Shuttles

I had some comments about weaving with 9 shuttles.
I seem to have gathered that amount (I have some others too) with looms that I have bought and at sales, so most have had a home before I had them :-)
I discovered that all these happen to be Glimakra shuttles.

The ones that I used in the corduroy weaving are these:

You can see how they all vary in size.

Looking from the side you can also see that they differ in height:

making some very light indeed and the lowest ones only take a small amount of yarn on a bobbin.

This shuttle is the highest and heaviest of the ones shown, is open and has rollers at the bottom:

I specially like weaving with this one when it is a wider cloth that I'm weaving.

More shuttles that I like using are these:

I have added the largest and smallest shuttle to give an idea of size. I have been using these double shuttles for some of the corduroy weaving. They also hold the smallest bobbin yarns from Venne,  mini reels. I find this very handy as there are many colours available.

I'm in the proces of winding a warp for deflected double weaving using Venne cotton yarn shown in the link above. With Christmas only a few days away I might not get it finished and warped as I had hoped doing.

Today the temperature is above zero so the snow is melting but there is enough of it (we had more than 20cm fall) so it will take a while for it all to go and temperatures are falling again later.
 Yesterday and today:

Not a good time to go out on the road, when to do my Christmas shopping?!?!?

Still Snowing

It has been snowing on and off all day. It looks really pretty out, as long as you do not need to go anywhere.I was ok going out yesterday to my weaving class. Very inspiring, the deflected double weave!

More corduroy

I've cut off the third sample and there is still lots of warp left to weave......I had re-threaded like this, double corduroy,and that makes interesting weaving. Here the loops overlap one and other. Many different options are possible. Again I have used odd yarns for weft. Also added some glitter, after all it is December!

A close-up of the first part of this sample:
It was woven like the shown threading above.

This is a close-up of the middle part of this sample:The yellow/blue and the top beige/brown in this bit of the sample are woven like this:The bit in-between was woven like this:giving horizontal stripes. You can see at the back of the sample how different it looks.

This is a close-up of the last part of the sample:
The bottom part (green/pink) is woven like the first part of the sample.
The turquoise/blue is double sided, meaning that you get loops on both sides. I have not cut the loops on the back part of this weaving.The top part of this sample had to be woven with 9 shuttles! I really had to think what to use next each time. Again I have not cut the loops on the back part of the sample.I quite like the last bit of this sample but with 9 shuttles it is slow weaving. I may re-thread the warp again.
There is whole chapter in Peter Collingwoods book "The Techniques of Rug Weaving" about this type of weaving. This link will bring you to the part where the corduroy chapter is written.

Tomorrow I start another course with Marian Stubenitsky this time on deflected double weaving. Last winter I did a double weaving course with her.
I hope the roads will be ok regarding wintry conditions as it is about an hours drive for me from where I live under normal conditions.
I had hoped to have finished this narrow warp for corduroy weaving before starting with this 3 day course (last course day in early April). I have also enrolled on a 5 day colour course for weaving with her starting in January (ending in May). I'm hoping to combine the colour course into the deflected double weaving.

Colour in December

Sue of Life Looms Large has been busy with her camera for a while now. Since October she has challenged others to also show photos. I missed October and I was to late with the November challenge but for December she is challenging us to find colour. Well, it is all white around us at the moment, but I did find some colour!The brambles that did not ripen. I left them on, thinking that the birds might want them. So far they have not touched them.
Earlier this month, when seeing flowers everywhere, I took this picture of our holly. I can hardly see the berries at the moment as the bush is all covered up with snowbut I have seen the birds in it, so by the time the snow has melted I'm sure the berries will all have gone. To late now to get a branch as decoration indoors........

I hope the birds will find this to eat:

Snow

We had snow overnight! I tried to find the snowdrops in the snow but they are totally covered.Eating in the garden will have to wait until the sun is back :-)Scruffy did go outside but was back indoors very quickly......

Corduroy

I'm slowly getting on with the corduroy weaving. For weft yarn I'm using odd bobbins and found some cones that I thought would be useless for weaving but hé for the loops they would be ok!
So far I have finished 2 samples.
After the first sample I cut it of the loom (you can see that I did not cut all the loops, it is nice to play with that) and re-threaded as I wanted to try something different like this:
The result is that there are less loops, not sure if it would work (has it become to predictable?) but I just wanted to try it out. It just depends what you are weaving for.
After this sample, I cut it of the loom again and re-threaded for the double corduroy like this:Here I'm using the yarns, all cotton, that I thought was no good. The green just breaks up very quickly but used in the loops it would be ok. I've combined them with a bit of glitter yarn.
Here you can see how I cut the double corduroy, the loops overlap one and other so you have to be very precise to find the right row for cutting. I've tried to show you in a sequence of photos how it works.

Yesterday was Sinterklaas in Holland. You can read more about it here. I had hoped to have gone to the grandchildren but I'm stuck down with a bad cold at the moment so had to stay home. But I did see them 2 weeks ago when we went together to see Sinterklaas who happened to visit their village hall that day! (They are both in the foreground in this picture)

Winter?

It is December and what a surprise to find the first snowdrop in the garden yesterday!But not just a snowdrop, the rose is still flowering, and the lavender too.Flowers in the rosemary with lots of new buds.The delphinium is also producing a new shoot!Is this Winter?