summertime!

Summer vacation began 2weeks ago for us in Washington state. I have been so busy that i have not been making much progress with my 10 yard overshot warp. But my family is eating all home cooked meals our house is clean and my garden is beautifully weed free and flourishing. Its all about striking a balance for me.  My husband always says "a happy wife makes a happy life" he loves that little joke and i swear he navigates a conversation just to set it up to use that little jewel of his. But there is truth in the concept that making others happy will bring happiness back to you :) Truthfully, im in the final stretch of my warp and for once i have no clue what to put on next. Something with one shuttle for sure,or maybe a rag rug,maybe rep weave,maybe some kitchen towels,or Swedish lace! lol the dilemma of weavers through the ages"what should i weave next?" While i ponder this question i will show you what i have accomplished so far:

a beautiful bamboo/merino roving i bought at the Shepard's extravaganza

this is my second bobbin. I would consider buying a woolie winder, but i already have a dozen beautiful kromski bobbins. i just cant bring my self to do it.

there should be just enough left to fill my bobbin

i forgot to snap off a pic of the green overshot,but managed to angle my camera under the breast beam. I love this spring green :)

Then i was inspired by a colonial overshot coverlet i saw online one day. It hit me right between the  eyes,"wow that is the exact draft i have on my loom right now" How awesome was that? So i decided to give it a try and I'm liking it. I really like how the border looks like bunting.  Very patriotic :)
Happy Independence Day!

snowballs in spring

Here is the latest runner on the 10 yard snowball warp. This time i am using the star treadle sequence. I think it is weaving up nice and square. I know my friend will be thrilled with this for her piano :)

This is the beginning of what i hope to be a 3 ply weft yarn. I really love this Falkland top. It is spinning up easily.The color is called daylily. At the time i bought it, i thought it was very different than the colors i usually choose. Now that I'm spinning it i realise that its the same yellow and green i am always drawn to, just a darker muted version is all. 

I don't care, i still love it! 

P.S. that is my soon to be 11 year old son. Isn't he handsome? :)

learning from my warping mistakes

Warping back to front was an interesting experience. I have to say that it was really nice to wind those 2 inch warp chains and beam them separately onto the loom. I secured my crosses with painters tape like i'd seen in  other weavers pictures. It was easier on my shoulder than winding a whole warp at once.  I was also able to get great tension all along the way.  My mistake came when i went to thread the heddles. My front beam does not come off easily. But if i take out 4 bolts the front and back beam will tip up and down out of the way like a seesaw so i can access the heddles. Some how when my back beam was up in the air and i was hanging my individual  bouts over it they got twisted something terrible! Unfortunately this was not apparent to me until after i had threaded and sleyed and was getting ready to tie onto the front beam. grrrr. It is an easy mistake to make with this loom. A mistake i have made in the past.You'd think id learn...I have figured out how to remedy this but it is not ideal. I placed two pick up sticks in each tabby shed behind the heddles then slid them down behind my back beam like this.

This keeps those twists below the sticks and does not interfere with the weaving. unfortunately every other time i advance my warp i have to get up and slide the sticks back down. :(  Luckily my tension was good and i have managed to weave with this unfortunate adjustment. As they say: necessity is the mother of invention and you live and learn. Thankfully there were no threading or sleying mistakes.

Moving to the front of the loom. i was able to weave 56" for my mother's piano in her favorite red.

And i have begun a yellow one for the dresser in my spare room.

I just love yellow!

Next up will be one in blue for my dearest friend who just bought a new house.:) 

So i tried something new and made the obligatory mistakes.But I think i will try this again. 

warp-10/2 cotton

tabby-20/2 cotton

weft 5/2 cotton

sleyed 24 epi

And a parting shot of our pretty cherry in bloom. Spring is here and the weeds are too.

one done,and other begun

Whig rose is off the loom. I liked it so much i never got a chance to weave it in star fashion. Here it is just off the loom. I always like to spread out and admire the length of woven goods. Don't you? I think its a quirky thing most weavers do. Its just so satisfying to see.

This project was supposed to be for my new house but i already gave the red one away. I do that all the time. But, here are the other two in action. Yellow pattern weft and green tabby. I was inspired by the daffodils that the area i live in is famous for. Plus i personally love yellow and green.

And finally, the green one: just in time for Easter :)

My next project is another overshot project that will be a narrow dresser/piano scarf that will go to my mom for mothers day.(i still give my mom mothers day presents. Its a tradition i have always kept.)

I really liked this pattern on page 181 in "the green book", but for a narrow piano scarf it needed to be simplified. Less border and more middle was what i wanted.

 I kept looking and found this lovely pattern in the Nov/DEC 2010 handwoven. But i still wanted something with smaller borders.

Then i found this one by Gene E Valk in a handwoven ebook for top ten overshot projects. And its just right.

I'm warping up 10 yards in white and plan to play with several different colors. I have 2 house warming gifts to give in the near future so i decided to get a little more mileage out of this warp. I usually don't do warps that long because i tend to get tired of doing the same pattern over and over. I also plan on breaking out of my usual warping habit. I'm a front to backer. Its how i learned and it works well for me. But my Norwood loom has 2 inch sections on the back beam. My plan is to warp 2 inch bouts on my warping board and beam them individually. Lets hope it works and i can get uniform tension! 

love love Whig rose

I finished the rose version of the whig rose table runner in red this weekend. I love this pattern! Overshot has always been satisfying to me,but the treadling on this was pure joy. 

Then i started it in my favorite green(uki scarob).

 Here is the main body of the runner.  Isn't it pretty? I love it! only 18 more inches to go.

Originally i intended to weave this in both rose and star fashion,but rose has been so much fun i think ill just do one more. I might have to warp up again for star :)

whig rose it is

My shoulder strain is much better and i'm back to weaving.  I finished winding all 480 ends and warped my loom over the weekend.

Here is the draft i picked for my table runners. you can find this on page 176 of  the Davison pattern handbook. I really like how there are the  rose and star versions of this. I wanted to do this in 2 colors but the yarn i chose is back ordered. So i decided i would just make one all in red while i wait for my order to arrive. Red is very traditional for overshot, but from a practical standpoint i needed a runner for my hall table and red will be nice from Christmas to Valentines day.(and i had a whole cone of red in the size i needed)

I usually sample a new pattern,but this is weaving up so nicely that i just kept going.so now i need to back up a few inches and do a hem stitch so it finishes just as nicely.(not my usual way, but why not give it a go) There were a few minor set up issues. One thread had a pesky factory knot in it that i somehow missed in the winding process that had to be pulled and replaced, and i managed to skip a dent around the mid point which i did not see until i had tied on and started to weave. Un-weave,untie,re-sley from the skipped dent. It happens...truth be told i enjoy threading. Overshot is especially nice because the rules make it fool proof. Here is a closer view.

I'm using 10/2 cotton for the warp,5/2 cotton for the pattern weft and 20/2 for the tabby weft.

after a delay im ready to sley

I strained my right shoulder. Its an old injury that acts up now and then,but it really put a hitch in winding my warp. I would get started winding and have to stop almost immediately. I have to use my shoulder for my day job (school bus driver) so even though i wanted to keep going i knew better than to over use it. Weaving is my hobby so i rarely put time limitations on myself. Its a journey that progresses at its own pace for me. If i want to sit and dawdle, i do. Also, part of my yarn order was back ordered. So it seemed like the universe was saying "relax and heal". My weaving brain is never idle however. Thanks to all my favorite blogs and the internet,my weaving connection is never broken. I prowled Amazon and  added to my weaving library. So all in all it was only a physical weaving break. Weaving seems to wind its way into my everyday life no matter what i'm doing or not doing.

Two new additions are the Tina Ignell book that is pure eye candy. I find these types of  books to be inspirational but lacking the in depth instruction that i want. Another point is that most of these projects call for 16/2 cotton or linen that i do not have in my stash. Reproducing one of these beauties will require either some major math adjustments or another yarn order. I'm not opposed to either,but i usually just look and drool at these kind of books. 

The other new book is something i ran across on amazon and decided to pick up. Its called The weaving book of Peace and Patience by Isadora Safner. (She wrote the weaving roses of rhode island book that i would love to look at, but just cant spend 70 bucks on.) There are 6 pages of biography about Peace and Patience (mother and daughter) and 29 weaving drafts that have been carefully interpreted for modern weavers. 21 of the drafts are overshot and the rest are assorted summer winter and bronson. All in all it is a nice booklet of colonial weaving that i enjoyed. all are Tromp as writ.

And finally, i have wound all 480 ends for a little bit of overshot. Next up sleying. Winding an all white warp was a bit boring after the colorful towels I just finished. Maybe I should try a colorful overshot warp next time with a light weft just to spice things up a bit.

throwing in the towels

Here are the turned taquete towels off the loom. The texture is stiff and the cotton is quite shiny. I wasn't sure how i liked them. The warp and weft colors just weren't jiving well for me.

And here they are cut, serged  and washed.(still need to hem them) Wow what a difference!!

They are so soft. The colors blended and shifted in the wash like magic! I am so pleased with how the colors have turned out. It always amazes me how much things change after tossing them into the washer and dryer. I will definitely be exploring  this draft again. Big thanks to Sharon of In Stitches for sharing this draft!

Next up? Another overshot sampling project. I've already started to wind a warp of 10/2 cotton but i haven't quite settled on a pattern.This one maybe?

or maybe this one?

Both of these drafts are from the Handweaver's pattern book. Tomorrow im going to place an order at Webs for some spring colors in 5/2 and 10/2 cotton so i have plenty of time to decide on a pattern and warp my loom. I like Webs prices but their shipping and processing sure takes time. I guess its because they are on the east coast and i'm on the west, but my order always takes 2 to 3 weeks to arrive. They say good things come to those who wait,but i don't think they ever had to wait for yarn .