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”
Firstly a big Thank You! Our last meeting felt a huge success, with so many people attending. 4 new members came along and were truly given some great mentoring from our members. It was a delight to watch. Thank you again ladies for the good work. For once we actually managed to cover the cost of the hall (something we haven’t managed to do on most occasions in the past), so we are grateful for your contributed funds. I, for one, would love to see more of these kind of days and would be interested in seeing extra social gatherings added into our workshop calendar, possibly on a weekday if we have a workshop booked for the month, and at a variety of locations. What do you think… would you be interested? Do email me and let me know. Thanks to Sheila for the short video of our meeting. I’ve put it on the front page and if you start playing the video and then “right click” on the image you can open the video in a new “tab” where it will be much larger. I don’t know just why you have to set it running first but there you go.
On Saturday 11th March Val Lenton will be teaching us how to do Tunisian Crochet.
You can see the details under the Events tab. One aspect is that Val will provide the equipment needed in the form of the correct crochet tool that is yours to take home. An added bonus!
Susanne, our Treasurer, tells me that so far we have 10 people booked on the day but there are more spaces. Of course we would like all members wishing to participate be accommodated so please contact Susanne as soon as you can if you’re interested. She also has other people waiting to know if they might have a place.
Now I must get back to my weaving… it has been a little neglected given this lovely weather we’ve been having here.
Hope to see you soon.
All the best
Helen
Mary Paren has been very busy and kindly sent in some photo’s of her recently completed projects.
The jacket is “…spun from a Wingham Wool merino blend called Silsden and plied with some black thread for a core.”
The weaving is an intriguing visual effect which Mary worked out by turning the design for a more complicated warp set up around 90 degrees and using the weft to give the design instead.
Hello all,
Well, it’s just turned the first of February. Some of you may know it as Candlemas though it goes by other names too. Officially it’s the first day of spring and my first reaction was to say “you’re joking!” but actually I can see the sense in it. Already I have primroses in the garden and the buds are starting to form on the trees. We don’t have snowdrops in the garden but there are masses in the woods nearby.
Urges to be outdoors had been pulling at me and I was drawn to use some fallen eucalyptus leaves to experiment with some “Eco printing”. Cotton needs a protein mordant so the previous week I tried India Flint’s recipe for soaking in soya milk. I promptly forgot about it. Over a week later I deeply regret that! Many expletives of disbelief and horror that anything could possibly smell so bad came out of my kitchen. Three washes at 90 degrees, alternating with added bleach or added bicarb of soda, still didn’t get rid of the stench properly! I did try the leaf printing eventually, bundling up layers of damp leaves and cloth. As I unrolled my bundles I thought of my friends who have laughed at my natural dyeing experiments and found myself grinning at yet another “fantasy beige” outcome with not a leafy design in sight. I’m glad to say that the logwood and dyers alkanet produced wonderful abstract designs of good colour when sprinkled on the cloth and steamed for a few hours. I might just go back to old fashioned onion skins like we used to do on Easter eggs.
On another colour note we have Dornoch fibre festival coming up soon and we’d love help with some demonstrating over the two days it’s on. If there are a good few of us there should be lots of time for exploring the show too, and of course I’m looking forward to the stalls!
all the best
Helen
It was lovely to have Aileen over last week. We tackled some over dyeing of “horrid” yarn, which was actually an ok Terracotta if that’s a colour you like, and some extra colours on some “string” as my husband called it. It was actually dishcloth cotton but let’s not split hairs! So the one dye covered two base colours and we still had lots to spare. Do you ever feel guilty for throwing dye lots away?
Looking forward to seeing what these and the inkle loom will produce!
These pictures are all of a dyeing day at Serena’s earlier this year. We were using madder and lichen; Serena’s special one.
Mary Paren
Busying away with my spinning and weaving I wonder at differences of everyone’s creative processes. One friend said to me today that she and her grand-daughter have been sorting out all her bits and pieces of hand-dyed fleece and ended up with 5 baskets full of the different colour ranges! Goodness, I thought, I’d better get on with some dyeing. I don’t have nearly enough stash! No, what I have is “stash envy”, and no where to put anymore. Well I could just maybe… Do you get that? This slow brewing craving for anything of any colour or fibre type to just have, ready to use in a fabulous project, or not? I know another friend (and you might be able to guess who) may disagree. For her the colour has to be very specific. Red actually. Red and black and greys. But boy it’s amazing what she can do with that palette. It’s all about finding what ignites our flame. Some people can seemingly throw anything together and it works, others plan then dye, spin and weave accordingly.
What kind of creative are you and what are your must have elements? I get tingles with turquoise and copper (yes, there is some in the project pictured below… just a hint, if you look hard.)
Thanks to Jane we now have the January newsletter keeping us up to date.
Alison is giving us some more detail on her inkle loom workshop for this month so you can get a better idea of what to expect, and it sounds like there is plenty for all levels of experience. The events item is updated with details.
Remember to get your membership in this month. You’ll notice the new payment button on our home page. Unfortunately we are charged for processing online payments so must make an addition of £2.50 to cover fees. Of course if you pay by sending our treasurer Susanne a cheque then the amount will still only be £20 for membership.
All the best
Helen
p.s.
Aileen has just sent me a wonderful picture of the new inkle loom her son has made for her…
“This was hand made by my son Adrian Hickey, a Furniture Maker. The best Christmas present I ever had. Anyone who would like one made get in touch.” (Aileen)
I enjoy seeing what everyone has been up to and I think that you must too so, under a little pressure from Aileen (who wishes not to be the only one seeming to share anymore) I’m adding my scarf to our Members Projects.
If anyone else would like to contribute (and I know there are wonderful things being made out there) just send me a picture with a few words to describe the project and I’ll stick it on our page for you.
This scarf is a “slow project” but I’m pleased that I managed to spin it (10 merino : 6 alpaca : 1 silk, lace-weight 2 ply), from the alpaca day, and then knit it. I’m not a patient knitter normally so this is a huge thing for me to have stuck at. It’s warm and soft, BUT, I’m told it should be saved for the Highland Show, as it would fulfil the requirements nicely…. Hmm the temptation to wear may prove to great but I have been good and tucked it away in a clean place for now. So now it’s back to the fireside with my wheel as I have a new mission for the New Year.
