Baby blanket

On Sunday I finished off the baby blanket which I made for a relative's Christening as an alternative to the usual white bible approach. It uses blue and cream cashmere / merino wool mix - it's lovely and soft.

Following the scarf I made for Ivan which I was quite pleased with, I wanted to continue to push myself rather than playing it safe as scary as it is when it's a gift! So I wrote a draft which I've done before but never actually seen into fruition! The draft isn't as sophisticated as it sounds - it's a diamond shape using 4 shafts with a tabby weave border. The challenge here was to combine the two and trust myself to get the draft right. As basic as it sounds, I haven't done this before!

I took my usual approach to making the warp - improvisation in light of my warping board being about 250 miles away. Here is a photo of that taking shape - my main worry was that the dog would knock over the top-heavy green lamp which she duly did!

It turns out that I hadn't taken into account the reed width. There weren't enough dents in my reed to handle the width of the blanket despite the warp being capable of a wider piece. So that meant I had to cut chunks of warp out while it was partially threaded. That was scary!

Anyway, no real harm done. The blanket is just a bit narrower than I had anticipated. The upside is that I have some leftover wool :)

Once on the loom I struggled a bit to get the tension right and you can see that in the next photo. It's all a bit wobbly!

Also you can just make out a mistake running through the warp. I accidentally missed one of the reed dents when threading so it left a gap. It looks worse on the loom though - when I took it off it just about disappeared.

Where's Margot? Hiding in the corner from the storm outside.

I like the diamond pattern and I'm pleased that the scale turned out well - I was a bit concerned that the shapes would be too small but they seem quite bold. The tabby border helps a lot too because it means I can get straight edges for once!

Finally I wasn't sure how to handle the ends. I opted eventually to tie knots and have a really short fringe, although I originally anticipated hemming the ends. However I rather like having the bold solid blue at either end because it highlights the blue throughout. So the fringe won.

Overall I'm quite pleased, hope baby likes it!

Goodwood Sculpture Park

I managed to steal my husband for an hour so we scuttled off to a sculpture park at the Goodwood estate near Chichester in West Sussex (on the south coast of England).

We'd never been before although we had heard good things about it. It was really impressive - it was set in a few acres of woodland and all the sculpture was very modern and interesting. Also it was all for sale, so if you have a spare £500k you could treat yourself to a piece of art for the garden!

Here are some pics. I love seeing sculpture outside, seeing it interact with the elements and be seen under outdoor light. Hope you've got good download speeds!

This one was stunning with the chrome bouncing all the light around.

This elephant sort of thing was so realistic (at least for an elephant missing a head) - there were in fact two, this is the baby and the large one was about 25ft tall.

These guys were funny.

I wouldn't like to get too close to this one - the main body pivots in a strong breeze and in a light breeze the smaller part spins too. Very hard to capture on my camera!

A pig field next door.. too early for the pigs maybe.

This white one was huge - about 15ft tall and it had a really milky texture, it looked amazing as the light caught it.

Thanks everyone

Thanks everyone for your kind comments on my last post. I decided to remove it though because I've just realised that Google searches blog text and I don't really want to blast it across the internet any more than I already have!

Feeling much better today and I really appreciate your kind words. I might go and take a look at that blanket now :)

Finished!

I think I've caused some confusion about my last weaving post. The black and grey piece was a scarf for my husband - not a blanket for the christening! The blanket (which is still only half a warp!) is in baby boy blue and cream baby wool.

As it happens I can't make it to the christening this weekend because there's been quite a bit of swine flu around among some people going and until I get my jab my doctor advised me to steer clear. It's a shame but at least it buys me time to make the blanket and give it to them afterwards!

Anyway would you like to see some pictures of Ivan's new scarf? Here we go:

Ivan posing hand on hip

It's a man-sized scarf and is probably a good 45cm wide (I can't double check because he's gone to work in it) and a metre and half long.

In all I'm quite pleased with how it turned out - it feels like it was quite a defining project in my weaving life because of the process of starting again with the loom. I've learnt a lot doing this project and there was more emphasis on the design of colour and pattern than I've tried before.

Thriller night

It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark

Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart

You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it

You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes

You're paralysed

Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y'alls neighbourhood

The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom

He he he! I'm waiting for some photos of my husband too - now he really was scary!

Lyrics from Michael Jackson's "Thriller"

Sunday weaving

I've now got a bit further with my latest project. It uses merino wool which I wasn't sure of because I decided to use it on the warp as well as the weft. Although it's strong it's very stretchy but it seems to be ok... so far so good.

I've also been adjusting the shed as I go along so when I notice that a thread is hanging low or too high on a particular treadle I can adjust it. It looks so obvious now! What was all the fuss about?!

I have to say though that I found when sitting at the loom and pressing treadles I didn't realise how bad my shed was - it looks different when you sit looking down on it and I was constantly having to fiddle with threads. My boat shuttle was getting stuck in high seas rather than aqua-planing like it's meant to! I only realised how bad it was when I ducked my head down and looked through the shed and saw that it was a complete mess. Anyway it's much better now and much faster too.

Can you see the pattern? It uses a combination of tabby with a straight twill in black, dark grey and light grey wool. I don't like the horizontal stripe but I really like the verticals switching from tabby to twill and back again. I might use that again somewhere but without the horizontal - it just seems messy somehow. Maybe it's the tension changing from tabby to twill.

I'm also being really careful to move the warp on every few centimetres so the tension remains even and it works much better than it has before.

Another thing I like/don't like is the edges. On the left the edge is tabby for 6 ends which looks neat and on the other end (should have thought of this when I made the warp) the piece ends on a twill which seems to have twisted and made a bulky cord. I've noticed on other pieces using a twill that this happens but at least previously both ends have been the same. I'd be interested to find out why this happens and what I can do about it.

I've got to crack on with this as I'm meant to be weaving a blanket for a christening present - this weekend! Argh!

Back to basics

Yesterday I put a new warp on my loom but as usual wasn't happy with the shed I achieved. I've never totally got to grips with the mechanics of the loom - I've just sort of bumbled along and fiddled with lengths of cord here and there. Usually to no avail.

Also the previous owner had attached little slices of cardboard between the countermarch and the little plastic pins. This she said was to give fine adjustment on the length of the countermarch cords but I'm not convinced they did a lot of good.

So the upshot is that I put the metal rods back into the countermarch and basically took the whole thing apart.

I left the harnesses where they were but straightened and levelled them up properly.

I took out all the pieces of cardboard and adjusted the cords so they didn't need them anyway.

I levelled out the V shape that the countermarch loop cords make as they were all over the place before.

I detached the lams and started again to get them level.

I detached the treddles and retied them so they were near perfectly level.

I simplified the cords between the lams and the treddles so I didn't get met with about a million identical cords hanging down when I tied them up.

I tried to be methodical and get everything level while reading the instructions in broken English (the loom is Swedish) and decided that I'm better to follow my instincts!

I thought it would take ages but actually it was pretty quick and I really wish I'd done it sooner. I don't think I had the confidence before to detach everything and re-level all the cords for fear of making it worse.

Also I realised that a big mistake I was making - it sounds so stupid now - was that I was taking the metal countermarch holding rods (I'm sure they have a proper name) out too soon. I was taking them out before doing the tie up so as a result the treddles and lams were kicking out in all different directions.

This time however I left them in and took them out last and to my surprise everything stayed level and how it's supposed to be - balanced.

I checked the shed and it's much better.

Ah I'm so pleased and strangely it feels like I've finally taken ownership of my loom.

A question to the weavers out there - what is your preference on the treddle cords? On each project do you leave them all in place (i.e. hanging down from the lams) or do you prefer to remove the ones you aren't using? I find I get lost with all the surplus cords in the way but I suppose to have to retie them for each new project takes too long.