Sample

The sample was cut and I've washed and pressed it. There was very little shrink in both directions and it feels soft and it is lovely and shiny. So, I'm happy to carry on with this sett.

I did not want another sample in the draw so made a little pouch that I can use.

It's in my handbag now with some paper hankies. I stitched it in such a way that the fringes of the warp are still visible. I've used Velcro to close it.

Colour in weaving

I've started weaving the sample. What a joy to be weaving colour!!
To think that I dyed this warp myself.
I'll make the sample large enough before I'll cut it of and will wet finish it to make sure the set is correct.
Here is the first woven inches:

I've tried to make a photo of the back too, not easy just now. But here it is:

Same part at the front looks like this:

Marion was wondering if she could warp a warp like this on her warping mill.
I'm not sure. May be where the cross bars are at the top you could use that and let the threads hang down from the cross bars.

I had dyed on the skein, so when I was warping I think the circle of my warp was twice the length of the skein trying to keep the colours together. I kept my finger on one point to make sure that the colours would not move about as the circle was hanging loose at the bottom. So. if you have 2 points to start making your circle, you can just let it hang down to whatever length it needs to be. Hope this all makes sense.
Ah, but than you have to have something to make your cross............
I warped the 5 coloured stripes separate and all the black stripes separate too, so I had to think every time I started a new part, where to start the cross.

When I dyed the above skein last year, I had taken the colours from this photo:

Picking 5 colours with a photo program and printing these colours and dye as near as possible.
I have a second skein that I dyed at the same time; similar colours but a shade darker without yellow.

That's for another project together with the remainder of this skein. (I've used just over half of the skein for this warp)

New Warp

I've used the dyed silk from last years workshop at Summer School together with black Tencel for a new warp. The latest issue of Handwoven showed a good way of warping with dyed skeins, to keep the colours together.
You warp in a circle, this way you can see how the colours go. When you have finished warping you cut the circle and you have your warp. It was a bit tricky to get the warp on the loom as both ends of the warp were cut now. My normal warping would give me looped ends. Now I had to tie the warp on the loom instead of putting the rod from the back beam through the loops. I did not take any photos making this circle warp as I needed all my attention to get it right.
The warp is now on the loom and threaded. All I need to do now is tie on and I can start weaving.
Photo showing the front:

And this one showing the back:

You can see how the colour changes from front to back.
It will be very cheerful to start weaving with these colours. There is enough for one scarf + a bit for a small sample for wet finishing, to see if I have the sett right. The colours will be woven twill and the black plain weave. For weft I'll be using the black Tencel.

computer fun

I'm a member of Jacquie Lawson
They make the most unusual email cards and also make screen savers from the cards.
But the latest they have made is a desktop widget. So I now have Jack the dog running along the bottom of the screen or he is asleep and you even see him breathing.

Great fun to watch, as he suddenly wakes up and starts running along the screen, with or without a ball. He disappears and you never know when he turns up again........

Nearly a month gone by

Time seems to fly away. I have finished the warp on the Magic Dobby and the loom is back with its rightful owner. It was a great way to find out how this dobby loom is actually weaving. After the initial doubts I really began to like the loom. You have to compare it really with a table loom that has the advantage of the dobby.

As you can see, it fits neatly in one piece into the boot of the car.

With a width of 70 cm it gives a lot of options for weaving. So, who knows what the future brings  regarding getting my own dobby :-)

I will try and get some photos of the finished warp.

With the last 2 meters of the warp I wove a scarf as I had done enough sampling after 4 meters for that moment. I'm now thinking about my next warp. I have some lovely silk that I dyed last year at Summer School. I also have some Tencel so might combine the 2 for a nice scarf. Having woven lots of samples I need to get a real project going with lots of colour.

I'm getting over a week of having the grandchildren here last week, one after the other. That was a great idea not to have them here at the same time. This way we could give all our attention to the one that was staying.
First it was our 5 year old grandson. I took him to the Natural History Museum.

He enjoyed it very much. We also went to this museum, great fun, specially as they give a very good tour of the museum where you can hear and see the museum pieces in action. He is a very active boy, so it was nice when he went home again after having had 4 lovely days together.
We had a break of 2 nights before our 3 year old granddaughter came to stay. It was her very first time away from home for the night. After the initial shock of realizing that she really was away from home on her own she was fine. I also took her to a museum here.

We had a great time together the days she was here.

I just have to share this with you: Weave!
Do have a look, it is really worth watching. What a great project of 12 weavers.
More on it at Alice Schlein's blog.

Another sample of curves

I'm still playing with my warp. I like to share one sample showing the difference in treadling in the same tie-up.

Here is the draft made in Fiberworks. I've added numbers 1 to 4 in so that I can show the different parts of this sample in photos below. Numbers 1 and 3 are their opposites, number 1 is woven from 1 to 24 (to the right) and number 3 is woven from 24 to 1 (to the left).
Numbers 2 and 4 are woven zigzag.
Number 2 is a zigzag from left to right and back again (24 to 1 to 24 to 1) but in number 4 the zigzags goes halfway, turning at 12.
I hope the drawing makes it easier to understand.
I like how part 4 has come out.

This is the woven sample, number 1 at bottom and 4 at the top. And I've cut them in parts to better show the differences (I hope)

Part 1 and 3:

Part 2 and 4:

The last photo is part 4, where the zigzag went halfway (or broken) like this:

You can see that the figures are different from part 3 where the zigzag went from left to right and back again like this:

The tie-up looks like this:

It is fun to discover that you can have long floats in the weaving and that it is ok! I still have some warp left to go on playing.

Some more weaving.... this time curves

Now, when was it that I last was weaving I wonder.
I still have more of this warp on the loom. Since that post I have woven more samples, one I like is this one:

It was a long pattern to weave and I was short of the peg bars, so I just changed the pegs after 40 wefts. I think I had to change about 7 times to get the above woven. But I wanted to see how this design came out in weaving.

But now I'm weaving curves! Before today I just could not get the design right, far to long the floats were, but today it just went fine. Hurray!

First I used the same weft yarn that I have been using with this warp so far, very much the same thickness as the warp. Next, I used a much thinner yarn, and last a cotton chenille yarn that is much thicker than the warp yarn. Here is the sample with a repeat of 3 for each weft yarn:

And the back looks like this:

This last photo was guess work as I could not see what I was doing. But you can see the difference between front and back. Once the warp is of the loom there should be better pictures but I could not wait to see how the back looks.

Next on the list is play backwards and forward with the weft as I've now woven straight 1-24 times 3.
Something like this: