sweetgeorgia

Nefertiti Wrap

Back in January, I had the delight and pleasure of meeting Miriam Felton, designer of the lovely Icarus shawl from Interweave. She told me that after TNNA she was going to embark on turning her knit design endeavours into her full time livelihood. I was so inspired and encouraged to hear this and wished her well. So when I got back from TNNA, I pinged her on Ravelry and said that I’d like to send her some yarn… see if she’d like something to play with. I ended up sending her a few skeins of CashSilk Lace and she ended up making this…

It’s called the Nefertiti Wrap and takes about 2 skeins of CashSilk Lace. I do love the diagonal design to it… and also how it’s not a single lace pattern throughout. One lace patterns flows and melds into the next. Very very lovely.

I’m thinking about Nefertiti this afternoon as I collect my things and thoughts, on my way to speaking tonight for the Coquitlam Weavers & Spinners Guild. Public speaking always makes me intensely nervous, so I hope I don’t lose my voice, insult anyone, or make any other major gaffs… I’ll be talking about natural dyeing among other things. We’re starting at about 7 pm at Place des Arts. Fingers crossed that everything goes well. Yay.

Weaving and stilettos

Waaaaay back in June, Irene took this photo of me weaving on my blanket at Place des Arts and I just got a copy of the photo today. Stilettos and floor looms… I can’t imagine it any other way

my bags are full

Vancouver has a new yarn store, hurrah! Yes, we went to the grand opening at three bags full on Saturday morning… see the view:

The shop opening was packed with friendly knitters, flipping through pattern books and scrummy yarns while snacking on the cutest little cupcakes. There’s a computer terminal set up near the back of the shop where you can look up knitty.com and double-check yarn requirements… so handy. I bumped into fellow weaver, Barb, as well as Astor, the local knit & crochet instructor and knitwear designer.

Oh oh oh, and I bought myself Norah Gaughan’s new book “Knitting Nature”. So many things I want to make now…

Afterwards, we headed over to Nat Bailey Stadium for a friend’s company picnic/BBQ. With over 700 people at this picnic, there were plenty of activities planned from wallclimbing to bocce to… get this… _human foosball!_

You strap yourself into this velcro belt which doesn’t allow you to move from your “post”… so it really is just like foosball!!

Ok, back to fibre. Via Louisa’s blog I found out that Hannelore from Sun Bench Fibres is retiring and she sold all her inventory to Birkeland Bros on Main Street. So, if you go by Birkeland Bros right now you’ll find some weaving yarn, yummy Ashland Bay spinning fibres, and some weaving/spinning/knitting books. I don’t know if Birkeland is going to keep on with supplying weaving stuff, but it would be wonderful… to have a walk-in shop in Vancouver where we could buy weaving yarn and shuttles, rather than having to order everything by mail-order. Bah. Oooh, someplace like my beloved Weaving Works but in Vancouver.

And speaking of weaving, I’ve decided not to take the fall weaving class at Place des Arts for now. I’m so short on time these days and plus I’ll be missing nearly half the classes because of our upcoming trip to China and Japan. It’s two hours of driving from Kits to Coquitlam and back and that’s time that I could plug into doing actual weaving. I already have several projects planned and several warps ready to go… I just need the time to sit and weave. But to make sure that actual weaving occurs, I’m going to designate one night to weaving (or knitting, or spinning) — no work, no email, no television, no interruptions.

Once I get through these plain weave, twill, and log cabin projects, I’m sure I’ll want to learn something new. Maybe I can sign up for class in January… but that’s a long way off. But if you can take classes at Place des Arts, you should — it’s really the very best place in the Lower Mainland to learn to weave. The facility is incredible and I’m always so grateful for their generosity in lending equipment and resources — so essential to learning and practice.

Not my loom.

Ok, so the ultimate irony is that on the day that I got _my_ loom I actually drove an hour (each way) to use the _other_ loom at Place des Arts.

Yep. Weaving class is officially over but I missed a couple classes because of my dad’s exhibition and going to Vegas… so I’m a little behind and haven’t finished the [Great Big Green Blanket (GBGB)](http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/2006/05/the_great_big_green_blanket/). Last night, I spent about two hours in the Fibre Room working on the blanket…

After about two hours, I found myself relatively comfortable with using the massive ski shuttle that I had originally found a little unwieldy. It really was the best solution though. I had tried using a boat shuttle and it just wouldn’t hold very much weft — and winding bobbins is significantly less fun than throwing the shuttle.

I also changed the tie up under the loom so that I could “walk” the loom. Basically all this is is tying the shafts to the treadles in a sequence that allows your feet to alternate (like you are walking). For example, my pattern is 12, 23, 34, 41. If the treadles are tied up in that order, I press treadle 12 with my left foot then treadle 23 with my right foot. _Then_ I need to scoot over or cross over with my left foot so that I can treadle 34. That’s stupid. So, I changed the treadles so that they are ordered like this: 12, 34, 23, 41. That way, I go 12 with the left, 23 with the right, 34 with the left and 41 with the right and I never really need to change my position. You could also order it like this: 12, 34, 41, 23 so that you walk the two outside treadles and then the two inside treadles. Whatever you fancy. It seems to speed things up considerably or at least make treadling less awkward…

All I needed was maybe one more hour to finish weaving off the entire blanket, doing a little hemstitching and then cutting the blanket off the loom. Just one more hour! I’m _delighted_ at how fast it is going. _This_ is instant gratification, people. _Instant_.

The Great Big Green Blanket Project

A couple weeks ago, I dyed a giant skein of brushed adult mohair (980 ypp) in shades of robin’s egg blue, pale turquoise, pale greens and chartreuse. I left it sitting out in the living room, trying to decide what to do with it — my living room is a [warm, apple green](http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/2004/12/painted_house/) colour and it wouldn’t match, really. But Michelle was over and really liked it, so I offered to weave her a blanket. Her living room is a cool, pale green colour with super dark chocolate brown furniture, so a big, fluffy green blanket would be perfect for keeping warm while knitting during the fall or winter months.

Now that my fuschia silk scarf is nearly done, I started warping for this blanket. The warp is [Briggs & Little](http://www.briggsandlittle.com/wool/default.htm) [Regal](http://www.briggsandlittle.com/wool/products.asp?id=yarn&PROD=4003), a soft and cushy 2-ply wool from New Brunswick. This is their “Bleached White” colour that I’m going to dye to match the mohair. The colour samples are from a binder I borrowed from Place des Arts. The binder is full of Kiton Acid dye formulas and samples — the closest thing to the WashFast Acid dyes I’ll be using. I don’t expect the results to be dead on, but it’s nice to have a rough guide.

I got to use a warping mill during class last night. Very fun and much faster than a warping board. The warp is approximately 450 ends and 3 yards long. It will go on one of the 45″ Leclerc looms (must be a Nilus?) at the school. I prepared the warp in five groups — 75, 75, 90, 90, and 120 ends each. This way, I can dye each bundle a slightly different shade… some pale green, some pale turquoise, etc.

Hopefully this won’t be overkill — handpainted weft in mohair, solid dyed wide stripes for warp, and plain weave throughout (10 epi). Either way, I’m very excited as this will be my first time using the big floor loom…