November Crafting Update and December Goals

[unicornduke]

I did so much??? For some reason, November felt wildly busy.

November Goals

• Spin grey Romney fleece - 4 out of 6 bobbins done and the blobs in the box are getting quite low
• Finish tablet weaving project? - DONE WOW. turns out when you work on something, it is easier to get it done
• knit sweater - still working on it, I have a crop top sweater now
• process fleece - I think I worked on this once
• finish 4oz test comb for timing - done and did a second one of Teeswater
• start a crochet project - hat and scarf for gifts? - did a crochet hat and a knit hat, no pictures because they aren't 100% done. I need to put a lining in the crochet hat

Other things: big loom weaving!
Pictures!

Grey Romney! I think I've finally earmarked this fleece for a big snuggly cardigan that I can wear over other layers. I will either do a 3 ply or 4 ply depending on what weight I want. Two more bobbins to go since this is a little over 20 oz, with another 10oz to spin. I shouldn't need extra yarn but if I do, I have 10 oz of carded combing waste from the same fleece.





Tablet woven band is 92 inches long! If I hang it around my neck, it goes past my knees! It is so pretty! It is kinda my design, based on Birka 22 by Elewys of Finchingfield. I think I'm eventually going to make some kind of giant robe deal and use it as edge trim for like, Ren Faires. Or just winter. I think I'm going to weave the fabric for it since....


I wove something on the big loom! It is a sampler in cotton that I use for my tablet woven bands and I super enjoyed the process. I have Beginning Weaving by Peggy Osterkamp and it goes through the entire process in exacting detail. I am in the process of warping on a second project right now, which I messed up the width calculations on so I need to fix that before I thread more. Ah well. Turns out weaving on a big loom is a lot of math and counting. This part of the sample has the wide herringbone pattern which I liked a lot.


Combing sampler. I've been toying with the idea of doing some festival sales with tablet woven bands and some other things. The combed wool I timed to see what I would need to charge to make it worth it, so we'll see. I did some CVM and this is the Teeswater, which is very pretty.


No pictures of the sweater or hats, too lazy.

December goals

• Finish Romney fleece???? - I would need to wait to ply since a friend is borrowing my electric wheel for a while. That's okay, I can at least finish the singles.
• Start tablet woven band
• fix and finish weaving on big loom
• Process alpaca fleece
• Ball navajo churro yarn for weaving next - to do over holiday break at my parents
• Crochet something - start building my crochet tolerance back up now that my wrist feels better
• Knit sweater

Comments

[graydon]

No pictures of the sweater or hats, too lazy.

snort

That's a lot! and that band is so pretty!

There's a semi-legendary set of Elizabethan gown instructions that begins "start with a medium-sized sheep"; you appear to be getting there, in terms of finding them useful instructions!

[unicornduke]

I've got aspirations for my Cotswold-Dorset fleece to process, spin and weave fabric out of it, dyed after weaving. Given it will probably be years, well...it'll happen eventually! Turns out there's lots of useful instructions out there, mostly.

[ranunculus]

I agree that the herringbone is lovely as is the tablet woven piece.
Weaving requires math and counting? Maybe I won't consider it as a goal...

[unicornduke]

Hmm, as far as math and counting, the more shafts/complexity, the more math and counting. For the project I'm warping on now, I had to take my yards of yarn and figure out how long I wanted it to be (600 yards, divide in 2 for 300 yards of warp and 300 of weft, two yards long so 150 warp ends), figure out wraps per inch (36 wpi), use that to determine the ends per inch for the warp (doing twill which is wpi x 2/3=24 ish), use that to figure out how wide it would be (150 warp ends at 24 ends per inch = 6.25 inches wide). I needed to know how many inches wide so I could put it on the warp beam that wide tensioned properly.

Most of the time, I don't count more than 10, but I warp in a way that I have groups of 10 to make it easy to see how many warp ends I have total. Then in threading the heddle, I count 4-3-2-1 as I thread since I have four shafts and they need to be threaded in that order for this pattern. Then in the weaving the herringbone as an example, the narrow herringbone is a pattern of 8 throws with all different shaft combinations, so you need to track where you are. The wide herringbone repeats the first or second half of the throws to extend the pattern so technically it is a 16 throw pattern. If you have an eye for repeats and patterns, it is pretty easy to tell where you are, but it can get very complicated very quickly even on a 4 shaft loom.

I would say, start with a rigid heddle or inkle loom, which are much simpler and easier to warp and work with to see if you want to up the complexity of weaving after that. Dragonlady7 (B) has had great success at inkle weaving so that's a possibility!

[ranunculus]

My brain is pretty broken when math is involved. I cannot keep formulas for more than very short term memory (2 to 5 minutes). If I do manage to "deep memorize" the formula which takes days of effort. Even with memorization done I have days when I mirror image things - and can't tell I'm doing it. So some days I can do all this brilliantly, and an hour later I've mirror imaged something, the whole mess is a confused jumble in my mind and the whole project has to go back to the beginning.... Very frustrating.
Go figure that I can look at a tree an figure out where all the load bearing is an what would be the best way to fell it in the space available. Ditto loading an awkward load into the freight elevator. That kind of mental imaging is easy.

[unicornduke]

Yeah, you explained that once during crafting. I think inkle or rigid heddle weaving may be the way to go! They are much simpler and don't require the counting or fiddling in the same way that more complex loom do, since they technically are two shaft looms. Warping can be done more easily too. If you want to weave, you could try them out!

[which_chick]

The weaving looks great (and I also like the wide herringbone) but the real wow for me was the Romney Singles. Wow. They are so nice and even.

[unicornduke]

Thank you! I'm really enjoying spinning them even though I know it isn't as even as it looks haha. I'll have to post some more glamour shots of them once I finish all of them.