Cally Booker – lovestoswatch

Year Of Projects: week 35

Weaving and tatting some more this week, and again I’ve neglected my knitting, but there you go.

This week I have unwittingly embarked on a more complex tatting project that would suit a beginner – but hey, I did not know that! So, slow going, but going nonetheless, and after a troubled start in which I frayed some yarn and decided I’d better restart, here is where I am at: 25% of a motif that will form the base of a scarf or shawl – basically think granny squares, only these will be tatting squares, which are known as “blocks”! And with beads (though not sure whether all blocks will have beads, or only the external ones).

The first six out of 24 rings for this Fandango Motif by Jane Eborall

I should have put something in there to give an idea of scale, but that thing is small, the shuttles are probably 5-6cm/2″. The full motif should look something like this:

The tatting pattern is here.

While researching tatting I have also come across a social media crafting platform called Craftree: it has some Ravelry-like features, like the possibility to add a stash, record projects and discuss in forums, though it is not nearly as well developed. However it covers tatting, as well as other related needle crafts like embroidery, bobbin lace, needle lace and macrame'(and knitting and crochet too).

Weaving has been on the sampler for the Understand Doubleweave Workshop with Cally Booker. I am having a really fantastic time, the workshop is incredibly intellectually stimulating, and there is then enormous fan to be had at the loom! And there are some principles that can be transferred to double weave on a rigid heddle loom, I wish I had known earlier – but once I am done with the course, I think I’ll have a go at the rigid heddle loom.

The possibilities on the 8 shaft table loom I have however are pretty impressive – in spite of shaft envy, it is amazing how playing around with structure (two blocks in plain weave) and colour allows you to achieve.

Here is a window pane design, which I quite like, and I think would make for a nice, thick bathmat:

Window pane design – the weft yarn is gold in the bottom row, mid blue in the middle row, Royal blue in the top row

I have also met a bunch of very lovely weavers, in addition of course to Cally herself – I will miss them all terribly once the workshop is over, but for the moment I am having a wonderful time

Happy crafting!

This is a year of projects (YOP) update. YOP is a Ravelry Group, and an idea – make a plan for the year ahead for all your fibre activities, then update your blog every week if you manage. The objective is to keep track of progress on any fiber crafts with maximum flexibility: post, don’t post, follow your list, change it – so really it is just an opportunity to get to know of more blogs and activities of those who share a passion for anything fibre crafts.

Year Of Projects: week 34

A week of more weaving and more tatting, though no knitting.

I have started and finished my very first tatting project – it will be a coaster, and I am planning to add more to have a set (where a set may even mean just one more).

Far from perfect, but I am pretty pleased with it!

This was finished as my shiny new wooden shuttles from popabobbin arrived – they are just exquisite, and do note the care in packing them, each coming with its own tatted butterfly!

The Pop-a-bobbin wooden shuttles – I photographs the three “stages” of their unboxing!

They are just adorable, and functional too! Generally wooden shuttles do not have a hook, and are “post” type shuttles, that is the top and bottom are joined together, so you have to finish the thread before you can move on to something else.

The pop-a-bobbin shuttles instead have a removable bobbin (the wooden thingy on the side is a “shuttle popper”), and a perfectly snug plug that will keep it in place – can’t wait to give them a tat!

Here is a closeup of each of them, as I can’t have enough!

In other news, I had a warping misadventure with a happy ending, while getting ready to start weaving in Cally Booker’s I-can’t-begin-to-tell-you-how-amazing-it-is Understand Double weave workshop – but all is looking good now, and I am ready to get weaving, so excuse me as my loom is calling me 😜.

Happy crafting!

Year Of Projects: week 33

What a very lovely crafty week I’ve had! Not much to show for it, but very satisfying.

I am getting on with my tatting – I have now some tatting specific cotton thread, which I guess could also go for crochet. The “ultimate” tatting thread consists of 6 plies in total, made of two threads of three plies each: this makes for a strong, smooth thread, as the amount of friction that tatting thread gets is quite substantial.

Lizbeth tatting thread size 20 by Handy Hands

These are all solid colours, apart from the yellow which is variegated. My practice pieces so far do not warrant using storage space: however now that I’ve got the basics I can try patters, starting of course from the ones that our tatting instructor has made available for this week. I cannot share them for copyright reasons, but to give you some eye candy for what is possible, here are some free ones from Japanese (I think) designer MC Hatsu, which look very pretty to me, and I’d like to try my hand at this turtle

A turtle by MC Hatsu – patter for personal use only

I am also having endless fun with the excellently designed online course on Understanding Double Weave with Cally Booker. Cally herself is as lovely a person as an accomplished weaver, and is so available to us students that I feel bad. The course runs on an online platform, and in addition to her lectures, downloadable material, worksheets and exercises, we have plenty of zoom meetings each week, not to mention the community forum.

On top of that, the content of the course is amazing: it is not a “here is a sampler, off you go weaving it” kind of course: she gives you the fishing rod, then you do the fishing. And with all the other students on the course there are so many ideas and results, and it is just beyond exciting. The topic of the course really is designing double weave with blocks, so once the principles are explained, you have to come up with your own design (though of course nothing stops you from following strictly one of Cally’s examples).

So last night I started warping a gradient with blues – I agonised between the purples and the blues, but after looking at the mockup I decided to go for the blues, and maybe after experimenting I can use the purples for an actual project – these are the mockups:

And here is how my warp is looking – this corresponds to the right half of the top picture above. The weave is going to consists of two layers, one in silver grey, one in the gold-to-blue gradient, and the warping is done so that the threads for the two sides are clearly separated, as in the photo below:

The blue looks much darker than in real life

The colours in the photograph look much more saturated than in real life, but give an idea of the gradient.

I have also wound up the skeins for Nathan Taylor/Sockmatician‘s Battenbonkers hat, a triple knitting hat which I am planning to cast on this week. The recipient decided this was the colour combo he wanted:

It is Kinross 4 Ply, a very delicious 100% superfine lambswool yarn from Clare Hutchison at Wee County Yarns, spun in Scotland – it is their own yarn, and it comes in 21 shades one lovelier than the other. As a colour work fan and designer, Clare is also pretty amazing in that she will send you picture of colour combos if you want to check them before you buy.

No spindling this week, and very sadly no taking part in Eah‘s test knit either, as I have too much going on already, and designers are small businesses, so would’t want to delay her in any way. I will get the pattern as soon as it is published – in case you are interested, the test knit opened today here (links to Ravelry).

Happy crafting!

Year Of Projects: week 32

It is surely possible to have too many fibre craft interests, by which I mean enough of them that you cannot keep up – and while it is most definitely the case for me already with knitting, weaving (a true addiction!) and spinning, why stop?

And so it was that I added tatting to the mix this week, of the shuttle type. The word “shuttle” is important here, as there are so many and so pretty, from cheap and not so cheap plastic to metal and wood, that collecting shuttles can easily become a new addiction. As can getting lost in tatting threads, which are (of course!) different from crochet threads, which in turn are (of course!) different from weaving threads. Ah, a full maze of rabbit holes!

Mind you, I am not the doily type, but there are many less “frilly” and more “square” patterns, and of course my ultimate goal once I get a bit of practice is garments – at lest I can think of light scarves and shawls, in practice anything you can do with conventional granny squares you can do with tatted blocks, with the advantage that with tatting you are most definitely not confined to squares. True, you aren’t confined to squares with knitting and crochet either, but with tatting shapes are very very easy to change. It is addictive, and once I get a bit more into it I will compile some resources. For the moment Jane Eborall’s website might not be the most sophisticated looking in terms of web design, but it is a goldmine of tatting knowledge and patterns. She also has a companion site, Tat It And See (TIAS) which is a sort of mystery tat along, which I am hoping to join soon (need a bit more techniques, but it easy enough to learn, it just need patience).

It is as slow as you can imagine (in essence it is a collection of knots, so to make even very lacy fabric you need a heck of a lot of them), but it is very very portable, and can be picked up and put down very easily to fill any spare minute. I am taking a course organised by the UK Online Guild of weavers, Dyers and Spinners and is run by Katy Barret.

I also took my spindle up this week, and got almost a second bout of singles done, but not enough progress to warrant a picture!

No knitting at all, though my mouse keeps wandering back to Linda Marveng’s beautiful Eah, test knitting starting the week after the next on Ravelry- a lot of stocking stitch in a worsted-like gauge (two strands held together of sports and lace), but can I commit? Here it is:

I do find it absolutely gorgeous, and the test knit is also to improve the depth of the hood, really very tempted (by the way, open to anyone who wishes to join, the list to sign up for Linda’s test knits is here, and she has no limits on the number of test knitters she accepts – she is also very generous, so on top of the pattern for the test knit, she also gifts her test knitters a pattern of their choice from her many designs).

The design being tested next is also very very tempting, a stylish overrides hooded poncho, here is a sneak peek:

In fact I like all the patterns coming up for testing, and I’ve tested quite a bit for her, as well as knitting her patterns at my own pace – in fact she also has a KAL with prizes running until the end of June, you can sign up here. As you can tell, I am a fan 😍

If you like cables and you do not know Linda, you must definitely check her out!

This week I have also started a most wonderful online weaving course by Cally Booker, Understand Double Weave. Not only Cally is an experienced wonderful weaver, she has the gift of clarity! The course is organised in pre-recorded instructions, downloadable instruction materials and exercises, and live zoom sessions, and a community forum. Cally is extremely generous with her time (I had 2 and a half hours with her yesterday!), and it is a lot of fun. Above all, what I like enormously is that this is not a “project” course, but one where participants have to use the principles taught in order to design their own double weave sampler. I had come across Cally’s blog many times before when searching for information on weaving in general and double weave in particular, and when I saw the opportunity to take a remote class with her, I jumped on it – the course sold out in half an hour, but she will have more. If you have the chance, do take it. It will develop over six weeks, and here is a bit of playing around with colour palettes.

I extracted colours from a picture from the times when I could still hike in the Alps from Canva, and just in case I find Paletton another useful software to play around with colours – here is the original picture, the palette, and some yarn wraps: