Plant dyes calendar for 2017

Fran Rushworth, author of the popular Dye Plant Gardening articles for YarnMaker has published a calendar for 2017 Plant Dyes for All Season. Full of beautiful photos and starting with the message that "you don't have to spend a lot of money or have a big garden to enjoy these plant dye projects" this calendar encourages everyone to have a go.

Fun projects include solar dyeing, leaf prints on cloth, and dyeing your fibre and yarns using plants that are easily found or grown. There's plenty of space to write on the calendar so it could be used as a record of your gardening / foraging and dyeing days (eg when you planted the seeds) or for planning ahead.

For more info about the calendar - and Fran's own adventurers with natural dyes - see her blog, Wooltribulations.

YarnMaker no.28, will be the final edition of this British magazine for handspinners

For past 7 years my blog has been quieter whilst my time and energy has gone into publishing YarnMaker, a British magazine for handspinners. This phase of my life is coming to a close, for anyone who has missed the news posted on the YarnMaker website and Ravelry on Monday, here it is:

MESSAGE FROM DOROTHY LUMB, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER OF YARNMAKER

It is with great sadness that I have to announce that the Autumn edition of YarnMaker, no.28, will be the last, bringing to an end 6 ½ years of publication. 

YarnMaker has been a successful niche product for a small market. The limited number of potential readers combined with other factors mean it is not going to be viable to publish the magazine in future. The time has come to cease publication.

All current subscriptions will be refunded and when YarnMaker no.28 is published in early December it will be sent with a form to allow subscribers to select, if they wish, back issues (2 per copy owed) in place of a refund. A special discount rate for purchasing further issues and binders will be offered on the same form.

TIMETABLE FOR FINAL EDITION, REFUNDS AND SALE

Advance orders for the final edition, no.28, will be taken on the website from Monday 24th October 2016 and also by post.

YarnMaker no.28, Autumn 2016 will be published before 10th December. Subscribers will receive a form printed on the reverse of the address label  to opt either for a refund of the money paid or for two back issues in exchange for each edition owed. There will also be a special discount offer for ordering extra back issues and magazine binders. Stock will be allocated on a first come, first served basis with a deadline for application of 31st December, after which anyone who hasn't responded will get their money back by default. All refunds, magazines and binders will be sent out before end of January 2017.

Edit: 13th December, there have been a few delays but delivery of magazines from the printers is due later this week, so if the postal system is running well they will reach subscribers early next week.  The deadline for the subscriber offer for discount back issues & binders is extended to 6th January 2017.

The final edition is on sale from the website, www.yarnmaker.co.uk. This is a short print run and magazines will only be on sale until 31st December, so has the potential to be a collector's item!

Kumihimo

The marudai and tama (braiding stool and weights) are useful tools for building up the strength in my hands, and I am enjoying making kumihimo braids with them.

I was inspired to think of braiding when I discovered this, a small warping frame (for warps up to 4.5m) that Ashford started making last year, ideal for making warps for small looms and for braiding.

I'm also still using all of these - hand putty, handmaster ball, small weights.

I had a big set back with my hands in January, caused by swimming, it took 6 weeks for them to recover and I saw the physiotherapist again who told me that the problems I'm having are not in the text books. I suggested it was time to re-write the books! I understand properly now what he told me a few months ago; that this is not injury, it is a condition that we are dealing with. The condition is hypermobility syndrome. It is a matter therefore of management and control, not "recovery". Basically the ligaments that link my bones at the joints are weak, and I need stronger muscles and tendons to hold the joints stable.

Going back to the braiding, I started by going back to the simplest instruction book, Jaqui Carey's Japanese Braiding, the Art of Kumihimo and found a flat braid pattern that I enjoyed and made several in different colours. All but the red/pink are made with Drops Muskat cotton yarn which I can buy at a shop down the road (Yarnbirds) for £2.50 a ball. The pink used a 4-ply Drops cotton yarn plus a Rowan cotton-silk-viscose yarn.

I started with two colours, then three, then four and the colours revealed the pattern to be more complex than I had thought.

Next step: I chose 8 different colours so I could watch the path of each yarn in the braid.

I discovered the pattern repeat was 16 steps, having learnt this and with a long warp on the stand I got out Roderick Owen's Braids which has many more kumihimo patterns.

 

 I made all these braids in the photo below successfully and discarded a few short bits of other patterns that I found too challenging to follow with eight colours.

The labels attached to the braids tell me the pattern number in the book.

On the left of this photo is the first flat braid I was making with the sixteen step repeat.

From left to right, the patterns used are 16, 14, 13 and 12 in Roderick Owen's book, and below are a selection of square and round braids, patterns 10, 9, 8, 6 and 5.

I don't have time to give pattern details at the moment - this work fits in my 'screen breaks' from working on the magazine and I have more work to do this evening. However, my next idea is to make up a four colour warp which might make some of the patterns easier to work and go through the 8 strand patterns all over again. Maybe I'll have time to include some pattern instructions another day.


Just to finish,  a link to Carey Company, Jaqui Carey's business website for anyone in the UK looking for the equipment and instructions for Kumihimo. My marudai and tama are old ones, found on Ebay, made by a business no longer trading. The only new wooden marudai and tama now made in the UK seem to be those by Michael Williams.

off the loom and finished...

See previous post.

On the loom, width 9".

Immediately after removal from the loom, width 8", length 120cm, still an open cloth as shown below.

Very little, if any loom waste, just about right to give a fringe.

Hem sewn using a fine spindle spun yarn of the same merino fleece as the warp.

 After finishing (vigorous washing in hot & cold waters) width 6", length 94cm.

 

Finishing left the fringe somewhat felted and tangled, see below, 

However, this is a temporary problem - I have been able to separate out the ends. All that is left to do is trim off excess weft ends left where I changed shuttles and trim the fringes to equal length. I'm make the next one using a longer warp - and I'll wind it on the warping board.

A Day in the Life of Looms 2015

Meg of Unravelling blog is co-ordinating A Day in the Life of Looms once again, the New Year's day look at looms around the world through the blogs of handweavers.

This took me hours and hours. Firstly choosing the yarns, I had other choices at first but there was a weft yarn I couldn't match a warp to and a lovely potential warp that turned out to be nowhere near long enough. Then I could only work slowly because my hands are not strong, they are slow and need rest breaks.

Both yarns are handspun from fleece I have washed, hand carded, and spun long draw from rolags. The dark warp yarn is from a coloured Merino fleece bought from Yvonne Hoskins (business name Woolaston Wooly Wonders, a member of the British Coloured Sheep Breeders Association, contact details in this list of wool producers). The weft is a grey Shetland shearling found through the Murmuring Wheel group run by Diane Fisher; it was shorn by her brother Phillip, the Singing Shearer. The Shetland was spun on my Haldane Shetland spinning wheel - it seemed appropriate - and the Merino on my Schacht Matchless. This loom is my 10" Cricket rigid heddle loom.

I wanted to use the direct warping method, I thought it would be easier for my hands than using the warping board. There's an Ashford video demonstrating the method if you haven't seen it before. Warp length is limited by how far you can put your warp post from the back of the loom. I have a 3 foot square table, but that isn't long enough to make a scarf, so looked around and found the ever useful G-clamps (every weaver should have some, in various sizes, so many uses!) and clamped an extra board to the table to achieve the length I wanted.

Happy New Year! I hope you will enjoy your weaving and other crafts in 2015.

The Henning Band Loom repaired

The history: link back to earlier post about the Henning loom here.

We got the loom repaired but it hasn't been used due to all my time and energy going into setting up and running a business for the past 4 years (YarnMaker).

However, this month Sue Foulkes is running a band weaving workshop for the Yahoo list "Braids and Bands" on behalf of the Braid Society and she got in touch to ask about the Henning loom.

Link here to the Braids and Bands list homepage.

So, to the loom, as it looks today.

It had certainly been used for some part of its life and banging of the beater had shaken it apart at the joints. It had to be taken apart and all the joints re-glued. Then we added buffers (A) for the beater with rubbers (B) to reduce the impact.

The beater was not strong enough, it wiggle from side to side in use, so we re-enforced it with a solid block of wood.

The beater's sides were wider than the base they were supposed to be fitted to, so we spaced them out from the sides of the loom with washers.

And the new cherry wood seat is a considerable improvement on the hard narrow bench!

Down on the floor you can see shafts and heddles, I'm starting to assemble the loom for weaving. More easily done on a table of course.

More on this another day soon, it's lunchtime here and then I have to get back to the "day job" of YarnMaker.

Meanwhile, if you'd like an introduction to band weaving, do join the Yahoo list and have a go! 

The programme for the workshop is:

1) An introduction to weaving methods (starting now).

2) From 22nd March, exploration of three ways of weaving narrow bands to highlight the differences and similarities. 

3) From 8th April, how to design your own patterns

Sue Foulkes has a particular interest in Swedish woven bands and has published a few books and articles in which she shares her research and skills. She also gives talks and runs Guild workshops. You can purchase her books from Blurb (print on demand and very nice quality!) - see here.

Tablet Weaving on the Cricket Loom

Weaving is now going well. It's a simple pattern with all the cards turned together 4 turns one way, then 4 turns back.

I looked in the Ann Sutton tablet weaving book to see how she recommends winding warps. She threaded each card as she made the warp and stood it in a stand, something like a toast rack. This idea comes from Morroco. The toast rack has a pin through the top so cards can not jump out, and later, when weaving it is used as a warp spreader.

I'd had the idea of using a rigid heddle to spread the warp. After turn the idea of toast racks around in my head for a few hours, I realised a rigid heddle could also hold cards, although it doesn't have that useful pin through the top, however I can put a knitting needle  through the centre hole of my cards.

I think this might work, maybe with the rack raised a bit so the cards sit further into it.

There is a continuous warping method that works when all your cards are threaded the same. You thread the pile of cards onto the yarns all at the same time, yarns would on four separate bobbins, and then distribute the cards into the warp as you wind it. You can see this demonstrated in YouTube videos by Linda Hendrickson and by Andrew Kieran. It is interesting to see both videos and compare the working style - Linda seems to have a fully equipped weaving studio, Andrew achieves the same result without any special equipment.

When it comes to equipment, you might have noticed I have bought special cards. You don't need to buy special cards. You can use playing cards, or other cardboard squares, I have a secondhand set made from beer mats. Another idea that came up in a Ravelry UK Weavers discussion is to use plastic squares cut from the side of a plastic milk carton.

Tablet weaving - uh oh... not like this

Some flaws in my warping system:

• insufficient precautions taken to keep warp threads from getting crossed in the wrong places and out of order
• I think the warp threads need threading through the cards as the warp is created (so they sit well on the warp and the warp tension will not need disturbing and the threads are all in order)
• cards not held securely in the correct order, and this happened -

I dropped them.

Hope I manage better next time!

All my screen breaks from the computer today have been spent sorting out the warp. In the end I wound the warp on the loom twice (on to the front, then back through the cards onto the back beam) to get all the threads in order and even out the tension.

Note there is now a wooden knitting needle through the centre hole in the cards to preserve the pattern order and a cotton tie through hole B on each card to stop individuals rotating.

Anyhow, ready to weave, and whilst I have been typing this post I backed up my work for the day. I'm working against the clock to get YarnMaker published before Christmas, have a little weaving project is supposed to help keep me sane and make sure I take my screen breaks.

Tablet weaving - preparing the warp

I finished weaving the scarf on the cricket loom, it's washed and drying at the moment, last stage for that project will be to sew in a few weft ends. I'm pleased with it, it is a scarf I will wear.

Next project - tablet woven band.

I'm preparing the warp, using 2/6 cotton from William Hall & Co in Emerald and Navy.

I have an old pair of Dryad warping posts for the ends of the warp, clamped to my table, 3 feet from the new single warping peg that came with my Cricket loom. I will have a six foot long warp.

My warp starts at the left of the two posts, and part way down the first side I'm making a cross, using knitting cotton to separate the four warp yarns that belong to each card. the loops on the right of the pair of posts will transfer to the cloth beam of the Cricket loom.

My yarns bobbins are on a lazy-kate. This came second hand with one of my spinning wheels, homemade, I like the wooden rods for the bobbins, they don't over run as much as on steel shafts.

My pattern is in an old book, Tablet Weaving by Ann Sutton and Pat Holtom. I find it easier to read and understand that the Candace Crockett book, and I like the simple patterns.

I'm warping for a 16 card pattern.

Back to work on the magazine now, but it is good to have another project to help make sure I take my screen breaks. I spend too many hours at the computer some days, and have bad RSI problems. These are helped by swimming and exercises, but I recently had to take a 3 month break from swimming due to a different problem, recurrent sublaxation problems with my knee joints, part of 4 years of trouble with walking, dating back to when I was ill in 2008/9. I've had more physiotherapy, I'm walking again, and swimming. Thank you NHS!

A small loom, for bands, samples, scarves.

I don't get much time for weaving at the moment, not enough that I feel I can go ahead and set up a large project on the floor loom. However, small projects are achievable: samples, scarves, bands.

I've been thinking for a while about getting a small loom for band weaving and samples. Criteria were: a solid frame, a good choice of extra heddles (for non-band projects), small adjustments possible on cloth beams and secure ratchet and pawl.

Candidates were Ashford SampleIt (8" wide), Ashford 12" knitters loom, 10" Schacht Cricket loom. Each has its own merits, but I chose the Schacht Cricket, because I wanted 10" width and also because they are beautifully designed and made.

Here is my Cricket:

and here is the rest of the loom. It came flat packed with assembly instructions (that was easy, put pieces together, use 6 cross head screws provided), weaving instructions, 2 shuttles, one 8 dpi heddle and two balls of yarn. Well I don't know what to do with two balls of yarn and a loom, except warp up and weave... so I did.

You may not be able to see the tape measure clearly in the photo, total length of the loom is 18". This loom doesn't take up much space!

I like the design, the heddle positions are good and the table clamps (for use when warping) slot into the back of the loom sides and hold it securely - I know this is important have had my 20" Ashford Knitters Loom escape its clamps once, midway through warping using the single post method.

This is the ratchet and pawl...

...and for more about band weaving on small looms, I refer you to YouTube and the latest video from Sue Foulkes which accompanies a book -

Five Ways of Weaving Narrow Bands, video

The book, The Art of Simple Band Weaving, is available from blurb.com and blurb.co.uk either as an e-book or print on demand hardback or softback. I haven't got a copy, yet (maybe after Christmas!) but I have Sue's other books, on Sami band weaving, and they are excellent. (Also available from blurb, search for Susan J Foulkes.)

Woolfest for Weavers

YarnMaker, spinners, and spinning supplies were my reasons for being at Woolfest in Cockermouth in June. However, I took a little time here and there to look at weaving supplies.

One of my friends ordered a new Saori loom at the show. She's been doing Saori weaving for sometime now on rigid heddle looms so knows that the two-shaft Saori loom with the benefit of foot treadles is ideal for the weaving she does. We now have a Saori agent in the UK and The Saori Shed had a large stand where I happily sat and wove a few inches of cloth.

I was very interested to see a beautiful range of Estonian wool yarns spun for weaving now offered by Jane Flanagan Textiles alongside her dyed wool batts for feltmakers. Jane is a weaver herself although spends much of her time running textile workshops for schools.

I enjoyed meeting one of my weaving blog friends, Dorothy Stewart, who was helping out on the Ripples Crafts stand. Dorothy has been weaving beautiful silk scarves and I was delighted to see them for real and talk with her about weaving. Helen of Ripples Crafts custom dyes silk yarns for Dorothy so she can work with whatever colours she chooses.

The yarns I fell for however were from the range stocked by Helen Brotherton My Fine Weaving Yarn. She seems to be constantly extending the yarns offered and it is wonderful to visit one of her stands and have a choice of modern yarns all spun for handweavers in a range of colours like I have never seen before in the UK. I know other people do stock a large range but selection is normally from shade cards or samples that arrive in the post. It is rather different to be surrounded by yarns of different fibres that you can see and touch! And pick up and buy... here are the yarns I brought home, all silk. I made two colour selections of four cones for scarf weaving, each including one varigated yarn. However, having got them home I think that the green I chose could belong to either group.

Spun to weave...

I get more spinning time than weaving time nowadays, but I often have weaving ideas for my yarns.

In the past couple of weeks I have been spinning:
Castlemilk Moorit fleece spun longdraw from rolags;
Cotswold fleece worstead from combed fleece;
coloured Merino longdraw from carded rolags.

The Castlemilk Moorit is not quite as soft as it looks due to having two types of wool fibre, a soft wool undercoat and some stiffer longer hairs. I might knit a jumper or jacket, if I have enough. If not enough to knit I could weave with a different wool for contrast in colour and possibly a longer fibre wool to add strength (the fibres in the fleece were around 3-6cm) or a softer wool for comfort.

The Cotswold, centre in photo, I could dye and weave into a firm twill fabric suitable for a jacket or for upholstery.

The Merino, bottom in photo, is lovely and soft. I have also spun blends of this with alpaca. It would make warm, soft woven scarves and would also be lovely to knit into a jumper or scarves, hats, mittens. It was a large fleece and I have plenty.

Weaving beautiful cloth

I want to share with other weavers this awsomely beautiful film from the Scottish weavers

Morton Young and Borland Ltd 

Learn more about their product range here on their website. Beautiful stuff!

I came across this while checking references for an article going into the next edition of YarnMaker, my work is generally more about spinning yarns than weaving, but my aim with YarnMaker is to cover the whole textile story from where fibres come from, how yarns can be designed and spun through to the ways we use them, taking in past, present and future. I am always learning new things and enjoying the contributions people make and the connections and conversations that preceed and follow on. (Those of you who read YarnMaker can have fun guessing where this might be found in the magazine!)

I love the way this film shows the relationship between machinery, the punch card programs, the oily hands of workers maintaining the machines, and the fine, beautiful white cloth. We see yarn on bobbins and being woven into cloth. We meet the people involved, face to face. There is so much in one short film.

Another loom...

Saved from the waste tip - last year I bought some spinning equipment from a man who was clearing out his mother's house, as an after thought he mentioned there was an old loom that he had been going to take to the tip, but could drop off at our house instead.

We think this was made to the plans in David Bryant's book, also available from his Craft Designs website. It is probably around 30 years old, same as the spinning wheels I bought at the same time. The owner had clearly been a keen spinner and weaver and taught the crafts - I also have yet to sort out a bag of homemade rigid heddles, stick shuttles and backstrap loom pieces.

We have had fun caring for this loom, it has been taken apart, all the wood and metal re-finished, got new supports for the beater and rubber stops for the beater on the castle, new aprons, new shaft springs. A couple of nights ago I rubbed the shafts with candlewax to help the heddles slide along them.

I like the metal ratchet and pawls and the way the shaft levers lock in position. I like the solid wooden frame, it's rather beautiful. However it has sat on our living room floor in the way of my piano for six months and it is about time I got a test warp on it to check the shaft action as there is now a weaver ready and waiting for a loom, so if she likes the look of it and I find that all is working well it can go on to a new home - and then I can play my piano again!

Postscript: two blog posts in the two days of 2013: I shan't keep it up, you know!