All posts by kiwiweave

2023 Birchwood Fiber Festival

Festivals, ParaTassels, Weaving

May was the month for our (a small group of Fiber Artists – mostly from our Weaving Guild) inaugural Fiber Festival. Over a year in the planning and perceived to be a replacement in our region for the now significantly changed Townsend event. I had put my name down to be Vendor Chair (after the years I had done this for the Smokey Mountain Fiber Arts Festival) and we also had several other ‘veterans’ on the board.

Initially we did not think we would have a lot of interest from vendors, but we chose the weekend to not clash too badly with any rival festivals. The Maryland Sheep and Wool was on, but that’s way out of our ‘local’ league. We also had to consider Instructors to run interesting courses as the whole package needed to be attractive to the public who we needed to turn up in their hundreds it was all to work.

Our venue was the Birchwood Community Center (where we hold our monthly guild meetings. We know the folk who manage the place and they were super supportive in our planning and as a bonus they would supply all day food from the (ex-school) cafeteria. It is how they make their little bit of profit for their group. They also hold the Sandhill Crane Festival in January each year a very well attended Festival that has been running for many years

Through lots of planning meetings we agreed on strategies to promote and attract Vendors, Instructors, and the public. This included social media (www.birchwoodfiberfestival.com primarily), mail-outs to guilds and fiber related shops, setting up demonstrations at other fesitvals, TV appearances, and as much ‘sharing’ as we could encourage. Things came together slowly and we ended up with a completely full vendor hall, a good variety of courses on offer and quite a bit of interest gathered from our various appearances.

For the actual festival we started the set up on the Thursday, had Vendors arrive to set up on the Friday and much setting up of classrooms based on what the actual lessons would be. The vendor hall (my part of ship) was the gymnasium which meant a relative easy job setting out the spaces. We had decided that we wanted to have at least 8 foot aisles which allow better two way traffic and hence a traffic flow that goes up and back rather than just a quick one way look around.

The photo’s from top left, clockwise are: the gymnasium (tape marks on floor for vendor spaces), vendor spaces filling on Friday, the next three are the Festival about to open on Saturday morning.

We had good crowds on Saturday and less on Sunday, but a lot of people went out the door with shopping bags which apparently was enough for all but two of our vendors saying they want to come back for 2024. Anne I did well with our towels and Para-tassels and will actually have a booth for 2024, so I had better get going on some stock!

Wedding Throw Gift completed

Project, Tartan, Weaving

With the wedding coming up in mid-April it was a case of rush rush rush to finish the previous tartan so that this one could be put on the loom and woven with time to spare. As it turned out we were well ahead of the game as it was slightly smaller than the last one and that made it far easier and faster to weave.

The colors were chosen and the warp wound.

The warp was tied on to the previous warp and pulled through the reed then heddles. Not the fastest process, but it went smoothly. After tying on to the front apron weaving was underway in just a little over two days (of part time work).

Weaving the Weddint Throw on ‘Big Mac’

It took three days (once again part time) to finish the weaving – it would have been quicker but an unexpected snag turned up. The knots, from tying on to previous warp, had little ‘tails’ and when a group of them came forward in the last pattern run of the throw they would tangle (behind the reed) and stop a clean shed opening! The solution was to spend half a day snipping the ends off. All that to finish the last 5 inches! Lesson learned. I cut the throw off, tied up the end edge fringes, trimmed them then gave it a delicate wash and tumble dry. Finally I combed out the fringes with a hair brush and it is now all ready to wrap up and post off to New York.

Finished Custom Tartan Wedding Throw

The next project is a run of 20+ cotton towels ready for the May Birchwood Fiber Festival. Always good to have a deadline!

Tartans and more tartans

Looms, Project, Tartan, Weaving, , , , ,

The weaving of the Brown tartan finished a little while back, but I kept the finished throw on the loom as we were visited by my sister-in-law and her husband (the new owners of the throw) and I thought it might be nice for them to actually see it on the loom. They were very pleased with how it came out. We’ll now take it off the loom and finish tying up the fringes on either end then wet finish it. Delivery will be next time we visit their Lookout Mountain home some time soon.

Brown tartan on the loom with yarn for the next tartan.

To save just a little time I will cut of the current tartan and leave the remaining warp threaded through the heddles and reed. I am currently winding the warp for the next tartan – a custom design for Anne’s niece and her fiance as a wedding present in April. By tying on to the threaded warp I can slight speed up the process of threading through both the heddles and reed. I have done this before and while it seems like it would be a real time saver – by the time you tie on every warp thread (or almost all – this throw is slightly smaller) it is quicker but not hugely. I think it might be one or two less steps that could introduce threading errors, which is a good thing.

A fairly simple tartan design but it does look good (on the software)

In between tartans I was working on the 2023 Scenic Valley Handweavers guild challenge which is to take analogous colors from a color wheel and also using black; highlight those colors. I was able to find three colors amongst my stash and decided not only to weave them somehow but also to, on the same warp, repeat the pattern three times using three different weaving techniques. A challenge on top of a challenge as it were!

The colors are from a very simple primary and secondary color wheel and are red, orange and yellow. The first technique was completely new to me and is called ‘skip plain weave’. Often seen in rugs (Central Asian), but also European and Southern American woven pieces. It is one sided as the ‘alternate’ colors float across the back behind the weft faced ‘front’. I have begun the second technique which is Turkish knot pile weaving. When I finish, the blocks will have the pile trimmed quite short. The final technique will be tapestry weaving. The warp is 8/2 cotton, the skip plain weave is 3/2 pearl cotton (left over from tartans) and the pile and tapestry are an acrylic knitting yarn left over from the ‘Four Horsemen’ blanket project. I will then mount and frame the whole thing, tentatively called ‘Blocks of Sunrise & Sunset’, before the deadline in June.

Dressing ‘Gypsey’
Skip plain weave
Starting the pile weaving

This project will take a pause while I push through the ‘Wedding Tartan’, but should be ready by the reveal date.

Two highlights

Studio, Tartan, Weaving,

After a week of winding warp (an hour or so a day – then on to studio build work) I had all the warp wound and all ready to go on the loom and there it sat, draped over the breast beam of ‘Big Mac’ waiting for action but I became fairly focused on getting the wiring in the studio ready for final inspection.

Nearly a month later I had everything done and arranged for the inspection which went perfectly smoothly, despite all my worries of tiny things that I thought might derail it! So now we have a fresh blue sticker on our meter box signing off the final inspection. Needless to say it has been a frustrating (at times) process and incurred some more expense (not on the wiring side) than planned, but regardless it is nice to see all the light fittings (bought at bargain prices from Lowes where Anne works) in place and working and being able to plug ‘things’ in wherever I like! We raised a glass of bubbly in celebration then I did an immediate pivot to get back to the tartan.

The dressing has been relatively quick and was threaded front to back. I now just have to tie on to the warp beam, wind it through and tie to the cloth beam – I hope to be weaving over the weekend.

New Year, New Tartan

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The first task for the new year is (apart from committing to actually post regularly) is to start documenting the latest custom tartan. As you may already know I have designed and woven numerous tartans for friends and family over the last 5 or so years. All starting with our own custom ‘Prentice’ tartan – using colors from the Prentice family crest.

Prentice Tartan throws in pearl cotton

I’ve woven this tartan in handspun/dyed, as well at the above in pearl cotton. Other tartans in cotton as well. The throws seem most popular.

The new project is a tartan throw for my sister-in-law and her husband. They recently bought a ‘mountain’ retreat on Lookout Mountain in Northern Georgia with magnificent views out over GA and AL. As a house warming present I promised a throw and quickly set to work designing/modifying a tartan for their new home. Based originally on the Ralston USA Tartan but modified to include a color for their surname (Brown), I was able to come up with a workable design which they liked.

I matched the colors with the 3/2 pearl cotton available for Yarn Barn of Kansas and they, as usual, delivered quickly. I’ve been heavily involved in the later stages of the studio build for the last year and have just passed the all essential 1st and 2nd electrical inspections and can have power connected at last although as it has often been the case this has proven more complicated that I’d like, with the need for a septic certificate needing to be on file before the power company can connect me. So a slight delay as the local septic inspector is on holiday over the Christmas break – meaning we have a large hole in the back yard until after the 9th! Regardless I can get on with the studio dry walling etc in the meantime. Despite those delays I wanted to see how the colors would work in the tartan so wound on one complete pattern.

One single tartan pattern wound on
One pattern wound on.

With the sett for 3/2 cotton in 2/2 twill being 12 epi the throw will be approximately 4′ x 6′ – adequate for the back of a couch or a comfortable chair. I still have to finish winding on the patterns as well as free up some space to dress the loom as the actual studio still has scaffolding in the center of the room. This was needed to fit the overhead fan while still leaving room for the inspector to see all of the in wall wiring. I’m sure with some careful shuffling I can achieve both.

December Progress

Project, Rug, Studio, Tartan, Weaving

After setting up for the Guild Christmas party and having projects on 5 of my looms I had no choice but to get stuck in and get some results. Two projects could definitely be classed as ‘faster’. The cotton towels and the Abalone colored scarf were both straight weaving with easy treadling and minimum weft color changes.

So while I concentrated on finishing them, Anne took up the weaving on ‘Bernie’ – the tufted rug and I took occasional breaks to make progress on the Tartan throw. First finished were the cotton towels on ‘Big Mac’. I had allowed for 6 towels as a test run for a larger run this year. Unfortunately and despite my careful counting I had wound on the warp in sections and miscounted one section by one turn so it being short limited me to just 5 towels. I thought of trying to tie on enough for one more towel with the knots at the join between two towels, but the amount of work for one more towel changed my mind quickly.

Cotton Towels

The idea behind these towels was to use the same design as the 2021 Christmas Towels but re-sleyed to open up the weave a little and using just one weft color per towel. They worked out well with some of the bold colors I had sitting around in the stash. The huck lace gives them a nice texture overall.

Abalone Scarf

The second project finished was the Scarf in Abalone colors. The warp was variegated black, grey, white and the weft variegated blues and greens. Both in 8/2 tencel. With long twisted fringes and a long scarf it looked great and after wet finishing it softened up even more. Anne claimed this one! I’ll now go ahead with a run of 3 or 4 in a slightly modified design.

Work has continued on the tufted rug with both of us working on it when we have time and we are now at just over 13 inches (of 50 inches total. Once the fingers develop some muscle memory you can speed up to a reasonable 11 knots per minute, with up to 2 inches a day achieved (weaving about 4-5 hours on this project). As this speed falls within Peter Collingwood’s ‘reasonable’ rate I’m happy enough. I shan’t be going into intricate designs a la Middle Eastern hand knotted silk rugs, I think some geometric shapes and colors should be achievable and a complete 4 x 8 foot rug in 2-3 months a reasonable goal. The tartan throw is now half complete and now that I’ve worked out the ‘throw’ to take the shuttle across the full width of the loom, it’s going easier.

We also acquired a commercial rug for the floor of the studio. It was straight concrete and needless to say rather cold if you are working in socks (necessary when treadles are close together (Big Mac mostly). Anne found a large rug down from $350 to $70 plus her work discount on top of that!

Left to right: the new rug and weaving progress in December. Tufted rug, and Tartan throw as of today. I put the heater on when I went to take the photo’s above so it should be warming up enough to head out and get some more weaving done.

Christmas Party 2021

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As previously mentioned I was hosting the 2021 Scenic Valley Handweaver’s Guild Christmas Party this year. I was initially worried by an adverse weather forecast, but that turned out to not be a problem as we had a very uncharacteristic 70 degree warm partly sunny afternoon – perfect for the 12 PM start. Preparations had been underway for the last two weeks and in the last few days before the 4th we swapped to the cooking of our contributions to the ‘finger food’ plate(s) that everyone was to supply. Plus some straightening up and come ‘game day’ we were well and truly ready on the morning of the 4th.

My goal was to have as many looms up and running so everyone could see what they could be used for. That had been the main work as I had 5 looms to dress and then some weaving done on each.

The pictures are clockwise from top left: The Paua (Abalone) scarf Mk II, Tablet weaving, Tufted rug, Tartan throw, and Solid color towels. Having five projects underway at once is an absolute first – I think the most previously was two.

Our food contributions were: sausage rolls, cheese rolls, a fruit plate and chips/dip – so technically more than our two ‘plates’ – but we were the hosts. Anne made a Christmas wreath (with kiwi) and strung some decorations and lights to brighten the studio and Fairly Large Room.

The guests started flowing in a little before midday and in all we had 15 attend (according to our guest book). I hit them as soon as they arrived (and had dropped off their food) with game number 1: guess the loom names. On a sheet they had to decide which loom name belonged to the labels a-f I had prefixed to the looms in random order. There were hints to make it easy(er) and while I thought most would breeze through, in the end only two had 100% – most of the rest had one or two swapped. With a random spinning app on the tablet the single winner was chosen and awarded the prize of a handwoven Christmas towel. We then started eating and after a suitable time game two “Name that Yarn’ was played – with the object of identifying the yarn in use (warp and weft) on each of the five dressed looms. Given the skill levels I expected some high scores as there were fairly obvious yarns like 8/2 cotton, 3/2 mercerised cotton, etc. As it turns out the best scores were only 5.5 out of 10 as most players only achieved partial answers and hence only got 1/2 points for that. Still, there was another tie for first place so after a random spin the winner walked away with a hand spun skein of Clun Forest wool.

More eating and chatting and talking looms/studios etc and the guests started drifting away around 2 with the last heading out nearer 3. All in all a successful afternoon and we now have a mountain of finger food in fridges and freezers – to keep us going for a week or two.

Studio Preparations

Studio

I was originally down to host the Scenic Valley Handweaver’s Guild Christmas party in 2020, but for obvious reasons we didn’t go ahead with it. Things being somewhat better now it was moved to 2021. With two weeks to go I’ve been doing a lot of work to get the studio fit for the occasions.

My basic plan is to have as many looms as possible up and working and it is looking like I will have 4 of the large looms and the table loom all with projects on. So far I have the upright all done with a tufted rug underway.

Upright loom (Bernie) set up to weave a tufted rug

The technique is new for me and will be the subject of another post. The other work yesterday was to wind on the tencel warp onto ‘Pete’ ready to weave a scarf. Today I need to thread the heddles and sley the reed then tie-on.

I have wound some of the warp for the tartan throw so ‘George’ will be next in line. That will leave ‘Big Mac’ to be set up for 6 more hand towels.

No pressure at all… We will be having finger food and I have a couple of weaving related games with some prizes. Just hoping now that the weather is kind!

2021 Christmas Towels

Weaving

This year I was way ahead of the game on getting towels woven and shipped to US and NZ destinations (more on that later in the post). I began playing around with a huck lace design – influenced by me seeing my sister-in-law using my woven towels as a bread cloth, which is perfectly acceptable – but not the ideal. A huck lace design has larger air gaps to release steam and has the bonus that the weave has a more structured, bumpy surface so still acts perfectly as a towel.

I found a very nice diamond pattern that would be fairly straightforward to weave and incorporate some green and red Christmas color stripes into a predominantly white towel. The warp is entirely white. As usual I chose 8/2 cotton for the yarn. Initial planning was for a sett of 20 epi, but after sampling I decided to re-sley at 24 epi. The huck pattern worked out way better at 24 after wet finishing.

20 epi to the left, 24 to the right

As with previous runs of 30 or so towels the only choice is to us the sectional warp beam on Big Mac and fill enough bobbins to wind the 2 inch sections (48 as the sett was now 24 epi). The process went smoothly and with a different method for keeping tension on the yarn as it went through the counter I was way more consistent. The winding on to the beam was also pretty straight forward as now I have more room (in the studio for the first time doing Christmas towels) I could expand the distance between the bobbins and the tension box on the back beam of the loom. This kept the angle of the yarn coming off the bobbins less extreme which led to no snags or breaks. Once wound on I set up for threading back to front then tied-on.

The photo’s arrived a little out of order so starting from bottom left and going clockwise, winding bobbins, full bobbin rack, first yarn pulled, winding on through Tension box, and center; sections full.

Once I had the pattern repeat and color swaps worked out I could weave relatively quickly at about 45 minutes per towel. I didn’t trim the color join threads while weaving – leaving that for once they were cut off.

I averaged about 5 per day, up or down a bit, but pretty much as planned to give me plenty of time for finishing. Once off the loom the ends of the strip were sewn and the whole thing was wet finished then ironed. Each towel was then hemmed (machine sewing with finishing of the ends of the fold by hand).

As mentioned at the beginning this was the earliest I had ever had all the towels finished and way ahead of the normal shipping deadlines for NZ. Unfortunately it turns out that the US Postal Service is not sending packages to NZ (or 20 other countries) as they claim they cannot find services that are affordable or even available!! So I have a pack of towels all wrapped and ready to go, but no easy way to send them! The US post towels are gone, leaving only the local deliveries to go. It was great to get ahead of the normal November rush I typically have, and now knowing how easy it was to set up, weave, finish I may plan to fit the Christmas towels in even earlier next year.

Modifying ‘Bernie’

Looms

My upright loom (Bernie) came with almost everything in working order, with the exception of the springs for the friction brakes and small pegs to hold the beater springs and raddle (when used). Bungee cords worked fine on the brakes and I made do with some small dowels for the pegs. To save some space when I moved the loom into the new studio I removed the hinged beater frame which effectively doubled the back to front size.

This was always planned – to replace the hinged beater with one that slid up and down the front frame – connected to the original springs so that the beater returns to the up position and is pulled down to beat. To do this I had to make 4 sided open ended boxes, one for each side, then cut a slot to hold the aluminum end pieces of the beater frame.

I waxed the front frame where it has to slide and will eventually fill in the slot where the old front to back hinged beater frame went. The boxes were made from some of the wood that came from the original frame. I only had to buy some screws.

The final job was to make the pegs. I ordered the wooden balls and the dowel came from Lowes. All the woodwork will get a final sand and a light coat of varnish to seal and it’s ready to go. I have begun winding a warp to try it out. More about that later.

Every now and again I get motivated to search through the Internet for images of upright looms, but as yet I’ve not found a match. Dryad’s and Leclerc’s are both similar but sufficiently different to discount them although they do both have a sliding beater so in that respect my loom is becoming more similar. Maybe one day…