Off the Loom……

I Love this style of weaving, I am having a ball.

Hand Spun Fun

What I did on my day off!

 

New Handspun Yarns from Tiny Airplanes

I am so excited to get a restock of the lovely Nikki Virbitsky’s Tiny Airplanes yarns. Nikki hand dyes the wool which is superfine merino, and then spins the most interesting yarns with all kinds of fun things included and plied into the mix. Great fun!

 

This one is corespun with mohair wrap, a special request from a friend who is in love with Tiny Aiplanes’ yarns.

and still more photos of my saori adventure…

I am just having a ball with this! It is really fun and even with all the goodies I have to weave in, I still want to spin some more hand spun to include. I may take home some of the roving and yarn bits to spin up a bit more.
The bits and clouds of roving are behaving well on their own, but together with a little twist, who knows what fun might ensue.
 

More Gratuitous Close-ups

I AM IN LOVE. Ok, so Saori weaving is where it’s at. This is where I am at.
kthxbai.

Playing with Saori on Cricket

The black rayon is very slippery. It was challenging to warp the loom but with a little help from my friends, (thanks, Rod!) it is warped and I am well on my way to weaving a couple of free form scarves. I selected several bits of roving and locks from my stash as well as yarn bits, balls and samples, and trim and rick rack, ribbon and whatever else was in the bags of goodies I keep  for these very projects.
I went with fuchsia and bright greens….one of my all time favorite combinations. I think it is because I had a dress up costume when I was 12 or so with those colors. It was an old burlesque kind of showgirl outfit which I loved with alternating fuchsia and lime green satin stripes outlined in black with long black fringe and sequins.
anyway…I stated working on the Cricket today with all my lovely and nostalgic colors and textures and this is the progress so far…

More to come!

Washing the Wool.

I love how soft everything becomes when I wash and block it! Even just the water changes the fiber, and many yarns bloom considerably. I just washed and hung a hank of hanspun yarn, merino with mohair, silk and other sparkly goodness, as well as all my new scarves off the loom.
The water was hot and then warm mostly, I really did not want to felt it, but just ‘set’ it nicely. I sent the Bunny out to replenish the Suave Green Apple hair conditioner supply, which totally softens the fibers. I just add a tablespoonful or so, a couple of squirts to each piece. Less for smaller things. I don’t even rinse it all out, I just squeeze out most of the water in towels.
For this purpose, I brought in several bath sheets (read:gi-hugic) towels to dry everything. They were drenched when I was done. I rolled each scarf up and then stepped on them to remove as much water as I could.
Now they are all in the backyard drying on the drying rack.

Freeing the Scarves

This has been exhilarating … after weaving for weeks on this same warp, I am finally removing everything from the loom today! I finished up the free form piece at the end and cut everything off and wound it up into a giant ball…here:

Next I used the rotary cutter to separate one from another and now there are 7 different pieces!! Woo.
 

I will take pictures of the saori bag when I am done sewing it together into a bag-shape! I am having a good time with it, so I am not rushing….
All these scarves above are going to receive a bath and then will be available for purchase. Each is 9” wide and between 60” and 72” before the fringe. Each has approximately 6” fringe per end. Washing the scarves allow the fabric to come into balance and the yarns to bloom slightly and also softens the fabric even more for the next-to-the-skin softness we all desire in a scarf!♥
Here are more gratuitous close up shots of the weaving":

Saori Weaving: Taking the Plunge

With just a small amount of warp remaining, I decided to play around with the Saori style of weaving, including roving and loose fiber, bits of silk and threads and yarns of all kinds…not that I limit my regular weaving to exclude these things, but the Saori style allows all of it and more.

Saori comes from a Japanese style created in 1968 by Misao Jo, the name comes from SA- from the Zen alphabet meaning each one has their own individual dignity and ORI is Japanese for weaving.

I am eager to see what the future holds for my weaving as I allow it to unfold.

In this first piece, I have used the small hand made comb beater Alisha loaned me rather than beating across the whole warp at once, and it allows me to create the curves and swells and mountains in the fabric. The warp threads are actually flat on a horizontal plane, it just appears bent, but that is an illusion. The texture on the surface is just the roving and locks poking through.

As much of a risk-taker as I consider mysel to be, taking this plunge into Saori weaving has been harder than I expected. I wanted to warp the small Cricket loom with black rayon first, and botched that all up; well, tangled it up, really. Then I figured I would wait until I had rounded up all the color coordinating fibers I wanted to use all together with other inclusion and get everything totally ready, then yesterday I just jumped in with the end of the warp on the 4 harness loom. Now I think I will work a few more inches and make this into a bag or purse.

I will post the progress as I continue. Stay tuned.

Weaving Adventures

 

After about 10 scarves on the Schacht Cricket loom, I decided I needed to get a little bigger…so I invested in what I understand is a good starter loom, a 22” Harrisville Designs 4-Harness floor loom.

After about 6 hours of warping and instruction, I got 14 yards of warp onto the thing, enticed my lovely Bunny  to build me a raddle and lease sticks, and have woven 5 and one half scarves on this warp. I am allowing 12” of fringe between my hem stitching, and moving on to the next scarf, so when I am complete I will have the wonderful treat of seeing all my scarves at once! I have pretty much forgotten what went on at the beginning of the warp!\

Trying to match the painted warp I chose was a little bit of a challenge, the first scarf is an assortment of different yarns,  all fairly neutral and matching somewhat, the second is my handspun with some mill spun merino wool, the third is all corespun white-ish bulky which I love! Then I worked more handspun, wait, maybe the next one was the green and brown, and then there is a hank of really fun slubby yarn I did with a thread ply and lots of coils. Ok now I am confused but I know I am halfway done with the last one and it is part hanspun, part thick and thin millspun merino and part boucle mohair which I love, its an old Ironstone from the last of a cone. I really love the boucle mohair for weaving.

Some more of the cricket scarves are here:

The larger loom is here:

And this is what I have been weaving with plain weave/tabby and twill. (I tried to figure out if I could do anything else with a 1-2-3-4 warping…I found no other patterns without sticks or other set up…)

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They look similar because of the painted warp I have chosen here. Next time I will warp with more subtle warp contrasts.

Checking in

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I am interested in recording my knitting, spinning, crocheting and weaving here and documenting what is new and exciting at Nangellini. After unsuccessful attempts in the past to synch the posts to the blog, I am revisiting again to see if I can make it work.

I believe in the path of ease and grace and also in allowing what presents itself as a part of the process. Now is the time to do this. The past was perfect and the timing is perfect. Now.