Tying on a new warp

I thought I'd show a photo journal of tying a new warp on to an old one.  Many times I hear weavers say they tried and its too slow.  It will be slow the first few times but like anything you get faster with practice.  Another cry is how awful to pull your threads through all those heddles.  Well I've done it with merino, mohair, even singles cashmere and put white paper underneath the heddles to catch any fibre fall - none.  What I have noticed is the strain on the threads in the heddles when a shed is opened whilst weaving.  Every time you open a shed the threads are strained even if only slightly.  Today I realised how often the shuttle passes over the threads on the shuttle race.  My brain couldn't work out the average number of passes but its lots, especially without an automatic advance.

This is my way of tying on a new warp, it works for me.

So before I cut off my woven cloth I put two rows of tabby of contrasting colour in the warp near the reed, that is, a cross.

 I do the same with the new warp, I secure the cross with contrasting thread.  I find this easier to work with than leash sticks.

 Then I take one thread from the old warp and one thread from the new and tie an overhand knot, in this case 542 times passing the knotted threads to the side out of the way.

 One can see when the wrong thread has been picked up as the cross threads twist over themselves.  If they aren't sliding smoothly along the cross some thing's wrong.

 And in the end we have an organised bird nest.  Organised because every thread is in order on top of the last and still under control because the crosses are still in.

 I then find the choke tie nearest the cross threads, usually 1.5 to 2 metres from the ends now knotted.  Starting with the last chain tied I gently pull and flap from the choke tie until the threads straighten.  I never comb the warp with comb or fingers.

 And here we are ready to ease the knots through the reed and heddles.

 As I started to pull the threads on to the back beam I remembered reading this from Cally Booker and went looking for my dress stand and tripped over the warp reel on the way!  Bingo, the extra tension of moving over the rail and under the beam (which is pretty mobile) was enough to get the warp on without squeezing myself from back to front of loom and pulling.

 Can't resist the row of straight knots.  If the last cloth was cut off straight and all the knots are about the same size then they pretty much have to be straight.  This is the fourth warp I've tied on to this particular threading.

 And weaving has begun.

This is a wrap for a bride; my daughter's friend is marrying at the end of April so she may or may not need extra warmth.  The warp is bamboo and the weft is silk.

This pic is for Agnes who helped me get my selvedges straight.

Forms

This has been a week of form filling and I'm not good at it.  What I want to say never fits with what "they" think I should say.

First it was a nationwide census which usually happens every 4 years but it was delayed due to the Christchurch earth quakes so its been 6 years.  They always ask about smoking.  I admit I'm an ex-smoker.  Had my last puff, well take the age of my daughter plus 9 months, you figure it.  I could never have stopped on my own volition; it was the baby did it I tell you.  Even now if standing near someone smoking I find myself breathing deeply.  Its hard to stop smoking.  But do they ask questions like how many fat laden take away meals did you have this week or when was the last time you moved further than the couch to the fridge.
And the one that really gets me is nationality.  I'm fifth generation New Zealander but my choices are New Zealand European or Other!  Are Canadians or Australians given this European tag or Other in their own country?

Then there were forms for the Creative Fibre fashion parade due in Wellington on Monday.  Size (in cm) got me lost.  Which part do I measure - bust - its dolman sleeve or the body it should fit!  And we won't mention No. of items.  I think I stuffed that up too.

Then I had to file financial statements with the government.  Do you think I could get them attached from a spread sheet to a file to their site, I fiddled for more than an hour.  I was determined.  In the end it took 2 minutes to print them and fill out the form by hand and they can store half a tree for the next seven years.

I guess that's why I can never fill out a planning sheet for weaving projects; I'll just keep doing it my way.

Professional Weavers Network Seminar

Whew five days of fibre heaven.  Five days when people didn't roll their eyes at the mention of twill or epi or 'look at this fabric'.  Five days of fibre conversation, learning, exploring.

I've often been green, envious green, of fibre get togethers like Convergence, Complex Weavers, Stitches, Vogue Knitting but this would have been a close tie.  We stayed at Raincliff Youth Camp and Conference Centre about 20 minutes inland from Geraldine.  The food was superb, too much even, but too tastie to turn down.  Now the waist bands are a bit tight!

This time, rather than getting speakers in, we had discussion groups among ourselves like "exploring weave structures" and "what threads are available on the NZ market".  One evening Brian Molyneaux a NZ fashion designer originally from Britain, spoke to us on, what else, designing fashion.  He brought a rack of garments which were wonderful to see from original sketched idea to completion.  If he had one thing to offer it was - study fashion books.  We spend so much time in the preparation of our product; spinning yarn, dyeing, weaving it then miss the gift of the last process and create "an old grey woollie".  Well some do.  Brian has selected at several Creative Fibre events so he would have seen the end result.

We spent one day in Geraldine visiting

 Maggie Sewell's alpaca farm.  These girls are so cute, pretending not to give a bother that twenty women are watching through the fence at them but aware of every movement.  Then they starting spitting at each other, just a bit, then ...

and I can't remember if it was this one or not but one turned around back on, lifted its tail and passed wind.  I'll swear it was deliberate.  Don't you like the white whiskers on the black one.  A bit of damage to the plastic here, alpaca/silk, hmmm can't resist.  After lunch a visit to a lace museum was fascinating.

One day we had a session on using our camera and photographing fabric.  Who would have known, you can take it out of AUTO.  Just kidding, I knew but never did!  Here we are Tony ...

into landscape and I changed the exposure though probably not enough.  Taken through a dirty plane window the hills between Wellington and Manawatu.  Anyway the shadows remind me of shibori.  I didn't get to see the spectacular mountains of the central plateau, they must have been on the other side of the plane.

Having spent a lot of time at Seminar on book work attending my duties as secretary/treasurer (re-elected), I couldn't face more books when I got home so wove a blanket before settling in and getting things sorted.  Nearly up to date so took a few hours off after going to town for the banking to visit a friend at Whiritoa beach and look what she'd been up to before I arrived.

I'll have to go back to see what she does with these glorious colours.

I can't let this day pass without saying its the first day of autumn, 30 degrees C and I had my fourth swim of the season and that's double the usual average.  

On the move again ...

Yes, sneaking away for a five day weekend to the Professional Weavers Network annual get together, this year its near Timaru in the South Island.  You'll hear about it next week.

I have been busy getting a wardrobe ready for a wee granddaughter due to arrive late April (last I heard).  It doesn't look like many garments but every stitch worked with love from GranD.  I did make the stockings on the knitting machine and other garments will knit up in no time on the machine.

My mother left a bag of bits of baby yarn so I've made up a pattern to use them in the yoke of the jackets.

The buttons for this wee cardi have been around since my daughter was a baby.  Everything gets used eventually.

The wee singlet I got for half the half price because of a few holes near the neck.  Don't you just love the little woven patch and lazy daisy I fixed it with.

Don't look too closely at this cotton blanket.  I couldn't count so the horizontal patterns don't match in all areas but I figured baby would puke and poo on them anyway.  I thought I was making receiving blankets (yes there is another one) but they're too big and the cotton isn't soft.  After I joined the strips down the centre I brought them to the boil in a soda ash and teepol solution to remove the dressing but still not soft enough.  Where do you weavers get your soft cotton?  Table cloth maybe.  I could do that some time as the pattern takes 8 shafts and I have 16 I could make a double layer table cloth with floating selvedge.  Hmm ... sometime.

Starburst snowflake scarves

Late in January I caught the sun awakening on the horizon, interesting because of the smoke haze from the fires in Australia, the other side of the Tasman Ocean.  I can't imagine the horror of being near one of those big blazes.

And now the big reveal of the snowflake twill scarves/ wraps/ table runners.

 Table runner you ask!  I called to see a weaving friend and after our show and tell she insisted on having the black and white piece as a runner for her rather large antique dresser.  Her comment was "Its the most beautiful piece of weaving I've seen".  I have to say it is very striking.

 And the green one.

 Can you tell I'm trying different ways of wearing a scarf?

Last post I showed a piece of shibori when I had just removed the resist threads and said I couldn't show you cause it was put aside for an exhibition in April.  Well a lovely Scot lass saw it and it now has a new home.  I quickly grabbed a photo before it went out the door so excuse the draping.

Note to family:  I need a laptop with a decent photoshop program on it.

Some old, some new projects

There is nothing like a market to get one motivated to finish off some projects.  The Starburst mats are off the loom but difficult to get a decent picture.

 And ... look at all the different sizes.  Oh woh is me!  The three bigger ones were woven before Christmas with about a two week break before continuing.  What a difference the shoulder exercises are making (and no pain now).  The last (shortest) mat I tried using a heavy Mecchia end delivery shuttle as I had been having trouble getting tidy selvedges with a light weight side delivery shuttle even though a friend had put me on the correct track with the basket weave edge.  I'm blaming the extra weight of the shuttle for the firmer beat.  The mats are pinned ready to hem.

 Yesterday I cut off two scarves, again in the Starburst pattern (below).  This is black Ramie (extruded from the nettle plant) and white cotton and it is stunning.  The second is a very wearable green cotton over the black ramie.  Both area drying over the deck railing at present - pictures later.

When I started playing with this pattern on my computer software I must have spent half a day adding this, deleting that but when I look at the drawdown from Weavers magazine Issue 13 1991 it looks so very similar I can't claim this as my own pattern.  Having said that, the background fabric in the magazine looks very twilly.

 Another project in the finishing pile.  A shibori wrap with resist threads removed.  Yep it took a triple shot espresso to do the job.  It looks vastly different now but I've put it away for an exhibition so this is all you can see at the moment.

 Remember way way back when I was playing with interleaved drafts looking for a bloppy image.  That's when this scarf was woven, blogged about July 5, 2011 and I see it was sett at 60 tpi with 20/2 cotton.  It does take me a while sometimes.  Now with the tassels twiddled it looks rather smashing I think.  I keep seeing poppies.

Envelop from Poland

Late last year Meg organised Weaver 2 Weaver whereby she connected us with a partner somewhere in the world to whom we sent an envelop of inspiration.  A couple of days ago I received these goodies from Alicje from Poland who is a fairly new weaver, the sample under the Monet postcard is from one of her first weavings done in Autumn 2011.  Its beautifully done with perfect selvedge. 

Included are two swatches of handspun yarn from Polish breeds; mountain sheep (white) and heath sheep (black).  As Alicje says they are very harsh and I wonder what they would be used for.

I was fascinated by the colours of natural dyed yarns; yellow from tansy, green from goldenrod, orange from madder and light violet from elderberry.  A beautiful variety of shades.

The photo of the Benedictine Monastery in Germany couldn't be more inspiring with its lines, repeating arches and shapes.  Thank you Alicje and if you read this could you leave a comment as unfortunately I can't read your email address.

 My partner to send an envelop was Janet Stollnitz.  The pictures were put together before I had seen Janet's work and it turns out to be quite on the mark.  She loves ikat and bright colours.  The words in red say:  Strong tones speak of design confidence - and even more so when they come in chunky weaves or multicolours.  Funny what you find in magazines.

The second page is a colour cutting from a magazine which inspired the dye work of the 74/2 NZ merino thread.

I also included a colour brochure from Pauanesia.  Go to the bottom of Pauanesia's page and click on Brochure.

Janet mentioned the lack of my work in the brochure and this is one of the first in the last ten years that my blankets haven't been featured, mainly because I was so busy with other projects during the year that stocks had become quite low.

Thank you for organising this Meg and to my partners for their inspiration and comments.