Luke’s Sweater

I promised photos . . . mind you, one-year old boys don’t sit still very well, so these are as good as it gets. He isn’t quite confident walking yet, so he goes on all fours. Don’t you love the determination in that face?

Pattern by Cabin Creek, Heirloom Easy Care 8 yarn

 

Skeins of Many Colors

Perhaps one of the best things about spinning is being able to create totally unique yarns. Two companies have recently introduced lines of spinning wool that are simply beautiful to behold. We’ve had the Louet Northern Lights for a while. You may have seen it on the shelf and wondered what it would look like spun. Christel did most of the work that you see in this post, Maureen helped her out a bit. The rest of us cheered them on and enjoyed the results! Here’s what it looks like on the shelf (at least four of the colors):

When Christel spun both the batches of top – Ashford and Louet, she split the amounts in half and placed them in order so she could make two identical bobbins-full of singles. She then plied. The skeins before they were separated were gorgeous:

Don’t they inspire you? I can imagine spinning just a bit of each and knitting with them. They’d be fun spun like this and knit with black for a stained glass window effect . . . or in oh-so-many fun ways! My fingers itch to spin.

Before making them into little skeins, Christel made a ball. This is the Louet:

Anyhow, back to what happens when you play with the Louet. The top swatch (“fruit loops”) is plied with a solid colored blue (Stonehedge’s Shepherd’s Wool Top). The bottom swatch is plied on itself.

This one is “cotton candy” plied on itself, plied with white, then plied with the same blue as in the swatch above.

Here are the Louet skeins as they appear after spinning and plied on themselves. Sorry, I don’t have the names handy, but they are tagged and available for you to fondle at the shop! These are just a few of the colors. We’ve got lots in stock, but a new shipment should be here soon.

And, not to be slighted. The Ashford Merino/Silk Sliver (80/20) is everything it should be: soft, a joy to spin, beautiful to behold and just nice to look at (spun or unspun!). The skeins below are all plied on themselves.

And, then we played a bit. The top, middle and bottom skeins are plied on themselves. The skeins between are one ply of the color above and the color below.

Shop Hop 2008

The Black Sheep Knitting Guild waits patiently to check out.

This year’s Shop Hop was a blast! It started with a group celebrating a friend’s 50th birthday party (they even mailed a sign ahead so we surprised her at the door!), then came the Black Sheep Knitting Guild with their busload of 20+ and the day ended with carpools of Clarkston’s library knitting group. In between we took a few breaths and enjoyed the fashion parade. It is always fun to see what everyone has knit over the year.

Also during the event we were pleased to host a trunk show from Knitting Matters and Kim Smith was on hand to sign her patterns, answer questions and help make yarn selections. A couple of her fans showed up in vests knit from Kim’s patterns and were kind enough to pose for the camera. Truly a good time was had by all . . . I know this because the home made brownies and cookie bars were but crumbs on the plate and we ran out of Shop Hop gifts. What a day!

Sally, Kim and Connie

Kim gets a kick out of signing her patterns.

Spinning from a Wad

Okay, so that isn’t a very technical term, but it is very, very fun. Here’s a picture of what it looks like:

And here’s what it looked like before being spun:

Then you grab a handful and start spinning. Mega fun! The resulting yarn is very interesting and very usable.

The class that was doing this “new” kind of spinning was our Breeds class. Each month we spin a different breed. Last month it was Gotland, this month Teeswater. I buy raw fleeces and wash them prior to the class. This fleece was simply gorgeous. It is a lamb fleece that weighed only 3 pounds. The lamb lives in Texas. Here are two photos of the washed wool. Even after washing, the shape of the sheep was retained. Pretty incredible. Be sure to click on the second photo – the butt end of this fleece is simply gorgeous.

In addition to “spinning from the wad,” students also spun more conventionally. They found that the wool had a lot of static and was best spun right off the combs. Spinning from wool that had been pulled through a diz produced yarn that was lumpier (probably because of the static and lack of much lanolin).

Here are a few photos of spinners at work and the resulting skeins.

   

One Warp, Many Fabrics

 The power of the Internet. You’ve got to watch what you say or it may come back to bite you in the butt!

Here’s the story. Back in June there was a conversation on WeaveTech (a Yahoo group list) about ergonomics and weaving. I chimed in that it was a passion of mine and thought I’d take up the suggestion of Karen at Synergo Arts and make a weaving bench cushion. This was not a short-term goal. It was a “one of these days when I get time” idea.

Well, a friend and fellow committee member in the Spinning & Weaving Association, Liz, also happens to be the editor of Handwoven magazine. She caught me. Could I please weave it for an upcoming issue? came the question in an email. Hmmm. Sure. When is it due? AUGUST 1. Of course between the time she asked me and when it was due I had two conferences to attend and a festival to produce. But, let it never be said that I don’t enjoy a good challenge.

Luckily, I was hit by a lightening bolt during a seminar I took at the Complex Weaver’s conferece led by Robyn Spady (who is teaching here at the shop next spring). Robyn talked on a style of weaving using a twill structure called “echo weave.” Echos can be woven in the warp or the weft or both (more specifics below). I worked on the laptop on the way home from Florida designing the pattern and finished when we got back. I was happy.

Then Liz asked, could I please use the colors of the issue: red, orange, purple and turquoise. Not colors I would have chosen, but they were a challenge, too.

I had fun planning and weaving (and meeting the deadline). What was most fun was discovering how many different “looks” I got from one warp. Each side of the bench cover was distinctly different. Once I got the piece done and in the mail, I still had plenty of warp left to play with. So, play I did. At left below are six different patterns that came from this single warp. Click on the photo to see them closer up. The warp runs horizontally in all the photos.

 Following is what I wrote for Handwoven (before Madelyn’s edits):

Semantic discussions and serious weavers seem to go hand in hand. Some think that “echo” weave should really be called “shadow” weave. Unfortunately, that name was already taken and thus conjures up the wrong images to “in the know” weavers. Echo weave has been around a while – Helene Bress discusses it in “The Weaving Book” published in 1981 and she references a newsletter by Bertha Needham published in the 1930s. I learned about it from Robyn Spady at this year’s Complex Weaver’s Conference and it captured my imagination. Echo structures are simple to design, fun to weave and quite stunning when executed in vibrant, contrasty colors. The theories have been applied to overshot, monk’s belt and twill.

 

The two sides of this bench cushion apply “echo” in two ways to a twill structure. First in the threading and second in the threading and treadling. The striped side of this bench pad relies on echo threading that is woven with a simple point twill treadling. The flip side is woven using the same threading and tie up but is woven using echo treadling.

 

In echo threading, the thread count is doubled by inserting a thread (the echo) between each of the existing threads. A four shaft example is: 1 _ 2 _ 3 _ 4 _. The next step is to insert the echoing thread a consistent distance from the original thread. This example might then become: 1 3 2 4 3 1 4 2, where each inserted thread is two shafts away from the original thread. The more shafts you have, the greater the distance you can put between the original thread and the echo thread. This sample is quite easy to weave because only one shuttle is used at a time.

 

In echo treadling, each pick is expanded to a series of six picks. A “set” of picks becomes, for example: 1 2 10 1 2 9 where shafts 1 – 8 are traditional twill tie ups and shafts 9 and 10 are tie down shafts (almost tabby). To achieve a flowing design you must put sets next to each other. On an 8-shaft loom the sets are (1 2) (2 3) (3 4) (4 5) (5 6) (6 7) (7 (8 1). Refer to the chart to start your fabric, then, as you become comfortable with the pattern, “wander” around the sets moving up or down as you desire. If you work from set (1 2) up to set (8 1) and continue again from the beginning, you will create a chevron-like pattern. If you move up and down the sets randomly, you will get a more organic looking fabric such as that illustrated here.

 

Weaving the echo treadling is a little trickier because you are juggling three shuttles. If you always place the shuttles in the same order when they are resting, you won’t loose your place and the threads will interlock appropriately at the selvedges. Because no selvedges are visible in this bench cushion, you can leave all your ends at the selvedge and not worry about working them in. This is a good piece to weave if you have a little stress in your day – since it will be upholstery, it stands up to a heavy hand on the beater!

 

I found that I underestimated how much the fabric would change off the loom and wished I had woven a bit extra to allow more choice when centering the fabric on the cushion. When I first started weaving,  I worried about having the beginning and ending of the cushion being mirror images of each other. Then I decided to “get over it” and enjoy the weaving experience. That made weaving much more pleasurable. The pattern is so active that your eye doesn’t look for symmetry (in the non-stripe side). In fact, once I wove through the pattern I had planned, I found that I could weave from jotted notes that looked like this 12, 23, 34, 45, 34, 23, etc. Using this weaving “shorthand” made the weaving much easier once I understood the flow of the shuttles. So, I challenge you: once you understand the way the echo treadling works, play a little and enjoy the magic of weaving and create a truly one-of-a-kind piece.

Luke’s Sweater

This is just a quick grandmotherly post. Here’s the sweater I knit Luke last weekend at a retreat hosted by Christa Kindt-Newhouse at Insel Haus. It was a lovely weekend and this sweater is a great memory from it. It is a present for Luke’s first birthday next week. Hope it fits!

The technical details: it is knit from my favorite yarn (okay, one of them): Heirloom EasyCare 8. Love that yarn. Machine washable, feels great, looks great. Wears wonderfully. The pattern is from Cabin Creek, their kids top down book.

My Mom-the-Sock-Machine strikes again

I don’t have to be told that I have the best parents in the world (but I may be a little prejudiced!). Mom’s been at it again . . . in addition to sending us two new socks samples for the shop (Jawohl and Araucania), she also sent socks for two (obviously) special people. The first was for Becca, who is an honorary Sheridan grandchild. They are Becca’s first hand-made socks and she fell in love with them immediately. This is an Opal yarn.

The second pair of socks went to Dan-the-UPS-man. He has earned them by carrying many, many very heavy boxes for us for years. While he cannot wear them with his shorts (no UPS logo!), he can wear them in the winter – and hunting! These socks felt sooooo good. They are knit from Crystal Palace Panda Soy. Oh my gosh! I don’t think I’ve ever felt such cushy socks. And, the stitches were even and the fabric was simply gorgeous. I think I might need a pair for me!

On another topic, each week customers come in and share their work with us. One of these days I will get a gallery up on the website, but in the meantime, I thought I’d share this shot with you. It is Michelle’s original skirt design knit from Hempathy. The more garments I see knit from this yarn, the more I like it. This is a special skirt because it represents a real leap in learning. Months ago Michelle came in looking for a skirt pattern. We couldn’t find her one that matched the image in her head so she decided to tackle the problem herself. She’s knit the Louet Euroflax skirt, so she understood the garment construction and had an idea of how to approach “the problem.” Armed with a stitch dictionary, she came up with this. I’m really proud of her!