Feelin' Groovy

And, here she is! My painted silk warp, the very one I've been yearning to finally harness onto the loom and she (for certainly this warp is too pretty to be a boy)  is, at last, settled in and ready to be woven! I threaded in three long scarves worth of hand-painted silk! (Oh how that painting process took forever).

The previous project hung around for a bit too long. But, I'm actually quite pleased with the 12 shadow woven cotton towels that I had to buckle down and weave off  in order to free up my lovely cherry wood floor loom, old "Betsy", old "Cinnamon Sticks", (not sure of a name yet) in order to move on with my silk project.

Moving on... here's that hand painted silk warp (that was shown above) interfacing with the snow white silk weft (that is shown below) creating an "undulation". Wow, that certainly is pretty groovy.

Throwing the shuttle a few hundred times and I'm starting to feel inspired!

Do you see the wefty-wavy-gravy playing with my hand painted color changes?

How about now?

Can you see it now?

I think I was meant to paint and weave pure silk only. (This could be a problem as it is intensely expensive and I do have a great abundance of cotton at my disposal just at the moment.) What is the Treadler to do?

Keep on groovin' I guess.

Death Warp

I have hundreds of pairs of knitting needles. Consequently,  I have zillions of unfinished knitting projects. But, there is room for only one 8 harness floor loom in my house so, there can be only one unfinished weaving project at a time threaded throughout this contraption and residing therein...and gumming  up the whole works until it is woven off and...o.k., o.k.  THIS IS A GOOD THING.

I realize and understand that if every unfinished knitting project I had were to take up 8 square feet of space in my home I would have to sleep in another country. While I'm new to this weaving thing I can already say it will make you finish a project! You don't start a new one until the old one is off that loom.

And yet...

I just measured out 7 yards of lustrous 20/2 silk warp threads at 30 ends per inch to make three  9.5 inch scarves. Then I painted that warp (after securing "the cross" and tied off the odds and the ends and then I took it off the warping board and soaked it and wrung it out and laid it out...)
I painted my silk warp in pretty, pretty colors! I wanted to recreate the colors of the northern lights as I like to think of them...

Isn't it lustrous? And, isn't it sad how it just hangs around with nowhere to go? Alas, that's because a fine, old, cotton, shadow weave project is still on the loom with a good 4 whole tea-towels to weave off yet before my precious  honkin' ginormous cherry wooded loom monster beauty is free to take on the silky warp that is all dressed up with no place to go.

I see what is going on. I have to grow up now. The Treadler has to finish what she starts before she can start the new thing she wants to get underway. I HATE THIS!

I'm in Love with My Loom

When I was in the 6th grade I would sit in my room and listen to Queen's,  A Night at the Opera over and over and over again on my record player. I loved Bohemian Rhapsody. It was very popular at the time but, my most favorite song on the album was The Prophet's Song. (That one would get stuck in my head for days on end.) The first concert I ever  went to was Queen at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City and, I remember, Billy Squire opened the show.

So - well, a few years have passed. Ouch, and yet not so bad actually. I prefer where I am to where I was in the 6th grade. It can be a bit like digging up an old time capsule though,  to pull out the music of one's childhood and really listen to it again. Strange how that special music can take me back just like the smell of lilac blossoms or a freshly mown lawn can send me somewhere far distant from where I am in the present moment. While I think it is best to stay right here in the wonderful now of living the life that is before me I have to admit it surely can be entertaining to go all the way back to revisit the distant memories of a 6th grade self. If a picture is worth a thousand words then a few songs can be worth... (I don't know what. I can't seem to put it into words.)

Let me get down to what I'm trying to convey here. There is a song on the album that I never fully understood. The sixth grade girl listening to A Night at the Opera did not get the same things out of the album as she who is writing you today.  The sixth grade listener never appreciated, "I'm in Love with My Car" The joy of that tune eluded me....until now.  I'm in love with my 8 Harness Loom. Oh yes, now I get it. I can fully appreciate the love for an inanimate object. And, poor Claxton has noticed this and recognizes it to be true.

He recently said, "I see now that you have this floor loom you don't need me any more."

As I expect the condition to be a temporary one I totally denied his claim. After all, 8 harnesses of cherry wooded magical wonderment cannot totally overpower one forever can it? Certainly I will recapture a perspective that prioritizes Claxton over this amazing Loomcraft 40", 8 shaft, floor loom with 12 treadles and the power to weave an intricate number of threads-per-inch into a vast assortment of majestic, cohesive fabrics of colorful blissfulness...yes? I'd like to think so. Here are a few pictures of my first projects. I'm making dish towels.

Shadow Weave. YAY!

I hate the thought that someone might read this and say, "Oh that poor, poor Claxton."

Please keep in mind that we are in the month of JUNE 2010 and the World Cup is at a fever pitch and will be going strong for many days to come. Truly I tell you Claxton has forgotten that we even have a honkin' giant loom in the livingroom. He is somewhere in Africa shouting, "GOAL!!"

Oh yes, and we have blossoms on the tomatoes! (The below is proof that I do go out-of-doors.)

 

Happy World Cup Everybody!!

Well...

There's a lot to write about but, I don't have time because I've gone even crazier.

 Poor Claxton. He's so very kind and good to me and for 4 days last week the only way he was able to get from our living room to the kitchen was to go out the front door, around the house, then into the kitchen through the back door (it's been raining, by the way).

Why has Claxton had such a time making his way through our home? Well, as I said at the start there's a lot to write about but, I don't have time...so, I'll say it in pictures:

Above is a whole lot of hand spun Icelandic wool. This effort was my little part in an Icelandic Study Group I joined when  I had the good fortune of meeting this artist/shepherd. The spinning of the wonderfully white fleece led to the painting of these skeins:

I painted the yarn so that I could use the new rigid heddle loom I purchased at the Duluth Fiber Handcrafter's Guild Sale (a place where, I'm sorry to report, many fiber addicts encourage each other to become only more afflicted. We're really no good for each other at all!):

I mean how was I to know that the act of warping this loom would lead to the further warping of my own sorry self?

So, I wove and I wove this little warped warp of mine which resulted in this:

...with cute little fringes:

...and which led me to the (natural) conclusion that I needed a larger loom...

So, Claxton and I went on an odyssey to the outer reaches of Eden Prairie, MN where we met the most wonderful woman who sold us her most treasured floor loom and now I'm warping at a whole new level of warpedness.  (More about this fantastic person later as she gifted me with a weaving library that should keep me crazy-busy for the next 5 years.)

Please note that this is a happy little picture of a loom that has finally found its own space. For a week it sat in the hallway making Claxton's travels from living room to kitchen a bit...cumbersome.  When one brings something the size of a couch into one's already  fiber-filled living quarters it can disrupt the flow of traffic a titch. (But, almost anyone will tell you that it's worth it!) This picture was only taken AFTER the beautiful, beautiful, 8 harnesses of cherry woodedness were prominently arranged where our couch once resided.

And, here she is with 10 full yards of towel warp ready to be woven.

I'm on my seventh towel and, like I said at the start, am way too busy to be web logging thank you!

But...let me also say that the tomato plants are thriving:

...which means I'm still  a "go" with that crazy plan of actually spending time outdoors this summer.

Our mean frost date up here is mid-June so, I just keep transplanting the green cuties into larger and larger containers under the lighting system. Claxton says it might be time to plant so he's off fetching the potting soil  right this moment and I'm getting ready to take them all outside.

Between weaving towels and planting tomatoes I have no more time! I surely do hope your days are filled with this sort of intense excitement as well.

Happy Mid-Spring!

Spring Equinox in Northern Wisconsin

Before we moved from Kansas City to northern Wisconsin I was seriously into gardening. That interest has faded a bit over the years.  It may be, in part, because I had a hard time adjusting to 6+ months of winter. In all fairness it is a bit of a climate change. (Last year we didn't even have a summer season, just extra helpings of winter and spring.) It might be that, after all those years of weeding and watering I just got tired of playing in the soil. Truth is I lost a lot of my enthusiasm for gardening about the same time I became wool-obsessed.

This weekend marks the beginning of spring and, even though that means very little up north I found myself down in the basement digging out the old gardening flats, pots and soil mixes. I know! What is going on? And, I was right in the middle of charting and knitting a fantastic fair Isle tissue box cozy too. The sun shone through the window and onto my graph design and before I could say, "Wait until I finish this row" I was elbow-deep in potting soil.

I seeded two flats of tomatoes, basil, lobelia, and African daisies. It's not going to be much of a garden compared to the crazy days of yesteryear but it is a small step away from the spinning wheel. (It appears I actually plan to spend some time outside this season. Yay!) 

So, once the flats were seeded I bagged 'em. I want a successful germination so I have to keep these little cherubs nice and warm. The only consistently warm place in our house:

I placed the bagged seeds on top of the furnace next to the boiler in our basement. I'm guessing in a week to 10 days there will be some sort of sprouting action to report. Then I'll move the tiny plants under lights! When the growing season is as short as ours is up here you have to take advantage of an early, indoor start. (Please note: no matter how many lights you have or how early a start you make, never try to grow cotton in northern Wisconsin. It's a fool's game.)

But that isn't all! Look at these bread boxes I found at a thrift store (below):

Are these not perfect little green houses for propegating?

The bread boxes keep conditions warm and humid for these little impatiens cuttings. They should sprout well here and be full-fledged plants by June when it's finally safe to actually plant living things in Wisconsin, outdoor window boxes.

When I lift the lid it is decidedly warmer and far more humid inside the bread boxes.

Well, that's it on the gardening front. Time to get back to the serious business of treadling wool. I need to spin up a bit more yarn pronto. (After all, this latest tissue box cozy isn't going to knit itself you know.)