After returning from the fiber retreat on Sunday, I dedicated most of my at home craft time to finish weaving the scarf that I warped last week. I had spun a beautiful skein of fingering weight Romeldale CVM roving that I had purchased from my friend and local shepherd at Sunrise Valley Farm, Gail Groot. It was soft and even, but not enough to do an entire scarf. An online friend, Ellen Sakornbut, of Fiber Curios on Etsy has some lovely fingering weight mill spun yarn of 60% Shetland Lamb and 40% baby Alpaca that coordinated beautifully with the CVM.
After the above photo was taken, I repaired the lead row, I had failed to shift the shed after inserting the spacer, so I pulled that one and pushed the next one up firmly. The loom was warped with both yarns and the weft weave alternated the two yarns in 8″ long blocks.
Tonight I cut it from the loom, it is 5’8″ long plus 4″ fringe on each end. It is slightly more than 7″ wide.
After the fringe was twisted, this photo was taken before it was soaked and laid out to block and dry overnight.
It is soft with the beautiful yarns. I hope it finds a home with someone who will love it and enjoy it.
For Christmas, my love gave me a 16″ rigid heddle loom (in pieces). Christmas afternoon, I got it well waxed, assembled, and warped with some yarn on hand. Using the instruction booklet that came with it, I wove the samplet shawl/scarf pattern trying out various techniques. Christmas also brought the announcement that another grandson was due imminently, so I quickly rewarped the loom with cotton to weave a baby blanket and erred in tracking the panel length, so the second panel didn’t have enough warp left to make it the same length as the first. All of that was cut off the loom, ends secured, and the loom rewarped again to make the second panel. The blanket was shipped off to arrive as it turned out on the day the young man came home.
I had some Romeldale CVM that I wanted to weave, but not enough to warp and weft a scarf, but an online friend had some Shetland lamb, Baby Alpaca mill spun in a color that complemented the CVM and so I ordered 400 yards from her. It has been sitting in a bag waiting for me to warp and weave. I really like to weave, but am not a fan of warping the loom. I learned direct warping and that is what the booklet teaches and I don’t have a warping board. Direct warping requires a lot of walking back and forth from the loom to the warping peg. This yarn is fingering weight, so a finer heddle was required which means more warp threads per inch. Finally today, since I don’t want to put anything on my wheel before next weekend’s retreat, I wound the yarn into balls and warped for an 8″ wide, 6′ long scarf.
The warp uses both yarns and the remaining yarn was weighed so the shuttle has enough for each section of the pattern planned. The loom won’t travel with me, but I’m in no hurry to finish this project.
At least I quit procrastinating and got the loom warped.
Today is a glorious break in a gray and wet week. We have had snow flurries, freezing rain, and drizzle this past week and two weeks of similar weather in the forecast. It has been calm wind wise until today, with warmer temperatures and sunshine. With the calm we had a fire scare earlier in the week when the farmer not immediately behind us, an area that is still wooded, but just beyond him in an area that has been logged, graded, and planted for pasture lit off first one, then several more large burn piles creating billowing smoke that looked too close to us that we feared was our nearer neighbor’s woods. We contacted him and after sending him photos, he left work to come check and let us know where the fires were and that they were being monitored with a track hoe.
There has been smoke down there for 6 days now from various piles, but at least we know the woods below us aren’t on fire.
Through the gray, drizzle and three waiting rooms days, I have been stitching through several smaller skeins of hand spun yarn that I had, making a hat and three pair of fingerless mitts, and finishing the Tool Box cowl from the mini skeins.
Can you tell I’m a lefty, always wearing the mitt on my right hand to take the photo? The Merlot colored mitts still need to be washed and blocked, they were finished last night. After trying on the cowl that I had made for me, I decided I’m not a cowl person, so I put a price tag on it and put it in the shop with the other items.
While perusing patterns, I found a cute hat with an owl on the front. Since there isn’t much yarn left that isn’t designated for weaving, I returned to spinning some gray/brown Coopworth last night. It would be a perfect color for the hat, but the pattern will require me to do some math as it calls for Aran weight yarn, this is likely to be DK weight when plied.
Since I’m not a Super Bowl watcher, I only know one team that is playing and have no allegiance to them, I think I will warp the loom and start a cowl or scarf with a pattern instead of plain weave and continue spinning the Coopworth so I have a pocket project to work on during waiting room visits this week. Since we try to group our errands and lunch out around hubby’s PT visits, I have a 30-45 minute waiting room session a couple times a week, so I need a new pocket project.
