This and That

Posted on December 21, 2022 by iowaweaver | 6 Comments

Here we are at the end of the year, and I just have a few loose ends to tidy up.

You might recall that this was on the loom a couple of months ago. It is my version of the Vlak-in-Vlak-in-Vlak pattern. If you still haven’t gotten a copy of that pattern, I gave the link to purchase it in my last post. This is not my original pattern. I’m just a satisfied customer.

Here are photos of my finished scarf. I wove it in 8/2 rayon, and the structure is Turned Taqueté on 12 harnesses. I love wearing it.

After that was done, I wove a batch of Circles and Checks towels on my 8 shaft loom, and they are in my Etsy shop. Here are some photos of those beauties:

Next, I want to give a special shout out to Bradley Rohr. He has an Etsy shop in which he is offering for sale variations of my Circles pattern in Wif form and with PDF pattern instructions. Bradley has very kindly given me credit for the original pattern. Always appreciated!

Here is the link to his shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/BradsWarped. You can get a pattern pack of 6 patterns, or you can buy them individually.

Sales from his Etsy shop raise money for Ukraine. According to Bradley, he and his husband have been able to raise nearly three thousand dollars this year for the UNHCR Ukrainian refugee relief, as well as one thousand dollars for direct support to people in Ukraine for food, diapers, boots for soldiers, etc. This is a great cause, and the patterns are well written and provide endless entertainment!

I wove samples each pattern at the end of my towel warp (see above), and here is a taste:

Until next year!

A Tale of Two Warps

Posted on March 18, 2020 by iowaweaver | 7 Comments

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Worst: well, no need to explain that. Best: unlimited weaving with no end in sight! Woohoo!

On my eight shaft loom I’ve got a dishtowel warp in 8/2 unmercerized cotton in blues and greens, and I threaded it for Turned Taqueté according to the ideas I was exploring in my last post. I threaded a straight draw following a light/dark color sequence all the way across. I used a two-block profile draft from Jakob Angstadt. The first block is on harnesses 1-4, and the second block is on harnesses 5-8. The design is symmetrical, and I am keeping to color combinations of dark/dark, dark/light, light/dark and light/light in treadling.

This is the first towel, for which I used only a dark blue weft.

This is the second towel, for which I used only a light weft:

And the underside:

As you can tell, I’m big into the checks. And there a few different ways I can play this. I have four more to go, so my next move is to plan number three.

I alternate days weaving on the 8 shaft, and days weaving on the 16 shaft looms. I am well into the second ever warp on the Ashford, this time weaving scarfs in 8/2 rayon threaded to a sixteen shaft straight draw.

This is the first one, now off the loom:

This is the second one, an undulating twill:

This is the third one, just started:

I am still struggling with the warping, and decided to order a raddle kit for next time. The warp sticks provided are very thin cardboard and I decided I really don’t like them, so will switch to wood warp sticks. Plus I will figure out a better way to weight the warp as it is wound on.

I do enjoy the slower, more focused pace that the table loom requires. And I am dazzled by all the pattern possibilities. One of my goals with this loom is to explore more ways to weave circles, a design motif with which I am perpetually obsessed.

I decided to put my Etsy shop on indefinite Vacation Mode, thus avoiding a lot of unnecessary trips to the post office. However, I will be adding to the inventory, so whenever I feel safe enough to go out more, there will be lots of new stuff.

And, I am reading Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety, her first novel, although it wasn’t published first. It’s loooong, and I love her style, and it focuses on characters in France before and during the Revolution. I thought the title was entirely apropos 😉 .

Circle Scarves in Living Color [Red]

Posted on March 14, 2017 by iowaweaver | 1 Comment

So, I finally finished the first warp of rayon chenille Turned Taquete scarves in my color stripes circle design. I wove two, each with a slightly different gray weft. Then I wove a little end-of-warp piece with a dusty red weft called Geranium and made it into a cowl for me.

Here are the pics for one scarf that is now in my Etsy shop:

I am amazed at how far I have come since I started this project. The results has definitely been worth it!

The next warp is going on the loom now. The neutral is the same gray, but the stripes are in greens, and the width is one stripe wider, up from 7″ in the reed to 9″.

Here is a quick iPhone photo:

Because the word needs all the circles we can give it. 🙂

De-Stashing (again)

Posted on February 2, 2017 by iowaweaver | 1 Comment

I finished the black and white Turned Taquete Circles scarfs, and this is the one that I am keeping. It’s on the short side, and I haven’t ruled out whether to turn it into a cowl. A seam would shorten it even more, and it’s currently holding at 35″ not counting fringe.

If I do turn it into a cowl, I’m considering using the technique for seaming used by Sarah Jackson in Handwoven with her Diversified Plain Weave Dancing Circles Scarf that she designed for the Thick and Thin issue (November/December 2016). BTW, my DPW Circles Scarf (Handwoven, May/June 2013) was a resource! And I have another short piece of chenille that I can practice on first, so still mulling that one over.

Meanwhile, I decided to go for color and circles in a big way. I dug into my stash of 1450 ypp rayon chenille and came up with lots of balls of hand dyed chenille leftovers from a multitude of other chenille scarf warps.

I’m using a medium gray for neutral contrast. Here’s the stash after already winding one two-scarf warp:

Here’s the stash after winding two two-scarf warps:

And here’s the stash after winding three two-scarf warps:

That would be six scarfs warped. Then I weighed what was left, and it is still over a pound! Arrrgh!

Circles 3.0: Color and Stripes!

Posted on January 26, 2017 by iowaweaver | 1 Comment

I just finished the first Turned Taquete Circles warp, and I managed to eke out two scarves after all that sampling. One is a bit on the short side, so I guess I’ll save that one for moi. I enjoyed the monochrome project, so different for me, but I found myself plotting how to add color this draft. And lots of it. And fast.

As you can see from this screen shot, the circles are distinctly separate (barely) in the vertical columns, but just a bit overlapping in the horizontal columns. (I’ll have to work on that.) That means that I can change colors vertically, thus adding a whole bunch of interest with very little effort. I’m not sure I would want to change colors in the weft. I rather like weaving with only one color to think about in the shuttle.

Now. Time for a glass of wine.

And we have a winner!

Posted on December 26, 2016 by iowaweaver | 50 Comments

I am not a sampler. But I sampled. And, well, the apocalypse didn’t come. The sky didn’t fall. And it was a good experience. I learned stuff, and I am now ready to weave some Turned Taquete Circles scarves.

I started out with 1450 ypp rayon chenille set at 16 epi. In this photo the bottom sample is woven with 1450 ypp black.

The next photo is the top portion of the same 16 epi sample, but woven with 2000 ypp white. I was playing with the treadling, elongating the middle, anticipating that with the release of tension and wet finishing, that the ovals would shrink to circles.

Then I resleyed to 18 epi. And I wove two samples with the same wefts, 1450 ypp black and 2000 ypp white. Again I elongated the middles of the circles pre-wet finishing.

I don’t have a picture of these post-wet finishing, but, trust me, they didn’t shrink as much as I would have anticipated. They remained pretty much as ovals.

So, then I resleyed to 20 epi and changed my reed to a 10. I was tempted not to do it. I was busy with Christmas prep, and I didn’t have a bunch of time. But. I did it anyway! And lo and behold it was the right thing to do.

So I wove this last sample with the same black and white wefts, this time greatly abbreviating the treadling of the middles of the circles. Keep in mind that the circles became thinner as I resleyed. So the treadling of the middles became shorter and shorter.

This is a photo of the sample post-wet finishing.

And the bottom sample is the winner. Even after wet finishing the shrinkage wasn’t much. I find I prefer the hand of the 1450 ypp rayon weft.

Below you will find the now-revised-yet-again Turned Taquete Cirlces draft.

I optimized the tie-up. Originally, there were nine treadles tied, but two were tied to the same harnesses. That’s two too many for me when I have to crawl around on the floor. So that meant that the treadling sequence had to be revised, which I have done as well.

This is the best yet!

Wif files available upon request.