Warping the Loom

Getting the warp on

I'm working on a commission for a Methodist church in Ohio, making long green banners for the wall behind their altar.  After working on it for about a month, today I finally got the warp on the loom.  In early April I had all the cones spread out on the counter to select the colors.  And although I never actually think this takes much time, I do agonize over exactly which colors to put in what order.  In all, this piece has over 35 different yarn colors in the warp and getting them in exactly the right order did take a bit of time.  Then I went to Disneyland and was out of the studio for a week.  After getting back to work I got the warp chains wound and spread out on the front of the loom.  Then I had several teaching jobs that took time to prepare for and do.  Finally, today the loom is warped and I started weaving.  I hope to get the panels finished and on their way by the end of next week.  We'll see how that turns out!

Here are some images of the process...

Some of the warp chains on the floor in front of the loom.

Rolling on the warp.  Some of the warp yarns are in the bucket to the left of the loom.

Let the weaving begin!

It always makes me so happy to see a warp lined up neatly on the loom with all the threads in perfect order, under tension.  I want to pet the warp and admire all the colors before I begin weaving.  I guess I'm truly a weaving geek!

I plan to concentrate on weaving in the studio during the next month.  We have a Summer Market at the Studio site on June 1st.  Then the Contemporary Crafts Market is in Santa Monica on June 7 - 9 and I want to have lots of finished pieces to show and sell for both events. 

Meanwhile, my pillow pattern will be published in a about a week, so look for it on my website, the Yarnworker website, or Craftsy.

Learn to Weave

Beginning Weaving on the 4 harness loom!

This weekend, Saturday and Sunday April 13 & 14, I'll be teaching beginning weaving in my studio in Camarillo.  This morning I had a cancellation, so have a spot available if anyone is interested.  Don't miss this opportunity to learn to weave!  It is so much fun!!!

We'll be working on table looms like in the top picture, so don't be intimidated by the big loom on the bottom.  However, once you learn on a table loom, all the steps easily translate to a floor loom!

If you're interested or have any questions, please email or call me at 805-404-2090.

Vacation

Southern California....

Even though I live in Southern California, it is not often that I visit our popular vacation spots.  During this past week, some of my family from Ohio came to visit me and I've had the best time doing lots of tourist things.  We went to Hollywood, Rodeo Drive, Universal Studios and City Walk, and the Hard Rock Cafe.

We've also been to the Santa Monica pier and the beach...

Even though it's been what I'd consider cool (mostly in the 60s), it was snowing last week in Ohio.  I guess I've gotten really spoiled by the beautiful weather here!

And of course, we've been to Disneyland and California Adventure.

And today we took a whale watching cruise out of Long Beach.  Even though I didn't get a photo, we saw several whales - and one even jumped high out of the water while we watched.  What a treat!

I think it's really true that I've come to see Southern California through the eyes of others and appreciate it that much more!  What a great place to live.

Spring projects

Pillows...

The pillow I posted last month now has a couple of companions.  This is an easy project that is very forgiving of mistakes, so Liz at yarnworker.com is going to publish the pattern.  We wanted to offer some color options and so I got busy weaving up a couple of different color ways.  Here's a sneak peek at what I put together.  Of course, some good photography with decent lighting will help show what they really look like.

These are lots of fun to make and they do look great on the couch!  The Brown Sheep Lambs Pride wool felts beautifully.  And both the Trendsetter and Prism Yarns I used make a lovely fabric.  I've got one more color way on the loom that is purple wool and blue/green/purple filler.  It's a thick rayon slub yarn so I'm not sure if it will work or not so it will be interesting to play with.  After warping the loom I realized the slub yarn might just be a bit too thick in places to go easily through the holes.  Seems like every once in a while I do something like that when I know better, but there are some lessons that I guess I need to learn repeatedly!

One of my students, Carol Whitney, sent me some pictures of the log cabin scarves she made.  What a great job!

Also this week I've been working on a design for a woven scarf with a knitted trim.  It's a submission for a magazine, so I can't show images, but combining knitting or crochet with weaving is an area I'm going to be exploring more.  It's exciting to think about combining my fiber skills to show off the beautiful yarns in new ways.  

This Sunday at Anacapa Fine Yarns in Ventura, CA, I'll be teaching a class on making a scarf with a leno detail.  We'll be using lace weight yarns to make a very light and airy fabric.  If you're interested, there is still space!

Designing

Pattern for Sale!!!!

My first pattern with Yarnworker.com is for sale on Craftsy (click on Craftsy to see the pattern) and I'm so excited about it!  For the past few weeks I've been working with Liz Gipson to develop some of my designs into patterns.  Liz was the wonderful producer for my Craftsy.com class and has excellent experience in many areas of fiber, marketing, editing and lots more.  So when she asked me about working with her and her new venture to promote patterns for rigid heddle looms, I was honored to jump on board.  The official site for Yarnworker will be up sometime in May, but I'm just too excited about the pattern to wait till then to let you all know about it.  

Meanwhile I've been working hard on some additional designs so keep on the look out for those as well.

March begins

back to work...

Stitches West was a treat again this year.  I enjoy seeing friends, catching up with previous students, meeting new people and teaching weaving.  My classes were sold out so I'm delighted there is continuing interest in learning to weave!  My friend Julie Kornblum attended Stitches for the first time and helped me set up and warp the looms before class as well as pack them up after my classes ended.  No matter how much fun it is to teach, it really is a tremendous amount of work getting ready for classes.  Julie and I worked for about 5 hours getting the equipment ready for class.  

Julie warping looms

The room is ready!

I also got to do a demonstration in the Craftsy booth. I'm continually impressed with Craftsy.com.  They are such a pleasure to work with and offer such great classes!  If you haven't checked out my class yet, you can still get 50% off by entering the code www.craftsy.com/rhdj

It was over a week ago since I got home from Stitches West and I've been working hard since then.  The trip home from Santa Clara was lovely as we came down Highway 1 along the coast so I could visit The Coast Gallery in Big Sur.  They have been selling my handwoven rayon chenille scarves for several years and it's always fun to stop in and say hello.  And a new manager started on January 1, so I wanted to meet him.  This is a great gallery and a beautiful place to stop if you're driving on the Coast Highway.

Coming down the coast.

During the past week, I've been working on some patterns.  Within a couple of weeks, some of my patterns will be available on line at Patternfish and Craftsy through Yarnworker Patterns.  This is an exciting endeavor!  More information to come....

More log cabin

Log Cabin continues...

Both last Sunday at Newtons in Anaheim and today at Anacapa in Ventura, I taught classes on log cabin weaving.  This will also be the subject of one of my classes at Stitches West next weekend.  Each of the classes has been a bit different project, but all on the same general subject of how to weave the log cabin pattern.  I love this pattern because it really does look complex, but is fairly easy to weave.  It is after all, just plain weave.  

But the tricky part comes in because two shuttles are used and keeping the yarn from the two shuttles to act properly along the selvedge edges is sometimes difficult.  It's a real challenge for me to explain this in a way that's easy for everyone to understand.  But I've been working on it and think I may be getting a bit better at it.

Since there are two shuttles involved, every other pick brings the second shuttle out the same side of the weaving as the first shuttle, so they are both on the same side of the loom.  If the selvedge thread where they come out is in the up position, then the second shuttle should be placed up, or closer to the reed than the first shuttle.  If the selvedge thread where they come out is in the down position, then the second shuttle should be placed down, or farther away from the reed than the first shuttle (or closer to your stomach).     This sounds simple, but seems very confusing when learning this new technique.  I think there's just a lot going on when starting this pattern and it just feels like too many things to think about at once!  It does get easier as you practice it.

Pam Harwood took the class at TNNA in Long Beach earlier this month and was nice to send me an image of her finished scarf.  She used a variegated yarn for one color and so the effect is a bit different than when using just two contrasting colors.  I think it's lovely!

Yesterday I finished a sample for a new class I've been developing for a woven and felted pillow.  For the wool, I used Brown Sheep Lambs Pride because it always felts so easily.  It's combined with some of Trendsetter's Orchidea, which does not felt.  So the Orchidea gets puffed up in little "pillows" inside the grid of felted Lambs Pride.  I had lots of fun working on this project and plan to do several more colors!