Category Archives: Studio

Alternative (and very temporary) Studio

Kumihimo, Looms, Studio, Weaving

With the work on the studio stairs still underway all the looms are in ‘storage’ positions out of the way of the actual building. I have deadlines to meet on the next two projects so one solution was to move ‘Gypsy’, the HD 21 inch 4 shaft portable loom into the kitchen. The work I had to do was to re-sley the reed to see how my combined card weaving/floor loom would look on a 10 dent reed rather than the original 8 dent. The first test was at 8 dent and each group of 4 warp yarns has to go through the same dent in the reed. This spread it out a little too much so that the weft showed up in the finished sample. Typically you don’t see the weft in a card woven sample. The warp yarn easily moved around in the dent at 8 so I was confident that at 12 it would work and bring the warp yarn groups closer.

The re- sleying worked fine and then the tying on of both the card woven portion and then floor loom parts.

It has taken a while to get the tension and beat ‘right’ as while the card woven part in now better, the twill weave on the floor loom sections is now a completely different sett. It was 2 ends per dent in the first example (16 epi) and is now 1 end per dent (10 epi). It requires just ‘placing’ the weft rather than an actual beat.

I’ve ended up with the card weaving upside down, hence the second photo of the underneath of the woven portion!!

I’ll carry on weaving this now so I have plenty to be seen at the guild meeting in October where I am going to show everyone how it is done.

In a typical ‘the best laid plans of…’ fashion yesterday we set off into the forest to gather some firewood to heat the hot tub. We’d not gone more that a couple of hundred yards when the definite sound of heavy rain on trees could be heard approaching from the west. We turned around and barely made it back to the house before a heavy deluge started and along with some thunder, continued through until lunch time. Out backup indoor plan was to start teaching Anne how to do beaded kumihimo ahead of the May 2027 Birchwood Fiber Festival ( https://birchwoodfiberfestival.com/ ) where she will likely be assisting in a class teaching students this technique. We had to time how long various aspects of the process would take so that we could see if it was going to be at all possible in a 2-3 hour session.

First step was to wind yarn (20/2 unmercerised cotton) into groups of 6 and attach them onto the tamas (bobbins). With that done we then had to put the required beads onto each strand.

That all went smoothly and we attached the 8 tamas to the marudai ready for braiding. I used mine and Anne used the marudai I had made as a test. The idea was to be able to demonstrate the actual techniques without having to swap places on the one marudai. We braided 1/3 plain braid then 1/3 with beads and then 1/3 plain again. The basic plan for a class is we would have everything up to almost the end of the first 1/3. Everything would be set up and ready to go from then so the new student only needed to learn the basic braiding moves then braiding with beads then finish off the last portion. Seeing this was a first time for Anne we timed her as our ‘test case’ Sadly she is a very quick learner and once started was almost as fast as me and she didn’t make any mistakes (like I did, requiring an un-braid, re-braid to fix putting two instead of one bead on one turn!!). It still showed that our basic plan still seems sound.

We have noted any improvements to be made and I’ve ordered the clasps to make these into necklaces or if the plain braid is cut shorter; bracelets. Once we cut them off and finish them I’ll drop the pictures into a future post.

We can now return the ‘craft’ table to normal kitchen table work, and now the loom is up and running move that back to the studio. We’ll have a kitchen again.

A brief break

Spinning, Studio

Anne’s sister and her hubby have a mountain home on Lookout Mountain, Georgia. They spend time there and also at their home in Atlanta. We visit (both places) often as either are about and hour and three quarters travel on easy back roads – minimum motorways. Anyway Anne had a couple of days off so we packed up and drove up to the mountain. As usual we took a lot of food – more than we’d need!!

We arrived early afternoon and despite the weather had been cloudy on the way there, once we arrived at the top of the mountain it cleared to blue skies and puffy clouds. Perfect weather to move out onto the deck for some relaxing with the view. Anne and Sue worked on a jigsaw puzzle, Jack read and I continues to spin on my Rappard wheel.

The fiber is a bit of mystery. It was sent to me as a gift by a customer of R&M Yarns. https://rmyarns.com/ He weaves rugs made from sock loopers (it’s the part of the sock that is trimmed off as they are sewn together and was often thrown away) and would take natural colored sock loopers, ice dye them and weave the rugs which he said flew off the shelves. As it turns out a lot of the sock making industry moved off-shore and those that remained updated their processes which pretty well ended the supply of sock-loopers. We did however have a couple of hundred pound of them from a much earlier purchase by the owner. He was very pleased to find the new supply and eventually bought all of our natural colored ones. There was much too-ing and fro-ing in the process and he obviously appreciated it as he asked me if I would like some qiviut fiber to spin so I said yes, having heard of it before but as it is extremely expensive, I had yet to try it.

It eventually arrived and I was very surprised at the amount – a whole pound, which at current rates could be worth more than $800. So that is one part of the mystery. Another is that it is natural white, which for qiviut is very rare as it is normally light through dark brown Qiviut is the soft under fiber from the Arctic muskox and while it can be farmed it is more normally gathered from where it is found after it naturally falls off in spring (hence the high price). I can really only find out if it is qiviut if I can see, on a microscope, if the fiber is hollow. The staple length is short so that does match. Anyway it is fiber and I’m spinning it in very fine singles to eventually make 3-ply. Once I have some I will put out a blog entry on it and hopefully by then I’ll have identified it properly.

Back at the mountain we eventually moved to dinner: spare ribs, roast veggies from our garden, coleslaw and cheese garlic biscuits. After clean up we set up the fire pit on the lower level of the property – still looking out over Alabama.

It was a great sunset and as the clouds cleared we sat and spotted satellites in the night sky.

After that it was back inside to play a game of Farkle (Sue won) followed by an old episode of Midsomer Murders before bed.

As is typical with these visits we started the day with coffee in the hot tub (yes it too has a $1M view) before a hearty breakfast and for us a slow pack up. Jack and Sue are staying on for another couple of nights.

We returned home to the valley and continued work on the studio stairs. These are the stairs up from the studio to the spinning loft, library mezzanine, and the ‘Fairly Large Room’ – our second lounge which is the room above the garage.

Various shots of the stairs – the step parts are finished, I can now put the outer railing back on and then to the top step and landing finishing. They will finally look like stairs (after 3 years of open treads).

Guild Holiday Party 2024

Studio

Once again I hosted the Scenic Valley Handweaver’s December party at the Oak and Fern Studios. It took a while to tidy up from the various random storing and work going on through the last few months in order to ready the Studio, Fairly Large Room (FLR) and other areas for guests.

This year we put a tree, revealed our new hardwood floors and hung a whole lot more pictures.

Being early December I put the 2 bar gas heater on downstairs and it had the whole area nice and warm well before the guests arrived around midday.

Everyone brought finger food of one sort or another and this year there was a lot more variety after the rather repetitive deviled egg episode of 2023! Food done it was on to the the very brief ‘informal’ meeting which took all of 10 minutes, most of which was me explaining what the 2025 challenge will be – not too many complaints and will post more detail in February when it kicks off. Then the ‘guest challenge’ began – which was modified slightly to be NOT directly associated with weaving, spinning, fiber, equipment, etc – to give partners who may not be fiber people themselves, a better chance at the prize. Guests had to match a question with the number of the piece of art on the wall that contained the answer. It turns out my expectation of ‘this will be easy’ was not quite so!! The winner was Larry with 12 out of the 18.

The gift exchange kicked into action after that and there was a little bit of ‘stealing’ going on, but as the presents were all top notch again most people were happy with their first pick. A bit of intermingling followed and some long goodbyes and we had the place to ourselves again.

Roll on 2025 and a party at some other studio, although I think that is unlikely with this crowd!!

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.

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.

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!

2020 Studio Progress

Studio

Staying largely home this last year gave me a pretty good chance to continue work on the studio and the major milestone of getting the roof on was accomplished, allowing the actual start of use as real studio (albeit very ‘unfinished’)

A few additions came from my sister-in-law in Atlanta. She and her husband bought the house next door to their house with various potential plans for the future. As it turns out a lot of ‘stuff’ was left behind when it was cleaned out by family members. Along with furniture, kitchenware, wine/liquor, there was a lot of stained glass as the deceased husband was a very accomplished stained glass artist. His wife has gone into assisted living and decided she did not need everything and neither, apparently did her children. So we ended up with a very nice piece of stained glass for the upstairs sunny sliding door (currently just covered over as a temporary window).

The other ‘finds’ were a filing cabinet – useful for my myriad of weaving/spinning handouts, lesson plans, and miscellaneous papers (along with Anne’s recipes and garden magazine clippings), and a wonderful 1940’s Remington typewriter.

The filing cabinet cleaned up easily. The typewriter was ‘mostly’ working, but had been stored for many decades without use. Luckily this particular model was built like a tank and despite a couple of stuck keys, some (non-essential) missing pieces and a load of dust, it only took a few days with appropriate tools and lots of careful cleaning and it was ‘working’ again. I resisted the urge to disassemble, clean and re-assemble once I took a look inside and saw how really really complicated the mechanism was. It is a Remington Noiseless Model 10 which has quite a unique but highly innovative way of moving individual keys. I’ll continue with cleaning but the fun part is it now works and will become a feature of our ‘Steampunk” office/guest room in the studio.

The other work progress is insulation and wiring which are both going well. The insulation is 3/4 finished but in places only temporary as the wiring inspection is carried out without insulation. In the meantime it has made quite a difference to the temperature in the studio and means I can warm it up to a comfortable 60 degrees despite it being freezing outside.

We have a friend who is a qualified electrician and has visited and started off the process. We were able to buy all the wire and fittings at a great discount from Anne’s work. It is a steep learning curve for me as I keep having to refer to the current wiring guidance as typically our electrician glossed over a lot of the fine detail. Next visit he’ll check my work and we will finish everything off ready for the first inspection. Everything then gets connected followed by the final inspection and sign-off. I’ll then put back the temporarily removed insulation and begin putting up the dry-wall.

Lots to go, but at least now on the down-hill slope.

Celebration

Looms, Project, Studio, Weaving

With the change in weather over the last month from the relatively normal regular rain/storms of Summer and early Fall, I finally managed to complete the roof. While the studio portion of the roof had been 90% complete there was the 10% over the spinning loft area and the large portion over the utility room above the garage. It took 2 weeks of fairly long days to take down the tarps and replace with the shingle roof.

Once done I no longer have to get ready for any rain by positioning buckets at strategic spots and was able to complete the move of all the large looms from the house to studio. Five looms are on the studio floor at present and one (‘Senior’) is disassembled on a set of shelves as I gradually clean it up prior to re-assembly. We also moved a lot of the artwork and wall hangings from the original loom room and I’ve hung them on the exposed walls to add a little bit of color.

Studio Floor
Spinning Loft display wall
Utility Room towards the Spinning Loft and Library

Still plenty of (now undercover) work on the Studio to do, but in the meantime work continues on the ‘Oak and Fern’ rugs and I’ve begun dressing the ‘Big Mac’ loom with warp for the Christmas towels.

Rainy Day work

Clean & Service, Equipment, Festivals, Looms, Project, Studio, Weaving

The ‘Oak and Fern’ bathmat is now finished. It’s still on the loom as I have enough warp for another four to five foot long rug. I may weave two smaller door mats for the doors from the studio to the garage and the workshop. I have plenty of weft yarn.

Oak & Fern Bathmat Finished

In other work in the studio I continued cleaning various parts of ‘Senior’. The treadles are like the rest of the loom wood – perhaps maple under a dark stain. One part that seems to be different is the shuttle race on the beater frame. It appears to be a darker wood and is typically a harder wood as it is an area that experiences a fair amount of wear and tear.

I’ve numbered the heddle frames as they are removed and cleaned to ensure I put them back in the right order. The frames and lamms seem to be in reasonable condition and don’t have much wear. One small shortfall is the lower lamm where the original wire connections to the treadle was made is only as wide as the 6 treadles side by side. Most looms have two extra treadles, i.e. for a 4 shaft; 6 treadles. If I add two more treadles I may have to extend the lower lamm on each side. The side by side picture shows the first cleaned treadle and beside it the shuttle race. The slot for the reed at the back of the race is a good example of the workmanship. The top and front of the race are finished and smooth. The slot edge is still as originally cut . I’ll likely sand it of a little more just for the looks as functionally it doesn’t need changing.

Today is the start of a fine period here in the valley so I will be able to get back up on the roof to get as much done before we head up to Townsend for the Fall Guild sale this weekend where I will be volunteering and selling some of my woven and spun items.

Moving in (or moving out)

Studio

The process has finally started… as previously mentioned, the studio is now at a state where there are windows, doors, a roof and walls. The walls and ceilings are not insulated and lined but the fact that I have some room has prompted us to start moving looms in (and equally important: moving them out of the house where through ‘occupational creep’ two and sometimes three of our house rooms have been converted for fiber work – mainly weaving as the smallest room in the house, my ‘loom room’ was never big enough to use more than one loom at a time. This saw almost permanent use of the guest room for ‘Big Mac’ and a quarter of the lounge devoted to projects on ‘Gypsy’ (the HD folding loom).

We now have 4 of my 7 looms moved into the studio space and more impressively I can walk around each of them, plus have room for a table for planning, book-work, or any other work. It has identified the range of my looms. For the first time ‘Big Mac’ and ‘Gypsy’ are side by side – making it very easy to see why one is portable and the other definitely not!

‘Pete’ is the first to be pressed into use. I had a warp wound for a cotton bathroom rug, so in setting it up I have threaded and now tied on the warp. Some adjustment of the friction brake on the warp beam then ready to officially throw the first shuttle in the new studio. ‘Big Mac’ will have the Christmas Towels and ‘Gypsy’ will have a guild challenge project: 3D weaving. More on that later, but it will involve copper wire and some tricky dressing of the loom. Finally ‘Bernie’ is assembled but needs some modifications to replace the hinged beater with a sliding version (a la the Dryad upright loom). All the wood to do this will come from what was originally the hinged beater/frame. By changing to a sliding beater the back to front measurement of the loom is cut in half. All the more space for other looms.

‘George’ (4 shaft fixed tie up – replacement for the original ‘George’ that was lost in the shed fired) and ‘Senior’ the yet to be restored/cleaned 6 shaft jack loom are yet to join the studio floor. Not to mention spinning wheels and all the yarn/fiber accumulations. Early days yet.