The Best Laid Plans

I purchased 6 1-kg cones of wool about 6 or 7 years ago with the intention of making blankets out of it. The labels on the cones look like this:

I had two cones of pearl and one of gray that I am using for the warp. Since the wool was labeled 2/9, I used my math skills to determine that the wool should be about 2400 yds/pound (JaggerSpun's 2/8 is 2240 yards/pound) and I was going to warp the loom for double weave at 32 epi.

HOWEVER--when I started winding my warp this weekend, I found that the pearl was actually about 2000 yards/pound. No problem, I can warp the loom at 24-26 epi, right? Well, when I went to wind the gray, I found that it was much thinner than the pearl--about 3000 yards/lb--even though it was labeled 2/9 as well! 

And that wouldn't be that big of a problem except that I was planning on creating a gradient from pearl at one end of the blanket to gray at the other. So I'm going to have to really hone those math skills for an ever changing epi across the width of the reed.

I don't think it will matter which reed I use!

P2P2: The Pix Have Arrived!

I have received my pictures!  I haven't had much time to contemplate them yet, but I've got a couple of ideas floating through my head.  I know that Shirley has already posted the pictures on her site, but here they are on mine:



They are pictures of Australia, the first four from the Outback.  I'm very excited to work on this project.  I have a couple of other projects I need to get woven before I start on this one, so I'll have a few weeks to think about this before I get started.

Tying One On

After finishing the black-warped tencel scarves, I tied on an 8/2 white warp.  I'm going to use pastels for the weft.  I really liked the black/green scarf, so I used the same pattern for the first scarf.  I'm now trolling handweaving.net to see if I'm inspired by some patterns for the other scarves.

This view is from the cloth beam.  I do love this loom.

Visitors Outside

We had some visitors in the backyard yesterday.  We normally have just two families of geese that stay on our pond, but we've got a few more passing through.

Not weaving-related, but I could see them from my loom room!

AVL FOs

I just finished my first FOs from the new AVL. They are 8/2 tencel scarves with a black warp, then I used different colors for the weft.  I also changed the design each time, keeping the same 16-shaft point twill threading.

I really like the green and the gray ones, but the eggplant looks like an ugly piece of upholstery fabric.  The design was quite prominent on the loom, but once it was wet finished, the design disappeared. 

Off to the box of ugly FOs!  I've collected quite a few of them over the years and I just can't bring myself to throw them away.  What do you do with them?

Next in Line

I've had 6 kg of 2/9 wool in my closet for about six years.  I've been planning on making blankets, but have been putting it off because of the 1024 ends it will require. But my mom called me a couple months ago and asked if I would make her a blue throw for her new couch, so it's now the next project in line.


I've never done a project with that many ends before.  I had ordered a couple hundred extra heddles for my Glimakra last year in preparation for them, but didn't get to it.  Now I have a 16-shaft AVL with 1600 heddles already on it!  I'm going to use double weave plain weave, so it will require only 4 shafts, but I'm going to spread the ends over all 16 shafts so hopefully it will reduce the stickiness of the warp.  The blankets will be approximately 64" square (on the loom) with 6 inches of fringe on each end.  If I make a 15-yard warp, I should be able to get 7 blankets out of it. Or at least 6 blankets and a nice warm shawl.

I'm going to use the natural and gray for the warp and the blue, red and purple for the weft.

I'm also going to do something else I've never done before and I'm going to sley this OFF the loom.  I'm going to Hobby Lobby tonight to see if I can find something that will work as a reed holder.  It's going to be sleyed at 32 epi, so an 8-dent reed is also going to be ordered.  It will be easier to thread the heddles (being an avid F2Ber) on 16 shafts if the ends are always in groups of four. I'm thinking about pegging my dobby to raise 4 shafts at a time to make threading go smoothly with less chance of a mistake.

P2P2: Making Contact

I just received an email from Julie Bowyer, letting me know that she has received her packet of pix.  Now that she has them, I'll go ahead and post them here.  I have a good friend, Derrald Farnsworth-Livingston, who is a photographer here in the American Midwest. He took these pictures in the area around which I live and gave me permission to use them for this project.


I live in the Loess Hills of Iowa.  Supposedly, during the last ice age clay soil had been ground very finely into tiny particles by the receding glaciers, which were then blown by winds to form these hills.  Just a few miles from my home is an oxbow of the Missouri River which is now a state recreational area called "DeSoto Bend". Most of these pictures were taken there.

I hope Julie finds inspiration from these pictures. I tried to find pictures with a variety of textures and colors.