Best Laid Plans

With a long weekend coming up and a Yarn Barn of Kansas gift voucher from my cousin burning a hole in my pocket, I made a plan.  I would order yarn for tea towels and a Bluster Bay shuttle as a (not so) little treat, and spend the long weekend working on tea towels as my stock is very low after the last market and some gift giving. So last week I did my order for the yarns and shuttle on line as well as some colour cards as I wanted to know just what the Brassard cottons looked like, apart from the ones I’d already ordered from my computer screen, hope they are not too different.  

Unfortunately yarn is heavy and postage to Australia is expensive but I used the gift voucher for most of what I’d ordered and paid for the rest and the postage myself.  I chose the 6 to 10 day option on the postage, and here I am on day 10 but with no parcel.  I’ve been following it on the USPS tracking app, and the Australia Post app as well, and it’s had quite the whistle stop tour.

It left Yarn Barn in Lawrence almost immediately, went to Kansas City then to Chicago where I would have expected it to take a trip to Los Angeles or Fort Worth and pick up a direct flight to Melbourne.  But no – it’s been to Houston and then Auckland and arrived in Melbourne the day before yesterday.  It just has to clear customs and get to my local post office.  I made a quick and unsuccessful trip there late yesterday.  It’s now a public holiday, followed by the weekend with no mail deliveries so although it’s in town and probably not that far away, I’m not going to get it before Monday.  By then I will be back at work and the long weekend, with extra weaving time, will be over.

I think that means that I will just have to work on the unfinished projects. With the first market for the year coming up on March 4, there are plenty of those to keep me occupied.

There’s a very little bit of warp left on the 8 shaft loom (where the tea towels are going),

once that’s done it can join these for fringing and wet finishing.

There’s a little bit of warp left on the 4 shaft loom as well, and a couple of other warps ready to start. 

This one is for glasses cases and I need more glasses cases for stock.  Actually I don’t need to finish this warp or even need to get out the sewing machine to get started on these.

In case I get all of this done there are about 12 kumihimo necklaces for glasses that need some finishing and to have findings attached.

Obviously I shouldn’t be bored over the long weekend but it’s just not like unpacking a new box of yarn and getting a fresh long warp on the big loom.

Enough complaining, back to the finishing

Helen

Is it January 14 already?

I had planned to write a year in review post to mark the start of a new year but time has flown – so briefly there were:

About 23 tea towels

5 scarves

And 7 meters of fabric for a jacket for the sheep show in July which won best handwoven garment in show

There was a bit of sewing - 3 small shirts and a silk jacket for me, a short trip to the US and in my spare time, I worked full time so not too bad an effort.

2018 is off to a good start.  The first task was to get all the treadles on the 8 shaft loom working again.  Treadles 1 and 4 refused to work and while it is possible to weave a straight draw 2,3,5,6,7,8,9,and 10, it is so much nicer to be able to use the treadles in order and to consider all the 8 shaft drafts, not just those needing 8 or fewer treadles.

My loom had been modified in the past so that tie ups are done using long cords secured with golf tees to a board, somewhat like to 20+ system.  As I pulled one of the cords on treadle 1, one day, it just kept coming because the knot securing it to the lam had come untied.  It was easier to fix than I expected and with the help of the curved upholstery needle and some dental floss I was able to pull it back to where it had come from and re-knot it.  The dental floss was well attached to the cord at this stage so I just cut off the loose bits and left the rest there.  In any case, it was a perfect match for the nylon cord.

Treadle 4 was a different problem.  Some of the cords had jammed and just wouldn’t move.  I thought that most likely, a pin from a broken warp repair had dropped into the mess of cords and was stopping them from moving.  I got as close as I could, and with the help of a good light decided that while there was fluff there, there were no pins. I pulled the cords in both directions and with the help of pliers got the stuck ones working.  So glad that I finally got this job off the ‘to do’ list.

I put on a new warp on the Toika – 20/2 cotton painted with splashes of blue to make a finer version of scarves I made in 2015.  It was all going so well, good shed, nicely tensioned warp but treadle 4, maybe not so sure about being put back to work, managed to spit out one of the golf tees so that one shaft didn’t lift.  By the time I had realised, I had done too much and decided that, given the very fine yarns, it would have to be a design element. 

Here it is with the design element

I’m now on to the second scarf on this warp and have finally got treadle 4 under control. Here it is the way it should be

I need to get quite a few things finished as this will be a busy year for the craft market, off to the street festival at the beginning of March and then back to its original home at the Hawthorn Town Hall, now known as the Hawthorn Arts Centre, with a new name for the market as well – the Hawthorn Makers Market.  This maker had better get back to her making

Helen