Artery

Wednesday was Display Day at the Artery, the artists’ coop where I sell my handwoven pieces. We expand into the Gallery area for the month of December so all of us get a little more space for our items. Here is my area:

Those are all chenille scarves on the left, v-shawls in the middle and a couple of Jacob blankets on the wall.

This is my newest idea–pet leashes. Here is a close-up:

Now I’m working on custom weaving orders.

This blanket is for a customer in Nevada. The gray yarn is her Jacob spun at Yolo Wool Mill and the stripes is her handspun. This blanket will be finished tomorrow and next on the loom is a king size blanket for another customer.

22 Weaving Days Left

I have weaving orders to finish in time for Christmas. I thought I would have plenty of time after the Crocker Show. Now I’m feeling a bit panicky. Before starting other people’s blankets I had to get my own blankets off the loom. Here are 2 of the 3 blankets as they were being woven.

This warp is Jacob singles at 12 epi. I have learned that if I’m using a relatively loosely spun singles for warp to wind 4-6 extra threads at the edges so that there will be extras when those edge warp threads break. Those extra threads hang off the sides and I pick up one of them when one of the threads at the selvedge weakens and breaks. This was more of a problem in the first blanket and I was ready to cut the warp off. I changed shuttles and the next two blankets went better. I love these 16-H twills. Here are close-ups:

There will be lots of fringe-twisting before I can wash these. That may have to wait, although I’d like to be able to get these blankets ready for sale this season.

Weaving odds & ends

I won’t say that I’m catching up with my things-to-weave list, but I’m plugging away at it. I have sold about half of the baby blankets on the PURPLE warp.

but have enough left to put some on the website and maybe resurrect my etsy listings too. I have a new baby blanket warp on the loom ready to thread. Not everyone wants a purple blanket for a baby gift and that’s all I have right now!

Here’s a full-size blanket that I finally finished for a customer using her yarn.

This is a blanket for another customer who sent me her Jacob wool.

And here’s a funky bag. I’m experimenting with felting up some odds and ends of wool fabric to create bags. I think they’ll get better as I perfect it.

I have taught a couple of weaving classes in the last few weeks as well. Here are the participants and their scarves:

It’s sure nice now that I have room in my shop to have 5 people weaving at once!

Finally weaving

I have started to work on the projects that are backed up from BBA (before broken arm). This is a Jacob wool blanket for a local Jacob breeder. The wool was spun at Yolo Wool Mill. It’s very open right now at 4 epi but I have notes from the last blanket I did using this yarn  and the blanket came out great. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. But now I’ll have to wait a week (at least). I’m leaving in the morning for Michigan and Vermont! I’ll take photos!

Handspun & handwoven Christmas present

I flew to Texas Christmas night to see my daughter, Katie. I spent the previous 2 days working on her Christmas present, after finally finishing all the weaving orders that I needed to get out before Christmas. Katie used to join our spinning nights and was a participant in Sheep-to-Shawl competitions. This is back  when she was in junior high and she’s a junior in college now. When she cleaned out her closet the last time she was home Katie gave me a box of her handspun yarn that she was never going to use. This included singles, 2-ply, slubby “beginner” yarn, thin yarn, thick yarn, and everything from Angora bunny to Navajo churro, all in a variety of colors.  I decided to weave her a blanket using her yarn. I wish I had a good photo of the pile of yarn before I started. I used about 20 different yarns, winding them in random order.

Randomly threaded warp using Katie's handspun yarn.

I wove the blanket using one of my mill-spun singles Jacob yarn in a dark gray.

Weaving the blanket

Close-up of finished blanket

Finished blanket

I don’t have a photo of Katie with her blanket. I need to get her to send one. The blanket turned out better than I could have hoped for. It is soft and has a wonderful hand.  This has inspired me to weave more like this!