I spy with my altered eye: weaving

Showing posts with label weaving. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Ob-session

As predicted, I finished my weaving within the week, despite working over 42 hours in my day job. I took it to the woolly day at Twyford (which I highly recommend - the second Saturday of the month - just comment if you are interested and within reach of Leicestershire - I'll get details to you!)

I was bowled over by the lovely comments and support of my fellow fibre fans. I was encouraged to cut the work off the loom and knot a fringe - do you want to see how it looked? If not - too late!

Sally wanted us to play with colour and texture - I think I gave it a good go. I discovered I'm not keen on eyelash yarn or yarns with ends sticking out, but I love the effect of slubby yarns in the weave. Plies of different colours tend to give a diagonal stripe effect as do random dyes.

Here's the weaving before it came off the loom

and here I am wearing it. I'm going to wait until I've showed this to Sally before weaving in the ends so she can see the variety of yarns that went into it. I've steamed it and will trim the fringe to even it up. Is there anything else I should do?

I'm still pondering what loom. Do I get something simple to start and then aim for something more for my big birthday next year? Hubby asked me what I intended to do with whatever I wove, as he knows I like the things I produce to have a purpose. I think that's a great question. What do you use your own woven cloth for?

Maybe I need a course or a play day - suggestions for those would be great too and I'd be willing to travel for a weekend away

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Not another hobby!

I blame Sally. And my husband.

At the Guild of Long Draw Spinners Sally ran a workshop to introduce novices to weaving I was unashamedly the first person to sit down at one of the looms and 'have at it' - and found I couldn't, wouldn't stop. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, so both Sally and Maggie were very patient in their explanations to me, The idea was to play with colour and texture, so that's what I did. Luckily both Sally and Eileen had brought a wide variety of yarns to sample. (By the way, I really dislike the white textured stuff in the photo - it makes the weaving look like a threadbare towel. The ribbon yarn above it though, I love!)

My first weave since making a tiny purse at school 40 years ago!

I did try very hard to leave the loom alone for someone else to have a go, but when I noticed that no one else had done so, I went back. I wove all day. Then Sally did something incredibly kind - she lent me her knitters loom for a month! (It's not her only one I hasten to add).

I took it home, I sat in the kitchen and wove all evening. When I was madly into papercrafts, I did lots of swaps of yarn and thread samples - I ended up with boxes of small amounts of novelty yarns all wound onto embroidery floss bobbins. They were ideal for this. So the weaving went on.

The next day a friend came to visit. I showed her the loom and she had a go. For two hours. Not the only one hooked then. When she went, I must confess I took her work out so I could say that the whole thing was woven by me. And I started again. And did a bit more in the evening. And the following two evenings because while I was at work all I could think about was the weaving waiting for me at home. Oh, and how my shoulders and upper arms were a bit achey.

A riot of colour and textures

I'm not sure if this is an infatuation or the real thing. Only time will tell I suppose. I do know that I've found myself thinking about buying my own loom and wondering what type I should get.

Sally wasn't expecting to lend her loom out, so she didn't bring all of the equipment for warping up etc. I'm going to have woven to the end of the warp before the month week is up, so what do I do then? At least there's another woolly day on Saturday (why yes, I am a guild tart, glad you noticed) where I can get advice as to whatever I need to finish everything off, sort out the numerous ends etc.

I am looking forward to seeing the whole thing unfurled

So, if you've been paying attention, you might be wondering why I'm blaming my husband for this sudden interest. It's not that I'm looking for interests to take me out of the house and away from housework (never had that problem). The short answer is that he knows me too well. When I started knitting he predicted I'd end up spinning, despite my protestations. When I took up spinning, he told me I'd want a loom next. Maybe I'm a good wife who doesn't want to confound his expectations?!

Sunday, May 04, 2014

Plus ça change

Recently I took a trip into my past and took my family with me. That sounds a lot more dramatic than it was.

In reality, we visited a place I'd last been to in my early teens with school - Armley Mills in Leeds. From over 30 years ago I could only remember a tiny bit of what I had seen and been told about - that cloth was fulled using urine and poo... Barry still shared that information during the tour we were cheerfully given and really, I doubt much had changed since my school excursion.

What I had failed to remember was what nearly the whole museum was about. It wouldn't have registered all those years ago, but I could not have asked to visit somewhere much more fitting with my current interests than this place. So, apologies to my family for unwittingly indulging myself, but I had a wonderful time at what was once the world's largest woollen mill, seeing the textile machinery for processing from fibre to cloth.

I hope my pictures give at least a flavour of the place and that even you don't make a special journey, you consider visiting if you're ever in the area

Here's the carding mill - a lot larger than my hand carders or any drum carder I've seen!

There was lots of fibre for people to handle/pocket (insert casual whistling here)

They also had some hand carders for people to fiddle with. What a load of neps and noils! at the top left you can see the fine roving that the carding mill produces for use in the next stage

The roving is spun using this

I couldn't get close enough, but just look at that industrial skeiner!

The yarn is sent away to be dyed and then comes back to be woven into cloth.

Here's a display that has seen a few fiddly fingers!

My understanding falls apart here a little as I'm not a weaver. I think the strands are wound onto this creel, then it is transferred onto a big tube before putting onto bobbins before the weaving begins

No wonder these were called the dark satanic mills - the looms looked terrifying!

Hubby made a cameo appearance!

I couldn't get a decent shot of the shuttle, but I was intrigued by the soft fringe that I suspect was to keep the thread in order. There was a basket full of pirns (?) that I wanted to run my hands through

I suspect this loom is a bit bigger than those of most of my weaving friends

Once woven, the cloth is thickened by using............... teasels!

It's then stretched out and cropped with the biggest pair of shears to make baize for snooker tables. Shame I forgot to take a picture - maybe it will tempt you to go see for yourself?

More random pictures follow. I would have stayed ages and taken more, but my lovely mother in law was feeling weary by this point

There was a huge set of drawers to poke about in and they had this amazing vintage advertising booklet that illustrated the different 'fancies' (the way the carding teeth were set according to someone's fancy). It was just there for the handling and I am still worried that someone will pocket it or tear it.

I wasn't sure what this wheel was meant to do - maybe it played some part in making the pencil roving?

This was just stood at the side. I'm hoping that it is used by a group there

They had a jacquard loom with both singular and concertina punch cards. I don't know much about this stuff, but I'm hoping it is interesting to weavers!