Hamble Campbell's Home Page

No stews for a while

2011-06-13T21:40:00.000+01:00

Despite being advised not to use a very fine linen warp, I went ahead and threaded two sections of very fine linen warp. The green section gave no problems but the beige section broke and had to be replaced.

I wound a silk replacement warp and it had to be tensioned up with something heavy ....

This is very difficult to weave now because the weighted warp and the normal wound-on warp end up being at different tensions and make it all uneven.

It will hopefully be a silk scarf. I'm nearly at an end of it now. I've just got to weave a sampler so I can see how it will be when it is fulled to various degrees, and what would happen if I iron it. I had hoped for some pleat-related texture, you see.

I will tell you how it turned out, and give you a few details about the weaving, another day.

Krokbragd cushions

2011-06-09T17:26:00.003+01:00

These are the last pieces of weaving from my old Cyrus Oxabacks loom. They have a warp of blue carpet wool and the weft is blue, brown and cream carpet wool. Originally I turned the fabric into a bag, with a hessian lining, but then I decided I didn't like the bag, so I put a cushion inside and sewed up the top!
I had a piece of split-ply braiding which was acting as a handle, so I sewed it along the top to hide the join and I think it looks quite good.

Actually only the right hand image is Krokbragd, the other side of the cushion is in plain weave.

The ply-split braid is from Julie Hedges' book An Introduction to Designs in Single Course Twining and is the Basket Weave 1 pattern. I don't do ply-split much; it is very slow to do and I really wanted to try making ply-split baskets and I haven't managed to get hold of Linda Hendrickson's book on this yet.

Woven shibori

2011-06-06T22:12:00.002+01:00

This is the second piece of weaving from my David loom. And I am so pleased with it, especially as it was partly enabled by some happy coincidences.

I had wound the warp and weft a few months ago and then dyed them using Procion MX dyes. I have only dyed a warp once before, on a course run by Janet Phillips.

This warp is bargain-price silk noil. I sett it at 20 epi. I dyed it in a gutter on the patio. It was supposed to be a mixture of turquoise and blue bands, applied with a sponge. I had added what I thought was a tiny amount of yellow, but evidently that was too much and the warp came out a rather bilious-looking green. I was happier with the weft colour, which I dyed in a glass bowl using all the dyes for the warp muddled together. That produced quite a nice moss green.

On the loom I threaded up for a honeycomb weave, using some lovely Noro silk-mix yarn as the overshot. Unfortunately the result was horrible and I took off the short sample I had woven in disgust.

Then a new book I'd ordered arrived, Catherine Ellis' "Woven Shibori". It suggested starting with a Monk's Belt threading, which was exactly the same as the threading for honeycomb. So I just carried on with the weaving, only having to change the treadle tie-up, which is really easy on my David loom. Once it was woven I could over-dye the scary green colour of the fringe and of course the non-resist parts of the actual weaving. Again, I thought I was dyeing with blue, but because I put a teeny tiny bit of red in, it came out a browny-purple that I think goes, serendipitously, pretty well.

By the way, I think it took me longer to remove the knotted shibori threads than it did to tie them up in the first place. The shibori weft was some mercerised crochet cotton I found.

After washing, using fabric conditioner and ironing, the scarf has a lovely feel and drape. I wove it at 24 ppi. I am very proud of it and shall sew one of my labels on to prove that. I might even add some beads to the fringe. I am currently at a loose end (so to speak) while I await a consignment of 60s silk yarn - I'll tell you about that another day.

I'm back in the building and I've got a new friend - he's called David.

2011-06-05T21:50:00.003+01:00

Perhaps some excuses are called for. I notice that I haven't contributed to this blog for almost eighteen months.

Our old computer wouldn't let me upload photos onto my blog. Then we got a new computer but by then I had got out of the blogging habit. Then I got out of the weaving habit.

I sold my very big Cyrus Oxabacks loom because I no longer wanted to weave rugs as much as I wanted a sofa and two armchairs. (I couldn't have both, there isn't enough room).

Then there was a hiatus while I decided what to replace the big loom with.
It had to be quite small.
It had to be easy to tie-up, so not another countermarche.
It had to make good sheds with eight shafts.

For a while I thought of the Leclerc jack looms with back-hinged treadles; but they are so expensive new and I've never seen then offered second hand. Then I hit upon the Louet David loom, which has the easy tie-up of a jack loom but an easier-to-treadle shed with eight shafts. It uses a system of springs and a sinking shed to mimic the shed of a countermarche. Of course it has its drawbacks - it is not as strong as some other looms, but I chose the narrowest width (70cm) to maximise its strength.

Despite an advert on the Loom Exchange for a used Louet David, I failed to find this loom second hand, so I bought my loom new from Don Porritt. He is very helpful and efficient and his prices are competitive.

I must say I've been very pleased with this loom. It is small and manageable - with a really useful raddle on the top which I find very convenient when putting on a warp. The first thing I put on my new loom was the gamp blanket in Janet Phillips' book "Designing Woven Fabrics". Of course I'd forgotten my habit of always making a mistake in every project. This time I put the warp on upside down, ie the left side was on the right, and I had to follow all the threading diagrams in reverse order which was quite confusing. I also left out the final undulating twill section for lack of loom width and yarn, and stopped before the end of the project as I thought the fabric could be used as a shawl and I didn't want it getting unreasonably long. But still it came out well and I was pleased with the result.

I will tell you what I wove next another time.

Krokbragd bag

2010-01-24T14:03:00.003Z

One of the reasons for my recent lack of motivation for weaving was that I had put an immensely long warp on my loom and woven only about a foot of very fiddly pattern without having a clear idea of what I was going to do with the finished fabric.

I knew the result would involve sewing, and that's not really my forte. But eventually I decided on a .... cushion cover. I cut the fabric off the loom, which is wasteful of warp, I know; but I wanted to get going. And then I decided it should be a bag. Which it now is, as you see, with my daughter Kodakina modelling it for me.

I had intended on inkle-woven handles, using some weaving Kodakina (not her real name, of course, but then I'm not really called Hamble either) had started and abandoned about a year ago, in the same yarn. However, I lacked the patience for that and put on these bamboo ones instead.

Putting in the lining was a nightmare, but I think it is acceptable, not being too fussy. The bag is quite substantial, with a warp and weft of Axminster rug yarn, sett at 5 epi, weft-faced. Loads of picks per inch.

I think the break-through for finishing this project was, for me, realising that I didn't have to have the pattern going horizontal, and that vertical stripes of pattern would require only one seam, plus a plain-weave rectangular strip for the base.

Now I'm tying on a boucle wool warp, sufficient for two scarves, and I will carry on with the rug wool warp when I have completed the scarves. I wonder if that will work? The sett may be too wide, though I am using the boucle wool threaded double in the reed. It's another experiment, you see.

Two home-made Christmas cards.

2010-01-23T23:09:00.003Z

These are my rather unimpressive attempts at lino cut. Still they were done with enthusiasm and festive cheer. I used some scrap tissue paper glued on to the card and then printed on with black lino-printing ink. And then lots of glitter.

Tell them I did my best.

Excuses

2009-12-04T21:58:00.004Z

Alas, I have lost, temporarily I hope, my passion for weaving.

Reporting my weaving exploits was my main reason for blogging, so that dried up too.

However, I thought I would transmit to you my recent cogitations on my un-motivated state.

I had read a review of the children's short stories about the Moomins. I had not read these stories as a child, but a couple of years ago I read Tove Jansson's "Summer Book" for adults, and thence went on to some of her lovely stories for children.

The review mentioned a story about a creature who was an expert on postage stamps. He had spent his life building up his collection. One day the collection was complete. He had every stamp there was in Moomin Land and there were no more left to collect. This achievement meant that the stamp expert had no more collecting to do, and he had to be helped over his resultant grief by the kindly Moomins.

That is how I feel with my weaving. I had got my loom in a perfect state for rug weaving, and had woven a rug on it of which I was most mightily proud. But from thereon I would simply be producing more rugs, without the steep learning curve I'd been so ardently following. The fire, for me, had gone out with the attainment of a good woven rug produced on a loom I had coaxed into perfection.

I must find Jansson's story and read the Moomin's advice. In the meantime I'm trying to get on with Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (215/650 and I am enjoying it), and master "The Cascades" by Scott Joplin on the piano. (The latter ambition highly unlikely to succeed' but in view of the above, perhaps that's a good thing).

Little house on the patio

2009-09-14T21:34:00.003+01:00

This is my new shed. The sun is shining on it, because it is a good trusty shed. And I have now painted it a very dark brown (English Oak, it says on the tin), so it looks like a tea house from Japan. The roof is black onduline - I thought it looked nicer than the felt ones and it should last longer.

One day I will re-do the patio and then I will make a little path leading up to my shed door. Inside, it is very tidy, with all the garden stuff hanging from nails knocked into the walls. I chose the most beautiful shed I could find because it is right outside my kitchen door and I can see it when I'm sitting at the kitchen table eating my breakfast.

You can forgive me, I hope, for my infrequent blogging, when my time has been spent so wisely and productively, hmmmm?

How that purple warp got on........

2009-09-14T21:26:00.003+01:00

The top two pictures are of a plain-weave baby blanket, with the warp yarn used as weft with alternate picks of a varigated wool. It did not shrink nearly as much as the overshot blanket shown in the lower two photos. The pattern here is "cat track and snail trail", aka "wandering vine". I was surprised at how well the long floats felted, so it was suitable as a baby blanket after all, phew.

Asters and dahlias

2009-09-14T21:19:00.002+01:00

Well aren't these nice. All from my garden and all grown from seed. Hoorah!

Threading the heddles

2009-06-07T22:09:00.003+01:00

This is my next project in the throes of the threading process. It is going to be two baby blankets, in overshot - the pattern is "Wandering Vine", aka "Cat Track and Snail Trail", which sounds much more imaginative.

I've just worked out how to arrange the loom so that the threading and reed sleying is more comfortable and won't break my back like it normally threatens to. The shafts are now hanging much further forward, suspended from bits of string in a rather elaborate system of knots, and balancing on a couple of sticks. I'm terrified of making a threading error so I'm going very slowly and carefully as it's an awful trial trying to correct mistakes later.

Jo, a work colleague and neighbour, is expecting twins, so these blankets are for her and hers.

Look at these lovely flowers

2009-06-05T22:43:00.002+01:00

The garden smells lovely at this time of year. I picked some of the roses, and what you see here is representatives of the Rambling Rector, Madame Alfred Carriere and Compassion (unless I am mistaken about the Compassion, the pinky-peachy one). Now the house smells lovely too.

Krokbragt - there was a crooked bag ...

2009-06-05T22:27:00.004+01:00

There was a little bit of warp left on the loom after I'd cut the rug free. I used it to try out a krokbragt threading on three shafts. Luckily I could use the same tie-up as for the rug, and that meant that although shaft four wasn't used, I could lift shafts 2 and 4 together and thus make plain weave possible.

Anyway, I was so cock-a-hoop with the pretty little patterns that I sewed it up into a bag. (Sewing isn't really my strong point). And it has a lining, all sewn with rug wool, as is the plaited shoulder strap.

Some day I shall weave a rug in this structure, but mainly in plain-weave with the krokbragt as a border, or maybe isolated patterned stripes.

Making that long plait made me search about on the web for a quicker, easier way to make cords. I hit upon a cord-winder, and then got on to some ply-split web sites, which were fascinating. I think I shall have a go at ply-split braiding next and see what turns out. I just need more time ...

Just the plaiting to do now ...

2009-05-15T23:09:00.003+01:00

Here is my rug, showing both sides and some close-ups with and without flash. In reality it is quite a lot brighter and vibrant than these pictures suggest.

Some details:-

Sett: 5 epi
Reed: 10s, sleyed alternately and with a floating selvage of doubled ends.
Warp: 10/6 linen.
Weft: 2 ply Axminster rug yarn, used singly for plain weave and four-fold for the pattern.
Width: 36"
Length: 58"

Design based on Peter Collingwood's instructions for four-end block draft (paragraph d on page 319), blocks threaded either 1323 or 1424 - summer and winter pattern.

I based the design on the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, which was rather complicated by the pattern being spread over groups of four, and sleyed at 5 epi. I therefore had to multiply the Fib. number of inches by 0.8 to determine how much to weave and keep the weft stripes in the correct proportion.

There is definitely one side of the rug which is superior to the other - the weft was taken up differently by the two pattern blocks, and I could only control it satisfactorily on the side facing me as I wove.

This is a rug for my friend Janice, who is on holiday at the moment - perhaps I shall save some of the plaits for her to do, as a special treat ...

Rug

2009-05-02T22:36:00.004+01:00

Perhaps you would be interested to see the rug I am currently weaving - unfortunately the photos show that a photographer with a tremor and a digital camera will produce a blurry image. However, I think it does give a fairly accurate idea of the colours and structure of the rug.

I have modified my loom for rug weaving. It has a heavy steel bar strapped to the beater and heavy metal poles for the warp to tie on to, instead of the usual wooden sticks. There are two wooden blocks on the floor between the loom and the skirting board to prevent the loom creeping towards the wall as I beat. And, my favourite adaptation, an extra strong reed which I ordered specially (it has my name engraved on it by the manufacturer!), which should not bend.

I will show a picture of the rug when I have finished it ......... full steam ahead.

Its curtains for me ...

2009-04-16T21:49:00.003+01:00

Perhaps you would like to see how the curtain material turned out -
I'm not keen on sewing so making them up into actual curtains will be postponed for a bit, while I build up my strength.

I am afraid the photos are not good - the true colour is more like the paler photo, and not at all yellow. After washing and ironing the lacy squares are really apparent. Hooray.

Weybridge in February

2009-03-17T20:33:00.000Z

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

The curtain's waiting

2009-03-17T20:18:00.003Z

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

2009-03-16T18:07:00.004Z

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

2009-03-15T18:21:00.003Z

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

2009-03-15T17:58:00.003Z

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.

What's outside the window?

2009-02-10T22:57:00.004Z

Well, this evening I finished Roberto Bolano's novel The Savage Detectives and I will say right away that I absolutely loved it.

Fat books are usually a bit too much bother for me, but I was somehow so fascinated by all the buzz that surrounded the publication here in Britain of 2666 that I actually bought both books. As a rule I never buy fiction, but I couldn't wait for the library.

Although The Savage Detectives fills 570 plus pages, I was not tempted to read the last chapter, or skip ahead, or any of the other naughty things I usually do when confronted with a book that is not slim. I read the whole lot and I recommend it to you most positively.

Don't read on if you have not read The Savage Detectives yet, I don't want to spoil anything for you...

.................ooooooo000000000000OOOOOOOOO0000000000oooooooooo.........

If you have read it already, I can hear you asking, "What meaning did the cryptic ending convey to me?" Well, I thought the window frame had been punctured by something, letting in beams of light. Maybe bars had been removed, or maybe the fabric of the building had suffered some violence. I read on another website that perhaps the series of dashes or hyphens represented a "cut along the dotted line" instruction. What a clever idea, I wish I had thought of that.

Anyhows, I've got the massive 2666 to tackle next. But I've got to finish The Arabian Nights (translated by Haddawy, both volumes, first, which I put on hold to read Bolano. Wish me luck.

Watercolour robin

2009-01-12T16:04:00.004Z

I felt like a bit of watercolour, so I dusted the paintbox and copied a photo from a Christmas card, for my mother's birthday. I thought the picture looked very smart mounted on some dark green tissue paper and then put onto some white card. I think it would have looked even smarter with deckled edges and I see from my ~~time wasting on the internet~~ surfing activities that a special jagged-edged ruler device is on sale that you can tear your paper along and it will produce a pseudo-deckled edge. I expect it will take some practice to use and I shall no doubt tear some of my masterpieces in half in the process, but I might well buy myself one.

Hand dyed silk samples

2009-01-12T15:50:00.003Z

Silk samples following instructions in the Ashford Book of Dyeing, by Ann Milner

Here are the 1g silk samples (five times round the warping mill, as my scales aren't that accurate) I dyed with procion MX from Kemtex. Unfortunately they seem dominated by purple, and that may have been my mistake. The first twenty samples I dyed I'd put the silk in the pot first and only then added the blue dye, then ages later the red dye, and then even more ages later, the yellow. So maybe the blue got to be more dominant, having had first dibs at the silk. Anyway, for the other forty-six samples I got all the dye in first and then added the silk.

There are plenty of mistakes to be made when doing percentage dyeing (I did 2% here, a dark shade), and I made sure I made as many as I could.

A visit to Liverpool, Formby beach with the iron men

2009-01-01T10:28:00.001Z

Just in case you thought I did nothing but sit about weaving all day, here are two photos of a visit to Liverpool in October to visit Kodakina.

Rug number four

2009-01-01T10:14:00.002Z

So

Here are the photos of my fourth rug. I did not have enough of any one colour to create the "windows" effect that had caught my attention in Peter Collingwood's book but I am still delighted with this bit of weaving. I had to incorporate some randomly sized and coloured stripes to ease the problem of quantity of the main colour, but I am happy with this addition to the design. Yippee.

Delighted as I certainly am, I have had enough of rug weaving for the present and am weaving some woollen scarves, which I shall show you presently.

Dyeing experiment

2009-01-01T00:03:00.002Z

Perhaps you would like to see some pictures of my second experiment in dyeing - these are 1g samples of silk noil in 66 beakers, changing colour in three directions, each with different proportions of red, blue and green (from Ann Milner's book again)

I am still waiting for them to dry so I can put them on a piece of card and then maybe I shall choose some colours to dye my scarf warp and weft that I've got prepared.

Happy New Year

2008-12-31T23:57:00.002Z

May 2009 be good to you, and may you be good to 2009 -

well I was going to show a picture of my latest finished rug but I'd not taken one so here is a photo of it in its infancy ...

Tieing on a new warp.

2008-10-02T22:12:00.003+01:00

I've never done this before, but I'm hoping it will work. I intend to weave another rug using the same tie-up/threading etc as the last, only in different colours that will surely use up the last of my pre-dyed weft yarn. I'm following instructions for tieing on a new warp onto an old warp, from an old "Handwoven" magazine - I will report back on progress, if progress is made.

And while some industriously follow their hobby, others just lie about by the fire.

My third rug

2008-10-02T22:02:00.004+01:00

Here is the third rug I have woven, and the biggest, at 3' x 5'. I am truly delighted with it, after a few initial misgivings when it first came off the loom.

You can see both sides of the rug and a close-up. I have plaited the warp ends, after investing quite a bit of some trying out a woven edge and then undoing it all, preferring the plaits.

This rug is for my friend Elizabeth, to celebrate her first class honours degree in English literature from the Open University.

Big carrot, little carrot

2008-09-18T21:19:00.007+01:00

There is not much going on in my garden at the moment to boast about.

For the first time ever, slugs have been eating my courgettes and they are now officially failed courgettes - although we did get a few meals out of them.

The tomato plants that I grew in trays from seed, pricked out and grew on in pots, planted out and staked and from which I had carefully removed side shoots, had dutifully begun to produce tomatoes. Then before the wretched things grew bigger than marbles, the whole crop succumbed to blight and I have just finished hoiking them all out of the mud and into the compost bin.

French beans were okay and the mange touts were not. Carrots, as you see, are variable, but on the whole I would class them as a SUCCESS.

This afternoon after work I started weeding the plot. I have decided to turn it over to flowers for next year, as for the third year running I have found vegetable growing simply too demoralising. I planted out some pyrethrum (I think) plants I grew from seed earlier in the year and I shall get Sarah Raven's book The Cutting Garden to see what she recommends. I love flowers, but buying them is so expensive, and now, apparently, generally unethical - what else is there for a girl to do, but to grow her own?

What I wove with the silk I dyed

2008-09-18T21:19:00.003+01:00

I don't think I ever got round to showing you this scarf. I wove it with the results of my dyeing course that I went on in the summer.

It is a silk noil warp and weft. The warp was placed in a gutter and dabbed with different colours, which were very dark when I applied them but finished up very pale, which surprised me. The weft is all green.

I wove it in a twill chequerboard pattern on eight shafts which alternately shows either predominantly warp or weft threads. It is sett at 36 ends per inch and the weft is packed down the same amount. It was pretty awful to weave towards the end because the threads were all so close together and they kept breaking. I felt like I was really hobbling to the finish line, or, say, with only one wheel left on my wagon.

When it came off the loom the fabric was very rigid and inflexible but when it had been washed and ironed it became quite supple and has a linen-like feel to it which I like.

Next time I shall make the sett quite a bit looser. I have wound the warp and the weft skeins and they are ready to be prepared for dyeing and then dyed. I think I need to do some more one gram colour sampling first though as I am not sure about how the colours of the dyes I have will turn out. One day I plan to buy a kilo of good spun silk, but that will be when I am a bit more practised at dyeing. I notice Gaddams has undergone some sort of change of businesss arrangements, and it is from them I would buy my silk so I hope they will wait for me!

Rug update

2008-09-15T19:31:00.004+01:00

The end is in sight now, I've got another fourteen inches to go. Then I shall have a 3' x 5' rug.

This picture is not very good, actually as the mustard and the lime both look the same whereas they are quite distinct from each other in reality.

The rug is using up a tremendous amount of weft. I am putting in thirty-two picks an inch, using two strands of Axminster rug wool at a time. So that is sixty-four strands an inch. It will be lovely and heavy and thick (hopefully!).

The reed is a metric one so it is a bit tricky to say what the sett is. I have threaded the warp alternately single and double in the heddles and the dents. At just over 36" there are 280 dents and 140 working ends. There are about 7.5 dents in every inch, or 3 for every centimetre, so my ends per inch works out at between 3 and 4.

I have used a floating selvedge of 3 warp ends. The warp is linen rug warp from Fibrecrafts and is a good beige colour that I think goes well with everything. In future I plan to use 100% Berber rug wool for the weft that I have dyed myself, but that will be a very big project!

Tidy

2008-09-15T19:23:00.003+01:00

These are the 1 gram samples of silk that I dyed. I'm not mad keen on any of them to be frank and I think that I should try again with a darker depth of shade.

The dusky, dusty, more muted colours are what I prefer and maybe there are some greens and mauves that I could use here but I'm not sure.

Next time I shall probably do the 66- sample exercise in Ann Milner's book, which are all at the same depth of shade and use three colours in the mix.

I think I shall finish my rug first though, as dyeing really is an awfully big adventure.

Measuring up perfectly

2008-08-25T22:01:00.002+01:00

Not having any scales accurate enough to weigh just one gram, or parts of a gram, I was very proud to have successfully wound exactly ten parcels of one gram of silk.

I found some similar yarn in a catalogue, which had its weight given as 100g measuring 1000m. So I wound off 10m on my warping mill and lo and behold, my 36 lengths weighed 36g!!!

For the dye powder I used some kitchen measuring spoons and followed the instructions which came with the dye. As long as I always use the same measures I should be able to repeat the colours.

Measuring up

2008-08-25T21:52:00.002+01:00

I've been dyeing some samples with a view to designing a silk scarf one day.

This is following instructions in Ann Milner's Ashford book of dyeing. There are 36 one gram lengths of silk noil yarn. The dye is from Kemtex, procion MX.

It did not go entirely without problems, one of which you can see in the photo. Sample number one, in the top left corner used a 0.1 % solution instead of a 0.01% solution. And I would have expected some browns in the middle section and less of a sudden change from green to purple.

But it is my first attempt, and it was not an absolute failure. I can see some good colours amongst the horrid!

Fairfield horseshoe

2008-08-22T23:23:00.003+01:00

The picture with the big wide valley was taken on our lovely walk round the Fairfield horseshoe on our last day in Ambleside last week. We had quite good weather, considering the ominous start to the week which resulted in us spending too much time and money in outdoor equipment shops on Sunday and Monday.

We were very surprised at how lonely it was up on the hills. Hardly anyone else about. Perhaps all the walkers steer clear of school holidays and in June and September it would be packed.

We walked around Buttermere earlier in the week, and that was quite busy with families.

Rug

2008-08-22T22:56:00.003+01:00

This is what I am weaving at the moment. I am so very very happy with how it is turning out, I can hardly begin to tell you. The close up image is quite accurate in its colours.

This is being woven with advice from Peter Collingwood's rug book. It is based on a 3-shaft block weave. It has four blocks, threaded 123, etc 234 etc, 341 etc and 412 etc.

The blocks are either all colour A, all colour B, or vertical stripes of both colours. What fascinates me is that these blocks can be moved about according to the order of the weft colours A and B and according to the lifting of the shafts.

There are three ways to arrange the blocks if you want the first block to remain as colour A throughout, and this is the design I have started to put into my rug. I shall have about 10 inches of the first option, with green as colour A, and then I think I shall have some narrow horizontal stripes in maybe mustard and then red after which I shall probably have another 10 inches but this time with lime green as colour A and the second arrangement of the blocks. Then I shall put in some more horizontal stripes and I shall follow them with the third possible arrangement of the blocks and who knows I might choose red as my colour A.

What do you think? It is not as complicated as it sounds - you just have to read Peter Collingwood's instructions a few times, which are nice and clear and off you go.

The pale horizontal stripe in the photo is where the rug begins, it is a firm base of linen warp yarn for the weft and I shall most likely unpick it when the rug is finished and do a half-damascus edge followed by plaits. I wonder how long it will take me to finish.

Ambleside

2008-08-08T13:47:00.002+01:00

We'll be wending our way to the lakes tomorrow. Yippee.

Have just been watching the Olympic opening ceremony. So lovely, I thought I might cry.

Shall let you know what I've been up to - thinking about dyeing in a gutter (got to get the spelling right on that), and doing some sample dyeing, so hopefully that will be mentioned in dispatches in a couple of weeks or so.

I've also put a warp on the loom for a rug, but I am not going to start weaving till I get back so the tension doesn't get mucked up (!). As if my rug weaving was that accurate.

Tootle flootle, and speak to you soon.

Atavistic strawberries

2008-07-14T20:08:00.003+01:00

The strawberries I planted years ago and whose fruits I once enjoyed, have generally gone or are on their way out. In their place are these tiny little wild strawberries. Presumably they have grown from seed from the cultivated parent, or what, I don't know how these things work.

Good dye to you all.

2008-07-14T19:53:00.002+01:00

I had a thoroughly action- packed Saturday at my weaving teacher, learning to dye wool and silk.

Here are the skeins hanging over my loom, while I decide what to do with them.

The long one is a silk warp that I dabbed with fibre reactive dyes while it was lying in a gutter (that'll teach it to stay sober). This is called random dyeing and it used cold water. There is its green silk weft hanging next to it.

The other hanks, in pinks and mauves, are different types of wool and were dyed using acid dyes in hot water.

My plan is to dye thick berber rug wool so I can weave more individual rugs in colours I have chosen, rather than in the colours that happen to be available. We shall see. A rug does use up a lot of yarn. I've got a bit of rug wool that is already dyed to use up first and then I'll see what I can do.

The red currant thief.

2008-06-24T22:40:00.002+01:00

When I go up the garden these days the blackbirds and sparrows and all their no-good pals fly guiltily up out of the fruit bushes with embarrassed squawks. Caught out again - red-beaked. Strawberry, redcurrant, blackcurrant and raspberry - I think of it as my equivalent to a net of peanuts. And sometimes they leave a few berries for me.

Take a look at my Little Gems.

2008-06-24T22:31:00.003+01:00

We had one of these in our salad tonight, with Waitrose cucumber and Lidl sun-dried tomatoes. Maybe we could have had our own cucumber, but I never got round to buying the seeds. And the tomatoes are currently only about six inches high, just out of the picture.

You should keep your Little Gems well watered, I've been advised, or they will bolt. We've got very chalky, well-drained soil, and I don't think I've done the watering well enough or often enough. I don't like the look of the yellow hose snaking across my lovely green lawn. And I'm not carting watering cans all the way up to the vegetable plot. The plants must take their chances, like the rest of us, is what I say.

A giant leap forward

2008-06-19T22:38:00.003+01:00

I thought you would all be pleased to know that I have made a giant leap forward.

The leap was made in the field of weaving, and was achieved by my drafting my own little design, which is for some curtain material.

It did not weave up exactly as I had imagined. I had not anticipated the longer warp ends showing as much as they do. This is really because I have beaten down the weft thread more than a balanced weave demands, so that the weft twill line shows more. What will happen when it is washed I do not know.

It is an "undulating twill", which in this case is made by increasing and decreasing the length of the weft floats, rather than spacing it unequally in the reed. The photo is not very clear and not very representative of the actual colour either, as the overall impression in reality is mainly blue with narrow white stripes and the blue and green are much closer in tone than they seem to be here.

The yarn has a shine to it and is also quite hairy, which makes me think it is a linen and silk mix.

The warp is sett in the reed at 16 ends per inch, but the weft is probably beaten at maybe 24 picks per inch. It doesn't undulate quite as much as I had expected, but I'm pretty pleased and proud anyhow.

The Lady, the Monkey and their love child?

2008-06-17T16:18:00.005+01:00

The lady and the child are lying down because they are tired. And I would have to read the manual for the camera to rotate them 45 degrees. Just incline your head, like robins do.

The lady is wearing a big bonnet and full skirt, just like real ladies do.

See the following post for an explanation.

Journey to the north

2008-06-17T16:05:00.003+01:00

Just to show that my close up photography has plenty of room to improve, here is my attempt at capturing digitally the famous monkey orchid of hereabouts.

It is really quite like a pink monkey, if you have a vivid imagination. There were loads of them, which is good as they are s'posed to be uncommon.

There were lady orchids too, and one that I thought was a military orchid (half-close your eyes and you see a soldier). However, blogger didn't want me to show these at present, so I will try again later. I read somewhere on the internet that possibly the "military" one is really a hybrid of the other two, the lady being the mummy, naturally.

My second beautiful warping mill.

2008-06-17T15:52:00.002+01:00

As we found we were unable to move freely about the room what with all the weaving paraphernalia cluttering the place up, I sold my 3m circumference mill.

There followed a sad time when I didn't have a mill, and had to wind my baby blanket warp on to my board. I really don't like warping boards, there are too may pegs to go round. Having taken advice, and thinking long and hard - this is my replacement model.

It did very well with my latest warp - I believe a mix of linen and silk, not sure because the cone had no label.

This mill, which is from LeClerc and NEW! - I am its first owner, is much smaller, and it folds flat. We are using the extra space in the dining room for spontaneous displays of contemporary/ modern dance, whenever a catchy tune happens to come up on the radio.

Top of the pots

2008-05-20T21:30:00.002+01:00

My new treasure is a stoneware coiled pinch pot which I bought at one of the Oxfordshire art week open studios this Sunday. I'm afraid my amateur photography doesn't quite capture its simple joy. It is very pleasant and interesting to meet the people who make all the wonderful things on display. Sunday was warm and sunny and we took the train to Oxford and then walked along the canal.

Triumph

2008-05-12T22:09:00.004+01:00

Here is the baby blanket, currently being woven very slowly, but as carefully as I can. I have to admit I was surprised to find that I had all four plain coloured squares on one side. I had imagined I would get a combination of plain solid colours and a mix of colours. I haven't got the right sort of brain to work it out theoretically, and have to actually do the weaving to find out the outcome. Anyhow, I'm very pleased. The cloth is woven as two layers, simultaneously, and each time there is a colour change the section is separated from its neighbour. I could put some filling in each of these pockets and it would be like a duvet. I have seen pictures of weaving with this structure which have objects enclosed within the pockets.

The fabric is soft and thick, and presumably the two layers will trap air and be lovely and cosy. The edges of the squares look like they are stitched, a bit like a quilt, which effect I like.

I made three threading errors, including putting one thread through two heddles and threading a heddle but missing the "eye" so that the shaft could not lift it. All mistakes recoverable, and not a bad error rate, I think.

The picture on the right shows the heddles and you can see the colour threading order.

Covered

2008-05-07T22:03:00.003+01:00

In case you were wondering if I did in fact ever complete my upholstery project - here are the chairs proudly sporting my weaving. They are less proud of my sewing skill but it's hard to be perfect. By the by, you can just see doggy in her little pink sleeping bag. Fast asleep, the lovie-do.

Spanish visitors

2008-05-07T21:56:00.002+01:00

I have had these Spanish bluebells put into a jug. They smell very nice but they're just not English.

Someone planted them in the garden (not us) years ago and they keep spreading. My friend Janice says that maybe if you pick them they will die.

The English bluebells in the woods are especially lovely at the moment. They smell wonderful and are a more beautiful blue, but apparently they are dominated by the Spanish if a bee muddles the pollen.

Hamble the reed sleyer

2008-05-07T21:44:00.003+01:00

Here is my loom's reed, suspended horizontally, for "ease" of sleying. I'm only six inches short of the finishing line. Out of thirty-eight inches.

All the warp threads have to be individually threaded through the reed, which is like a big comb - this one is set at sixteen spaces per inch.

I'm preparing for a baby blanket, boucle wool, in double weave, two fabrics woven simultaneously, each at eight ends per inch. I hope it will end up as a chequerboard pattern - but who knows? I have already got confused about the colours. There are two blues and two purples, threaded in two inch blocks but I think that only every other square will be completely dark blue or completely light blue, and the others will be a mix. And ditto for the purple. But I could be wrong there. It is not really the sort of thing my brain copes with easily so I shall call it an experiment.

More likely than at Christmas

2008-04-06T20:42:00.004+01:00

This is our garden before it became trampled with excited foot prints:

Can you all see your ovaries? (Or the 28 steps).

2008-04-06T20:22:00.008+01:00

I was tempted to look about the room with a stupid grin on my face when we were asked this question yesterday, but it simply wasn't the time or the place.

We were all serious students and, to be honest, botanical terms are rife with possible misinterpretations to such an extent that we would have spent the whole session smirking and nudging each other in the ribs to the exclusion of all else if we had succumbed to such schoolboy humour.

To let you into the secret, this was day one of my plant identification course. I had been looking forward to this since I booked last autumn. We are being taught how to use the big fat ID book: "The New Flora of the British Isles" by Clive Stace. The book is successor to Clapham and Tutin and Warburg, which I was scared by when I was a younger person than I am now. I think the trick to using this definitive key to the wild flowers of Britain is to have a very big botanical vocabulary, so I am busy expanding mine ready for the next lesson.

We have six three-hour lessons, one a month on Saturday mornings. There is a wide variety of students - surprisingly - I thought they would all be old ladies. Our homework is to practise "keying out" a plant and I had a go today on a pulmonaria, as I already knew what it was so I could check to see if I was going wrong.

Hey! Guess what! I actually got it right. I had to go through,I think, ooh at least 28 steps to arrive at Pulmonaria officinalis, and only needed to cheat a bit at the last couple of steps to name the sub-species. I've committed to memory, hopefully, some new botanical words including: glabrous, glaucous, pubescent, appressed, cyme, nutlet, included and exserted.

www.equal-education.blogspot.com

2008-03-27T23:20:00.003Z

Do sign this petition - here is a link to the Downing Street site. It is to provide a good education for all children, not just those whose parents can afford it.

Helebores of 2008

2008-03-27T23:07:00.005Z

For Easter we put the helebore flowers in water again and they are as lovely as ever. I noticed that the original plants have surrounded themselves with their progeny - it will be interesting to see what colours they are.

Apron strings

2008-03-27T22:41:00.003Z

Well it has been a long time, but I couldn't keep this hot news from you any longer.

Look!

My loom now has APRONS!!!

I actually put these on last year but neglected to inform you. It was quite a task for someone as useless at sewing as I am, but as you can see, I succeeded in the end.

This is John Lewis' best deck chair canvas and I have had to SEW it and cut it and attach it (using magical powers and some velcro). I cannot recommend my method, as I can't even remember if I had a method, or what I did precisely - I just kind of fudged the whole thing and it seems to work. The aprons surprisingly stay attached to the beams even though they are just balancing in a slot in the beam via a wooden rod - I a complete turn of canvas round the beam appears enough to keep them in place.

However, I think the aprons have helped solve the problems I'd experienced with lumpy cords causing a nuisance on the beam when winding on, and lopsided warps. I raise my glass of whisky mac in pride and optimism. (I've got a cold and the whisky is helping, thank you).

Marianne Dreams

2008-01-15T20:53:00.000Z

We went to see this play - an adaptation of the novel for children by Catherine Storr - at the Almeida Theatre in London on Saturday.

I found I was crying with the sheer loveliness of it. A truly wonderful piece of theatre, magical and charming.

A tale of serendipity/spooooky coincidence now follows:

The reason I bought tickets for this event was because I'd finally discovered the name of the TV show based on this book, which I'd been searching for since the internet was invented. I'd been pleasantly terrified by this programme as a child but could remember nothing about it except that there was a boy ill in bed, a girl who visits him, a magic sketch book which could summon up for real whatever was drawn in it, and some horrible big monoliths outside with eyes on them. Last November I finally tracked down the name of the programme - it was "Escape into Night" and it was based on a novel by Catherine Storr.

Quite by chance I read in my free copy of the Waitrose magazine that the book was being dramatised. I borrowed the book from the library and found it gripping and fascinating, and of course I ordered tickets for the show.

Joco et ludo

2008-01-08T20:06:00.000Z

Despite failing to attend a school that taught Latin or anything else so grand I am curiously delighted by this expression. It was fascinating to learn some history (from my bed-time reading of "The History of the Countryside" by Oliver Rackham) about pollarding and coppicing underwood, felling trees for timber, hunting for deer, pannage for swine, etc that the monks of Suffolk, when visited by the Queen of France, used their woodland for fun and games.

Kind wishes extended to you and yours on this first day of the new year, my dearies

2008-01-01T21:16:00.000Z

We consider ourselves unobliged to make a resolution as on the 30th day of December last year we (Mr HC and myself) CLEANED THE OVEN. Now absolutely ALL the signs and symbols on the fiddly shiny fascia have been deleted, along with the grime and baked-on grease of dinners past. Cooking will be so much more instinctive and unpredictable than ever before. However, the thermometer can currently be read through the glass door, so clean as it now is.

New year's afternoon eve we cooked: two quiches, 16 bread rolls, one stollen,lentil and tomato soup for 11, prawn risotto for 10, one raspberry pavlova. All satisfactorily well received, I believe and none burned or under-cooked.

Quiet moments

2007-12-30T14:17:00.001Z

At present I'm plodding through my biggest weaving project yet. There is twenty foot of warp on the loom and hopefully that will be sufficient to make covers for two of these chairs. I am at the eight foot mark, but there are 48 weft threads in every inch so it is not going to be the work of a moment.

The chairs were acquired from a charity shop at £5 each and I have moved the back cushion to show you the spokes and let you know how nice the chairs are. I ought to replace the cushions themselves and not just the covers but that is rather expensive - though at least I wouldn't be weaving that.

The loom is threaded alternately with a brown and red warp of unknown type but seems quite strong. The pattern is Finnish Upholstery weave so I thought it would be appropriate, apart from we are not Finnish - and I certainly won't be finished here any time soon either.

What we did over Christmas

2007-12-30T14:14:00.000Z

What I found in the woods.

2007-12-27T13:04:00.001Z

I was amazed at how splendid this photo looks when I click on it - and my camera is a simple point and shoot without the you would have thought essential anti-shake feature. I wonder, having consulted my new book, if these are called Sulphur Tuft, or Brownie, - hypholoma fasciculare. Hmmm - not sure if I am typing in the correct portion of the screen. Everything is blue and underlined .....

Watercolour fish

2007-12-27T13:02:00.001Z

I have changed these fishes' natural colours to please myself and my surroundings.

Well, at the charity shop they had a picture frame and mount of exactly the right colour and almost exactly the right dimensions, look ...

Woven twill rug

2007-12-27T13:01:00.001Z

Here is the finished rug, ta daa! - Fibinacci stripes of course.

Rag rug in woolly jumpers

2007-12-27T12:59:00.001Z

I've also finished this ongoing project over Christmas.

Botany books

2007-12-27T12:47:00.001Z

(Two photos, with and without flash).

When I was primary school age I was very interested in wild flowers and knew lots of names and could recognise the common ones and I even kept a book of blank sheets onto which I stuck pressed specimens. Then I went off to my ladies' college (!) and got over it.

Hooray, the interest in botany has returned and I have got lots of reading to do. The Bill Bryson is there purely for alliteration and I doubt I'll have time for him. I started Francis Halle's In Praise of Plants and then took a detour into Botany for Gardeners by Brian Chapon when I couldn't quite believe that plants have two generations. I'm now a believer and back with Halle.

It is all very difficult and I have only got double integrated science o' level at grade C and D - so wish me luck. I am going on a course in the spring to improve my knowledge of all this and I shall tell you more when I can.

Wall hanging on a rug wool warp and all sorts weft

2007-12-27T12:41:00.000Z

Meant to be a bit like the sea.

Tablecloth

2007-12-26T19:53:00.000Z

This is an attempt to show the glory of my tablecloth which I wove in one inch squares, in a linen-cotton type yarn. It is a very luminous and lovely blue. I doubled the warp thread at one inch intervals and also doubled the thread in the weft similarly. And it didn't all go awry in the washing so I was deeeelighted. I'll take a bow and thank you.

so sorry to have not blogged since June. been weaving.

Wedding cake

2007-06-20T19:41:00.000+01:00

We went to our friends' wedding. Isn't this the most beautiful cake you've ever seen? (And it tasted lovely) .

The wedding was beautiful and lovely too!

Next rug.

2007-06-20T19:37:00.000+01:00

This is a vivid, glowing blue. Doing my best.

Mat and dog.

2007-06-20T18:32:00.000+01:00

Haven't finished doing the fringe, but it did get done.

First rug

2007-06-06T11:04:00.000+01:00

I have nearly finished this, my first rug. It is on a linen 10/6 warp with a two-ply rug wool weft used two-fold. It is in a broken 2/2 twill - two colours ABABA repeat and I have managed to get about 31 picks per inch. I was happy with that because Peter Collingwood says to get up to 40 ppi at this setting but with a straight twill. The broken twill has more interlacements I believe, and I also think my warp is thicker than the one he was describing, so I'm calm.

I had no end of trouble, as usual, and at one point had to resort to re-tying all the ends (see picture) because the back stick was at an angle. The front and back sticks are galvanised metal water pipe that won't bend and are very heavy.

I'll tell you more later, but I'm going to try and finish this today. Must dash. Speak to you soon.

Before and after photos

2007-06-06T10:52:00.000+01:00

I took these pictures yesterday - it was a nice sunny day. Once I even saw the dragonfly emerging from its shell, but I was too late herel - this one had finished climbing out and was drying itself in the sun and warming up for take-off.

I think I would like to get a digital SLR camera, as they are quicker, apparently, and they can combat camera shake - very useful for me.

Finished blanket

2007-06-06T10:41:00.000+01:00

Well sorry I've not written to you for a while. Busy weaving, you see. The Brighton honeycomb blanket felted up nice and thick, although its waffle structure isn't very obvious. It got a lot smaller after the fulling but it is big enough to cover a single bed - here it is hanging over a door, to give an idea of the size. Mistakes became less glaring after the finishing, too, thank goodness. The plaits along the top and bottom edges took ages to make - thank goodness for a boring job where no one wants to know what you're doing! (I jest of course, kind employer).

On my bookshelf ....

2007-05-03T22:08:00.000+01:00

I thought you might be interested to try and read the spines of these books. When I see a photo of a room with books, I always try to make out the names on the edges. I like to see what books people have - perhaps you can discover something about them from their choices.

At my school library there was a novel called, "Books do furnish a room." No doubt you have read it. I thought it would be interesting, but I've not yet got round to finding out (after almost thirty years, sadly). There were two other books that caught my eye, and stay with me in memory, and guilt (I've not read these either) - "Death comes to the Archbishop" and "A ring has no end**". Brilliant titles. Both of these, I believe, have recently been republished so maybe I'll get round to reading them.

Our book group is reading Naples 44 by Norman Lewis. I borrowed it from the library and read the first seventy, and last ten, pages. So you can tell from that what I thought of it - a bit too much interest in reporting the moll . e .station of wo. men in wartime. (Typed thus to try to avoid per. verts from googling me.)

**PS - Actually, now I think it was Vice Versa by F W Anstey.

The beautiful names of moths

2007-05-02T13:11:00.000+01:00

Apparently someone is trying to count the moths in Britain. Good luck to them. The most interesting moth I've seen (maybe because it is out and about before my bed time) is the humming bird hawk moth. I saw it a few years ago in the Isle of White and the year before last in my own back garden. It looked just like it says on the tin.

I have a wonderful book on moths, with a great many pictures of little brown-winged creatures - "Moths of the British Isles by Bernard Skinner". I am too stupid to be able to actually identify anything with it but I love it for its descriptions and lists of names.

I wonder where these very poetic names sprang from - so many original and fascinating tags. I will give you a few examples, though if you were to look up their pictures you would almost find a little brown-winged creature staring back at you, defiant beside his label.

Don't these sound lovely? - The Anomalous, Goosefoot Pug, The Geometrician, Northern Drab, Four-dotted Footman, Flounced Rustic, May Highflyer, Autumnal Snout, Beautiful Carpet, Confused, Conformist, Essex Y, Tissue, Weaver's Wave (I had to include him), Oak Lutestring, Old Lady, Passenger, Vapourer etc etc.

Amazing success

2007-04-29T22:21:00.000+01:00

I thought I had taken on more than I could manage and that this was doomed, but it seems to be going fantastically well.

After a lot of trouble - the putting onto the loom has taken at least two weeks (of course that was in the bits of time that were spare when not at work, doing household chores etc) - the weaving is finally underway.

The challenge was that this is 50" wide on the loom at 16 ends per inch (800 ends). The wool warp is about 108" long if I remember correctly, wound alternately blue then green two threads at a time in four batches. It is on eight shafts, but a straight 12345678 threading. It has a purple wool weft which is too thin so I have got a shuttle with space for two pirns and that seems to be working just fine. I have tried to wind two threads together on the same bobbin in the past and it just ended in tears.

The draw in is a bit too much I think, at two inches, but I am not sure how to avoid it. At 50" there is not enough room to make a big enough angle with my weft before beating it.

I am sorry that the photo of the actual weaving is a bit blurry - I will post again when I have woven a bit more and when there is more daylight. I really am mightily proud.

Another reason why I've not blogged much recently -

2007-04-29T22:15:00.000+01:00

I wove this at my lesson on weaving summer and winter as a rug weight. I've not woven it at any other weight so it was all new to me.

I believe summer and winter refers to the fact that this weave was used in bed covers, which had one side showing in summer (the lighter coloured side) and then the other side in winter (which you might term reverse video if you are modern).

I think this would make a great rug in two colours - using a multiple weft in one colour and a single weft in another colour.

Just need to finish my current enormous weaving project which I'll tell you about next.

Rug weaving sample

2007-04-29T22:09:00.000+01:00

Rugs are where I'm going.

I was pretty pleased with this first attempt. It is a 12" sample. It would have been twice as long but the warp snapped about two inches in from the side, which I think was the fault of a burr in the reed. I am investigating this.

It is a twill on a linen warp with a single weft of two-ply rug wool. Took instructions from Peter Collingwood's book on rug weaving techniques.

Alright then, I relent.

2007-04-29T22:05:00.000+01:00

My legs are actually very slim and shapely. Its just the angle it was taken from, honest.

Buscot park

2007-04-29T21:57:00.000+01:00

Olympussina discovered this funny little trick you can do with my camera - a split frame I suppose you would call it. She took some amusing ones of people with odd legs. I'm not going to show you them, though, as they are my legs. (Although you probably don't really need a special camera for that - the streets of Reading are full of people with odd legs, and odd everything else too for that matter).

This is the last NT property we shall vist for a while as our membership has lapsed. We've visited all the local ones till we're sick of them and we're trying not to drive too much now to be greener. Also annual membership is pretty expensive these days, especially when you've got a greedy weaving equipment habit.

Great balls of marzipan

2007-04-29T21:51:00.000+01:00

Alas, I haven't spoken to you all since before Easter.

This is what you missed - a simnel cake cooked and decorated by Kodakina. It is all very symbolic.

A silent guest

2007-04-02T11:04:00.000+01:00

Well, Kodakina's German exchange student has returned home. She took some good-bye photos of us and it was only later that I noticed I had quite an obvious smear of chocolate round my mouth.

She was rather a quiet visitor and I wonder how much her command of English will have been strenghthened by her sojourn with us. The group she travelled with went out partying most evenings, so they no doubt spoke amongst themselves all night in German. In the day they went sight-seeing in an all-German group. I should think they were exhausted. I'm sure she would have been better off playing Canasta with us.

And I never managed to cook a meal she liked.

Adieu to the television.

2007-03-28T13:04:00.000+01:00

It struck me the other day that I haven,t actually watched the TV at all for several weeks now. I never watched it much anyway, but since the loom is in a different room to the TV, I've abandoned it altogether.

I used to make the effort to watch University Challenge, but now I find it has lost its allure. I enjoyed Relocation Relocation until Phil and Kirsty's stupid banter got just too much to bear. One of them said, "Whatever floats your boat," and the other replied, "Crash pad," and something in me suddenly snapped.

The radio is better. Count Arthur Strong's Radio show is currently my favourite. Some very funny malapropping - you should tune in, you'd laugh.

Within these webs

2007-03-28T12:43:00.000+01:00

Well, I got fed up weaving the single-unit micro chequerboard double weave. My new tex-solv loom cord arrived and I decided to set up a new tie up while I was replacing the bootlaces. I kept the original weaving going on the loom while I was re-tieing.

I know it doesn't look very impressive, but I am mightily proud of myself as I accomplished what I had set out to do. The broader reddish band at the bottom of the picture contains a bit of lumpy old string and the narrower stripes above it contain lengths of hardened loom cord. This can be quite easily felt through the cloth as a distinct ridge.

Two layers of cloth were woven simultaneously. When they were wide enough to contain something (string - but I had considered some little beads), I pushed in the string between the layers. Then I switched over the layers by depressing different treadles and the string became trapped in between the two cloths.

I was particularly pleased that the loom actually worked with this tie-up. I did not want to change the threading of the shafts so I changed the treadle tie-up in a rather unorthodox way. Each pedal either raised two shafts and lowered six shafts or vice versa. Normally, I believe, countermarche looms are tied up four against four. However, I couldn't see any way round this with the threading I'd made and I wanted to weave double weave weft stripes.

~After that I had a bit of a play around with various treadling patterns and weft combinations - which produced variable results as you might expect.

I think, that being done and dusted, I shall re-thread the remaining warp and do another tie-up, with the aim of achieving my original goal - a double weave checkerboard. Here goes.

Tadpoles in the pond

2007-03-26T16:17:00.000+01:00

Despite the snow and ice the frogspawn is hatching and here are two looking rather obvious on a leaf.

Forgiven

2007-03-26T16:08:00.000+01:00

On the train on the way home from Oxford a group of twelve boys, probably all twelve year olds, were annoying the rest of the passengers. They were firing spitty bits of paper through straws at each other. They weren't aiming at or hitting any one else but their group, but the windows by their seats were covered in the nasty bits of chewed paper and so was the floor. They were also using foul language.

I would have loved to have given them some words of advice and told them to clean up but I was begged not to by my daughter, who thought one of them went to her school. None of the other passengers felt able to act.

However, just to numb my feelings of impotence - as they got off at Didcot I carefully put my foot out into the aisle as the last of the group left the train. He tripped over it, turned to me and .... apologised! I supposed he was sorry he had tripped over my foot, rather than having behaved badly on the train.

A day in Oxford

2007-03-26T16:00:00.000+01:00

Well Kodakina and I thoroughly enjoyed our trip to the theatre on Saturday to see Chicago. Everyone in the cast was so clever and talented. I am glad we went, though it was on the offchance that they had tickets left. I refused to pay the £2.75 per ticket booking charge that Ticketmaster wanted to book on line. Ridiculous.

We also went to the Museum of Modern Art to see Callum Innes.
Normally I sneer at this sort of abstract art, but some of these paintings were lovely, I thought, and very calming. And they would make great WEAVINGS.

My beautiful warping mill.

2007-03-23T16:29:00.000Z

When I bought my loom, the lady loom vendor gave me, all for free, a Toika warping mill with some important bits missing.

After some research identifying the mill's make, I tracked down some bits that weren't EXACTLY right but were nearly so and were then very helpfully made to work by Mr HC.

So I've now got an enormous mill (4m circumference) that spins round like a dream on a big ball bearing - taking up the last bit of free space in our dining room.

Nice to get it for nothing though I would have chosen one less than half its size! I will definitely have to go industrial. No short warps for me from now on. I only weave scarves for giraffes. Or is that scarfs for girarves?

Gordon Brown - with my money he runs.

2007-03-23T16:24:00.000Z

Actually I thought for a long time that the Stranglers were singing, "With my mad sheer ons." But that made no sense - probably why I didn't realise it was wrong.

Well, thanks to the budget, next year my teeny tiny teacher's assistant's salary will be even smaller.

Who put that pink ribbon on my ear?

2007-03-20T16:49:00.000Z

I can hardly be bothered to scratch it off and chew it to shreds.

For Miss Blandish

2007-03-20T16:38:00.000Z

And to prove that not all my potted plants die horribly.

Feeling low.

2007-03-20T16:34:00.000Z

I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want - it's a loom bench. This piano stool/telephone directory arrangement just isn't up to it.

Excuses

2007-03-20T16:28:00.000Z

One of the reasons, I think, for my not getting a particularly good shed, is demonstrated in this photo.

Incidentally, a shed is the gap that is made when the warp threads are separated so that the shuttle can pass between them carrying the weft thread, and so producing the weaving.

I did not have sufficient proper cord to tie up the eight treadles and had to make do and mend. You can see in this forest of knots - some proper cord, some parcel string, garden twine, bailer twine and a pair of old shoe laces - a recipe for failure if ever there was.

Web's a wonder.

2007-03-20T16:14:00.001Z

This is the first piece I have woven on my new big loom. I am pretty relieved that the dear old thing actually works and I quite like the patterns on this, my first eight shaft weave.

It did not quite turn out as expected. The learning curve was just a trifle too steep for me. I intended a chequerboard pattern with squares of about one inch but instead I got tiny squares of maybe a quarter of an inch.

The mistake occurred because the double weave pattern I had chosen was for only one unit and I should have combined the units when threading up the heddles to make a bigger square. At least I think that's the problem.

On the whole I think this first warp is a success - given that it was my first stab at:
countermarch
eight shafts
and double weave.

I haven't the least idea what to do with the fabric - it was just a sacrificial warp of unfavourite yarns whose colours I thought went well together that I put on for my initial set-up. I shall carry on mucking about with it and probably change the tie up when my texsolv cord arrives.

So, onwards and upwards, to infinity ... and beyond.

Another picture of our garden in snow

2007-02-25T22:41:00.000Z

But whiter.

Miss Prism

2007-02-25T22:37:00.000Z

I found this picture, taken anonymously, on my camera. I don't think my prism was used to make these colours, because it is in a secret location (unintentionally). I believe these colours are from a Venetian-style mirror we have, which sports cut borders and these often create rainbows in the dining room which are fascinating.

When it snowed

2007-02-25T22:33:00.000Z

I took a photo and did not get round to posting it to you. Now I look at it on my camera I think it looks a bit like a Japanese woodblock print I saw once in Liberty's in London. Lovely, it was.

That is the Christmas tree in the foreground. We thought it might survive in a pot but I think we may be proved wrong.

Weaving loomatic

2007-02-25T22:14:00.001Z

Well I have not blogged for a while - I've been busy weaving of course. But now there is some big loom news I couldn't bear to keep from you.

Here is a picture of my new loom and a picture of one of the metal adjusters which are a part of this loom's genius. It also has warp and cloth beams which, like Popeye, have been strengthened with iron.

This is the loom I had been looking out for these last few months. I can now weave rugs, as well as lighter fabrics. It is a bit too wide for me but maybe it is possible to weave wide without a fly shuttle device - I shall find out.

In case you are wondering, it is a Swedish countermarche, eight shaft loom. It was designed by Ulla Cyrus in the 1940s. I am currently dipping into Ulla Cyrus' book about handweaving which is proving very useful for assembling a dismantled loom. I don't think these looms are made any more, the Glimakra Standard loom is probably its closest relative. My loom is now on its third owner. It is probably getting on for sixty years old and has the appearance of having led an interesting life so far and looking forward to lots more weaving projects. I hope we shall become great friends.