not another yarn blog (spinning, weaving, and natural dyeing)

well, it published.

but I didn't get an email.

https://www.crowinghen.ca/blog/how-to-spin-boucle-singles-from-wool-locks

Anyway, I'm setting the blog time for Tuesday Mornings.  I have the next three written and I'm hoping to keep on going with something every week.  

Hmmm... I didn't get a email either.

I got it! Gmail says:

Crowing Hen - crowing hen blog

May 20, 2020, 10:55 AM (21 hours ago)

Maybe thier bulk mailer gets clogged?

I'm kind of disappointed that the email had the whole blog entry - almost.

I would rather it had just the notification that there was a blog entry, then people would click and give my website some extra googlelove.

I could try the monkey mailing list again, but I would rather have something automated.  As it is, I've set the blog entries to publish on Tuesday mornings, but the system won't give me a link to the post until after it's published.  Which means, I can't set up an automated email to go out an hour after the post goes live, I would have to manually set it up after the liveness happens... and this is just way too stressful thinking about it.  

I did get an email, and it contained quite a bit of the post, but not all. The good thing in that is that it acts as a 'teaser'. If there's nothing from the blog post, in the email, I'm prone to decide I don't have time to click and read, because of the rest of the hundred or so emails sitting in my inbox, that I have the ridiculous compulsion to get through, every day. With that teaser, it's much more likely to get my interest piqued. I enjoyed the post, btw. Keep 'em coming!

I received the email at 9am yesterday. 😁

i am thinking of making more fibre arts tutorials.

any requests?

I've been playing with a weave-a-long to help use up some extra yarn.  https://www.warpandweave.com/classes/stash-weave-along/

So I've chosen my colours and wound the warp.  But the fun choice is deciding which order to put the colours.  There's a fancy tool on the weave-a-long for that.  Here's some of what I came up with.

Same colours, same draft, just different orders.

On the loom and off again
Basically, I got insomnia and wove it in a night.  

r ranson wrote:On the loom and off again
Basically, I got insomnia and wove it in a night.  

it's beautiful! 😍

Re your blog, I subscribed and posted a comment, both seem to have gone well.

As for the read more tag, it's good that you included the "instructions" , else I would not have noticed it.

I'm glad to see you're blogging again, that also gives me a bit of momentum regarding my blog which I started then abandoned a year ago.

@r ranson

I forgot to ask: The big, beautiful grey skein that lies across the others, what did you dye it with? Or is it natural sheep colour?

Maria Hoffmeister wrote:@r ranson

I forgot to ask: The big, beautiful grey skein that lies across the others, what did you dye it with? Or is it natural sheep colour?

It is natural sheep grey.

New-old weaving project begun

This is a warp I measured and chained a few years ago.  It's US grown and processed, natural coloured cotton (undyed - cotton has a lot of non-white colours).  I think it's organic, but I'm not sure.  Anyway, it's a long warp for making at least a dozen towels.  

Hey r? Is the stick with nails part of the loom? What method will you use to make those towels?  I've gotten hold of most of the sticks for the backstrap im working towards.  It will be a new skill added to my repertoire when I finally Just Do It! I still need to cut them down to a manageable size. Any input on size? How large or small do you work a backstrap?

Appreciations in advance.

Cindy Haskin wrote:Hey r? Is the stick with nails part of the loom? What method will you use to make those towels?  I've gotten hold of most of the sticks for the backstrap im working towards.  It will be a new skill added to my repertoire when I finally Just Do It! I still need to cut them down to a manageable size. Any input on size? How large or small do you work a backstrap?

Appreciations in advance.

I'm going to weave this on my four-shaft floor loom.  The nail-stick is called a raddle and it's often used with multi-shaft looms.  It helps keep the warp spread out when putting it on the loom.  But not needed for backstrap weaving.


Backstrap weaving!
Oh, I love it!  Some of the simplest tools and yet, one of the most versatile weaving styles.  You can weave simple belts or complicated tapestry-like patterns.  And everything in between.  What I love most is that the weaver becomes part of the loom.  With every thread we add to woven cloth, it is like a photograph, freezing that moment in time.  The mood of the weaver, the light on the threads, the humidity, the temperature, the music... they all influence how the threads are placed.  The more complicated the loom, the less of the weaver is in the cloth, but with backstrap weaving, so much of the weaver is in the cloth, it's like a time capsule.  The only other weaving I've seen that comes as close as that is the weaving work of the Coast Salish people on the West coast of North America.  Here's a bit more about what handwoven means.

Okay, enough poetry.  This is my favourite tutorial for learning backstrap weaving.  She's absolutely an amazing teacher.

As for the length of the sticks, it depends on what you want to make.  My first project was weaving the backstrap part of the loom (I used a pillow before).  You can always cut the sticks shorter, but you cannot cut them longer.  You can also cut more sticks and make a smaller version to learn on.  Here's a thread about making your own loom.

The towels continue.

This warp got terribly tangled in storage so it was an exercise in patience to get it on the loom.  But after many breaks for yet more tea, and a bit of help, I managed to get it on the back beam.

So far no problems with tension while weaving.

filming

which means more goodies for my etsy store in the next few months!  

Transforming some trousers that are too small into a jacket.

This technique is called piecing when we take smaller pieces of fabric and make a larger one.  Keeping the grain lined up is a challange.