What's on the Looms?

As of late last night I have the studio put back together.  The trailer has been unloaded and everything is back in it's place.  Well actually, in it's new place because I rearranged again.  I have made room for all the fiber that's up on the website.  No sense hiding it all in the loft when it will need to mailed out to a happy customer on a moments notice.  Moving the furniture around is almost a loosing battle.  If I just had another 5 feet of building width it would all fit... but I digress....

Peggy had a great time at the SWIC retreat earlier this month.  SWIC stands for the Spinners and Weavers of Imperial Calcasieu and it consists of a group of crazy ladies that we truly love.  They are accomplished spinners and weavers and an absolute hoot to spend time with.  This year Peggy dragged her husband along to help with the driving since I wasn't available to go.  From what I hear, a grand time was had by all.  I'm really sorry I missed it.

We have a fairly long time until our next show.  We are going to attend the Christmas in July show held in the outskirts of Tulsa in July but the next time we will be vendors isn't till this fall.  What a glorious space of time to spin and weave.  I love the shows but I love being at home at the looms even more.

I'm working on warping the Gilmore loom with the second run of fabric for my curtains.  I did 15 yards a while back and that got me started but I still have some horrible cheap lace curtains that I want to replace.  I was worried about how long it would take to get back to the curtain fabric so I bought some commercially made curtains for the front windows and the living room windows.  I like the curtains but really want to make my own so the second run.  I have all the warp wound onto the back beam and half of it threaded through the heddles.  It will take me at least one more day to get it ready to weave.

The baby Macomber loom has the same linen warp as it's had low these many months.  I had to refine the sett a couple of times to get the right texture but now that it's looking good I can't seem to get myself to weave it.  This is the loom that I loved when I bought it but it's turned out to be less useful than I thought it would be.  I like weaving on the Schacht Baby Wolf so much more.  The linen tea towels will be wonderful - I just need to get them woven!  Look for the loom to arrive on the website soon as it's for sale.

The Saori loom always makes me smile - it's simplicity and elegance are enticing.  Right now it's holding what will be a lovely scarf in sienna and cream with some gold sparkle.  This has been on the loom a while and I already have the next fun shawl designed so I need to get this one woven off.

The plan for the Baby Wolf loom was linen face cloths.  I had some hand spun hemp and linen to use as weft and adapted the pattern from one for kitchen towels in Favorite Scandinavian Projects to Weave by Tina Ignell.  The pattern is really cool because it has a center stripe that includes a woven-in loop.  I wove the first couple of face cloths and took them off the loom to test them out.  Well, rats.  They were so thick and heavy that they would make great hot pads.  So much so that I tried out the heaviest of my cloths and they worked great at hot pads.  The thinnest of the cloths does work as a face cloth so they are OK.  I think the next move is to widen out the sett so the cloth is more supple and better for a face cloth.  This is why we sample!

The Schacht Flip has a wonderful shawl on it done in knitting yarn and ribbon.  This knitting yarn was a less than ideal choice for the Flip because it's very "sticky" and opening the shed is time consuming.  I just need to get it finished so I can try out some new techniques with a yarn that's easier to use.

The Schacht Cricket loom has the same wonderful scarf we use to demonstrate Cricket weaving at shows.  Now I need to get it woven off so I can try some work with pick-up sticks.  It's something I haven't tried so I'm looking forward to it.

You would think I keep a tally of my looms in my head and know what there is to do but you would be wrong.  It takes me writing something like this to remind me I need to get weaving!