Weaverly

Welcome, Sweet Spring

On my walk today. This needs no words.

Now to the annals of the laundry room.  The most recent batch of samples has been washed, dried, and steam pressed. 16/2 cottolin, designed with the technique of amalgamation, a close cousin of network drafting. There's more information about amalgamation in my book Network Drafting: an Introduction (see sidebar).

Click on any of these to enlarge.

I hope Spring is beautiful where you are, or will be soon.

Something Spiky and Something Soft

Get your greens today! Here's some new green in my front yard, displaying a wonderful contrast with the old green. I love their spikiness, and the fact that they look like a hastily wrapped birthday present. Happy birthday, you-know-who.

Now down to the studio. My 8-shaft loom is finally reassembled after its move, and it's in perfect working order. I put on a new warp this week, cottolin, for some amalgamation samples. It looks like an underwater pattern, quintessential network drafting. Click to enlarge.

And come even closer:

Emerging

The third amalgamation warp is a wrap. Samples hemmed, washed, ironed, and laid out on my cutting board for a quick photo. These are from a 16-shaft draft. Click to enlarge.

I think the next amalgamation warp will be for my 8-shaft lobby loom, but I need a few more heddles for that loom. They're on order. At least I can wind a new warp in preparation. Now here's a picture of something that can't wait:

My daffodils are emerging! Even if we have a couple of frosts, I think most of them will make it. These gals are tough.

Blue & Gold

Bronson lace on the rigid heddle loom. Gearing up for January.

One space left in the class "Color and Texture on the Rigid Heddle Loom." See sidebar.

A last blast of color on my street.

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.