This new warp is a combination of three white or near-white yarns: natural hemp, mercerized cotton, and an odd Japanese tapelike yarn composed of four fine threads. The three yarns are held together in the cross and picked at random when threading the heddles.

Warping a loom is one of my favorite activities. Everything about the process pleases me, including using my tools. The hook at the side of the castle holds thread snips, pincushion, and a little bag containing reed hooks. 

This tangled forest scene at the top of the shafts should be familiar to anyone who used Texsolv heddles. 

We are now warped! Here's the first placemat on the new warp. Networked twill. I plan to replace my personal stock of placemats, which has been used nonstop for the past 25 years and needs refreshing.

A closer look. Those reed marks will disappear in the wash. It's an odd denting system, 3-2-3 and repeat, in a 10 dent reed for 26.6 epi. I wanted to go just a tad higher then 24.

And while this frenzy of activity was going forward in my studio, look at what happened outside, while I wasn't looking:

Yes, daffodils. Can you believe it? 

Blue: Song Without Words

Pathways

It was a crazy project, but I absolutely had to empty those bobbins! And use up partial cones of cotton yarns, too. So I made an 8-yard narrow warp on the wee 4-shaft loom and treadled away at odd moments. It's finally finished. Here it is just cut off the loom and piled willy-nilly on the ironing board.

I washed & ironed it, and now it is rolled up, ready for ???

In the way of such things, it is an unspooling ribbon waiting to reveal a secret.

It reminds me of this boardwalk at the Lake Conestee Nature Park, where we got lost last weekend, strolling through the wetlands and listening to frogs.

It was worth it.