Wednesday, 16 June 2010

Zzzz

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Fuzz is not the only one resting up in Chateau-Cat; little progress has been made on my weaving in recent weeks, as the nice weather has been tempting me outside. In fact, I spent all last Sunday at Cattle Country with my sister and her family, petting the goats and sheep and getting rather sun-burned in the process.

Progress pootles on with my Aruna cardigan, however, as you can see. Plus, I have sent off my sample to Inside Crochet for the pattern I’m getting published in Issue 9.

I have also bought a few skeins of Ella Rae Laceweight Merino for my next design-idea. I bought them from Stash Fine Yarns; I have shopped there before, and I would really recommend them for their excellent customer service and super-speedy dispatch times.


Mmmmmm purty!

Catherine at 1:25 pm

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Monday, 10 May 2010

Weaving Workshop

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Last weekend was spent in Flitwick on a rigid-heddle workshop run by Alison Daykin.

I learned a whole heap of stuff, ate my weight in delicious home-baked cake and met some really lovely, creative women.

I came away with a new appreciation for rigid heddle and knitter’s looms; they may not be able to offer the complex multi-shaft weave structures that my monster loom can, but they are small and portable and take next to no time to warp; they are absolutely perfect for small plain-weave items like scarves, table runners, bags and purses.

Photos of the finished scarves will follow, tomorrow hopefully, once they have finished drying (apparently fabric isn’t finished til it’s been “finished”!).

Catherine at 3:00 pm

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Thursday, 22 April 2010

Waste not, want not!

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I have discovered that warping a loom requires a large amount of yarn, and invariably a lot of it is wasted – through swatches, when I overestimate the yardage needed for my project (better too long than too short!), where it is tied to the loom and so forth. This can get quite expensive when you’re using 100g balls of sock yarn.

So, at the weekend I took a drive along to the Cotswold Woollen Weavers, an old weaving mill turned museum in Lechlade. The mill often sells off cones of “waste” yarn, and I picked up these three cones of yarn for a bargainous £18 (its an amazing £5 a kilo).

The cone at the back is somewhere between lace and sock weight, and it’s a natural undyed grey-brown wool – all 3 kilos of it! The mustard (right) is a bit finer, as is the green and red (left).

I took it home and picked out a mix of mill- and home-spun yarns, ribbons and threads for my next project: I’m planning on weaving some fabric to make a bag from, once my scarf is off the loom.

It could be a while, of course – my Open University course is nearing its end; I have one essay and a double-length assignment left to go…



Catherine at 2:56 pm

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Tuesday, 6 April 2010

Finished hand woven scarf

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I finished weaving my first scarf about two weeks ago (I have been battling the rainy weather to get a good photo of it). I’ve been wearing it every day (no, it’s not cold, but I want to get some use out of it before summer arrives!!). So far it’s held up really well.

The yarn itself was underspun, but it seems to suit weaving really nicely. The scarf is luxuriously soft, with a good drape. My woven scarf unexpectedly creases (though these creases to drop out quickly) – not something a knitted scarf would do, and so I think it must be to do with the weave structure itself rather than the yarn. Iiiiinteresting, as Mr Burns would say.

Technical Mumbo-Jumbo: The weft is a 4-ply commercial merino, with 104 “ends” that used not-quite 100g. I wove it on a standard 10dpi reed without any sort of selvedge. The purple warp is handspun BFL, and varies between 4-ply and DK using, again, not quite 100g.

Nothing’s sacred, sigh.


Catherine at 12:36 pm

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Sunday, 21 March 2010

Second scarf

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I’ve warped the monster loom for another scarf, and swatched the pattern using waste yarn (purple).

I’d have finished it by now, if it weren’t for my dratted Open University course. Curse you, OU!

Catherine at 12:49 pm

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Monday, 15 March 2010

Loom-candy

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I managed to warp Shrek, my monster of a loom, before I went on holiday, but didn’t have time to make a start weaving until I got back on Sunday. This is the current state of affairs:

I opted for a pale grey commercial-spun merino for the warp. For the weft, I dug out the skein of heather-coloured Blue Faced Leicester that I spun last summer for Meagan to display on her stall at Fibrefest. The colours are amazing, aren’t they? That photo isn’t tweaked at all, that’s exactly how it looks. Delicious.

A lot of knitting was had on holiday (I can hear my sister groaning in despair), and I’m now up to the gusset on my gansey:

Howard was not happy that we went on holiday, not happy at all, and he made sure we knew it. He has spent the past several days following us from room to room, sleeping on our bed – keeping his little brown eye on us to make sure we’re not leaving again.

Fuzzy, however, is just pleased that the bathroom radiator has been turned back on. Sigh.

Catherine at 1:26 pm

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