The season has begun and other things

Saturday evening was the first Utah Symphony concert of the season--actually the first was the night before, but I go on Saturdays--and it was exciting.  I'm always glad when these concerts begin again.

Because it was the night before the tenth anniversary of the attacks on this country, the concert began with a piece written by John Adams "On the Transmigration of Souls".  You may recall that I loved "Nixon in China" which was part of the live broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera so I was prepared to love this piece.  And I did.  There is a chorus (adults), the Utah Symphony Chorus, a children's chorus, the Madeleine Choir School, the orchestra, of course, and spoken and sound effect recordings.  The piece begins with street sounds of a big city and later in the piece footsteps hurrying down a staircase, and spoken text as well.

The piece is contemplative, mostly quiet, sometimes dissonant, sometimes eerie and for me profoundly moving.  We were asked not to applaud during the first half of the concert, neither when Fischer appeared nor at the conclusion of the piece.  That quiet added to the mood.

The second half was Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.  I have heard this piece so many times, both on recordings and live, that I wasn't expecting to be knocked out by it as I was.  I heard things I had not heard before although I am sure they have been there.  For me, that is one of the signs of a good performance:  the discovery of more than I knew was there.  The soloists were uniformly excellent and the chorus was excellent, too.

It was a great evening.  When I got home I got to work making a cake I planned to take to a pot luck the next day.  I knew that it would not cool enough to frost if I made it in the morning.

The neighborhood potluck was very pleasant, attended by interesting people.  I never know who will come to these monthly gatherings and that is part of the fun of it.

In the meantime I have finished weaving the towels you saw underway in the last post.  I have finished, hemmed and washed all of them and ironed about half of them.  When I have ironed them all I will photograph the lot so you can see them, too.  I like them.

I am also working on clearing out some things I don't use to create more space to maneuver.  I will need it because I am going bionic!  On October 10th I am getting a new right knee.  As things are now, the injections that were miraculous for a while have stopped working so that knee hurts all of the time: sitting, standing, lying down, walking, etc.  I am looking forward to being free of that pain.

New towels underway!

Now you can see the color details I referred to in the last post.  The towels are now underway.  When these are finished, they will be for sale like all the others.  I like this one very much.





I am including two photos so you can see the entire towel.  Do you see why I like it?

Laboring on Labor Day weekend

The naturally pigmented cotton cloth is finished, washed and ironed:

I have a favorite, loose-fitting summer top that I will use as a pattern to make a top from this cloth.  I have a sun hat the same color so I should look pretty spiffy.








I have chosen the colors and measured out the warp for the next set of towels.  I have beamed the warp (enough for 13 of them) and threaded more than half the warp.  It's a bit over 20 inches wide ( ~50 cm).  I always look forward to threading my loom because I can sit inside it on a stool that is just the right size (another Jim Hokett creation), listen to a recording of a book (Laura Lippman at the moment) and thread away.  To be honest, I am always a little bit sorry when I get to the end, although then I get to draw the threads through the reed, tie them on and get started making cloth....so there are compensations!

Here is where things are:

What you can't see in this photo are the orange borders of the rose/coral stripes and the blue violet bordered with gray/white marl in the turquoise borders.  You'll see those details later.

I like them already.

Back to work

My duaghter just left.  She lives in Massachusetts and will be flying there in a few days.  She was here for nearly a week during which time I did almost no weaving--as you might imagine.  I don't see her often so we must make the most of time we have, when we have it.

I did take her photo but she was adamant that I not post it and I bow to her wishes.

The cotton cloth is in the end stage at the moment.  I have a special shuttle, made by Jim Hokett, (Hokett Would Working), that is long but made with a very shallow profile especially for weaving the last few inches of the warp.  I think I can squeeze another inch out of this warp which will leave only about 8" unwoven (the depth of the castle, essentially).  I know I will find this shuttle endlessly useful.  You can see it here:

It came with a bobbin, which was fortunate because I use a Shacht double-ended bobbin winder and don't think I could make a quill using it.

Once I have woven this off, I will make some more cotton towels.  I have the colors all picked out.  They will contrast with this almost no-color warp.  (But, remember that once I have washed this cloth there will be a lot of green.)

I'm feeling a bit let down having my daughter go again.  She lives so far away that we don't get to see each other often.

By the way, as it turned out the appointment I made in June for a colonoscopy fell during Susan's visit.  While the prep was miserable (you need to be squeaky clean inside!) the whole procedure was the best experience I have had with any colonoscopy I have ever had (6th).  I grow polyps and need to get them cleared out at intervals and I am good to go for now!  Have you had yours?

Nearly two yards in....

I have woven nearly two yards of the new cotton fabric.  The warp consists of half 12/2 naturally pigmented cotton, here shown in a better picture, washed and unwashed:

The yarn as it comes from the tube is shown on the left.  On the right, you see it after it was simmered in water with washing soda and a little Dawn dishwashing liquid and dried.  The change in color is dramatic.


Magical, isn't it?







The cloth underway on the loom consists of one end of the yarn above and one of a pretty fine but highly refined cotton, a 36/2.  They alternate across the warp and the weft is solely the very fine cotton.   The cloth on the loom looks like this:

I plunked down the little reelings I photographed above so you can see them and get a little sense of the scale of the cloth.  It is fairly open plain weave which when washed will come together to be a little less transparent. 

Sad to say, the 36/2 breaks very easily.  If a couple of threads cling to each other and are struck by the shuttle, that's that and I need to do some mending.  I have done a lot of mending but once the fabric is off the loom and washed thoroughly, none of the mends should show.  I watch ALL the time so that I can catch broken ends and do the mending promptly.

Meanwhile, I am having trouble with my camera.  I can only get one image at a time and then have to fiddle and fiddle.  I think something is wrong with its innards and since it is under warranty, it will be shipped back for factory repairs.  I have a less capable camera I will use in the mean time.  I am grateful that it still works!

Silk washed and ironed and the next thing....

I finished weaving the samples last night and washed and ironed (yes, ironed because I wanted to show off the luster of this lovely silk) the samples today.  Here is how the experiment turned out:

The colors are vibrant and I think you can see the luster of this beautiful silk.   This piece is going off to Redfish Dyeworks as soon as I can get it packed up and addressed. I promised Elf and Sandra a sample and I keep my promises

 When I taught at MAFA in 2009 (Mid-Atlantic Fiber Association conference) I stopped in the A Touch of Twist booth.  While I was looking around I found some naturally pigmented cotton for sale.  They had a 10/2 green and a 12/2 olive (a darker green once washed).  I know that the cotton fiber in the boll is covered with a sort of waxy covering.  Unless you are spinning cotton yourself, that coating is usually removed before the cotton comes to handweavers as yarns.  In the case of the naturally pigmented cottons, no bleaching or dyeing is performed so the yarns come to us with that waxy covering intact.  The color of the yarn once that coating has been removed is very different for these naturally colored cottons.  I particularly like the olive green and decided that I would like a simple cotton top for summer wear.

The cotton, 12/2, woven across itself, even plain weave (which produces the lightest fabric for a given yarn) would be heavier than what I wanted.  I bought a very fine, very refined, cotton (~36/2) some years back.  It is what I would call oyster-colored, a very light, neutral gray and I decided it would be good with the olive color.  The plan is to alternate them in the warp and perhaps use just the fine cotton in the weft or perhaps use two shuttles, on pick of each, alternating.

The little winding on the right is the color on the cone.  The darker color on the left is what the yarn looks like when it has been scoured.  What I did was put some hot water in a little pan along with washing soda and just a little dishwashing liquid.  I simmered the yarn briefly and presto! the color was revealed.  Yes, you can wash the resulting fabric several times to develop the color, but using washing soda isn't harmful to cotton and is the quick way.

On to measure out the warp!

An experiment

It has taken me some time to get my feet under me after IWC.  It isn't clear why it has taken so long but things are under control here and the lawn is freshly cut so I can get back to weaving.  I am rarely away from a loom for more than a day or two on either side of a teaching trip, but not this time.


I got some 20/2 silk from Redfish Dyeworks at IWC and have converted the skeins to cones--tedious job--and finally have the loom dressed and have begun weaving.  I am experimenting with the colors I brought home with me and am not sure yet whether I am sold on what I have begun to weave.  I don't make decisions about the cloth until it is off the loom, washed and pressed.

Here is what I am seeing:

I am weaving it in a two block twill and have almost made it through one complete color repeat. 

We'll see what I think when I have woven all of it and then finished the cloth.  The yarn is very easy to use: it's strong, smooth and lovely to touch.  A couple of the skeins are a little striated, not completely level dyeing.  I don't mind that at all; it simply points out that it was hand-dyed.  And of course, it was.  Elf is good at that!

What do you think?