Friday, November 26, 2010

Overambitious

I haven't been talking about my loom lately.

This is not because I have lost interest. Its not because I'm not using it. Its not because I don't love it lots and lots.

Its because I am a crazy person.

See, rather than warp up a simple scarf or something else narrow and fairly uncomplicated I decided that the first thing I wanted off my loom was fabric for a new knitting tote bag. I decided that it was going to be large (a bit over the size of my current go-to ravelry tote), it was going to be slightly felted (which means it needs to be woven even larger than usual) and it was going to be a large, dramatic pattern.

I found a large scale twill draft on weavolution, figured out how to read it (I hope) and got to winding the warp. Since I figured this would be a fairly time intensive threading and since I had two whole cones of Shetland wool I wanted to use up I decided to warp for two bags worth of fabric. I figured that way I would either get a Christmas present out of it as well or maybe be able to negotiate with someone more competent with a sewing machine than I am to make the bag itself in exchange for the second hunk of fabric.

This all sounds only a little unreasonable until you consider the fact that I have never actually warped a four-harness loom before.

So four weeks later this is how far along I am:


That's right - I have ONE WHOLE THREADING REPEAT DONE! On the upside I also have all the warp wound finally. Having my Dad on hand to hang the warping board this week is mostly responsible for that last part (its very annoying to wind onto a board that is leaning on the wall or propped on your lap).

I am at least 50% sure that I'm doing this right.

I'm also at least 80% sure there is some more efficient method to do this.

Sometime before I do this again I should try and figure out what that is.

Anyway, one repeat down and two to go.

I started winding the weft bobbins so that whenever this thing is finally tied up and ready to go I won't have to wait on that also:

This bag may not be done for a year or something but I'm still confident its going to be pretty awesome when it finally happens.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Kid & Ewe 2010

Sheep to shawl!
(but with 100% more Alpaca and 99.9% less sheep)

Up to the last minute warping!

Tied up & ready to go.

Our team hosted 4 spinners and me. Technically I'm a spinner too but all I did for the first hour was stand around taking pictures and then walk around the rest of the show trying to find out where the cashmere was hidden.

Later all these people gave me their bobbins and I plied like the WIND! Seriously I plied so fast no one could get a picture of me.

Then I wound the finished alpaca onto bobbins and blinked a few times and Susan had woven a shawl.

We finished in 3 hours. I am told this is some kind of record.

For some reason I forgot to get a picture of the finished shawl but it was pretty damn awesome. We had it done, fringe twisted and everything, almost two full hours before the end of the demo.

Afterwards I poked around all the vendors, eventually found where the cashmere was hiding (and narrowly avoided a good beat down for swiping some of it early), bought some kid mohair to keep it company and then my trusty navigator and I drove out to comfort and had lunch at High's cafe and poked our heads into the Tinsmith's wife (I really wanted to give them some money and take home more goodies but I'd exhausted every last alloted penny for the day and opted to be good just this once. Mom - I know what you are getting me when you come out to visit now).

Pretty good day all around.