20 Nov 2016

A pair of mistakes

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While twisting fringes, I spotted a mistake in one of the silver-grey scarves. I had missed a pick and had long warp floats where long warp floats had no business to be. The annoying realisation immediately occurred: there must be another missing pick close by, and sure enough…

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I didn’t get around to photographing the anomaly until I was in the middle of mending it, but you can still see the end of one error and the whole of the other. I knew there must be two in close proximity as this treadling maintains an easy odd-even rhythm, with odd picks going from right to left and evens from left to right. I keep an eye on the numbers appearing in the little window of the dobby box and it alerts me to any mis-steps. Or it should! In this case I managed almost sixty picks in the wrong direction without noticing, before another mis-step put me on the right track again.

Fortunately, this yarn is one which fulls very nicely, so in order to make the most of it I had kept the weave fairly open. There was plenty of room to needle-weave the missing picks without the pattern looking squashed.

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All done.

“A pair of mistakes” was posted by Cally on 20 Nov 2016 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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17 Nov 2016

Magic Dobby’s Grand Day Out

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Last weekend I took part in a Meet Your Maker event at the National Museum of Scotland under the banner of #StylingtheNation.

We had to set off early on Saturday morning to get to Edinburgh by 9 am.

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My station was on the north side of the Grand Gallery facing into the middle…

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…so I had the most fantastic views.

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I had a grey linen warp on the loom, and visitors rolled the dice to determine the weft colour – red, blue, yellow or green – and whether there should be one, two or three rows of that colour, where a ‘row’ is five picks since the pattern was a five-end huck. I was quite tickled to find a three-sided die, which looks a bit liked a half-sucked sweetie. When there was nobody there to roll the dice, I wove in grey.

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I started out keeping a written log, but kept forgetting about it. However, from my partial records I reckon that over the course of two days about a hundred visitors contributed a random element to the weaving – mostly children, but only because their adults are too shy. And I spoke to several times that number, so is it any wonder I was tired by Sunday night?

The grey linen frayed a good deal more than I would have liked, so I cut off Saturday’s piece and wove Sunday’s separately. I need to finish them both, just as soon as I have finished this pile of scarves over here…

“Magic Dobby’s Grand Day Out” was posted by Cally on 17 Nov 2016 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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11 Nov 2016

Tying on

2

Meanwhile, in the studio I have been tying on a short warp of chocolate brown merino/silk to weave a limited edition of zig-zag scarves for the Tea Green event in December.

As I have already said (probably several times), I don’t like tying on a warp at the back of the Megado as my knees and the warp beam want to occupy exactly the same space. And the warp beam always wins. So this time I tried tying on at the front – all the while fighting down my apprehension about beaming the warp through the reed and heddles, as this is a yarn that can pill itself together just from being looked at.

To my amazement, the knots travelled from here…

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…to here

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without so much as a twinge of a hesitation. Smooth as butter, and the whole warp was beamed in no time. I’ve begun weaving scarf #1, while at home I have started on the inevitable.

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“Tying on” was posted by Cally on 11 Nov 2016 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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11 Nov 2016

Styling the Nation

0

I’ve packed up the Magic Dobby and tomorrow morning we will be up early to drive to Edinburgh for #StylingtheNation at the National Museum of Scotland. I’m taking part as one of two makers sponsored by Craft Scotland in the Meet Your Maker programme, and I’ll be inviting visitors to determine what I weave by rolling the dice…

If you can drop in at any time over the weekend, I’d be very glad to see you! There’s a lot going on as you can see on the Museum website or the event Facebook page.

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“Styling the Nation” was posted by Cally on 11 Nov 2016 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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7 Nov 2016

Shade cards

2

They’re addictive!

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I’ve spent hours playing games like this, but finally came to a decision today. Now awaiting a large box of yarn….

But more scarves have appeared on the loom too. I’m steadily working my way through those little bits of leftover merino/silk, but I don’t believe I will ever quite exhaust the supply. On Friday I wove this one…

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…and started this one.

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Couldn’t resist that low angle, which makes it pop into 3-D! Once I have finished it, I think there may be one more scarf in this warp.

“Shade cards” was posted by Cally on 7 Nov 2016 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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