Aileen wove this on a 24 inch (60 cm) rigid heddle loom, stitched lengths together to get the width she needed, and backed it with hessian. The yarn is rug wool from Kincraig at Brora. As Aileen says, it just shows what can be achieved on the simplest small loom.

Aileen sent this a wee while back… Sorry for the delay in posting it up Aileen. She writes
“The length of cloth is ten foot long, wool. The weft is hand spun and hand dyed (not by
me) all done on a 7.5 dent. I’m afraid it took ages!”

Inspired by an evening sky of dark purple clouds caught with the dying embers of the sun over the Cromarty firth, I decided to dye, spin and weave a new fabric.  Scarf size is a nice sized project… long enough to be useful but not taking an age to work up.  As I’m spinning my own yarn that is the bit that takes the longest time.  I’ve still not found the best hem stitch for my ends so that side is a still developing, but my edges are improving.

Mostly Merino/Shetland/Corridale 2ply.

Michelle is finally back on t’internet and has pulled herself away from doing “hubble bubble” in the garden to send us a lovely shot of her newly dyed fibre. Who would have thought that cow parsley could be so vibrant (after an post dyeing alum modification).

Michelle has also sent a picture of her Dealgan, which is something I’ve been after for a while. Does anyone have a lathe to make one for me?

Aileen has been busy too, experimenting with some interesting weaving interventions.

Here are Sarah Grant and Sue Varley displaying their creations. Sarah’s jacket is spun and woven and has extensions in matching felt. Sue’s jacket is spun from tops and knitted.
Both are stunning!

Spring has sprung and, like the urge to eat fresh salads, I just had to do something lighter than my normal “dark and interesting” aubergine and plum colours.  I bought a kilo of creamy white cotton chenille from ebay with the thought of being able to dye it but it’s so soft and velvety just as it is that I based the whole scarf around it.  There are only stripes of it but most all the others are the same neutrals with a few accent fancy yarns I spun specifically in small quantities.  After our Anne Artis spinning day I felt justified in loving to spin fine so this is mostly loosely woven “fine lace weight” shetland 2ply.  The colourful things were experiments with boucle and wraps, oh and a bit of shetland plied with some gold machine embroidery thread gave me a light glitter yarn.  The other fun thing was that I did it with the aid of my new variable dent heddle.  I chose the Kromski one instead of the Ashford as each dent is selectable rather than groups.  I love the flexibility of it and can see I’ll be using it lots in the future.

Aileen writes:

“This weave is 18 inches wide and 3 yards long.  Done on my RH loom with a 7.5 dent reed and fulled to a nice skirt weight.  The pale lilac is Rennies Shetland and the purple is Merino.  It took a long time, and there is a mistake!”

Catherine has been putting her time spent ill to very good use !

“This is my project since the dark days of January.

A 5 ” wide warp, using a threading for my four shafts that I saw Theo Wright using for his scarves.  He’s a professional weaver who is also a lover of data and mathematics (like Cally Booker, see latest ‘journal’ !) so nothing like me.  I used a few colours in the warp, which although done on a warping board, just went on and on, allowing me to try out different colours and treading.  Messing about, in other words.  My energy has been erratic in February, so this is a sort of record of my recovery from flu.  As usual, the colours I chose as weft near the end are the ones I like best, so now I have to find some beautiful yarns to re-create a texture that would be nicer to wear, unless I want to have things hanging around like prayer flags.

Catherine”