Forward on the learning curve

Dorothy's latest adventure

The knitting/crocheting/weaving world is celebrating the 2010 Winter Olympics in it's own way. By crafting up a storm! I've completed my 1st two projects:

Knit & felted the comfiest slipper EVER.
Fiber Trends clogs.

And cut another woven fabric fresh from the loom.
I made a really fraking big tote bag!
(The Olympic Carrier :)

Came off the loom Saturday morning.

I ran out of Weft color 3 times before I got to the end of the Warp. The color breaks helped decide the design.

(I DIDN’T have a plan!)

As I added the finishing touches to the bag I realized it was pretty “fraking” big. So in honor of the Ravelympics & Battlestar Galactica I’ve named it The Olympic Carrier :)

Cutting this time wasn’t so scary - in fact I wove it with the express intention of cutting immediately. Ran out of yarn I was using for the weft and there wasn’t a skein to be found at any of the stores around here. I wasn’t thrilled with the red/grey color at first, so I just wanted to get it off the loom. Grabbed the Debbie Mumm brand; a little thicker weight, deeper red and it has sparkle shots throughout. Was not crazy about that either. By using it on the sides & handles of the bag as contrast, it didn’t seem so bad when I was done.

After thought bag flap done in Warp color just so I could finish the skein and the warp that was at the end of the loom. (Just found another skein of this stuff I've been using as warp. I thought it was gone. Jeesh!)

Already planning the next project to cut up. Maybe down size the Design-As-I-Go method for a smaller scale bag pattern next time.

Finished THINGS!

Me and Dorothy
...still friends :)

I threaded my loom with some cheap (mostly free) acrylic yarn and wove 6 feet of of "too stiff to be a scarf" fabric. I SEW. So why do I have a pile of woven stuff gathering into an ever higher clump of unused "fabric".
Time to take the scissors to some of it and make something!

Weavolution has a sub group for "Fearless Scissors" and I joined thinking it would motivate me into cutting & sewing something from my growing pile of woven material. Finally dawned on me if I just pile up everything that comes off my loom and is NOT a scarf and ready to wear, the yarn might as well stay rolled up in a ball. Kind of like exchanging one stash for another...what was the point?

Current mood: Quite Satisfied!
I spent a very productive morning once I screwed up enough courage to take the rotary cutter to my latest woven effort.
I made a bag!
The "fabric" is almost upholstery-like. If you thread bulky yarn through every hole of the loom's beater (12 slots per inch) you get very stiff fabric - unfit for a scarf. And the weft all but disappears. I kind of liked as it took on a denim look almost.

I found my sewing machine & SOME of my cutting table.
Need to do some spring cleaning so I can find more of it.
THE PLAN: throw stuff into Sara's old room and SORT, SORT, SORT.

I also made some size 12 socks out of wool and shrunk them down to size 8 Fuzzy Feet slippers. I put them in the washer at about the same time as I made the first whack with a rotary cutter for the bag.

Irony: I took them to work on while waiting for Uncle Joe at the eye doctors on Monday. It was so dark in their waiting room I grabbed a size 7 needle that was in my bag instead of the size 9.
Did most of the heel with one wrong sized needle each row.
Because I could not see what I was doing.

Let's try again, Dorothy

Weaving - Take 2:

So, I promised Dorothy not to put her back in the laundry room, dejected & defeated for another year.
Let's PLAY some more...

That Scarf has issues, sure. But this is no time to quit. Practice Makes Perfect ...okay NOT perfect. Exactly.
But we'll have fun, explore possibilities and see what happens. (Warping the loom began while it was still very dark outside...)

Besides. It's freaking cold outside.
What else is there to do?

And my 1st born baby moved to Minnesota.
Total Travel Estimate: 26 hours 51 minutes / 1631.58 miles
Mom distractions needed to fight the It's not just for a visit this time blues.

Daylight arrived to light up the fact that we had a long way to go before weaving could commence.

No surprise here...?
This project didn't go exactly as planned either.
But we had a good time getting there and Dorothy is still welcome in the living room. (Just to be clear ;)

I chose a pattern for threading the warp from Mastering Weave Structures, page 208: Plain Weave with Rib weave stripe.

I had actually considered trying fabric strips, mixed in with textured yarns in shades of tan to yellow.

That didn't seem like it was going to work so I tried to follow the actual directions from page 208.
More or less.
I soon realized the warp I used would be too thin to match the texture of the sample on page 209.
So I did just a plain weave.
Back and forth; boringly satisfying.

No Rib Weave yet for Dorothy and I.
Sugar 'n Cream cotton yarn weft. Potpourri.

Things learned best NOT to do this time:

Take off wire heddles after the loom has been threaded.
There were too many wires strung on shafts 3 & 4 since I was trying to thread all the way across the frame. The extras usually pile up on the side and hang out of the way. Threads from shaft 1 & 2 could not get past the stack of unused heddles hanging on the sides of 3 & 4.

Add 2nd strip of (yellow) warps after the loom is threaded to double each of the warps where Rib Weave would have happened.
I added 6 to each side, proving it could be done.
Gave up on the other 30 or so in varying colors I had considered.

A Temple is a new term I've only just learned. It might possibly have kept the woven fabric from pulling in so much trying to do the Rib Weave. Pretty hard on the outside warps if the beater has to smack 3 or 4 on the outside in either direction away from the actual edge.

This is why warp yarn breaks?
I think yes.
This is why I quit while I was ahead and settled for boringly satisfying.

It's not your fault, Dorothy

Seemed like a good idea at the time*

What NOT to do (perhaps) with 2 pricey skeins of Noro Silk Garden yarn.

This was the first Noro I've ever purchased.
And last most likely. While it was VERY pretty on the outside of the skein, inside dwelt some of the yuckiest purple + yellow + green equals mud I've never imagined.
I know this about variegated yarn and still I fall for the pretty bits on the outside. I much prefer a one or two color-shade variation. Why do I keep forgetting that?
All those colors don't belong together!

I didn't read yarn reviews until after I bought it of course. The knots where they joined blue and green with no attempt to match the color pattern would not have come as so much of a surprise if I had. Likewise, the mysterious foreign objects spun into the yarn that have now been identified as sticks, hay and other little "bits" sheep get stuck to themselves. No mystery.

We've got issues:

I threaded the reed at every other space with the 1st skein of Noro, thinking that by spreading it out farther across the loom it would make the scarf wider. The 2nd skein would be the weft. The tiny little skeins didn't have as much yardage as I imagined they might.

Wish I could say lack of yardage was this Scarf's only issue!

I began with the plan to do an all Rib Weave (page 20 - Learning to Weave by Deborah Chandler). Didn't look good and I suspected this was due to the every-other-space threading.

But did I weave backwards (unweave?) and start over?
Thread the reed differently?
NO.
Should I have?
YES! Definitely.

I ended up breaking a warp within 6 inches and it was pretty clear things were not going to get any better. The force of the beater smacking up against the yarn - especially the outer edges - was certainly going to break a few more very quickly. Did I stop NOW and regroup with a new plan?

NO. Well not exactly.
I "beat" nearly the entire thing into place with a comb.
(Do NOT recommend!) The beginning of the weaving where I used the normal beating action was several inches wider than the rest of the scarf.

I ended with a Rib Weave pattern to see what it might have looked like, if threaded correctly.

Thinking I can cut off the wide end and make hems so it looks even. Steph says they are "her colors" and she likes it. I've given her permission NOT to say "My Mom Made It" if anyone asks.

In fact, I think I would rather she did not...

Weaving: learning process continues

What's up with Dorothy?

My 3rd effort came off the loom this morning.

I don't have immediate access to some of the wonderful fibers that I would like to try weaving with and so this short sample was made from stash wool & nubby acrylic blends already on hand. I wanted to see what happens if you just weave what you own.

I experimented with threading the warp through every other space in the reed.
I experimented with the draft; threading through heddles in combinations of zig zags & pyramids: 1-2-3-4-3-2-1; 1-2-1; 3-4-3; 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4. And so on...

(Winging it would be a good description, as you might already suspect?)

Making the design up as I went along didn't work out quite as well as I hoped. I couldn't use a 1/2 tie up without making a long weft row stretch unsecured by 7 or 8 warps in one spot.
In hand quilting terms it would be called a "toe catcher"- stitches way too long; long enough to stick your toe through if it was a quilt on the bed.
I'm thinking long stitches are not desirable traits in weaving, either?

I realized possible thread drafting problems as I was tying the ends onto the loom. I'd left open heddle wires scattered across the harness, thinking I could run a single strand of warp randomly - maybe something contrasting in color or glitzy - that might add just a touch of sparkle.
And close the toe catchers.

In the end I just started weaving to see what happens.

It's more open weave made it softer than my last effort. (The grey sample had wool so I thought it would be softer than it actually was. "Beating it" with all my might may have added to the not so soft texture, I guess.

I'm not sorry for trying this latest effort using just knitting yarn, as imperfect as it is. 3 strands of warp broke at different intervals near the end so I go to practice a warp fix as described in the Learning to Weave book. Not sure what to do with the hanging ends on back where each new spool was joined. Seems like they could be clipped since they were overlapped as they were woven in.

The learning process will continue before more dust settles on Dorothy, so I guess that's half of the battle! The gray sample may be cut down and sewed into a clutch style purse or small totebag. This project may become a kitty pillow for Steph's cat, still living back in New York with Her Boy.

Time for a new obsession?

Yes, Dorothy. Let's be friends again!

This weaving thing turns out to be quite addictive. Certain family members have already wondered aloud if they've seen the last of the Mom Socks. I should think not! A loom is not exactly a project for on the go.

Monday I prepared the warp threads, setting the loom up: step-by-step. I would like to say I followed all of the steps from the Learning to Weave book exactly. Seriously. That would be expecting a little too much! Mistakes were made that hopefully won't be made the next time.

Yes. There will be a next time. Less than 16 years from now, even! It was NOT picture perfect like in the book. But how relaxing is this?

Tuesday was for actual weaving. This first project may actually get some use as a scarf...Steph wanted to know if it would be done by today. It almost was except I took time out to make an apple pie and then had to register the Jeep and go to town to pay the insurance.

I finished 5 pair of socks for Socktoberfest:
3 pair in a basic pattern, 1 with the Dublin Bay lace sides and one using the Picot tutorial. Ran out of purple Jelly Beenz so the toes are watermelon. Tried the Socktoberfest tutorial for weaving in ends while joining.

Truth. And owning it.

Meet Dorothy.
Right up front: NO WAY am I likely to come out looking good, once this tale is written down for all to read. For the record, I fully recognize this and am willing to admit once more, my character flaws. Compulsive. Obsessive. Flighty?
(Moves on to new obsessions with wild abandon.)

Stephani asked me about Dorothy's history the other day. Making me put into words for the first time how Dorothy came to be with me. It's kind of sad that she's just been here for nearly all of my daughters' lives. That they were probably too young to remember her arrival; too young and for so long ago that she's just THAT THING IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM NOBODY USES.

Long ago. (Whispering.) December 1990 and my name are written in the front of a book that came with Dorothy.

My husband gave her to me as a secret Christmas present. He enlisted his mom's help ordering her. Audrey lived on Cape Cod with her friend Jean. Purchased in Massachusetts, they had it shipped to his dad's house in Dixmont, Maine. For hiding purposes. It was such a shock to get it. I had been saying how much I would like a loom for a while; but one those wistful dreams of someday. Maybe. Maybe someday.

And then there she was. My most expensive present ever. Tom and I had always given each other gifts we picked out together in those early days. Like cross-country ski packages for each other. A waterbed one year. Bathrobes the year things were tight. Down payment on our house.
You know - useful things to be shared because we are happy to be married; happily together since December 1980. So how did my special gift end up in storage? Hardly used.

I went to the library and read up all I could about weaving on a tabletop loom and the first project didn't go so bad. Except it went on FOREVER. It's still in a " just removed from the loom" state, as I had no idea what to do with a really, really long table runner. With fringe. Placemats. Or one half of a door curtain if I did the whole thing again. NO!

The second attempt went terrible. Threads were cut from the loom and thrown away as a bad idea. Come to think of it, kind of like knitting now: I have no idea about choosing proper fibers. Clueless even. Ha! (Actual name of the quilting group I belong to ;)

Over time I seemed to have just moved on to other things. Things that came easier to me. Things I could teach myself; things that didn't go so dreadfully wrong.

Embroidery, handquilting, machine quilting, applique, cross-stitch, hardanger, plastic canvas, stamp collecting, knitting, getting african violets to live, a little painting & drawing; some photography & scrapbooking. Fabric Postcards!

All things I could read up on. Teach myself. LOVE. Do pretty darn well even as a bit of a perfectionist.

And then move on. Again.
Something new. Challenging. Different.

I had a teacher in high school who taught us by example never to be afraid to try something new. He said he had needed a painting for behind his couch as a young married man. So he taught himself to oil paint. I can still remember the beauty of the paintings he brought to class to show us. He said he painted for as long as he wanted. Until his house was filled with paintings. And then he moved on to other interests. New interests he was willing to try. (He also bragged about drinking champaign from a lady's slipper.)

He was about 80 if he was a day and goofy as hell! Taught "modern history" but we started with ancient wars with AC/ BC dates and never got past the beginning of Vietnam. I'm not sure what we thought modern was in 1977? I remember thinking it was not this.

Fast Forward:
I joined a Yahoo group for weavers a few weeks ago. Finally made first contact last week. A lady a few miles up the road has offered to help me give Dorothy another try. And the name of her local Guild.

As soon as I dust Dorothy off and read up a bit more, I'll get started once again. I've been thinking about it for a while now. Ever since I read a blog written by a crazy chick with a god damn hammer. Brave enough to try building something to weave on.

One more character flaw perhaps: Optimistic. Here's hoping the socks in my knitting bucket don't become UFO's. Maybe I'll end up weaving some very colorful Kool-Aid dyed wool one day?