Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Weaving again

Over a month since I last wove. I want to weave but I seem to have "excuses" not to be weaving. So, to get back into weaving I have made a simple woollen warp and threaded a straight draw 1-8 on my Leclerc loom. I'm weaving scarves and should have enough warp for 2.
The weft yarn is a bourette silk yarn dyed at Summer School this Summer and a plain silk yarn that I had in my stash but colourwise goes with this dyed yarn. The dyeing method was a ball placed in a dish with one colour, fixing colour, turning ball over and dyed another colour on the other side, fixing again. I hope I have enough for one scarf with this weft yarn.
I have more but that is another colour, more towards blue. The balls shown here is not how they came out of the dye bath! I made skeins after dyeing and rewound them into balls after the skeins were dry. So, the more intense colour is in the middle of the balls now. I cannot wait to find out how it will weave up in the scarf.

Here a picture of the first few woven inches of the first scarf. If I find that my yarn is running out to quickly for the first scarf I will mingle in some of the other colour.



It is good to be weaving again after more than 4 weeks non-weaving!!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Colour in the garden

We have an Amelanchier in our garden and every season has it's charm with this tree. After the winter the white flowers are a joy to see in Spring, next come the berries. They are tasty but the birds think so too and they are soon eaten up by them. And now the leaves are turning into beautiful Autumn colours. Come Winter I always hang birdfeed in the tree.
The Holly on the left in the photo is full of berries this year, no doubt the birds will find them when the weather gets colder. The Rosemary in the front is full of flowers again, having flowered this Spring too.
Today is another sunny day, what a joy!

Monday, October 12, 2009

Spinning and more

I've been spinning on an irregular basis and I had lots of different skeins (wool, silk, wool/silk) in a bag with the thought that I will weave with them one day. I have now made balls from them (apart from 2 skeins that are still singles) and here is the collection. My own observation is that I tend to spin colours in a range of blue-purple-pink-yellow. Interesting observation. I thought that I had made an effort to get away from blue-purple-pink but I see no green or red.
I've not made up my mind if I will weave with the yarns or may be knit. The Online Guild is having a Domino/Patchwork workshop this month by Fiona Moir. It is very tempting to join in with these yarns.

It's also my birthday today
and in the post arrived this from Italy:

The scarf feels lovely and soft. The colour is not true in the photo, where it looks a bit purple but it is more towards red from the cochineal. What a lovely surprise!