18 Jul 2015

St Swithun

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I am never sure of the extent of St Swithun’s jurisdiction. Growing up in East Anglia, I was only too well aware of his impact on the summer weather, but whether he also governs the rest of the UK isn’t clear to me. Right now, though, I am inclined to think him a mighty saint indeed as the waters pour from the heavens…

Thank goodness for cheerful things in a wet July. This week I am thankful for

  • kitten superpowers

super kittens

  • a fresh warp on the Delta

cashmere warp

  • a new weaving student who is really excited about structure
  • Charade on MUBI
  • cake!

cake - chocolate custard

  • lunch and a laugh with my brother
  • images of Pluto

And speaking of Pluto, I’ll bet their summer is colder than ours.

“St Swithun” was posted by Cally on 18 July 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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9 Jul 2015

Still here

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Still here and still plodding along, though it has been a muddled kind of week so far with various trips and meetings taking me away from the loom. And as the content of said loom is secret, you are at serious risk of nothing but kitten photos. However, here’s a shot of the studio on Saturday evening, after a weaving workshop. The revised layout is definitely an improvement.

post taster studio

The new weavers were great and, incidentally, produced some of the best selvedges ever! And even when I’m tired from a day of talking – it is somewhat peculiar doing all one’s weekly talking in a single day – I get a boost from all that colour. I really need to pin down my workshop schedule for the autumn – I had intended to do it before the event at the DCA three weeks ago, but we still don’t have a date for our Open Studios which is a bit inhibiting.

“Still here” was posted by Cally on 9 July 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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1 Jul 2015

Distracted…

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…by kittens!

kittens

These little fluffies – that’s Magnus at the front and Pippi just behind him – joined our household at the weekend. That means I have been on duty both as hospitality manager and as peace-keeper while they adjust to us and to Polly and Polly adjusts to them. It’s going pretty well, but I have only been able to dash into the studio for short bursts of activity. As I am hosting a taster day on Saturday, my first priority has been to get the table looms warped up, and that’s now done. Next up on the Megado is not more huck – not yet – but a secret thing I won’t mention again. It involves some of the yarns I dyed recently, which are all ready and waiting.

hand dyed yarns

I’ll have to get something else on the go on the Delta, otherwise while I am weaving it I will just have to post pictures of kittens. Poor you.

“Distracted…” was posted by Cally on 1 July 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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25 Jun 2015

Reviewing the Situation

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My sample scarf was woven in a 2/24 Nm alpaca/silk blend. I have a few different colours in hand and deliberately chose two – a brown and a soft violet-purple – that are quite similar in value. The grey and blue of the woolly samples have a fair amount of contrast, so I wanted to see whether a more subtle effect would still be pleasing (and visible!)

I stayed with the 14 dent reed and, after some fiddling about, settled on sleying each group of 10 (one 5-end unit in each layer) 3/4/3 leaving no empty dents between groups. My plan is to keep each piece very simple, using one of the pattern options as a detail. For this sample I started with the brown layer on top, then used a pattern area to switch to violet on top for the rest of the scarf.

 

The finished scarf looks like this (and this is a much truer representation of the violet than the images above).

There are some things I am happy with:

  • The yarn works well with the structure – it has enough ‘stickiness’ for the floats in the lace with a lovely sheen too.
  • The similar values do work well together
  • I get a scarf!

However, there are also a few things I’ve learned:

  • For a scarf of this length, I need to make the colour change a wee bit nearer to the end. You can see I had to fineigle the knot to squeak the pattern into view.
  • Don’t use the steam when pressing: the jets go right through the holes and make them look huge!
  • I may also need to tinker with the selvedges. It’s a bit tricky as I have no spare shafts, so the selvedge ends get switched along with the blocks. The answer may be to designate one colour as the ‘selvedge colour’. I could use a floating selvedge, but I’m not sure it would really help.

On the whole, I’m pretty happy with the experiment.

“Reviewing the Situation” was posted by Cally on 25 June 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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23 Jun 2015

Finished samples

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In the busy-ness of last week’s to-do list I never got around to posting some of the washed and pressed huck samples. So here they are.

They’re lovely and plump and soft 🙂

I decided on alpaca/silk as the yarn to try next, so I’ve been tinkering with the sett and am now trying a narrow scarf to see how it turns out.

Saturday’s Meet Your Maker event at DCA was tremendously enjoyable and extremely hectic. I lost count of the number of people who wove their own mug rug, but they all did brilliantly. We got through two four-metre warps, which adds up to a lot of mug ruggage.

“Finished samples” was posted by Cally on 23 June 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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