Nancy N – Page 12 – Measured Threads

February 6, 2015October 26, 2015

Halvorsen 1 & 2

This is the first towel on my current warp of ringspun 8/2 cotton (bought at M&R Yarns while on a road trip to Georgia). The weft is Borg’s 22/2 cottolin in light blue. I got a copy of Davison’s A Handweaver’s Pattern Book, I studied it looking for a nice twill that had some threading changes so it wasn’t all one pattern and with some nice treadling variations to keep me on my toes. I chose the Caroline Halvorsen patterns on pg. 44. Above is Halvorsen I.

This is the second towel on my warp. From Davison p.44 Caroline Halvorsen II. The first treadling was the easiest. 4,3,2,1. The second was a slightly longer sequence of 8 picks. 4,3,2,1,2,3,4,1.

The treadlings get progressively more complicated in 3 & 4 but should be fairly quick to memorize as well. I am halfway finished with towel #2 and should start on #3 later today.

Here is the draft for towels 1 and 2. There are plain weave sections at the beginning and end of each towel. I am using a floating selvedge since there are some point twill treadlings. I hope to finish all 4 before my study group meeting at the WGGC on Wednesday.

February 4, 2015October 26, 2015

Mistaken Wisdom

A good quote came up in my Facebook news feed today.

Don’t cling to mistakes just because you spent a lot of time making them.

It’s attributed to Dr. Laura the radio psychologist, so I don’t think she was referring to weaving and knitting, but the words do sum up my philosophy a bit when it comes to crafting. I discussed it a little the other day in my post on User Error. I often come across people who embrace their mistakes and call them design elements even when they catch the errors before the work is finished. I just can’t adopt that viewpoint. Try to fix the mistakes when you can and as soon as you notice them and that will help you produce a better product. The time you have invested is wasted if the finished item makes you unhappy or you can’t sell it.

There is an oft repeated bit of folklore people use in defense of flaws that the Amish (or the Native Americans or the other artisan of the culture/ancient civilization) made a deliberate mistake in their work so as not to be prideful and offend God. I think this is only a myth. It’s not often that we achieve perfection in our craft, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for it or fix it when we can. Yes, you can probably find mistakes in my work, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t try to eliminate them. I will fix what I can when I can, even if that sometime involves starting over.

I once read in one of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s books (I am paraphrasing since I can’t find the exact quote) “admire your work often, that is when you will find the mistakes while they are still easier to fix.” If we persist in clinging to and excusing mistakes just because we have already spent a lot of time on the project, we won’t become better at our craft.

When I teach knitting or weaving, I tell my students how well they are doing and how much they are improving and other good and truthful things about their work. But I also point out mistakes and discuss how they might have happened and how they can be fixed. I wouldn’t be a good teacher if I didn’t. I do assure them that the reason I am good at fixing things is that I make a lot of mistakes and I do my best to figure out how to fix them. Sometimes when trying to fix a knitting mistake, you can make it worse, and then have to rip out. (Sometimes the only fix is to rip.) But if you never try to fix the mistakes you will never learn how to. Finding and fixing mistakes is a skill in and of its own that should be embraced as much as the craft. By the way, I didn’t have to rip out the project for the mistake I am fixing above. I fixed it, and the afghan came out perfect.

January 31, 2015October 26, 2015

Simply Gorgeous

I think that this is one of the most beautiful things I have woven. It is a simple plain weave scarf, made quickly on my 10 inch Cricket Rigid Heddle Loom. Rigid heddle looms are such an easy way to get started weaving. With beautiful hand dyed yarns from indie dyers like Robin Edmundson you don’t need to make something complicated on an 8 shaft loom. A simple plain weave is enough for the yarn to be the star of the scarf. In this scarf, I used a 12 dent heddle and warped with Robin’s Rayon Spiral yarn in Vineyard and wove with Warbler Cotton Boucle in Aurora. The colorways had similar enough colors that they went together extremely well. The rayon spiral gave a bit of shine peeking out between the textured cotton boucle. It’s and ideal spring scarf. Here’s a couple of more pictures of it.

January 30, 2015October 26, 2015

Have You Any Wool?

I found this sheepish little fellow when I was wandering about TJ Maxx today. He will make nice decorative storage for all those leftover balls of wool I have stashed around my studio. He is quite charming when he’s been fed, don’t you think?

January 29, 2015October 26, 2015

User Error

Yes the auto reed hook kept me from skipping a dent yesterday, but it didn’t prevent user error. You can see in the picture above slightly left of center what the problem is. I got my whole warp sleyed and tied on, then it was time to check for issues. I treadled some plain weave sheds and I examined the sheds from the front of the loom. Each dent should have two threads and when treadling the plain weave shed, one in each should move up and the other stay down. But, I saw an empty dent when I treadled the sheds. With the shed closed and flat, I hadn’t noticed it, but two of the dents only had one thread in each instead of two. When I raised a shed, the thread in one of the dents that only had one thread stayed down and there was a one dent gap. Fortunately the dents with one thread each were right next to each other. I contemplated leaving it, but it could leave a reed mark in the finished cloth. Since it was only about 4 inches away from the left selvedge, I fixed it and resleyed those 4 inches. If it had been in the middle, I probably still would have fixed it and resleyed 11 inches of warp.

I also looked into the sheds from the side and found 2 threads in the middle of the shed. I had twisted them between the heddles and reed. So I marked the threads with a piece of red string from a thrum and located the bout and untied it. I traced the threads back and sorted them out, resleyed them and retied the bout.

I always look for problems before I start weaving. That is the best time to fix things. I don’t want to go through all the work that it takes to weave something only to have a flaw in the finished product that I was too lazy to fix.

I am like this with my knitting too. If I can fix it, I do. I have been know to rip out almost completed knitting projects. My philosoply is that if the mistake will bother me, I won’t want to wear it or give it to the person it is intended for. I like knitting and I like weaving so ripping out or unweaving may take me a little longer to get that particular project finished, but I still get to knit or weave and will like the sock or the towel better.

See this sock , it was a project I started last year during the winter Olympics. Shortly after this picture was taken, I ripped it out even though there were no errors in the knitting. I tried it on, and it was really tight. I didn’t take into consideration how the twisted stitches would affect the stretch of finished sock leg and they were intended for me. My daughter who has thinner legs said she probably would not wear them. I still had one sock to go, so I ripped. I want something that fits.

I will restart them on dpns (2.25 mm) for the leg with the same number of stitches. That will give a little more stretch. Then when I get to the foot, I will switch to two circular needles, one for the top of the foot in size 2.5 mm needles and stick with my usual 2 mm(US size 0) for the bottom of the foot. That should do the trick.

Meanwhile, I do have other socks on the needles. I am trying to weave during the day and knit in the evenings, but have instead been working on weaving into the evenings since my days have been interrupted here and there by normal life.

Well, now its back to the loom to finish the last inch of resleying and hopefully to start weaving.