Handwoven Overshot Table Runner

A couple of months ago, I was browsing through Cotton Clouds' website, especially the lengthy section of their weaving kits.  I kept coming back to one in particular, a kit they'd made up for a pattern that appeared in the magazine Handwoven, the November-December 2010 issue, beginning at page 38.  Having subscribed to that magazine for years, I looked for that issue and immediately read the article and looked through the weaving draft.  It is amazing to me that you can weave so much patterning with so few shafts on your loom.  This very intricate and very old-fashioned design uses only four shafts.

Completed table runner

I thought about it for a day or two and, then, ordered the kit.  Since I already had something on my loom, it took a little time for me to begin this project.  So began my journey to completing this pattern reminiscent of 18th century bed coverlet patterns, only in miniature.  It's only 17 inches wide after finishing, and 35 inches long.  But to get this amount of detail in so little space took 577 threads, at 30 epi (ends per inch) and, thus, for a balanced weave, about 29 threads of the pattern weft (raisin colorway), and the same for the gold colorway or, combined, 58 ppi (picks per inch).  I was using my 40-inch Norwood floor loom, and it took some work to get it packed down that much, as the pattern called for.

I always use my AVL warping wheel to warp sectionally.  What I neglected to think of is that for every 2-yard crank of the warping wheel, I am actually using an extra 8 inches.  If you multiply that by 577, you end up needing an extra 128 yards, so after almost completing winding on the warp on the rear sectional beam, down to the last section (2 inches), I ran out of one of the warp colors and would've run out of the second one before I finished.

copy of the pattern with threads and treadling draft

Completely frustrated, I ordered another two mini-cones of the 20/2 cotton for the warp from Village Spinning in Solvang, CA, only to find out that Cotton Clouds had substituted one color in the warp in making the kit.  Frustrating!  After very little thought, I completely removed that warp and threw it away.  It didn't amount to even $10 worth of yarn, so that was an easy decision.  I rewound with my newly acquired mini cones of 20/2 cotton and started the process of threading the heddles.  I don't know about other weavers, but overshot is tricky to thread because the pattern blocks overlap, so sometimes it's difficult to remember where the heck you are, even though I put this pattern into my Fiberworks program and printed out a large scale threading plan and carefully (I thought) marked off where I was in the threading pattern, then sleyed the reed, being careful to get two threads into each dent of the reed, tied onto the front beam and began to weave.

runner folded back to show the back side

Hmm, something wasn't right.  In two places there appeared to be errors. More frustration.  I hadn't made a threading error in many years.  I rechecked the threading pattern, from the right-hand side, carefully, to catch the two misplaced threads which, of course, were on the last third of the threading pattern.  I use flat steel heddles on my loom because I often weave with very fine threads, and the inserted eye heddles that came with my loom would, by friction, cause warp thread breakage.  Anyway, I cut out the "bad" heddles and made string heddles to fix what was wrong, resleyed the reed, only to discover at the left end of the reed that I had one thread left.  Having started with one thread on the right-hand side, I knew something was wrong in the reed, since it was an uneven number to begin with, 577.  I literally looked for 3-4 hours.  Talk about frustration!  I ended up tying on and beginning to weave again, so I could find the error, which became obvious immediately then.  So I had to untie the warp, fix the reed threading, which was close to the right-hand side, fortunately, and began weaving again.  I kept thinking this project did not want to be woven, but I'm not one to give up on something I really want to do,   As you can see, it was worth ALL that effort.  The weaving went fairly quickly, even with two shuttles, one for the raisin colorway, and one for the gold.  Color me happy.

finished runner

Huck Lace Scarf in Trendsetter Cash-Woole

I was perusing Yarn Barn of Kansas' website recently and saw this kit they call "Soft Merino Petals," a huck lace scarf in a very soft 2/30 laceweight wool by Trendsetter Yarns.  It's 100% extra fine merino.  I just had to order it, partly because I love huck lace and partly because I figured if I picked a light blue, it would be gorgeous on my daughter-in-law, so I ordered it.

This was the first time I've ever woven with a hand-knitting yarn, especially one as soft as this very lightweight wool.  Turns out it was nearly impossible to have clean edges, even when I tried holding them, and because the wool was so soft and breakable - yes, two warp threads actually broke, something that almost never happens to me - I could not use the temple I would have chosen for this item, one made by Jo Dendel of Denwar in Costa Mesa, CA, which holds the fabric from the sides but has these big claw-type hooks on them.  Lo and behold, I was visiting a weaver in Temecula, CA, with a friend who wanted to purchase a Loomcraft loom the woman had for sale, and I noticed how she was handling something she had on her AVL, so I asked her about it.  She'd jerry-rigged some tarp clips to lines, then attached fishing weights off the sides of the loom.  Interesting idea, and it sparked a thought in my mind.  What if I took off the ends Jo had put on his temple and attached tarp clips, which would be very gentle on my fabric, so ran off to the camping section at our local Walmart and purchased a pack, came home and attached them to Jo's temple.  Wow, what a difference.  I still had to be very careful to not get wavy edges, but it was easier now.

The other thing about this warp was that I had to beat it oh-so-gently.  It was threaded, per the kit, at 24 epi, so for a balanced weave, I had to beat it at about 24 ppi, which meant, as it turned out, that I had to beat completely differently than I usually do.  I had to throw the pick, close the shed, beat very lightly, change treadles, open the shed and throw the next pick.  Slow going compared to my usual method of weaving.  Note how huck lace looks completely different on the loom per the photo below.  The lace doesn't open up until you take it off the loom, where the threads can relax and open up.

I did not do this scarf completely per the instructions.  For instance, I prefer to hemstitch my weavings unless they are going to be hemmed, and I planned on twisting the fringes, so I had to be careful that I had an even number of groups in my hemstitching.  Once the scarf was completed, I cut it off and twisted the fringes in groups of six on six warp threads, then washed the scarf in Eucolan to protect it from critters, wrapped it in a towel for a bit and put it in the dryer for two minutes.  The instructions say three minutes and call for nontwisted fringe and no hemstitching.  Three minutes would have felted it way too much.  Two minutes for my scarf was just about right.  It ended up being 9-1/4 inches wide and just about 60 inches long plus fringe, so it shrunk more than I expected even with two minutes in the dryer on extra low heat.  Then I hung it to dry and ironed it this morning.

Pretty scarf, and even if the edges are not absolutely perfect, I still love the end result.

Naturally Vienna Draped Vest - FC 56

I saw this really cute draped vest pattern somewhere online - cannot remember where, unfortunately.  Just had to make it, although finding the yarn was difficult and, again, I cannot remember where I purchased it but probably from New Zealand or England, but it could have been from Elann in Canada.  This a Naturally branded yarn by the name of Vienna, in an Aran weight.  It is a tweed that is 67 percent wool and 33 percent acrylic with a luxurious hand.  It requires hand-washing and drying flat.

This was a very fast project to knit.  It has only 3 pattern pieces, since it's a vest.  The fronts are the main parts, since they wrap all the way to the back, under the arms, and then connect to the center back panel.  The colllar has extensions; the pattern says to make them 5.5 inches for a medium.  That is an error.  It would make an 11-inch back neck.  I made the extensions 2.75 inches each and grafted the stitches together at the center back of the neck, reversing the grafting for the rolled edge, then attaching the extensions to the back neck.

The colorway I chose was Shade 608, which is tans, browns and off-white.

Euroflax linen and silk scarf

Several months ago, my friend Lori Lawson, owner of Capistrano Fiber Arts, decided to liquidate her remaining cones of Louet Euroflax linen.  I promptly purchased five cones, black, gray, mustard, plum and rust, thinking that I could make a lovely woven project from those five colors.  It took me months to come up with a draft and the color sequence, but I finished my scarf yesterday.  I used a 20/2 Valley Fibers black silk for the weft and the linen for the warp, sett at 20 epi and approximately 30 ppi.  It ended up, after wet finishing, to be about 60 inches in length and 9.5 inches in width.

I worked out the pattern in Fiberworks software.  It's a rather simple 8-shaft point twill.  The only tricky part was working out the color sequence with the threading, to get the breaks to show up where I wanted them to be.

Dale of Norway Markblomst Baby Sweater

I had a neighbor who was pregnant this summer with her third pregnancy, a long-awaited baby girl.  As it turned out, it was a difficult pregnancy medically, so I decided to make her something very special, a Dale of Norway baby sweater and hat.  After beginning the project, however, I attended the Golden Gate Fiber Institute 2010 at Point Bonita, CA, working for 8 hours a day with my hands, with a drop spindle, spinning wheel, and double-pointed knitting needles.  A week after I returned home, I started experiencing nerve damage, ulnar and carpal tunnel injuries.  For at least a month, I could barely knit without my hands going completely numb.

Unfortunately, because of the medical issues, the baby girl was born early and needed to be treated in the NICU due to lung immaturity.  In the meantime, my hands gradually got better, and I finally finished the little garments and am going to gift them to my former neighbor this week.  I'm really looking forward to seeing her reaction.

Patons Classic Wool Fair Isle Tote

I converted this Patons pattern from hand-knitting to machine knitting and decided to knit it with some of my handspun yarns from my ever-growing stash of handspun. It is a tad tricky to machine knit because the main and contrast yarns keep changing every 1 to 4 rows, so I input it into the computer hooked up to this bulky electronic knitting machine and knit it with Designaknit from the screen. That way, the program kept me apprised of which yarns to change and when to change them. Slow going but a lot faster than hand-knitting it. Took about an hour to knit the 71 rows, changing yarns, on average, every two rows.

The needlebed wasn't large enough to do the entire width, so I have another width to do tomorrow. Then I will attach them to each other, attach the cicrcular bottom I've already hand-knit, then put the top stitches on a circular needle, remove the green waste yarn from the top and bottom, knit the top edge and handles. Then I will felt the entire thing and, perhaps, line it. Should be a lovely tote bag.

When I completed this bag, I felted it in my washing machine, just to full it slightly and hold all the yarns together neatly.

This pattern was adapted from a free download available at: http://www.patonsyarns.com/totetofelt/ClassicWool_FairIsleTote.pdf

Mini Mochi Flower Garden Scarf

I happened to go to The Yarn Lady in Lake Forest a couple of weeks ago (Dec. '09) -- really cute shop, friendly and helpful staff, with lots of natural fiber yarns. This was not my first time there, but I went there that day to pick up some Kureyon sock yarn to do a machine knitted scarf pattern that was in the last issue of Knitwords Magazine. Anyway, I saw a beautiful crocheted scarf on a mannequin right by the front door, done in Crystal Palace's Mini Mochi yarn and asked about the pattern. Turns out the pattern is free at Crystal Palace's website, http://www.straw.com/. It's the Flower Garden Shawl pattern. I purchased four balls of Mini Mochi in colorway 110, Jungle, guessing at how much I'd need to do the scarf. I was off by one ball; I only needed three. I made 30 flower squares, which after the edgings, brought the scarf to about 75 inches. You could add squares to make it longer or crochet less squares to make it shorter. This was such fun and almost addictive, crocheting these squares. I hadn't crocheted more than an edging or two in over 30 years, but one doesn't really forget the process. Fingers got a tad tired at first, but only the first night. After that, it went smoothly.

I finished all the squares in just a few nights and, then, attached them to each other with an overhand stitch in two evenings. The two rows of double crochet around the entire edge took a couple of evenings but, again, was fun just trying to guess as to which colors would end up where. Mini Mochi comes in a really wild colorway called "Intense Rainbow," which would really be fun to crochet up, just to see the color changes.