Three Looms Warped

I have new projects on all three looms. That's exciting! This is a warp for 2 shawls. It is a mixed warp of cotton threads, a shiny slubby rayon thread, and Luna ribbon. I have already completed blue and purple shawls in my series of shawls for the Artery. I know it's 100+ degrees out but I'm getting a head start on the projects for the winter and I couldn't wait to try out my new yarn. This is the newest Jacob yarn (1 ply black and 1 ply light gray)--not even labeled or on the website yet--and the project is a v-shawl. I have been low on baby blankets for quite a while and while this warp may not help when someone needs a "boy blanket" it should give me several for girls--it's 24 yards. Someone called today looked for a "neutral" blanket and I wonder if I weave with a blue thread if it could go for either. Here's a small world experience. Yesterday I got an e-mail from a young woman New York who had been sent one of my baby blankets when she was a baby and her mother has been a regular customer ever since. The daughter now has a friend who is pregnant and wants to give one of the baby blankets. The call today was from the person who sent that first blanket  to his niece in New York and now wants to send a blanket to Germany.)

Still weaving

I haven't written about weaving lately, but I'm still working at the loom. I have orders from 3 regular customers for 9 baby blankets. I just finished a warp with 10 blankets.

Last week I finished an order for wool throws. This customer had her yarn spun at Yolo Wool Mill and wanted 5 different blankets. Sometimes it is necessary to add a lot of spinning oil to the wool during processing. The yarn isn't very appealing in that state, but woven blankets aren't truly finished until they are 'wet finished'. In wet finishing  the  oil is removed and the blanket is fulled. Take a look at the before and after photos of these blankets.

I calculated a sett of 5.5 epi. I used a 6-dent reed and left every 12th dent open. After I started weaving I worried that you would see that empty space in all 5 blankets and that would distract from the woven pattern. I didn't need to worry.  In the photo below you can sort of see that line, but when you see the blanket you focus on the diagonal twill and don't even notice the vertical line.

Above is the before and after of another twill blanket.

Plain weave. Before fulling is above and after fulling is below.

This is one of my favorite weave structures. I was concerned about the finishing of this blanket. The yarn that I got from the mill was on cones and in skeins. The skeined yarn was so much oilier than the coned yarn  it almost seemed to be a different batch. You can see the difference in the photo. In fact, there was so much tacky grease that I had to pull a length of yarn out of the shuttle with every pass or my end-feed shuttle would go flying off the loom (guess that's because I have a fly-shuttle loom!) because the yarn wouldn't feed out properly. I was relieved after I washed the blanket that there was no difference in the fulling of the two yarns.

New Baby Blankets

I haven't written much about weaving lately, but I'm getting a few things done. I have woven some baby blankets using SuperLamb. That's the washable Merino wool  by Jaggerspun that i am selling in the shop. It will be great for baby blankets--very soft and the added advantage of being machine washed and dried.

Here are some of the blankets still on the loom.

And here they are off the loom. These blankets are at The Artery right now.

More Color

Saturday was Fiber Frolic at Meridian Jacobs. Colleen Simon (friend down the road) put this on and each teach two classes. Participants get to pick from two classes in the morning and two in the afternoon and lunch is provided. In the morning Colleen taught minature sock knitting--it is the same as regular sock knitting, but many fewer stitches. While she was inside I was outside with the dyeing group. Good thing that this class was in the morning because the high temperature that day was 107!

Look at the fiber and yarn that we dyed!

We all went inside for the afternoon. I taught a Novelty Yarn class while Colleen taught Needlefelting.  These are the butterflies that students made:

On the weaving front--I finally finished a batch of baby blankets. Here is what they look like when they come off the loom:

Not too impressive, huh? That's 18 blankets. Here are some that are finished and ready for sale:

I have sold 6 of the 18 blankets already so I'd better get busy with another warp!

The State Fair is going to get in the way of that though! That is coming up this weekend and I am still working on my display.

Weaving odds & ends

I won't say that I'm catching up with my things-to-weave list, but I'm plugging away at it. I have sold about half of the baby blankets on the PURPLE warp.

but have enough left to put some on the website and maybe resurrect my etsy listings too. I have a new baby blanket warp on the loom ready to thread. Not everyone wants a purple blanket for a baby gift and that's all I have right now!

Here's a full-size blanket that I finally finished for a customer using her yarn.

This is a blanket for another customer who sent me her Jacob wool.

And here's a funky bag. I'm experimenting with felting up some odds and ends of wool fabric to create bags. I think they'll get better as I perfect it.

I have taught a couple of weaving classes in the last few weeks as well. Here are the participants and their scarves:

It's sure nice now that I have room in my shop to have 5 people weaving at once!

Leash it!

I'm trying to figure out a name for my new product. This is the one that is going to make my fortune. Well, maybe not...but it involves yarn and it's fun to do. These are the leashes I've been working on. I think I still need to do something about some of the tassels and beads to neaten them up. My original idea was to splice the ends, but that would involve learning something else and a lot of time and then I wouldn't have an excuse to go buy beads.

There is a member-screening at the Artery's Annual Meeting this weekend and I've been planning to get these ropes done so I could take them to the screening. I also need to finish some more buttons.

I'm back to the loom--trying to weave off the warp that I put on before I broke my arm in January. This is a baby blanket warp on the AVL.

This blanket is still on the loom. Purple enough?

These will be listed for sale on my website soon I hope.