Noro Taiyo Lace – Daryl's Blog

Zoom Jacket

Dearest readers and followers on facebook…

You make me laugh. Oh the uproar when I posted my near completed jacket and mentioned that I wanted to wear it around the house over my pajamas. Best laugh I’ve had in a week. Like handwoven anything can only be used for special occasions. So here’s the thing…

We are trapped at home in quarantine and I have no plans to leave the house for any reason for the remainder of this year, and probably well into the next.
I have a bulging wardrobe of handwoven stuff to wear for special occasions. Even culling the early stuff, there are 30 years of gorgeous handwoven garments in there, that I have no place to wear. (And some of them are not fitting me too well either, given that the last nine months has padded my lower half just a bit more than I’d like…)
Being trapped at home spending my days either working in my office at the computer, like I am now, or in the weaving studio, or the sewing room, or the kitchen, means that comfy flannel pajamas, now that the weather is cold (I keep my house at 64 degrees) are my wardrobe of choice.
I only dress for Zoom meetings, and trust me there are about 50 options for what to wear.
My beloved go-to knockaround commercially purchased jacket that I throw on when I get out of bed in the morning, and take off at night, hanging it on the coat tree in my room, is getting worn, old, boring, and it needs to move on.
I want something cuddly, roomy, with large pockets, and can also hang on the coat rack every night without getting the center back neck bump from the hook.

Enter this fabric which recently came off the loom.

I blogged about it in the last post, and there is a link in the last post to the details, what I used as a draft, the warp and the weft, in the last post from when I first put this fabric on the loom almost two years ago. I love the colors, and this fabric I knew would be challenging to lay out. The coloring was formed from the engineered gradient in the Noro Taiyo Lace skeins I was using. Though they were engineered to repeat themselves, when a dreaded knot in the skein would appear, or I had to change skeins, the sequence was thrown off. So I did the best I could…

I had lots of unwanted assistance, trying to lay this out, stretched all across the sewing room floor which is in the basement, and all the way into the utility closet. The cat was very amused…

It took two days of moving pieces around to get what I wanted. The fabric wasn’t really wide enough, but fortunately last Friday’s YouTube video shoot was on that very topic, What to do When You Don’t have Enough Fabric. So I shared some of the tips I did in this garment to try to make the most out of what I have. That video should drop next Friday. It is still in edits. (Who am I kidding, she hasn’t started editing yet, she waits until the day before…)

Anyway, I wanted something unfussy, and perhaps crocheted around the perimeter, so I wouldn’t have to fuss with hems, or facings, or bands, whatever. And I wanted big pockets. I pulled my 100 Jacket, chose a larger size than I would normally take, so I’d have roomier sleeves to fit over whatever I was wearing, overlayed the neck from the 800 vest pattern, and extended the fronts 3 inches so they would fall back into a mock collar, but still could overlap to keep my chest warm when I really wanted to snuggle. (It is on my list of topics for my YouTube channel The Weaver Sews, to illustrate how to combine patterns, putting a sleeve on the swing dress, combining patterns for different necklines, etc.)

I got exactly what I wanted, and posted it on facebook last night.

Hahahahahah! The responses were wonderful. I love you all. The outrage that I’d wear this over my pajamas was truly hilarious. Of course it is a beautiful jacket. Of course it should be seen out in the world. But that isn’t realistic right now. I’m not going anywhere. I need to keep safe, healthy and not burden the hospital system because I was stupid. It is worrisome enough that my son, who is an interim general manager at a local Target is exposed every day, so far has tested negative, but is going into the retail season from hell. He is not allowed near the house. NJ lived through hell last April, and we are there again, I’ve lost count of how many have died, almost 17,000 in our state alone. It is as if my whole town got wiped off the map, and half of the next one as well.

And so, I will wrap myself up in a lovely comfy handwoven sweatery coat, and go about my day in comfort. And smile dreaming of a time when I can go out and about and show it off.

So here are some of the observations and details. Because you really don’t know how comfy and snuggly something is until you wear it.

First, since the fabric wasn’t wide enough, I moved the side seams towards the back so I could get a full back from the fabric, and used a crocheted seam finish, overlapping the seam with the fronts. I cover this in the video that will drop next week.

You can clearly see in the photos above where I’m wearing the jacket that the collar points and lower front edges tend to curl inward. There isn’t a facing for support, so I’d expect that. I kept thinking about my late husband’s dress shirts and the little collar stays that would keep points crisp, and I remembered I have a drawer full of zip ties, and there are some really tiny ones in there. I’ve used zip ties as boning in garments that call for that, so why not as collar stays. I slipped a few behind the crocheted edges and I’ll let you know how well they work. Already there is an improvement, time will tell if they hold.

And I dug through my box of inkle bands, and found this lovely narrow black band I wove to help support the sloppy neckline in a sweater I knit. There was enough left to make a loop at the back neck for hanging my jacket at night on the coat tree. That’s the sad very well worn jacket it is replacing on the left of the coat tree.

There are a couple of negatives that I really can’t do much about, one is that the wool (Harrisville Shetland singles from the 80’s) in the warp isn’t the softest. That yarn typically isn’t meant for next to skin. So the jacket is a bit scratchy, but I have a good tolerance for scratchy wool. The good news is it should wash and dry pretty easily, I tossed the original fabric in the washer and dryer twice to get it to full up. That will be important wearing it every day.

And the other negative of course is that I have a bunch of animals, that insist on curling up when ever I sit down, right in my lap, even the ones that weigh 60 pounds. Animal hair sticks to it. It was challenging crocheting around the edges and constantly pulling cat hair out of the yarn as I pulled up loops. And I do vacuum often I can assure you. But the good news is that unlike a fleece jacket, the hair comes off easily with a lint roller, it doesn’t seem to embed itself into the structure. So I’m hopeful my new comfy jacket will prove to be my best friend in the coming months. I want to wear this so much I wear it out!

And speaking of Zoom… I’ve spent many hours on Zoom meetings over the last number of months, and found that knitting wasn’t really for me a great idea, I was making mistakes on the sweater I was knitting in the decorative patterned border. I don’t multi task well. Really.

So instead, I started pulling out my bags and baskets of thrums from past warps, most of which were hand dyed yarns, maybe 18-24″ lengths, and started tying them together. I keep the large basket of thrums now under the table where I Zoom. Years ago, one of our beloved guild members, who has since passed, came to a September meeting fresh from a MAFA conference. She had taken a workshop with Tom Knisely, a beloved weaver and teacher who has written a number of books, and one of the techniques she learned was something called Zanshi. It is a Japanese technique for using leftover thrums and yarns so nothing goes to waste. Tom talks about it in his book about Table Linens.

Anyway, the guild member showed her sample from the workshop and I was intrigued. Thrums were tied together with overhand knots and the tails just got woven in. Plain weave, couldn’t be simpler. So I started tying my thrums together. Mindless but productive while I sat through endless meetings. I had a beautiful rayon/cotton discontinued yarn from Silk City Fibers called Marbella, in a greyed brown color called Bison for the warp. I kept the warp narrow so I’d have a bit of color building from the short thrums. I’m loving this. And no, I have no idea what I’m going to do with this fabric. I just like to weave…

Stay safe everyone, celebrate this season with whatever silver linings you can find. Life is getting curiouser and curiouser, feeling more like Alice in Wonderland every day, there is some whacky crap in that story, worth a reread!

Stay tuned…

Two in one weekend, it was a busy week…

Huge apologies right up front. I have never posted two blog posts back to back in the same weekend. Yesterday’s blog was a story of triumph, but there was lots more to tell on my week of extreme productivity. So indulge me this one…

I worked hard to get all of my floor looms filled with something interesting for the virtual HGA studio tour that we filmed back on October 8th. That meant that every loom had something going on, and my daughter, who is madly prepping for this lecture next week, needed a floor loom or two to be empty, and I’ve got ideas of what I want to put on a loom that isn’t available.

So the only thing to do, is to just weave. I had a couple cranky mishaps with a couple of looms, parts get old and worn, especially cords, and I’ll need to do a bit of repair work, or had to repair in the middle of a large piece of yardage, when the front crank broke in two in my hand…

Despite roadblocks, I managed on Monday to clear one of the 4 shaft floor looms, of yardage that has been there for a couple of years. It was a welcome site when the knots came over the back beam!

I pulled 7 yards off the loom, and popped that baby in the washer.

The end result is really pretty. A flower garden. I have ideas for the yardage, but nothing set in stone.

In case you want the details, I wrote up the yarns and the draft back in a post in January of 2019, scroll way down to find the information here…

So Tuesday I had to set up a complicated Zoom class, which I was to give that night, the night of the election here in the states, for a group in Toronto. I spent the morning getting the camera and lighting right for the live demo on the loom. The topic was “doup leno”, a structure I wrote about in a lengthy article for Heddlecraft Jan/Feb 2019 I believe.

Once I was set up, I decided to kill a few hours until showtime, by weaving on another floor loom. And pretty soon, the knots were up and over the back.

This yardage was one of the ones I put on the loom to play around with one of the new yarns from Silk City Fibers. I combined the Nile cotton tape with their traditional Skinny Majesty Variegated, in a simple plain weave. And after some extensive testing, which I talked about in an earlier post, I ended up using Silk City Fiber’s Deluxe Wool Crepe. Which is Merino and rayon. This is my new favorite weft. Highly recommend. I can’t wait to do something with this fabric. It feels amazing and the wool crepe weft keeps the rayon in check.

Anyway, because the yarns came from Silk City Fibers, I wrote up the specs and the draft for what I’m calling Antique Jewels and it is available in my eShop for free. Click here.

Wednesday was a tough day. I had to teach again in the morning, after a very successful, at least I thought so, class Tuesday night. Because no results were declared Tuesday night, and I didn’t expect them to be, I didn’t sleep all night, and I suspect neither did most people in the US. So bleary eyed I logged onto my class Wednesday morning, and I believe all went well, and this time no landscape crew came by to blow my leaves like the class the week before. Wednesday night was my guild meeting and we had a terrific program with an old weaving friend of mine, Sheila O’Hara. I’m blown away by how easy it is to bring a guest speaker from 3000 miles away for an evening lecture. She was fantastic. We are only about a year apart in age, and studied the fiber arts in college about the same time in the 70’s, it is amazing how different our paths took as weavers. She was one of the first to truly embrace Jacquard weaving.

So Thursday, prior to the debacle I covered in yesterday’s post , I managed to clear yet another loom. This one was also the result of a challenge with yarns from Silk City Fibers. An odd combination, but I took their new poofy Cotton Bambu, and combined it in a light/dark 8 shaft shadow weave with their old standby chenille, in a variegated color. The two worked perfectly together, and I soon had the knots over the back beam as well.

The fabric was a bit coarse when I pulled it off the loom, kind of what you would make a carpet bag from, but never the less, I went to the washing machine and tossed it all in.

What came out is the most gorgeous, glorious fabric you’ve ever felt. Cotton Bambu doesn’t have any body weight behind it, but in this context it became gorgeously flexible and mixed with the velvety feel of the chenille, I can’t wait to weave more in a larger piece of yardage. I wrote up the specs for this fabric as well, which I call Shadow Tapestry, and again, the PDF download with the draft is free. You can find it here.

I’m off to the studio to weave another scarf on one of the other floor looms, and then do stupid stuff like clean my bedroom and bath, annoying Sunday chores, though I can’t wait to remake the bed with the new sheets I just got from LL Bean. Portuguese organic cotton flannel. Looking forward to a good night sleep tonight. I had a set from the last couple of years, but when I went to change my sheets with the change of season, from linen to cotton flannel, I discovered that my daughter had swiped them. They were on her bed. So shopping I went for another set!

Stay safe everyone, one of my closest friends was just diagnosed with Covid. These are scary times… Stay tuned…

Simple days, complex world…

The days pass quickly in a routine that is pretty pleasant truth be told. I’m not missing traveling, not missing even leaving the house. I see friends and family enough via zoom, and with all the remote lectures I’m giving, I feel as though I’ve just attended the world’s largest weaving conference. Each day I bounce around to some part of the country, and each lecture there are old friends and familiar faces in those tiny boxes on the screen. I’ve been corresponding with someone in MO, who was supposed to take a workshop with me in August in Kansas, but appeared in a lecture in western MA. We weavers get around…

Having my daughter here, working with her, developing new content, shooting a new video every Friday for my YouTube site The Weaver Sews. It has kept us busy. The biggest challenges are keeping the animals quiet, and hoping the landscape people don’t come through in the middle of filming the way they did last Wednesday in the middle of a class I was teaching remotely. Those leaf blowers right outside the garage doors were pretty noisy.

So the election in the US is Tuesday. I don’t hold hope that things will be resolved by Tuesday night. I don’t hold hope that things will be resolved for a very long time, no matter who is declared the winner. I’m sad for the polarization, I’m sad for the divisive language used by both sides, I wish we could all get along and move forward. We are in the middle of a couple of international crises and I’m a firm supporter of science (having a daughter with a science degree means I can’t even cook without a science perspective thrown into the recipe), and no matter the results, I hope moving forward that we as a nation can come together to solve some of these major issues. I’ve just heard of another weaver who lost their entire studio to one of the fires in Oregon. She took a workshop with me just in March of this year, my last stint before the world shut down. I sent her digital files of everything we could piece together that she lost from my workshop, but that doesn’t replace yarn, samples, looms, weaving equipment, spinning wheels, and a life time of knowledge in physical form. My friends in California, Oregon, Washington, as well as Louisiana have taken the brunt of this year’s climate disasters. I wish the world had a plan moving forward. For me, I voted within 24 hours of receiving my mail in ballot (only mail-in voting in NJ this year because of the pandemic), so on Tuesday night, I’ll be teaching remotely for a guild in Toronto. I can only do my best to keep moving forward, being kind, paying attention to the science, fighting for equality for all, and embracing my countrymen no matter what and who they are passionate about.

Since Tuesday night’s lecture is on Doup Leno, a technique I wrote about a couple years ago for Heddlecraft Magazine, (January/February 2019), I needed to have something set up for a live demo. The warp that I had been using was mostly used up. So I rewarped this week, with a couple of handdyed skeins of cashmere I had sitting around, one a dark and the other a variegated turquoise. The goal is a couple of scarves, the leno structure will keep them lacy, but the structure will hold together.

That said, I’ve been rather busy with my simple days. Simple means I can fill my days up with juggling 40 things at once, because I can’t imagine a day when 40 things aren’t happening simultaneously!

I’ve been working for the last couple of weeks on a new project. The last two vests I made both had welt pockets. It has been on my to do eventually list for a couple of years. I finally sat down, designed a diagonal entry welt pocket and then once I did a few of them, drew illustrations and wrote up the 12 page directions.

Now you can actually purchase the Welt Pocket Variation as a download. The download contains the 12 page heavily illustrated directions, the two pattern pieces full size for the welt and pocket, and replacement pages for the 100 jacket, 200 jacket and 800 vest. By substituting the pages in the pattern digital files, you’ll see where the pocket goes. So if you’ve purchased the 100, 200 or 800 vest, you might enjoy this variation. Of course it will work for any jacket or vest you make from anyone’s patterns, you’ll just have to figure out where to position it.

The second vest I finished is the one I’ve been using for demonstrations during my last few YouTube videos. The fabric was a remnant I bought somewhere, can’t remember, but it was a gorgeous sleezy Chanel type tweed, really challenging to work with, like your worst case handwoven. My handwoven fabrics aren’t nearly as challenging! I made up the 200 jacket but left off the sleeves, bringing the lining to the edge of the armhole. With the shawl collar and welt pockets, it is a much different look than my other vests.

I realized of course that I haven’t updated my gallery on the website with the last couple of pieces I’ve made, the Summer Rain Top, and of course the leopard trimmed and lined Confetti vest shown above. It is much more important to be timely in those updates because my daughter references those details and images when she creates the show notes for each video I do. We took one of our guest rooms, since we aren’t getting a lot of guests (none actually) and turned it into a temporary photo studio. So I popped the Summer Rain top onto the dressform, and perched it on top of the table to take a quick shot of the top. The free draft for the fabric for this top, using Silk City Fibers is available here. The pattern is a combination of my 1000 Swing Dress, very modified to take out the “swing”, and the armhole and sleeve from my 200 Jacket.

Meanwhile, now that all my looms are full, I filled them up for the HGA remote studio tour the beginning of October, I need to start clearing looms because I’m getting more ideas of stuff I want to weave. So I cleared one of the table looms first. This one had a test for Silk City Fibers, their Supermerino yarn, sett in an 8 dent reed, plain weave, to simulate what one would experience with a rigid heddle loom set up. One was a single end in an 8 dent reed, single weft, spaced a little far apart for my taste, but that was the point of the test. I gave that one to Silk City and kept this one, which is two ends together in an 8 dent reed with a doubled weft (I used a double boat shuttle for that scarf). Supermerino is a superwash yarn. It doesn’t say that in the description, but it doesn’t full at all when washed. The result is actually quite soft and lovely, and I’m glad they let me keep one of the scarves. I suspect I’ll be venturing outside a bit this winter, if only to walk the property and pick up dog debris, and I think this will be quite warm.

I did a round robin sort of day earlier in the week, I wove a yard of two on each of the other floor looms, just to get them moving forward. I can probably just sit and weave and finish off a couple of them in a day or two. To have time to just sit and weave is such a gift. And that means I’ll have yardage to sew. And empty looms to rewarp…

There is this one, which has been on the loom for way too long. The yarn is Noro Taiyo Lace, a pain to work with but really beautiful in its gradient effect as the weft. 4 shaft, warp is vintage Harrisville singles Shetland wool and vintage Maypole Nehalem worsted. I’ve probably got less than two yards to go…

This is another test for Silk City Fibers, their new Cotton Bambu yarn mixed with their Chenille Tapestry yarn. I modified an 8 shaft shadow weave draft, it is a bit slow to weave because of the two shuttle complicated repeat but it is moving along nicely.

And this one is also using Silk City Fibers, their new Nile cotton tape mixed with Skinny Majesty variegated. The weft is their Wool Crepe. I can’t wait to weave off this fabric, it is weaving like butter and I want to make swing dress out of it. Over a black turtleneck, this could be fun for winter, something new to wear, even though I don’t go anywhere and only dress for the upper third of my body for remote Zoom meetings. And for the videos, I get to dress up, put on makeup and look remotely professional, but everything has to be 2-piece to support the remote microphone pack clipped into my waistband.

Days are cooler now, we have finally had frost in NJ. I cuddle up with the gas stove in the living room, and a 1000 piece puzzle and some wine in the evenings, or watch late night political satire on the TV with my daughter. We need to keep laughing, we need to surround ourselves with art, humor and good food and drink. And of course animals, there is a cat asleep on my lap as I type, with one paw draped over my typing hand. And yarn and good books. I have all of that, and new flannel sheets coming this week from LLBean. My daughter stole my other set. Life is OK for now in my small neck of the world. I quietly keep making up new stuff, and keep an eye out for important things to know about.

See you all on the other side of this election, stay safe, wear a mask, and don’t forget to vote…

My new favorite place…

I blogged a lot about the major studio changes last winter, HVAC was installed as I was walking out the door to teach in Oregon the beginning of March. I returned from Oregon just as the world was beginning to shut down and so embarked on a five month effort to convert all my patterns to digital downloads. So though I had this brandy spanking new shiny place for all my looms and fiber equipment, with the basement as the new sewing room, I never really got a chance to use it. It kept calling me. I felt really guilty. I kept thinking about all those gorgeous magazine worthy studios in houses where I stayed, and their owners admitted that they didn’t actually do much in them. I hoped that wasn’t the case with mine. Most of my days since the quarantine began have been sitting right here at my computer in my office generating some kind of content. Sigh… Creative in a way, but not what I really want to do.

Enter an email from Silk City Fibers. I’ve had a very long relationship with them, and I’ve blogged about recent encounters with them, but this time they wanted me to consider being a “weaving influencer”. My discussions with the head of Lion Brand Yarn marketing turned into, send me yarn and I’ll see what I can do with it. And blog about it, or write about it, or give them usable content, or whatever.

What a shot on the arm that was, and in one of my last posts I blogged about the fabric Summer Rain that I got on and off the loom in record time. It was the first time I had set up a loom since I built the new studio. I ran into a lot of, gee, where did I put that tool… but ultimately the studio did its job and created a brightly lit, comfortable and easy place to do what I do best. So as I wrote in my last post, the Summer Rain fabric is finished and sitting on the cutting table in the basement waiting to be cut and sewn into something fun. The draft is available in my store, and any of the drafts/fabrics that result from the relationship with Silk City Yarns, especially if they are giving me the yarn, will be available for free. Add it to your cart, and there won’t be any charge at checkout. You’ll get a link in your inbox and you are ready to go! Find the PDF notes and draft here.

Meanwhile, having discovered the joy of my new studio, and having finished the scarves that were on the 8 shaft small floor loom, I decided to wind a new warp, this one called Autumn Harvest, based on a forecast from my Handwoven Column back in 2004. It is on the loom, and it just glows! The draft is available here.

I got more yarn from Silk City Fibers. A lot of it. I think of nothing else… I gave them a general idea of what I’d like to work with based on what they want to promote, mostly their newest yarns, and I gave suggestions of color combinations, but I get what I get. Which is just wonderful fun. I work best designing with what’s immediately in front of me.

Right out of the box I grabbed this orange Cotton Bambu, (one of their new yarns) which is a little heavier than I like to work with for garment yardage, but I successfully used it in the Summer Rain fabric in a 4 shaft mock supplemental, and I thought I’d like to expand on that for a full yardage. So I added Saphira, a viscose and polyamide variegated with very cool slubs, and a gorgeous copper metallic called Radiance. The weft is a beautiful cotton yarn called Nomad, which I actually prefer to Bambu 7, it has way more body and the same 2100 yds/lb yield. Under the studio lights the fabric just glows, but it doesn’t really show in the photo. Trust me it is head turning when you see it in real life. It is a 4 shaft structure, and I’ll eventually post the details as a PDF download like above. I’m calling it Confetti.

Meanwhile Silk City wanted to know if their SuperMerino yarn would work in a Rigid Heddle loom with an 8 dent reed. I don’t do Rigid Heddle weaving, but I have a table loom with an 8 dent reed, and I can set up a two shaft plain weave. There is enough for two scarves, the first one we doubled the yarn (Brianna did the grunt set up here). She has a heavy hand with the beater, so I’ve taken over and using a double weft, the effect is quite lovely. I believe their SuperMerino is superwash, but I’ll let you know once the scarves are off the loom.

Meanwhile in the bag of yarn from Silk City were these two, Nile cotton tape in Onyx, and Skinny Majesty variegated in a color called Antique Jewelry. I wound the 6 yard warp alternating one of each, and after it was wound, I changed my mind. Nothing like redesigning after the warp is wound. I used every inch of both cones, which is always fun, to have no leftovers! And if you are wondering about the contraption on the back beam, I use the Harrisville tensioning device for perfectly tensioned warps every time. (I’m a front to back warper). Problem is, this is the new to me 32″ Tools of the Trade loom, one of his really old ones, and I have tensioning rods made for the 45″, the 36″ and the 25″ looms. Not the 32″ loom. So using the second back beam from the 36″ loom to support the set up of the tensioning device with the 36″ rods, and a number of C Clamps, we got the job done. (I confess it was all Brianna’s idea).

So I threaded the updated design, beamed and then began to test a number of wefts they offer that have a wool/protein content. I’m a big fan of putting something in the weft that will give a modest amount of fulling to really keep slippery rayon fabrics under control. I have used Zephyr merino/silk from Jaggerspun, and Webs Colrain Lace Merino/Tencel, but wanted to try out some of the Silk City Fiber offerings. Left to right is Nature’s Way Merino doubled, Eco Cashwool, SupraMerino doubled (which I believe is a superwash), Baby Alpaca doubled, and Wool Crepe Deluxe (80% Wool and 20% Viscose Rayon).

I kept the first sample right off the loom (top), the middle sample shows some hand washing in warm water, and the last sample was thrown in the washer and dryer with a load of towels. I love knowing what a yarn can do. I’m ultimately going to use the black Wool Crepe for this particular fabric, but the Nature’s Way Merino (far left in navy) is awesome. The Baby Alpaca (the ivory one) didn’t shrink or full, but it is fluffier than an angora rabbit’s butt. I’m not a fan of superwash, so I probably wouldn’t use the SupraMerino (the middle one) unless the goal was a washable baby blanket, it is really lovely for that kind of purpose. And I liked the Eco Cashwool as well. This was a test I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and I’m grateful for the opportunity.

And of course, this loom still has fabric on it that I really should weave off, but there is something about full looms that make me smile. My babies have been naked for far too long. This is a wool warp with Noro Taiyo Lace weft. January of 2019 to be specific. I’ve blogged about it here.

Assuming the internet gods are cooperating on Tuesday September 1st, I’ll be the featured guest on the Shi Show, which airs live at noon daily on the Lion Brand Yarn Facebook page. I’ll post the link when it shows up on Youtube or you can tune in at noon EDT. I say if the internet gods are cooperating because three times in the last week, there was an area outage, and though I still have some unresolved internet issues, Like I can’t get my printers to connect, the tech guy came yesterday morning and the whole system went down as he started to work, area wide I was told, and so he could accomplish nothing. He is supposed to come back today. He texted me that he is having issues at his house, different carrier, but his power and internet are failing. And there are no storms, nothing that should cause these constant outages, but there are seriously weakened trees and limbs just randomly fall and take out the grid for whatever period of time you need it. We were successful last weekend in running new lines in the walls, upgrading switches and network cards so all the important rooms and devices are hard wired for ethernet at 1GB of speed. Brianna ran the last line herself much to her complete amazement and satisfaction. She is her father.

And so, I’m looking in corners of the studio to see where I can pitch a sleeping bag. This is my new escape, a place that the world stops spinning out of control, actually the only place in the whole world where I have some control, and nothing in there needs electronics or power to actually operate. Maybe the bobbin winder, but I do have hand cranks for that…

Stay safe, wear a mask and stay tuned…

Entertaining at home…

I spent a glorious weekend with my sisters “down the shore”, and if you are friends with me on facebook you will have seen all of those very cool photos of us having a Jersey shore experience. This morning when I woke up I had a bunch of pictures in my inbox from Ann Marie Soto, extraordinary member of ASG, or the American Sewing Guild, editor of the former Notions Magazine, and luckily for us in the area, member of the North Jersey Chapter of the guild.

A week ago Saturday, one of the ASG neighborhood groups, the Sewphisticates, who are primarily focused on clothing, chose a studio visit and trunk show with me for their September meeting. A half dozen members crowded into my studio to have a look at what I do and where I work, and a peak into my “closet” of handwoven clothing. We stood around the table, and I got rare photos of me actually talking and explaining and telling stories, and this morning Ann Marie sent them along. They are colorful and fun and though I took not a single image the whole day, she captured some lovely ones.

We started in the studio, gathered around the couple of looms with stuff actually on them. Few had any real weaving experience, so understanding how cloth was woven is an important piece of information if you sew.

We looked at yarn, the beginning of ideas for how my designs are planned. These are all hand dyed wools and mohairs. I’m itching to figure out something that will celebrate these colors.

I showed them some yardage, and of course, Chaos, draft available here, designed from some random skeins I had used as dye mops (soaking up leftover dye from another job) and included a warp chain made from a similar dyed “dye mop” skein ready for the next yardage on the loom.

I showed the Autumn Patchwork duster, along with Chaos, which had just returned from an exhibit in Tennessee. The colors are pretty impressive when I look at them in this kind of photo. When I’m working on something, I get too close to it, and don’t realize the bigger picture.

We all headed to my office, where I had another loom, with yardage using Noro Taiyo Lace as the weft, and I unrolled it for them to see the beautiful color gradations.

Then we headed down to the dining room, where I had set up a half dozen Structo’s and gave them the basics of how thread interlacement works, plain weave vs. twill, and they were soon weaving away.

We had lunch on the decks and by the pond, and then I showed a number of my garments so they could see construction and finishing techniques. We had a wonderful time. I was so thrilled for the opportunity to show off what I do all day, to have an excuse to actually get out of my pajamas and entertain. The animals were adorable if a bit obnoxious, Ranger just didn’t know what to do with himself with all these ladies around! Very large frozen marrow bones helped keep them outside for a good chunk of time…

Anyway, I’m appreciative of the lovely photos Ann Marie sent, and that I was actually around to be able to host a neighborhood group of the ASG. They do some lovely field trips, and I was glad I could be one of them!

Heading to the Pacific Northwest at the end of the week!

Stay tuned…