Back home

I've been home for a few days now. We enjoyed our trip to the UK though the reason in the first instance was a sad one, we did have a very nice family reunion.
Next was our weekend in Cornwall and visiting the Eden Project. I can highly recommend going there. What a magical place I found it to be and very educational too. If you don't know anything about the Eden Project, just follow the link and you will find an informative website. We took many photos but the website gives a good impression of what it is like.
You can book tickets online and when you make your ticket as a donation you are given a year membership card enabling you to come back within that year for free as many times as you like. This was great as we went on an orientational tour on Saturday and on Sunday spent all day having a good look around.

This is what the site looked like before.And how it looks now from one angle. On the right you can see The Core.

And here a view from the opposite side. You can see The Core in the top centre.You will find this inside The Core: Seed.

Throughout the whole project you will find artwork, this is what is greeting you when you arrive.

The only textile item during our trip was having lunch with Katharina, who I know from the Bradford course. It was nice to meet up again and to have seen her studio, a lovely place in her garden.

Back home now and temperatures are rising here, it feels very muggy. I like the sun but not when it becomes like it is now. I will just slow down and take things easy, contemplating about my next warp.

Visit UK

We are leaving for the UK tomorrow.
Apart from attending an aunts funeral, we will be heading towards the Eden Project in Cornwall. I'm quite exited about this! This has been on my wish list for a long time.
I hope the cats will be happy with their "sitters", I'm sure they will as they have cats themselves.
Back soon.

Grandchildren and more

First things first, my friend chose the striped scarf.
The blocked scarf will now be given to a friend in the UK.

The new warp is still waiting to be made.
Other things got in the way, like spending time with the grandchildren this last weekend. I was being a real granny and I looked after them for 2 days. It was nice as I do not see them on a regular basis and I got to know them a bit better. They are 2 and nearly 4 years old and full of mischief like they should be at that age. But oh boy was it hard work! It was good to be home again. I'll have another day looking after them in about 3 weeks time. This means spending another night with them too as there are lots of road works going on and with the rush hour on top this would make a stressful journey early morning to get to them.

Later this week we will be making a sudden trip to the UK attending a funeral.
Although it is sad to lose a family member, she was 90 and lived a full life. The other side of a funeral is that they are like a family reunion.
We will now also celebrate a special wedding anniversary this weekend in the UK instead of celebrating at home with the children and grandchildren.
All in all I'm looking forward to our trip.

But this will not bring me nearer making my next warp. First job is to calculate the setting of this yarn. I'm also taking on Doni advice to sample (her reaction in my last posting) the Brighton honeycomb. In a way I will not want to lose any yarn to sampling but I can see that it is the best way to find out if it works at all.
When I saw the Brighton honeycomb in Sharon Alderman's book Mastering Weave Structures I thought the colour combination of these 2 yarns would make a good design.
On the other hand, it would mean weaving with only one colour, so may be it makes it a bit dull to weave after having used all the different colours in my last weaving.
All in all it does not hurry me along making my next warp quickly this way.

Finished scarves + yarn for next project

Above is the striped scarfand this the blocked one.

I'm happy with the end result now that they are wet finished.

Time for a new project:

I will be using these yarns.
The yarn is a mix of wool, silk and cashmere (60-25-15%) that was sent to me by Doni to try out this yarn. Oh so soft yarn! And I love the colours she chose. They remind me of geraniums.
I have an idea from Sharon Alderman's book Mastering Weave Structures that I like to pursue.

Fringes and a twister.

I never saw the need to get a fringe twister until I read the thread at WeaveTech last December and I managed to buy one from Georgeann Curran.
It looks like this with cute little sheep.

Today I have used it for the first time on my finished scarves and wow it works like a treat, all fringes are the same now. Much faster and the choice of using 2 or 3 strands.




I've experimented on one of my samples to see how I wanted my fringes to look. I thought to make lots of little ones as the scarves are so airy but by seeing the result I choose a fringe double the size that I original thought of.


From left to right: first 4 are 8 threads divided in 3 strands. The next 2 are 16 threads divided over 3 strands. Next 1 is 16 threads divided in 2 strands. The last 6 on the right are 8 threads divided over 2 strands. I went for the 16 threads divided over 3 strands. The difference between 2 or 3 strands was a much tighter fringe with 3.
This is how I did it:
I spread out the scarf and put a heavy book over the width. The part where I'm working on a fringe I add a heavy object, I like to use this glass vase for weight. Now I can pull on the threads without the scarf moving. First I find the right amount of threads, in this case I go by the colour groups that I used in the warp. Next I clipped the 3 strands in the twister and twisted 25x which I found just right for this fine cotton.
Next I unclipped the twisted strands and twisted them together the other way around. Fringe finished. This I did to both scarves. With the twister this was a job done fast and without ending up with cramp in the fingers from twisting by hand what I had always done before I had this twister.
The scarves are washed and are drying now. I cannot wait to see how they will be when dry. The 2nd scarf is much shorter, I hope it has not shrunk to much wet finishing it. I will find out tomorrow!

Done!

My warp is finished at last. After the first scarf I found it difficult to stay motivated. Nothing to do with weaving but all to do with myself. I could at times only manage weaving a few centimetres at a time.
I will have a proper look at the result tomorrow and wet finish them both.
The photo is not a good one but here is the warp of the loom. I will report back tomorrow on the scarves.