Echo and Iris workshop – lovestoswatch

Year Of Projects: week 28

I have to admit I have really a hard time keeping the blog up, but let’s see if the new year keeps me on my toes!

I “blame” Highlandheffalump‘s and Jamie‘s (Liz is an artist very accomplished in anything fibre related, while James is curious of all sorts of crafts, and has an infectious enthusiasm), for the fact that while December 2019 brought with it the decision to start weaving, December 2020 ushered spinning into my life, and so it was that January opened for me with these beauties, courtesy of the lovely Angela and Simon at Adelaide Walker.

I tried to read as much as possible before ordering, but of course any new endeavour is a shot in the dark! Still, since at this stage my goal is spinning to weave thin yarn, I made a leap of faith and went for lace weight spindles (the weight of the spindle related to the fineness of the yarn to spin on, at least for beginners).

From top to bottom: 20g Turkish spindle, 29g bottom whorl spindle, 20g top whorl spindle

So from top to bottom the three spindles I got: a Turkish (the cross arms are removable, and create a centre pull yarn ball), a bottom whorl spindle (the whorl being the fatter bit of a spindle) and a top whorl spindle.

I can easily see how spindles become a collector’s item, they are so pretty! These are hand turned here in the UK, and British is also most of the fibre I got: some undied white Jacob’s fibre to get the hang of spinning (and use in some project), some Shetland fibre (white and moor it) that I hope to turn into a scarf, and some dyed merino which being short is supposedly more difficult to spin, but still it should give me some kind of gradient, or at least that is the plan.

So the past four days have been spent trying my hand at spinning – I am still in the “park and draft” stage (which separates the three phases of spinning – drafting the fiber, adding twist to it, and storing the resulting yarn), but I have completed my first single, and now the plan is to try and spin the other single that will complete my 2 ply Jacob skein as suspended spindling, so wish me luck!

First session as “before”, four session with first single complete as “after”

Really enjoying it, but it is too early to say whether I’ll manage to be reasonable at it!

I have also kept myself busy with weaving – I am more than half way through the weaving of a twill Gamp from Janet Phillips‘ “Designing woven fabric” – such a great book, and it will work well for Rigid Heddle Loom weavers (you will need three heddles) as well as weavers on shaft looms, as it is based on 4 shaft twills.

Janet is a very experienced British weaver and fibre artist – I’ve listened to a lovely interview in Haptic and Hue podcast, and she is also giving a talk at the Handweavers’s Guild of America. The talk is free to everyone, but you have to register, see here – there are other talks with fibre artists, all taking place on Tuesdays at 9pm UK time, so quite convenient for me, as that is the start of my “unwind time”. Haptic and Hue is a very well done, and very interesting podcast, if you haven’t tried and like anything fibre, I do really recommend it.

I had a few issues threading the warp (I managed to miscount a session, and threaded 10 warp ends switching their shafts), but now I am in a rhythm, and I love seeing the fabric forming – when done, this will be me a reference library of 500 different twill patterns, which I can then use to choose the design of yardage for a couple of dresses, here is a flavour for it:

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 24

Gosh, what a terrible yopper I am! I’ve managed to miss seven weeks – where have they gone? Not that I haven’t tried to keep myself busy with crafting (though not nearly as much as I would like), but “real life” is very busy, meaning the blog is neglected!

These past few weeks have been mostly about weaving, though I had promised to myself I’d take up the sleeves for the in December – i am still hoping to get this finished before the year is out though.

The wonderful workshop by Marian Stubenitsky is now over – apart from the sampler, I’ve woven a cotton scarf out of that same warp, although I did not have the right colours, and to be sure I wove two more in a beautiful silk/merino yarn, Juniper Moon Farm Findley Lace, that is soft and strong and works great both as weft and warp, and here are the results, two beautiful “sharves”, as they are wider than a scarf, but narrower than a shawl (33cm/14″ in width). They are very drapey and very light, so I do think they work well as luxury scarves, as they won’t be bulky under a coat.

I know iridescence isn’t for everyone, but I am very pleased with how these two turned out – and here is the cotton scarf with the “wrong” colours I referred to earlier.

Maybe worth noting that the cotton scarf was in balanced weave (24 epi and 24 ppi), while the two silk/wool scarves are slightly warped faced (24epi and 25.5 ppi), which makes them drape much better (plus there is silk in there).

I’ve also took the scissors to some denim to make a toile for the casual summer jacket with previously woven yardage.

Hope I’ll manage to keep it up better from now on, that could be my new year resolution!

Year Of Projects: week 16

This week has been all weaving a sampler for the Echo and Iris workshop I am taking, led by Marian Stubenitsky, that I already talked about in last week’s (very long) YOP update.

I put on two more metres than the course requirements as the plan was to make a scarf using the pattern I liked best. As I’ve been carried away with sampling though, it remains to be seen whether I will have enough – perhaps I could make a cowl, we’ll see.

I will make more extensive posts on this technique once I “get it”, but to really get to understand it I realise I need a lot of knowledge on weaving structures that I sorely lack at this point – but I am building a library to address that, as ever the problem is finding the time to indulge in my hobbies!

Anyhow, below pictures (in bad light) of my samples so far – I only have to weave the last one, and then I will use the last week of the workshop to weave off the remaining warp – either still sampling, or weaving a scarf or cowl.

Since I am not too happy with the colour choice in the warp (I think the purple warp with the red and the blue already there make it really dark), so I may end up continuing to experiment with this technique.

Samples 3, 5 and 6 are woven with a merino weft in pumpkin colour – washing should result in differential shrinkage, I’ll have to see.

I would LOVE to hear your genuine, honest (brutal if necessary) opinion on which colour combinations samples you’d turn into a finished object, if any!