A MDSW adventure 2 years in the making

Erin standing out front of our former weaving studio.

...It only took two years for the blog to be updated.

In that two years, Erin has been having tons of fun exploring London, new weaving projects, new jobs, and new running adventures.

I've been having tons of fun spinning, knitting, rehabbing my horse, and having new riding adventures.

Unfortunately in fall of 2014, not long after Erin left for London, the Museum at which our Weaving Studio was housed underwent some renovations and our weaving space was no longer safe or appropriate for class. The program has been mothballed pending new space.


In the meanwhile, my big 4 shaft loom is in storage I've inherited a tiny table top 2 shaft loom which is the only way my weaving-urge gets satisfied.

A scarf being woven on my tiny tabletop counterbalance loom. Please ignore the threading error.

Erin's got her 8 shaft Leclerc Minerva with her in London and doing AMAZING things with it (more on that later.)

The amazing collapse weave scarf Erin Wove for me as a gift!!

I've started regularly rescuing wayward antique wheels and refurbishing them and then selling them on to new homes.

Until this past weekend, we haven't seen each other since her jaunt across the pond but we speak almost daily thanks to technology.

Somehow or another the Collins family managed to finagle a trip for Erin back to the States last weekend for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival!!!

We made it through the entire weekend without any photos of us together (WTH?!) but it did happen!

Friday through Sunday we spent the entire weekend with fiber-friends and sheep and wheels and looms galore.

Sunday afternoon we stood and watched the Sheep-to-Shawl competition for a bit and Erin and I are both convinced we could totally win with the help of her fast weaving skills and my super-speedy antique Canadian Production Wheels (CPWs). She's now trying to devise a plan to rent a truck, locate a loom, and figure out how to get all of said accouterments to 2017 MDSW so our (currently imaginary) team can compete.

I shepherded four wheels back home to Tidewater Virginia. Two reproduction Estonian Saxony wheels- one for our beloved LYS owner  - and two antique wheels - a Super-Slanty and a Lateral Treadle.

Post-MDSW. My car packed with 2 antique wheels, 2 moderns, and our fiber-haul. Still room for suitcases and snacks. If you're thinking about buying a Scion, they have AMAZING storage capacity in the hatch!!
(Please disregard the remnants of hay bales. I didn't have time to vacuum the hatch. FYI you can fit 4 bales into a Scion) 

Sadly the lateral treadle has suffered greatly at the teeth of wood-worm. There are a few usable parts. But the future of this particular old gal will be as a pattern while I try my overly enthusiastic hand at wheel-making. The metal pieces will be reused in whatever wheel I create so they won't go to waste.

*shrug* Worst case scenario, I have really pretty fire-wood. Best case scenario, I end up with something that might actually spin! Either way, it will be a fun project and I'll learn something about myself and about the craft.

Hazel with her coned-yarn score from the
stash in the back of my car.

ITW "Odds and Ends" which I bought but
ended up going to London with Erin. 

I spent almost all of my MDSW fiber budget at the "Into the Whirled" booth. They're my absolute favorite fiber vendor / indie dyer and just all around nice folks.  They're products never fail to amaze me with consistent quality and color.

Almost every project I've made (spun, woven or knit) in the last year has had ITW fiber in it and I have zero regrets.

I also bought a beautiful wooden stick-shuttle to use on my table-top loom. The graining in the wood is delicious and the feel of the shuttle in my hand is perfect!

Erin and Hazel both got sent home with a ton of fiber from my stash so they could each weave something lovely.

This year's MDSW trip also included a visit from our dear friend Cathy who heads our Sister Guild in Nova Scotia. (Notes about All Things Canadian will be saved for another day.) Cathy and her partner in crime, Gillian, were down in the US at the same time as MDSW and after much cajoling, I convinced her to drive down for a day or two and join us in wool-land! I hope they had as much fun as we did.  They were both a delight and such wonderful folks.

Note: If you need a loom, go to Canada. They give them away. (Hopefully Cathy can blog about the resale value of looms in the US vs Nova Scotia.)

And HEY!!! PAY ATTENTION! Our amazing Erin won a pretty Ribbon in the MDSW Skein and Garment Competition!

Erin with her 2nd place ribbon at MDSW 2016. 

The same beautiful Collapse Weave scarf she wove for me as a gift won Second Place at MDSW and the judge said it was the best example of Collapse Weave she had ever seen. AMAZING!! I'm so honored to have learned from this wonderful weaver. 

Erin, can you tell us more about Collapse Weave and the project in general?  

It was absolutely a wonderful weekend though all together too short. Our time with each other is so precious now that we're so far away and I'm thankful for the jet-lag-inducing trip she took just for some fiber time (and friend time!) and to grace US soil again.

Come home soon, Erin! We've missed you!

Fair Winds...

It started with a driveband and the want of a lighter.

July 2011, I was at a fiber meetup at a local yarn store. And the poly drive band on my then-wheel decided to snap. Of course, as a non-smoker, I didn't have a lighter and neither did anyone in the group.

As my disappointment at a spinning-day cut short became evident, a voice from my left piped up with "I can totally fix that."

And this bubbly stranger with beautifully salted hair scooted over, tied cotton string on my wheel for a drive band and then mentally thought through other tactics when the cotton string didn't quite solve the problem.

There was a look on her face that I would grow to know well over the years; the "I'm too stubborn to let this win" face. ((I have my own version which she can easily identify.))

We didn't solve the drive-band issue that day, but we did end up pissing off the owner of the LYS due to a spilled coffee tumbler (a whole different story!)  and as I packed up the car, Erin bravely asked me to join her and a mutual friend on a road trip to a Fiber Festival.  My first fiber festival? Heck yeah!  So plans were made.

Somewhere between that invite and our road trip, Erin ordered a loom and taught herself to weave. I remember her telling us this at the Fiber Festival. She showed us the scarf she bought as an inspiration piece; and I rolled my eyes so hard my brain hurt.

You taught yourself to what? You bought a what???

But damned if she didn't do it. No doubt, she devoured every single book, web article and online video she could.  And she managed to produce some of her most beautiful wovens to-date on that loom.


In May of 2012, a friend asked me to demo spinning and fiber prep at a local teeny tiny Ren Faire.

When I asked Erin, her reply was "I don't do Ren Faires."

But with a little pushiness on my part, her tune changed and our Ren Faire tradition was born.

Pictured above with her rigid heddle loom, weaving the scarf that EVERYONE still drools over. I'm spinning some Cotswold on Erin's Nees wheel, and our friend Stephanie on her Kromski. 

It was one utterly gorgeous orange, red and yellow tartan scarf that made my brain finally scream "I want to do that!" (while simultaneously trying to figure out a way to Bogart the scarf.)

So I started scouring the internet for cheap rigid heddle looms. My budget was beyond tight and somehow I managed to buy not just one, not just two, but three rigid heddle looms which were completely and utterly useless when assembled.  I finally scored a deal; an older loom which was a twin of Erin's, but in dire need of some TLC.

And that's how my weaving journey began. My first project? A pair of mostly-cotton placemats for some friends of mine.  With random cotton yarns from Tuesday morning and some donated silk remnants from our friend Stephanie, my hodge-podge of weaving took shape.

I still remember the "What the hell is wrong with you?" Look Erin gave me when I told her I wanted to do plaid and no, I didn't find multiple colors to be intimidating for my first project.

I got used to that look. ;-) 

And since I always think things are less challenging than they really are, what was my next project which also garnered the "What the hell is wrong with you?" look?

A twelve yard warp.  Yep. You got it. 12 yards.

It was, as Erin says, a challenge.

Lesson 1. We ran out of packing paper. That crap is important. The amount of tension related issues due to this one oversight - I cannot even tell you.

Dec 16, 2012. I MADE FABRIC!

Lesson 2. Twelve yards of warp is a pain in the ass to beam. Period.

Lesson 3. Your 2nd real weaving project should probably not be "Teach yourself and your teacher how to do overshot." Although, to be fair, I kinda did rock at that. 

Lesson 4: (And this one is a repeat-occurrence that neither one of us has yet to master) Count your friggin heddles.  I am now the self-proclaimed master at string heddles. This one project, my second project, is why, folks. Because I'm stupid and didn't count my damned heddles. I think I tied 100 on one shaft alone. No joke.

Between the two of us, we learned overshot. And Erin provided encouragement and support when I got burned out and decided to change my threading half-way through the project and weave waffle-weave towels.

She honed her teaching chops on me that month. And only she will understand the agony and delight that was The Twelve Yard Warp.

We were invited by a mutual friend to sell our fibery wares at the Hermitage Museum's Holiday event. So we set up a little booth. I packed my wheel, Erin her loom, lots of fiber and finished goods, and photos were snapped and published. It was Erin's sunny smile from behind her loom which prompted a donation of looms to the Hermitage and the birth of the Weaving program and our very own "fiber studio."

Another Ren Faire was attended. I spun. Erin wove. (Again: Duh) We camped. I froze. Erin brought her own personal sleeping-bag warmer in the form of Sarah the Vintage Dog. Sarah developed a fan club.

My favorite moment was here:

Get used to it, Collins. You're just awesome
. I have photographic evidence. :-P 

This is Erin standing at her loom providing patient, kind, steady instruction to a severely autistic teen who found peace and success behind Erin's loom.

The pattern and rhythm, the structure and logic, and the instant gratification provided by weaving struck a cord with this young lady that her large family had never witnessed before.

She took instruction, she listened and was not destructive, she sat in one place for extended periods of time, she focused.

Erin, who is a self-proclaimed introvert, who says she's not so great at teaching folks, who is not always confident about her interactions with folks with disabilities... Erin changed this girl's weekend.

In Octobers, Maker Faires were attended. We brought looms, wheels, fibers, hand carders, knitting needles, crochet hooks, nalbinding, and knowledge and caffeine.  No matter how hard we prepared each year, we were utterly exhausted, sporting swollen feet, and barely able to speak due to our raw voices.  

Our most recent maker faire allowed us the opportunity to invite our weaving students to a 'field trip' where they wove at the faire in public. They answered questions and demo'd their skills and made Erin and I so unbelievably proud.

Having a full team of fiber artists was such a different feeling than our very first fiber-demo at that very first Ren Faire. It was amazing to know that we had participated in fueling our student's love of fiber-arts.

In the fall, we started a new adventure, trying to get our 8 week weaving classes down to a 2 week project. We made it work and successfully cranked through several 2-week sessions before the holidays. 

And somewhere around there, Erin dropped the bomb that her family had received an amazing opportunity to move to London for 2 years. 

Being who I am, I got angry. She was leaving me. My friend was abandoning me to go off with some stupid boy (read: her husband) to another COUNTRY!? This was massively uncool.

((Eh. To be perfectly honest, I'm still not entirely over that feeling.))

The opportunity for the Collins clan was too good to pass up and decisions and preparations had been made. This was going to happen. When I saw Erin for the first time after getting the news, I saw the "OMG" on her face and realized my role was to be as supportive as I could muster (which often times was 'not at all!').   No matter how much I tried, my friend was still leaving. LEAVING. This was still very much "Not Ok." I'm positive I didn't hide that well. And I make no apologies for that - it was the way I could show her how she'd be missed since I don't do sappy too well (this post aside.) 

We wrapped up our final joint weaving class just a few weeks ago. It was the perfect weaving class at the perfect time. Our students were all repeat customers and Erin and I were lucky enough to spend the eight week session with students we thoroughly enjoy, projects we loved, and alot of time to relax and chat- which we both sorely needed considering the big changes ahead.

Last Wednesday I had a wonderful dinner with the Collins clan, inherited some goodies from their house due to their down sizing, and got a giant hug from a teary Erin. (I didn't get misty till I was driving down her street. Shh. Don't tell.) 

So, it is with utter sincerity that I offer my deepest thanks to my drive band.

Thank you for breaking that day.

Thank you for giving that woman with the beautifully salted hair the chance to pop out of her seat, spill a coffee tumbler, and try to fix my wheel. Thank you for giving her a reason to help me load stuff in my car and poke at my introvert boundaries by inviting me, a stranger, on a road trip.

A really long friendship was birthed that day. Right there. In the parking lot of that LYS. Thanks for being brave enough to make the first step, Erin. As a strong introvert, I never would have. And it would have been my loss. 

While the Collins clan indicates that their overseas adventure may extend past their original two-year-plan, I refuse to allow that to be a possibility.

She'll be back in two years. And then it will be my turn to go on a big adventure while she holds down the weaving fort.

In the meanwhile, I'll keep the class going as long as I can. I promise to try not to punch students. I promise to try to not trade all the looms for antique wheels; it'll be hard, but I'll make the effort.

The guild is still alive and well, of course. We are just now weaving a bit further away from each other. Though I can happily wind her warps and mail them, we've yet to figure out how she will beam my warp while in the UK.

We should expect to lots of photos and blog updates over the next few weeks as Erin goes on fiber-y adventures in London. She's keeping us abreast of this part of her weaving journey and I can't wait to see what she discovers!!


So, fair winds and following seas to my dear friend(s) as they start their new journey across the pond.

Its been an honor and a pleasure and lots of giggles.

See you in two years. :) 

The New Kids on the Block!

Its been a crazy-busy few weeks for us in the Loom Lounge - but at this point, that seems to be the State of the Union for Erin and I in 2013.  I'm loving it and being this busy has me sleeping really well at night.


As Erin mentioned, we spent Memorial day weekend on a whirlwind road trip all the way up to PA and then back in 24 hours.

On the way up, we got to visit the Mannings Studio  where in my nerdy way, I felt compelled to hug a giant antique barn loom.

The loom was from between 1800 and 1830 and had about 99% of its original pieces still intact and functional. The reed had been replaced as well as a few of the joining pegs. But considering our modern looms lose parts like kids lose teeth, I think that this loom's condition continues to impress upon me the value of antiques and quality craftsmanship.

Obviously if a 180 year old loom is still going strong, those guys knew what they were doing.

My new loom (currently dubbed "Niles") is a 4 harness 6 treadle Nilus by LeClerc with a 36inch weaving width.

(That's Erin in the corner. She's reading the instructions for her new loom, a giant Macomber Loom --currently dubbed "Mac" or "May" depending on how cheeky we're being.)

On the floor in front of my loom you see several cones of cotton. I ordered cotton directly from Supreme down in NC - great customer service and phenomenal pricing and shipping times.

These aren't quite the colors I expected so - lesson learned: Buy a color card. Its worth the $10. :-/ However that did not stop me from winding a warp and beaming some towels.  I'm using a draft which is similar to a honeycomb. Its from the 7th or 8th Century and was found by historians/archaeologists near York England. Historically, these would have been made from linen instead of the cotton I'm using. I love the tie to history in these towels. This is a 4 yard warp. Some of these towels will be gifted as a wedding gift to a childhood friend. The rest I will sell.


Erin's new loom is pretty bad-ass.

She currently has 4 harnesses on the loom, but it is expandable up to 12 harnesses. The thing is massive and heavy. By the time we rolled up to the driveway at 2 am, I barely was able to haul MYSELF up the stairs to her house, so carrying her loom up was nearly impossible.

I'm still not sure how we would have gotten it into Erin's house had her hubby not been home and kind enough to help us. YEAH for Kent!

I am sad to say, however, that I failed in my friend-duties and didn't get a photo of  Mac. I did, however, get a great photo of her sleying her new loom with it's first project :)

And here's Erin's rescued and rehabbed older loom, BamBam. She's currently beamed with an overshot warp we're using as samples for our Fall teaching course. Erin's beamed with 5/2 cotton and using sock-yarn as weft. This was a really cool test weave for her as she had an "Ah Ha!" moment when the overshot just didn't look right to her. After some reading, she found out that the pattern weft (sock yarn) was just not the right weight. She ended up doing a little stash-busting to double-up her threads and the problem was solved.

We're going to wind a second of these warps to test the 8/2 cotton with sock yarn as pattern weft and see if that's a better fit for our class. :) Here's hoping!

And since I'd like to prove that I DO, In Fact, Spin:

This is a photo of the bobbin on my Canadian Production Wheel, Millie. I'm spinning white Shetland (with grey tips) from the lock. The locks are scoured, but I'm not even flick carding them open. I'm getting a semi woolen spin and its just sooo pretty. :)  I've since plied this into a 2 ply - hopefully photos to come. This yarn is not yet destined for anything in particular.

While on our road-trip, I convinced Erin to pull over at a local antique mall called Old Sled Works . It was a good place to stretch our legs, but would have been more fun if we weren't on such a time crunch.

Erin picked up a hand woven table runner.

And I saw this lovely tag:

The tag read "Old Loom $400."  I walked away laughing so loudly, Erin came over to inspect my mental health.  *Sigh* Muggles. :-/

The store was cool, though. They did have a corner in the back set up with a neat old fashioned soda fountain which was, sadly, closed.


So that's pretty much the state of the union around here.

Our Spring class is winding down -our students have done wonderfully and we'll say goodbye to them in just 2 days! But we've got some weaving demos and workshops this summer to keep us busy and in the teaching mindset.

I'll be participating in the Tour de Fleece here in just a few weeks. I hope to stash bust some of my embarrassing amount of Fiber.

And, meanwhile, Erin and I have enough projects to keep the looms going non stop. Darned that work and spinning and knitting getting in the way!!

Adventures in Teaching

The last few weeks has been incredibly busy for Erin and I. As Erin mentioned, we've been teaching a weaving class at The Hermitage Museum in Norfolk with class meeting several throughout the week. And of course we're also trying to find times to do the silly things in life. Like work full time. And maybe spin. Or knit. Silly us! There's only 24 hours in the day!

*phew* I know that I'm on project overload - but secretly I'm loving every minute of it.

Our students have made real progress on their projects! In this course, students are weaving a tencel twill scarf; they've been able to select their own twill pattern as well as their own colors. The options were seemingly endless for how their projects could turn out.

We have 6 students in class, and experience levels from "What's a loom" to "I wove in college 20 years ago" to "I own a loom but have no idea how to use it."  Keeping everyone on the same timeline has been an interesting task! To me, somedays it feels like herding cats but most days, everything comes together and the class goes very smoothly. Its a joy to watch the students so eager about their work and to watch those weaving 'lightbulb' moments go off!

As Erin mentioned, we've geared up for continuing our weaving courses.

This summer we're very excited to offer a Weekend Rag Rug Workshop. (Say that 3 times fast! Eek!) which is really our secret plan to infect everyone with the Weaving bug.  I am hopeful that we have enough applicants that we can offer this workshop on 2 different weekends this summer.

Here's my first rag rug made from jeans and cotton rug-warp. Its lumpy bumpy and uneven. Why? Well,  because it is a design element, of course!

No?
Don't buy that?
Ok. Fine.
The reality is that its lumpy because I knotted the denim strips together instead of sewing them because I was too lazy to get the sewing machine out.
And its uneven because I just couldn't be bothered to measure out the fabric so that every strip was exactly the same width.

But, being 100% honest, I still love the darned thing. In all its lumpy uneven goodness. Its squishy beneath your feet, nice and thick from the denim, and was an incredibly quick weave. I think once I started weaving, total weave-time was less than an hour. Warping and beaming took maybe an hour in total.

We'll also have a Dye-lab this summer, where participants will be able to dye some sock yarn using food safe dyes (my personal dye-method!)  The neat part is that this custom-dyed sock yarn will be used as weft in the Fall weaving course: an Overshot project.

I've got some yarn in the dye pot now which is some of our sample yarn as we test our lesson plans for the Overshot project. (And might I say Kudos to Erin for her awesome lesson planning. She's got a knack.)

I have no pictures of current weaving for me. My loom is currently being used as a class-loom so it is warped with a student's project.  My most recent weaves are all gifts for other folks - something I love to do. :) 

And Erin's Minerva loom is currently housing some amazing towels that I will let her tell you all about in the next post. (Trust me. They're a story of her incredible passion for doing this whole fiber-addiction as a true art, not just a passing whim which is more my M.O.)

One of the things I'm enjoying most about this teaching experience is learning the different teaching styles of different people. As a riding instructor, most of my teaching work has been in a solitary environment - meaning I was the only instructor in the riding ring. I didn't have to debrief after lessons, or confer on methodology. But in our weaving studio, we are sharing students, space, looms, lesson plans, etc, and really bouncing off of each other's strengths and weaknesses. This is a new and educational experience for me.

I feel incredibly lucky to be working with someone I admire. I'm not only learning from Erin's weaving expertise and passion, I'm also learning about myself - both as an artist and as an instructor.

Its a really enlightening experience and I'm incredibly thankful for the opportunity.

Great Towel Warp of 2012

There are things in life that I'm afraid to try for fear of failure. 

Oddly, when I sat down to weave for the first time, I did not have that fear. I approached it with a general attitude of "Eh. It will work, or it won't. Let's try." And so far, with the exception of one project, that attitude has maintained throughout my weaving education.

Its something Erin and I continue to giggle at. She is very structured - I am not. We both absorb a little of the other's attitude; I'm a little more structured and picky, she's a little more "who cares."
I love how we've both slid to a more centered view of life and fiber-art. Its lovely to find that friend that helps to balance you out.

After Thanksgiving, I came home from the holiday and wound a 12 yard warp - known in my mind as "the epic warp" - of 8/2 cotton and started making towels.

This is the same project that required about 2 million string heddles because I'm an idiot and didn't count heddles.  (PS: I'm now an EXPERT at string heddles.)

It became 1/2 overshot towels and 1/2 waffle weave towels - the unintentional split was due to my boredom and frustration. I think I have a 6 yard limit per project.



This is the first 1/2 of the towels before I rethreaded for waffle weave. Erin was kind enough to snap a photo after I did my "OMG I MADE FABRIC" dance of dorky joy. I had lots of fun playing with colors and learning overshot. There's also a towel in there that is cotton and linen weft, which I'm sorely tempted to keep for myself because its just yummy.

The remaining yardage of warp was used for Waffle Weave towels.



The red white and blue towel and the yellow towel became x-mas gifts for mom. My sister received a Red/Black overshot towel and a white/Black overshot towel, while my brother in law received the butt-ugly blue/orange overshot towel in honor of his beloved Miami Dolphins.

Nothing against the Dolphins specifically, however after weaving that atrocious towel in those particular colors, I am a firm believer that a design consultant should be hired by the NFL before team colors are selected. 


So that's the great towel warp of 2012 and how it ended up.

All towels got finished. The warp got used - every bit of the 12 yards!

The remaining woven Xmas Gifts need more pictures before they should be mentioned in a blog. So pics and details to follow.

I'm so pleased with the towels. They are not error free. They are not perfect by any means. There are "oopsies" in each one. But I'm still proud of them. One towel contains some of my handspun cotton. The rest are fun colorful experiments of "this yarn looks good with that yarn." And they all are just plain neat.

Weaving is not 'hard' in that I do not feel I need a degree in applied physics to attempt it. But it is entirely different from spinning. Or knitting. Or crocheting. Or any of the other arts I've tried. Without Erin's patient help -and copious reference library and book addiction - I would have given up and walked away.

I'm glad Erin stuck it out with me. I'm glad I powered through the 12 yard warp. I'm glad I had several hand made gifts to give this year. And I'm really glad I didn't approaching weaving with a fear of failure. :)

Stubborn? Moi?

A few weeks ago I (Kerry) started to warp out what I am told is a very ambitious project - especially considering it is only my second attempt at weaving.

I decided that I was going to weave towels and hopefully gift a few for the winter holidays. And hopefully sell a few at some craft shows or on Etsy.

I did some mental polling and determined that I am, in fact, too lazy to do multiple warps to achieve a high volume of towels. What does that mean? If I want 10 towels, I'm only doing 1 warp, not 2 different ones. I am truly that lazy about this sort of thing.

So I then did the math and learned that 10 or 11 towels required about 12 yards of warp. So I began winding warp! And Winding. And Winding. And Winding. I managed to wrench my shoulder from so much winding. And got a kink in my neck until I fixed where the warping board was. Lots of winding = lots of learning.

We had a Loom Lounge day earlier this week and I started to sley my reed with all of this natural 8/2 cotton warp. The sley was 2-2-1 pattern which went very quickly and used up almost every dent on the reed, save a few on one side. I had a few bits of warp left over that didn't quite fit and they got set aside.

Yesterday (Saturday) I began to thread the heddles.

Being the lazy and often carefree crafter that I am, I didn't count a single heddle before weaving. So when Erin turned around about 1/3 of the way into my threading and said "Did you count your heddles?" I looked at her, scoffed/snorted, and replied with an amused "No."

I mean, why would I count my heddles? What in the world would prompt me to do such a thing? There were plenty for my LAST project. Why wouldn't there be plenty for THIS project? (For inquiring minds: the answer to follow in a later blog post.)

What a stupid question, Erin! It'll be fine! Thought I.

... yeah.

This post is renamed The Blog Post in Which Kerry Eats Crow. :(

Today please learn one thing. Learn to count your heddles.

For serious.

I got about 2/3 of the way through the threading and promptly ran out of heddles on shaft 1.

Erin was right. (As per usual.)

So with some Googling and YouTubing, I quickly learned the art of making string heddles. My understanding is that these hand tied heddles are traditionally used in an emergency repair situation where perhaps you've made a threading mistake and you do not want to un-thread 30 inches of warp for one string.

A special thank you to this particular video and this particular video which give two methods for creating string heddles.

Being my stubborn self, however, I was determined to not un-thread the warp and lose 2 days worth of work. I was determined to make this work. And if I had to tie on heddles, that's what I'd do.
I cannot afford to buy new heddles right this minute. And I couldn't wait on delivery time anyway. So I tied. And Tied. And Tied.
At the end of the warp, I must have tied 100 string heddles. It felt like I tied one thousand.

But the warp is on. And I tied it onto the back beam without any help. and I began winding without any help.

And then a thread broke.

And I ALMOST had a melt-down.

Erin was lovely enough to pause in her warp-winding to intervene and prevent the Great-Flood-O-Tears. She re-attached my thread, fluffed the warp, let me wind a bit while she found a good pausing point in her warp.

And she sat for all the remaining 11 yards. And she helped me wind that danged 12 yard warp onto my loom. And she laughed while I cussed and offered pointers for next time, and praised my ambition of a 12 yard warp.

The end of the night went a little longer than we both planned, but the end result is the warp is on the loom.

Let the Choir Sing! Hallelujah!

Tomorrow afternoon I will tie onto the front beam and then give a few test passes.

My greatest fear is that the hand-tied string heddles will not function correctly and that all of that work will have to be chalked up to 'practice.' (A four-letter-word in my book.)

November News! Equipment, Projects, Hurricanes, OH MY!

November is giving us a small but appreciated respite from our demos and educational events. Even though our December events are creeping up on us, this is a nice month to catch our breath and regroup. We're taking advantage of the time and catching up with some much needed Guild related administration, equipment purchasing/cataloging, library expansion, and (of course) meetings!

New Loom!!

Last week, I (Kerry) rescued a loom from a nearby weaver who was down sizing. The loom is a LeClerc Minerva. She had a coat of mildew on her, some nastily rusted/warped harnesses, and in general need of some serious time at a spa.

Erin, our resident Weave-expert has been heading up the loom-rehab program.

The reed was quite rusty and needed some TLC, which Erin provided. A Dawn/Vinegar solution helped polish the metal and remove any gunk that had built up over the years. We had an impromptu guild-night on Friday and, with the help of our friend (and guild-member) Stephanie, we straightened the badly warped harnesses and removed any far-gone heddles and prepared the loom for warping.

One harness did not survive and Erin was generous enough to loan a harness until I can make arrangements to purchase one. Heddles are all working - though they will need to be replaced in the future as some are rather bent and disagreeable.

The castle is a bit warped and I will have to contact LeClerc (or a supplier) to get some must-haves for this loom. But all in all, it was a nominal price for a loom which, after a bit of TLC and a few new parts, will be in full working condition.

While this a piece of personal equipment, this loom will be one of our guild's teaching-looms.

Donated Equipment and Supplies: 
Stephanie kindly donated a lovely Schacht warping board and some cone yarn. Both of which promptly got put to use. Thank you, Stephanie!

The Guild received via donation several vintage square knitting looms and a stick-shuttle.

Also, we were able to add three new books to our weaving library. (Library list to follow at a later date.)

Kerry's Project:

On Friday, I headed to Tuesday Morning and found some super cool Flecked Cotton cone yarn for a great price and also some fun complimentary colors. I snapped them up and when we finished with Loom-Surgery, I started counting my warp. I envisioned a pretty plaid with the colors I had purchased and Stephanie's cone-yarn donation allowed me to expand my color selection even further. I warped out 170 ends at 4 yards per and the goal is 2 placemats.

Saturday brought about Thai food and getting the loom warped. The reed was sleyed and heddles threaded with only minimal cross-overs (etc) on my part. Erin said I didn't mess up too badly for my first attempt at threading heddles.  I am doing a twill pattern so it was a very simple tie up and threading - I'm thankful of that for my first project!

Despite the late hour, we did get some weaving done and both of us were quite pleased with how pretty the fabric was.

Sunday was a bit more weaving and some education. I love being able to ask our Guild's Weave-Master (that'd be Erin!) all sorts of questions as I try to understand the "why and how" of what I'm doing in each process along the way.

The fabric is coming out beautifully and I'm SO excited about the plaid that's developing.

Public Service Announcement: Weaving is highly addictive. I'm already planning out my project. I believe my knitting is going to feel quite neglected!

Erin's Project(s): 

This weekend Erin finished a lovely mixed-fiber table runner sampler. It was a gorgeous use of her stash-fibers and she got a chance to work on barberpole plying fibers and then using those in her weaving. She learned that weaving was a really good use for barber-poled yarns as it allowed the colors and fibers to show off in a different way than knitting or crocheting would

When that project was done and sufficiently ooh'd and ahh'd over, she began counting her warp for her current project: some waffle-weave dish towels in vibrant and beautiful blue shades of cotton.

I believe this is a kit from Halcyon yarns and the colors are just amazing.

Her reed is about 3/4 sleyed at this point and there could be weaving by the end of the night! GO ERIN!

Sandy:
Yes, there was a hurricane. Sandy came and she rained.
Tidewater flooded (as per usual) and there was a run on toilet paper, bottled water, bread, and milk.

No wheels or looms were harmed during our Hurricane encounter. (Thank goodness)

And, while we were lucky and fared well, we know that our fellow spinners/weavers in New England perhaps were not so lucky. Our thoughts are with them during this time as they work to get their communities, lives, and fiber-arts back on track after the devastating storm.