30 Dec 2014

Year End

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I always look forward to the time after Christmas, when the festivities have died down and we get to spend time at home by ourselves. Yes, I do have to do my tax return and 12 months’ worth of filing, but at a fairly lazy pace and with all the yummy leftovers to help my motivation. This year, however, it has gone crashingly wrong.

Our lovely Phoebus, our beautiful golden boy, is gone. He became seriously ill on Sunday and on Monday had to be put to sleep. He was not quite ten years old. Who cares about filing now? Not me. And how can I manage without his help? After all, my guilty secret is that it was really Phoebs who earned a PhD, not me.

Phoebus on my work

And who really designs all the weaving, eh? And thinks all those big weaverly thoughts?

Phoebus 5

We are heartbroken without him, and Polly is baffled.

Rest in peace, dearest Phoebles.

Phoebus sleeping

Weaving content will resume on Loomsday.

“Year End” was posted by Cally on 30 Dec 2014 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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19 Dec 2014

Blue-Greens

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Kate popped in this evening to bring me my dyed skeins, all saturated blues and blue-greens.

blue-green skeins

They include very different weights of yarn from 2/64 to something like a 2/6. This is deliberate, as I want to use them in multi-layered fabrics with different densities, though I am not proposing to put all of this lot in together.

I’ve only managed two days in the studio this week as I have had other things to take care of, but today I did manage to get my sample warp up and weaving and also spent a couple of hours on the Megado weaving the Brighton honeycomb. And I am delighted to have been included as a guest blogger over at TAFA, where I have written this post about some of the reasons I love to weave.

“Blue-Greens” was posted by Cally on 19 Dec 2014 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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16 Dec 2014

Invisible dyeing day

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Sadly, I haven’t been dyeing with invisible dye. I refer to the fact that I have no visual record of the day I just spent dyeing, because I am a Failed Blogger who still can’t remember to take pictures when in medias res.

I am sorry that I failed in this, because it was a beautiful December day with perfect blue skies and the most picturesque location you can imagine. My friend Kate lives in a wee cottage beside a river, and the disused sawmill adjacent to her living quarters is now her dyehouse. Except that we only used the dyehouse itself for the parts involving steam: the rest of our dyeing process took place outdoors on her tiny patio next to the riverbank. Visualise two figures in full outdoor gear, including woolly hats and gloves, but then replace the gloves with the disposable latex kind and that’s a picture of us.

At the moment I don’t even have my dyed yarn to show you, though I will do shortly.

On the loom, the brighton honeycomb scarf has been started but promptly neglected, because I know I still have a week in hand. Fatal!

brighton honeycomb scarf

I finally started warping up for some samples on the Delta.

polar bear samples

But this evening I have to do a few things which are a bit more challenging, so I have got out my special mug.

thinking tea

“Invisible dyeing day” was posted by Cally on 16 Dec 2014 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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10 Dec 2014

Messing around

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I haven’t yet come up with a draft I’m happy with, even for sampling, so I decided to go off at a tangent and have a play instead. I have put a warp of black and red Jaggerspun Zephyr on the Megado.

black and red zephyr

I’ve been wanting to have another go at Brighton honeycomb with some different types of yarn and different sizes of cells, so that’s what I am doing. This is the 12 shaft version, which I didn’t much like when I tried it in cotton, but I thought in a fluffier format it might be more appealing. Brighton honeycomb is a structure with a ‘right side’ and a ‘wrong side’ but I couldn’t for the life of me remember which side of the draft was which – turns out I pegged it upside down, though it wasn’t at all obvious on the loom and I had to cut off a sample to be sure. This is it before washing, and it is already considerably waffled up.

brighton right and wrong

That’s the wrong side on the left and the right side on the right. I didn’t have enough of the red yarn to use as weft as well so I picked out a YUO (yarn of unknown origin) which is a bouclé of some kind.

I like both sides a lot, so I’m not sure it matters which one is ‘right’. If I can stay focused for half a day then someone may get a scarf for Christmas.

I’ve been attempting to enhance my shop by adding options for international shipping. Well, I have been testing them in my sandbox site, so not for real yet. Unfortunately, I seem to have fallen into a world where Belgium is not in Europe. This may or may not be serious in itself (for those of us who are not Belgian, that is), but it does make me wonder whether the software has a thorough grasp of geography and politics. And, Meg, I have increased the font size in the menu: what do you think?

“Messing around” was posted by Cally on 10 Dec 2014 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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9 Dec 2014

Online shop now open!

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It’s small – very small, even – but it’s online and it’s a shop: the Bonny Claith online shop no less. You can find it here or via the Where to Buy menu above. To start with I have added a few of my favourite recent scarves, just in time for any thoughts you may be having about Christmas…

At the moment I can only handle UK shipping automatically (which I’m offering free, by the way, to keep it easy for all of us), but if you are somewhere else and wish to buy, just drop me a line and I can give you a quote for P & P. There is much tweaking and tinkering still to come, for which I apologise in advance.

I had a great day at the Tea Green Makers Market on Sunday, which was my last event of 2014 so it was good to end on a high note. I had some new work with me, thanks to Judith MacDowall of Just Judith Design, who has been combining some of my small pieces of fabric with recycled denim to make purses and bags. The results are really cute and were much admired, but have not yet gone to good homes, so I still get to enjoy them for a while.

JJD1

JJD2

I never did weave a scarf in that blue-green-orange combo at the top – I wove quite a long piece just to use up a bobbin, if I recall – but now I see the bag I really wish I had! I’m not sure I have enough of those greens left though.

“Online shop now open!” was posted by Cally on 9 Dec 2014 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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