Last blanket…almost

I just finished two twin size blankets using a customer’s natural colored yarn and her yarn that I dyed. This will be shipped tomorrow  along with the king-size blanket. I’ve had the heater on in my shop all day so that I can get these dry. I also finished a couple of v-shawls.

The blankets have the same warp. This one is woven with 2-ply light brown weft.

I didn’t have enough of the customer’s yarn for weft in the second blanket so I used some of mine. I took a chance on using 2 strands of singles yarn wound together on the pirn. Normally I wouldn’t try to wind 2 together using an end-feed shuttle, but in this case the yarns wound around each other and I didn’t have any trouble at all.  So this weft is one strand of light gray and one strand of dark gray yarn together. I think it gives a nice depth to the blanket.

I have one more custom order, a king size blanket in several colors, but it will wait until after Christmas. The last time I did that (last year) I broke my arm before I got the left-over weaving finished.

Weaving blankets

I’m making progress on the weaving orders but I’m not finished yet.  I need to get these in the mail by the middle of the week.

This is a king-sized blanket for a customer in Oregon. I don’t know what kind of sheep she raises, but the yarn is beautiful and the blanket is very soft. It measures 90 x 100″.  The only place I can spread a blanket this size to dry is the floor of the shop, so I have to plan my finishing around classes, open hours, etc. The shop is too cold right now and after leaving the blanket spread out overnight I needed to get it off the floor (partly because I’m teaching a chenille scarf class tomorrow).

The blanket is folded in half and hanging over the loom on which I’m weaving a v-shawl for a customer in Nevada. This customer has Jacob sheep and I’m using her mill-spun yarn and handspun yarn. The blanket below is for the same customer. The stripes are handspun.

Here is a detail from the king-sized blanket at the top of this post. This customer also wants two twin blankets and she wants some of the yarn dyed. Here is the yarn for the next warp.

The next two blankets are woven with singles Jacob yarn. These were in a previous post while still on the loom. They are for sale at the Artery right now and will be on my site shortly.

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.

Windy weekend

The title implies that I dealt with the high winds that we had this weekend. I didn’t really spend much time in the wind. I was inside at the Art & Craft Holiday Fair sponsored by the Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento. I was surprised at the number of people that came through. Not as many sales as I’d hoped for, but it will be worth going back next year.

These are some of the v-shawls I had for sale.

You may recognize some of these scarves from previous blog entries. I meant to count the scarves. I think I ended up with over 50.

These are 3-D wire pieces that I liked.

And this is an example of another artist’s work that I liked. All his pictures have a time theme and are made from watch parts.

A friend visited me at the show on Saturday and look what she brought. This is a sheep from the WoolPets felt kit that I sell and she knit a scarf to go with it. I wonder if she used toothpicks for knitting needles!

So what was with the wind? It howled all weekend. We hadn’t had any significant damage from the other winds that we’ve had this fall. This wind took the top of the big tree in front of the house. Fortunately all that is damaged is a fence board.

This is upside-down and used to be…

…up there.

The tree is lopsided now–used to have 2 tops that looked like one.

I guess I won’t quit my day job.

I thought that maybe I would switch jobs and be a wildife photographer. Here are some photos I took in the pasture the other day. This marsh hawk (birder friend, Claire, tells me that it is a northern harrier, but marsh hawk is the name I remember) was flying around the pasture, would land, and then as I stealthily snuck up on him, would take flight again.

Same with the egret. The hawk is on the ground and the egret comes in for a landing.  I don’t have a very long lens so this is the best I can do before they take off again.

So I guess I’d better keep at the fiber business and just use wildlife photography as a side-line!

Some of this weeks scarves:

These first three have supplementary warp of various odds and ends.

More log cabin scarves:

These are the same except that one has a bleached white yarn and the other has an ivory yarn.

A friend and I did an impromptu dye session this week.

She dyed yarn and I dyed fiber.

 

Scarves and a pony

I’m trying to get my shop ready for Shearing Day on Saturday. I’ll be spending my time in the barn, but my friend will staff the shop and I need everything organized, labeled, etc. Here are new scarves.

This one is rayon chenille with a supplementary warp using a ribbon called Luna.

Same basic warp, but a different supplementary warp.

Here is another “left-overs” warp. The blues.

Another left-overs warp. This one is deep purple, but I can’t get that color on my screen. Maybe it will show up purple on your computer.

I carded some sample batts using the Ashford drum carder and the new Wild Carder. Lots of fun! I wish I had time to do more of this.

The top two batts are using fiber that I dyed for a Color Wheel class. Those will be fun to spin. The white batt is from Jacob wool–it is thick and soft. I have a new packer brush on the drum carder and it really lets you pack in the wool.

Last, but not least, is a pony from the Wool Pet pony kit. I love the look on his face. I am also needle felting a donkey, but she is not finished yet.

Chenille scarves

I have been working on scarves for a few weeks.  I’m designing scarves for Cotton Clouds kits as well as weaving for holiday sales.

This is a scarf woven from all the cones in a recent chenille delivery. I used each color twice with 6-thread stripes.

This scarf was designed after someone in my Weekly Weaving Workshop class asked how to weave a scarf with pure colors in two stripes. The next scarf is on the same warp, but you can see the dark weft crossing the light weft.

 

I had a hard time taking photos of this scarf. I need to try again. This warp has black yarn alternating with odds and ends of green and variegated yarns. See the table below. If there is 3 yards left of a color I have kept it knowing that it would be enough for a scarf warp. So the scarf in the photo uses the greens. I have a few more scarf warps to create from the cones below.

Two busy weekends

I spent the last two days in Placerville teaching Weave a V-Shawl to the Hangtown Fiber Guild. Here are the results:

Ladies,  please turn around.

These are the warps for shawls not quite finished:

Quite a variety of shawls!

Last weekend was Lambtown in Dixon, CA. The fiber building was so busy that I barely got outside to snap a few photos. The sheep-to-shawl contest was one of the most popular events. Teams come with looms already warped and they need to prepare and spin the yarn and weave the shawls during the contest. This year the fiber for the weft was Jacob wool from my flock. It got great reviews from the spinners.  Here is the winning shawl woven by the Silverado Guild from Napa:

And a close-up:

The Del Oro Guild got second place:

I didn’t get photos of the other shawls, but I did get one of Hangtown Guild’s portrayal of their theme of  “Au Naturel”:

There is a new use for all that roving that you don’t have time to spin! Hangtown always does it with a sense of humor!

One last photo taken at Lambtown:

Do I want to swap out my sheep for a flock of these  cuties? Hmmm…what is a group of chincillas called? Covey–no, that’s quail. Warren–isn’t that where rabbits live? Crowd? How about Cloud?

The newest lambs and the newest weavers

It’s hard to take photos when sheep are in pens. This is Mary who lambed last week at the CA State Fair Nursery. She has triplet ewes. Madeline is next to her and lambed a couple of days ago, also with triplet ewes! They are quite the crowd-pleasers.

The sheep show is this weekend.  I’m there with 8 sheep (not counting the sheep in the Nursery) and a big display. Today I took one of my portable rigid heddle looms to work on. Some of the girls who were there with their family’s sheep flocks were hanging around and watching me weave. After I finished a scarf I told them that they could all try it. I finally decided to just let them weave one. Three girls traded off and finished a scarf. We warped the loom again for another and tomorrow I’m going to take another loom and a basket full of yarn. I’ll let them keep weaving as long as they want to. Another great crowd pleaser!

These are 2nd to 5th graders. I got them started and they’re doing great!

They’re tying the fringe here.

These girls sure make it look easy. Maybe they can sell looms for me.!