This is a bunch of stuff I’ve done in the past few months.
This is a project that was mostly practicing different techniques, I warped up two warps per heddle loop so I could do a 2 by 2 pattern. I also did pickup techniques which is what the V pattern is at the top. I also fiddled around with white weft and one or two weft per shed. Good practice and pretty soft and nice.
This is the 3 ply Shetland that I plyed on my Eel Wheel and it went very well. Turned out super nice and is marked for a colorwork sweater at some point in time.
This was an experiment using left over singles from the Shetland, which was completely unsuitable for weaving. Since it had been spun from carded rolags longdraw, there was a lot of sticking out bits as you can see. It caught on itself a lot and was difficult to switch between heddle and shed as I wove. I gave up on it about halfway when one of the warp threads broke and when I was fixing it, the heddle completely slipped off it’s bar. So I gave up on it. Good learning experiment.
This next project was again using yarn unsuitable to weaving. It was three ply Jacob yarn that I had spun up and knitted a sweater from and I simply warped it until I ran out of yarn. This was the first time I did “proper” lashing of the yarn to the bars, which is a complicated process to type out but I will attempt. When you start, the warp is looped around a wood bar to hold it in place. This leaves a large gap that is easy to pass a strand of yarn through. That yarn is first tied at one end to a second bar that rests on top of the warp and tied at the other after passing through the warp. This will hold the warp once the process is complete. After, you loop that yarn around the second bar and over the yarn that has been passed through the warp so it snugs the holding yarn to the bar. Tighten everything down and tie it tight. Then you can remove the first bar and the warp is now held by yarn and you can make a tighter start to the weave.
So anyway, the yarn was unsuitable for weaving because it was spun for knitting and was relatively fuzzy and didn’t slide past itself well. But I figured out how to work with it and it was definitely a slower process to open the shed then the heddle and make sure all the warp had gone to the correct place. But it turned out super well. I was making a warp faced project which is why the warp strings were so close together so the weft wouldn’t show at all. I probably could have woven something in plain weave but why not do this?
I even took it out onto the balcony since the weather was nice.
I made a bag for my Electric Eel Wheel. It got dusty fast sitting in a milk crate next to my spinning chair so I dug around for a suitable bag. I found this plastic plaid bag that had a zipper and I think I had only ever used it for moving yarn. My bedsheet had ripped the night before so I cut the elastic off the sheets, folded it up and tucked it into the bottom of the bag. I then took horse leg wraps that I had put into a “get rid of” bin and pinned them to the inside of the bag. Did some really funky stitching and sewed the leg wraps to the sheet on the bottom and then the leg wraps to the bag and success! It works super well and it pretty lightweight. Fits all the accessories and stuff in there with plenty of cushioning and space.
I combed my first fiber! Back in hmmm February maybe, I bought wool combs and a bunch of washed wool from Clemes and Clemes’ Good Clean Fiber. I finally got it all combed up and it makes a delightful boxful of poofy spheres. They are my next spinning project because as it turns out, I had been squishing them down and they’ve gradually been expanding and are trying to make a break for it out of the box.
Ramboulliet! This project took me well over a month of spinning. I spun it as fine as I could and my goodness was it fine. It is a two ply yarn that will be for weaving (didn’t put quite enough ply twist in but oh well) and most of it ended up being around 40 wpi which is laceweight. Took forever!
And my second tablet weaving project! I found some more cotton yarn in my mystery crafting bin and warped up this Osberg style weave from Elewys of Finchingfield. Excellent pattern, again another all forward or all backward with the warping creating the pattern.
I also found a ton of embroidery floss in my mystery crafting bin that I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to use for tablet weaving. The thing is, embroidery floss comes in six strand ply, so six strands and each of those strands is actually a 2ply thread. Depending on your embroidery pattern, you use one, two or three strands and unwind and separate as needed. I want all 8 yards separated into single strands without cutting. I’ve figured out how to do one thing of floss in about 20 minutes. First, I unply it on my electric wheel, which allows me to go very slowly. You must unply it a lot! And with extra twist in the “wrong” direction. Then, I tape each strand to a separate spot on a bobbin that I hold in my hand. Then to make the singles, I tuck my fingers in between each strand and slowly wind the strands onto the bobbin and they unply and separate. After that, I rewind the singles onto folded cardstock. Very fussy but I’m getting good at it and should have a bunch of thread to work with soon enough.
This is the project I finished literally yesterday! Well, the singles are done. It is a multicolored braid of Jacob fiber from Ashen Wensleydale that I spun with a pretty good amount of twist. I split the braid lengthwise and it will be a 2 ply. I pulled it off the main spinning wheel this morning and will ply it on the electric wheel at some point soon.
There was a few other small things, I scarf I crocheted for myself, maybe another small weaving project, I’ve got two spindle spins happening right now. I also bought a bunch of roving from my local yarn shop recently. They finally opened back up and they have their own sheep and did a bunch of their own roving dyed with plants from their garden. Very cool.
Current plans in progress or next to work on: knitting a colorwork hat to practice colorwork, spinning the Corriedale fleece blobs, spinning the spindle spins, after Corriedale blobs spin flax, start combing another fleece, tablet weave with the embroidery floss, once the multicolored jacob is plyed and finished, weave a big project with it (3 feet wide). So you know, just a few things to do 🙂