Kentuck is over

Well, Kentuck has come and gone and was great. It was cold, windy and muddy but it was well attended and I estimate that we sold two-thirds of our stock. We sold all but one of the black/white houndstooth scarves and two of the alpaca shawls (and I traded one for silver/dichroic jewelry). We didn't even need many bags because people wore what they bought.

I warped up the Wolf Pup last weekend with the first blue and orange Houndstooth scarves. They are made from Perle cotton and if I say so they look pretty good. I still have tencel shawls to weave and some brown alpaca scarves on the Mighty Wolf. Sarah worked on one of those at fiber group on Monday. The warp seems a little sticky. I hope to play with the Weavebird and weave off the rest of the warp on it and then put on white bamboo to make some baby blankets. So many ideas, not enough play time!

Kentuck is coming...

I've been busy weaving houndstooth scarves and haven't gotten very far on the tencel shawls. Not much time for weaving but like it or not Kentuck will soon be here. A funny on me, I wove one houndstooth scarf double the size needed. It hung to the floor and beyond on me. We'll have to cut it in half and hem both of them. I've been requested to weave some houndstooth in Blue and Orange WAR EAGLE! Those will be next on the Wolf Pup. I have another alpaca warp on the Mighty Wolf, camel with dark brown stripes, may throw in some white in some of them. Kind of a window pane pattern. I hope to get at least a couple done before Kentuck.

Good news, we finally got the Weavebird going. I haven't gotten to weave on it much but will play more after Kentuck. When I get the practice warp woven off, I'll have to learn how to warp it differently than I do the other looms. I do enjoy weaving on her though.

I entered a contest sponsored by Schacht Looms for the 40th Anniversary. My entries were one of the "Fire" tencel shawls. The other was a bamboo table runner. They had 400 entries (spinning, weaving, and videos). Out of those they chose 158 as finalists to send their articles in. I was in the finalist group with the shawl, but didn't make the final cut. I think about one-third was chosen altogether. I was happy to be a finalist. I hope they put the winning pieces on their website.

We are having a great time in our fiber group. I hope to meet the mothers of our two Auburn students. They both happen to be Home Ec teachers in different parts of the state. Hopefully they can come to our group while they are on a school break. I get more weaving done on Monday nights than the rest of the week.

Tomorrow is Saturday, have to start tagging, pricing and packing but hopefully will get some weaving done also.

Fall is coming quick!

My goodness where did August go? I finished up the three tencel shawls from the last posting and I am very pleased with them. I have almost completed warping another set of tencel shawls, this time in black/purple/pink/turquoise. Can't wait to see how they weave up. I finished up the 8" wide Houndstooth alpaca scarves and now have narrow Houndstooth alpaca scarves on the Wolf Pup for Kentuck, and am winding a warp of camel/chocolate alpaca for scarves on the Mighty Wolf and I "think" we've got the Weavebird working, just have to resley the reed. Weaving on it will be a lot different from the other looms, sure hope I like it since Bob has put so much work into it. It should be great for intricate patterns. I love three day weekends. Kentuck will be here before I know it.

Table Runners off the loom, Tencel Shawls on...

Instead of working on the Houndstooth scarves this week I decided to weave off the placemat warp making looooonnnggg table runners with a thicker yarn so I could have heavier runners and get finished quicker. I did one in yellow cotton that was 104" long on the loom. I'll have to measure it after it was washed, dried, ironed and hemmed. The next one was a varigated yarn in fall colors about the same length. The last one was shorter and I used a blue yarn that I have a lot of, in different colors so I could see how it works up. I'm not sure what the yarn is but it works well as a table runner though it had a lot of extra dye in it so I had to rinse it several times until the water was clear. Now I am hemming them by hand. Saturday I started winding an 8 yard warp for three tencel shawls. The main color is a varigated tencel named "Fire". It's a red/yellow/rust yarn and I can't wait to see what it looks like woven. I am almost finished warping after working on it Saturday and Sunday. It is 24 ends per inch, 20" wide so it takes a lot longer to prepare.

Houndstooth and more....

I got to weave most of Saturday and Sunday afternoon last weekend. In between while resting my shoulders and neck I worked on kumihimo. Choosing different fibers and colors to put together is fun and it's restful and soothing to work on. You don't have to think, your fingers just move and a beautiful braid is finished before you know it. I taught my 8 year old granddaughter when she spent the night Friday and she's doing an "Auburn" braid. I finished three Houndstooth scarves and a 104" yellow table runner and am working on a varigated tablerunner in fall colors. I'm trying to get that warp off so I can put tencel shawls on. October will be here before I know it. I'll put pictures of the blue shawls, houndstooth and runners soon.

Blue is through!

I breezed through the blue scarves , listening to books on tape, weaving each one with a different weft. Monday I wound spools for a black and white alpaca warp, put it on the loom and threaded it Tuesday and Wednesday. I have been listening to a book on tape called "The Friday Night Knitting Club" which was a fun read. Last year after weaving two Houndstooth scarves of alpaca and the rest in stripes, I found out that Bear Bryant wore Houndstooth and everyone at the University of Alabama loves it! Why didn't someone tell me that years ago??? It also happened to be back in style again last fall. I started weaving houndstooth scarves this evening. They require 20 ends per inch which is 40 spools to be wound. The other scarves I have been doing have had around 10 ends per inch with larger threads and are done in plain weave. Houndstooth is a twill pattern, changing from black to white every four throws of the shuttles, using two shuttles instead of one, so it is a more complicated pattern. Alpaca is a wonderful yarn, soft, warm, waterproof and what I use is from Peru.

Goings On....

Wow, it's been over a month since I've posted anything. I have done "some" weaving and have managed to get the red scarf warp woven off. I took pictures last Saturday but someone cut our internet wires so I'm just now getting back to finishing this posting. I'm not too happy with the pictures but... I did every scarf a little bit different with a little bit of "bling" in the last one, a tiny thread of red lurex that gives a sparkle to the scarf. Blue is up next which was wound, warped and one scarf partially woven last weekend. That's as far as I've gotten. It's been so hot that it's been hard to weave so I've been working on some beading. I started a neckpiece probably three years ago that I hadn't worked on for at least two years but picked it up and started working on it yesterday. I also did a necklace with the St. Petersburg stitch which for some reason is my favorite beading stitch. Beading is really quite meditative and I can do it while listening to a book on tape while Bob is watching a ballgame or Nascar. I'm hoping Bob will work on the weave loom this Fourth of July weekend so we can get it up and running.

At the end of June we went to a Fiber Gathering in Cullman, AL. Weavers from all over Alabama were invited and I think we came from furthest away, three hours to get there, three hours there and three hours back. It was held in a farm museum with no airconditioning and was HOT, but a lot of fun. I think there were 30 of us plus quite a few husbands, from Cullman, B'ham, Huntsville, Boaz, Gadsden and Auburn. Three Guilds had different techniques for us to try, mud painting, needle felting and kumihimo. What fun we had, like kids painting with mud. It was too hot for me to needle felt so I brought that really neat kit home to do later. I almost didn't try the kumihimo and it turned out to be so addicting that I'm still doing it. Basically it's a Japanese braiding technique and all needed is a hexagon shaped piece of cardboard with a hole in the middle and cuts in each section with 7 pieces of yarn tied together and pulled up from underneath. One piece of yarn goes in each slot with one empty. The third thread from the right is put into the empty hole, you turn the hexagon to the right and take the third thread from the right down to the empty slot, and continue. It's so easy a child could do it, but so relaxing. Nanette came over last Sunday and learned in about 3 minutes. It will work nicely in her scrumbling. Since I have so many yarns I could try different combinations forever to get a totally different look. Want some handcrafted shoestrings anyone? They even had doorprizes and I won one and Bob did too. Now he has a tool holder for his knitting needles (not) and I got a bag to hold fleece. I'm collecting Samson's hair so Sarah Hall can spin it for me when she gets her spinning wheel. By the way, Samson got his summer hair cut and we don't recognize him. If we had gotten his hair we could have probably had enough to spin and weave a coat LOL! Well, back to my beading.....