Weybridge in February

So you don't have to bother going there yourself.

The curtain's waiting

What with all that rug wool to be wound, I've been distracted from my current weaving project, which is some material to make curtains for my bedroom.

For those of you who are interested, the details are:
Sett: 16 epi, woven at 16 ppi.
Pattern: Traditional Lace Unit from Margaret Porter Davison (mainly plain weave).
Width in loom 35". Length: should be enough to make four 44" long panels.
Yarn: the same for both warp and weft, which is taken from a cone of undyed silk noil and a cone of unidentified dark cream coloured yarn, probably a linen mix. I wound the two yarns together on the warping mill and then threaded them through the reed randomly. I'm now weaving with two shuttles, one of each yarn and sending them through the shed in random yarn order.

Phew.

I am quite pleased with the results as they appear on the loom. I like the dishcloth effect the slub and the colour of the yarn gives (!)..... But hopefully they won't end up looking like rags. At least it seems quite quick to weave, when I can tear myself away from the rug wool.

Greenwich chorus is now on CD

Yes it's true.

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop recordings have been put onto CD and are up for sale at Amazon etc.

I am very pleased to have my copy, as it means I can listen to Peter Howell's lovely Greenwich Chorus whenever I choose. I have wanted to have a recording of this since I first heard it on Jonathan Miller's TV series The Body In Question when I was a teenager. And that was a while ago, sadly.

There are lots of other splendid pieces of music on the double disc, and, it has to said, some horrible pieces too.

Busy

This is a huge skein of rug wool (3.6kg) draped over my (closed/folded) warping mill. The yarn is unravelled and being wound onto my ball winder. It takes me about ten minutes to wind a "cheese" of approx. 135g. I've wound 16 so by my calculations I have another 13 to go.

This is an easy skein to unwind. But there are others which are more challenging ....

I ordered 20kg of rug wool from ebay. It is wonderfully cheap, amounting to less than £1.50 a kilo, and that is including the postage. It is Axminster rug yarn, 80 per cent British wool and 20 per cent nylon. Just right for my rug making projects.

Unfortunately it can be quite tricky to transform it into a state suitable for putting on a shuttle, and it is filling my house with fluff in the process. But at that price, who could complain!

And the colours are all lovely and useful. It felt like Christmas, opening the bags when they arrived - three full coal sacks. Hooray.

Three scarves

I wove these earlier in the year and didn't get round to posting their details, which are:

Sett: 8 epi
Each one (there were four): 12" wide and 60" long not counting the fringes, on loom
German Birdseye threading from Margaret Porter Davidson
Yarn: Two using Noro yarn, one using home-dyed wool of various types

The fourth scarf was woven using oddments and didn't really turn out that well so I have not photographed it.

I need to trim the fringes of these three and iron them.