Skinny Majestry variegated

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…

Meanwhile…

Meanwhile there is a tropical storm moving in tonight. Finally, a typical summer… At least we need the rain desperately…

Meanwhile, I launched another pattern for download. And I’m beginning to add Lookbooks for some of the patterns. I’ve had a number of requests from potential buyers to see what people are doing with the patterns. I know this is a thing on Ravelry, and it does help to see what people do with the pattern, and how it fits all different body types. This is one more thing on my never ending to do list, but I’ve managed to post three of them, one for the vest below, and one for the 700/1700 tunics and the 100 jacket. I don’t know if it helps, and obviously the patterns are too new for purchasers to show what they’ve done with them, but I’ve been using these patterns for years, especially the jackets, and I have a collection of mostly in progress, not completely finished versions from all of my workshops.

What’s important here is that if I used a photo of you in your garment, I cropped all body parts, so you wouldn’t be recognized. Still, if you object to my using your garment, please let me know. And if you have a photo of a garment you made in one of my classes and/or from one of my patterns, especially a finished version, please let me know at theweaver@weaversew.com

The 800 Zippered Vest is fully lined to the edge and has bias bound edges. The vest has a stand-up collar with front separating zipper. View 2 uses the lining as a seam finish on the side, shoulder and neckline/collar seams. Optional yoke on both views. This pattern does not contain directions for sewing. The directions, which contain metric equivalents are available for free from my website https://www.daryllancaster.com/Webfiles/800ZipperedVestDirections.pdf

In addition, a lookbook of garments made from the 800 Zippered Vest is available here https://weaversew.com/wordblog/800-zippered-vest-lookbook/

I’ve only got one more pattern to go in the current collection, which will give me a total of 12! The pattern for the 1800 jacket is done, it is a combination of the 800 zippered vest above and the 400 jacket with waist darts. The directions are rewritten, I’m waiting for the final edits from someone I hired to make sure what I wrote makes sense. The conversations between us are hilarious. Usually she writes that something doesn’t make any sense, and I respond that it would have it they were in class because there would have been an entire class lecture on the fine points of that technique earlier in the morning, and then she responds that people who buy the patterns won’t have been privy to that lecture, so I have to spell it all out. So I’ve added so much to each of the directions for each of the patterns. I keep them separate because whenever something is unclear, I can edit easily and post on a page of my website, without generating an entire new pattern download. The directions are always free, so if you already traced a pattern from one of my classes and need the updated directions, please find them here. As always, if something isn’t clear, please let me know, I’ll try to fix it. And there is the goal to have a YouTube channel to explain many of the techniques I feature in my patterns.

Meanwhile I’m already thinking of how to combine the patterns and what silhouette I want to work on next. A scoop neck top with sleeves…

Meanwhile, I met with a consultant about video equipment and improving the image of my online teaching via Zoom or whatever platform works for the guild hiring me. And they are hiring me. My October Calendar is really filling up with remote guild lectures and a few short workshops. I’m beginning to get cancellations from next year, and I’m really good with that because I don’t see us returning to a normal any time soon. I don’t see me hopping on a plane, dragging 170 pounds of luggage, staying with people, and teaching a 5-7 day class working intimately with students, and returning safely to NJ. Right now there is a list in NJ of 31 states that you have to quarantine from after traveling to… So I’ve edited some of my lectures to list what can be done remotely. I will start on the half day seminars shortly.

So I now have a couple of Canon SLR’s that actually were designed to also work as webcams, in addition to 4K video. I have an AC battery adapter so the camera battery doesn’t die in the middle of a zoom meeting. I have my tech guy coming this week to run an ethernet cable to the garage weaving studio so I don’t have to rely on WIFI. I have the cable company coming to upgrade my modem so I can get 1GB of internet speed. And I purchased a sound system and video lights for recording videos, all that of course contingent on my daughter, who works for me now, learning how to use them. Right now she is creating a logo.

Meanwhile, I’ve mentioned my long time association with Silk City Fibers, which is now a division of Lion Brand Yarns. Alice, who is the director of that division is an old friend and coincidently lives in my town. We are in regular contact about what’s new there and my opinion of the market, the type of yarn, the marketing, and anything else that comes to mind. Last week I was asked if I wanted to be a “weaving influencer”. I suppose I am an influencer. A few thousand friends on facebook, been teaching this stuff since the early 80’s and using their yarn since then as well. I’ve been blogging for more than 10 years, have about a thousand subscribers, and earlier posts have been viewed thousands of times. And of course I always have an opinion. I’m not always right, but my opinion always comes with a thought process that shows how I got there. I met with the powers that be at Lion Brand, via remote conferencing, and largely I said, if you want to toss me yarn, I’ll make yardage out of it, document what I do and what it does, and make clothing out of it to sell my patterns.

And so, at the end of last week, Alice dropped off a small bag of assorted cones, two of them yarns I’d not worked with before. Left to right is Nile, a cotton tape yarn, Cotton Bambu, a heavier parallel plied yarn, great for supplemental work, Linen 14, a fine linen yarn I’ve had experience with before, and Bambu 7, bamboo yarn, pretty much a SSF staple. There was about a half pound of each, which doesn’t seem like a lot to work with, especially if the goal is yardage. But that never stopped me.

I thought about the yarn, and then looked through my stash to see what I could add that was part of their current line. Not much, since my shelves are full of older discontinued styles and colors of Silk City Yarns, all wonderful, but I thought I’d try to stay current. I was able to add these. Clockwise from upper left, Saphira, Skinny Majesty Variegated, and a possible weft, Bambu 7

First I had to figure out exactly what I had. I use a McMorran Yarn Balance and a scale and I can come within a few yards of knowing what’s on the cone.

I played with yarn wraps…

…and adapted the draft from Chaos, which you can purchase from my website here…

…and came up with something that reminded me of summer rain. Think Tropical Storm Isaias.

Meanwhile, I haven’t actually wound a warp or set up a loom since the huge studio move last winter, which seems at this point like a lifetime ago. When I returned from Oregon the beginning of March, the heat had just been installed, but the entire world shut down, and I dug in and made a bunch of new garments, in the basement sewing room, still thinking I had to submit five new works for the Convergence Fashion Show as a guest artist (of course that conference was postponed until 2022). And I started on what seemed like an impossible task at the time, creating downloadable patterns from the ones I developed for classes. I was sitting on a lot of handwoven yardage I had stockpiled, and now my stash is depleted.

So I did what I do best. Create with a small pile in front of me, and see where it takes me…

First up was winding the warp. There are many ways to wind warps, but I wanted to see the colors unfold, so I chose to just do a straight wind off of the draft, as opposed to winding individual chains of each color. The winding was slow, but the sleying would be much faster. The first thing I discovered was the Nile tape lace had to be unwound from the cone like a toilet paper roll, instead of off the top, like typical coned weaving yarns. When exiting from the top, the tape seriously twisted and I knew would never lay moderately flat in the woven surface. So I put the cone on a spool rack, with the rack facing away from me at about a 30 degree angle. The cone unwound easily in that position.

Next hurdle was of course the dreaded slippery rayon, and Silk City Fibers has lots of these. I’ve used them for years. This was one called Saphira, a pretty shimmery yarn with slubs. The color I had has actually been discontinued, but a similar one is available with a black core instead of a white one. Winding a warp with a yarn like this is problematic because any break in movement, like the turn around at the top of the warping mill, causes the yarn to pool around the base, getting caught as the movement resumes. I usually use a nylon stocking around the cone as a drag, which works really really well, except in the move, they are hiding and I can’t figure out where they went. So I used the mesh covering from an Asian Pear, which when tucked around the base, stopped the pooling and the warping could continue.

I loved the way the colors built on one another.

By dinner time yesterday I had the loom’s beater sleyed. Each of these steps was sort of like reinventing the wheel. The chair I usually used for sleying was now in the basement in my sewing studio. So I had to come up with new tools and devices, figure out where my regular tools were now living, figure out where to plug in the magnifying light (in the ceiling as it turned out), and how to adjust the split HVAC system that was spilling copious amounts of frigid air right on me. I figured that out and the room was really comfortable. The new studio worked well. I’m happy and can’t wait to actually spend most of my days out there even when I’m Zooming…

I started threading after dinner.

Meanwhile, my beloved brat of a dog Ranger got his manhood clipped last Monday. He was very depressed and had to wear the “innertube of misfortune”. And of course, that meant he couldn’t wear a bellyband, so my fear all week was that he would pee on everything in my house. We were good until late last night. He saddled up to a shelving tower of handdyed yarn skeins and lifted his leg. So I got to use the new dye sink in the studio and wash all of the offended skeins as I cleaned up the mess. The dye sink worked really well. And incision or no incision, he is now wearing a belly band. The relationship between the two males dogs is slowing changing, it will be interesting to see where this goes. The week for the most part wasn’t nearly has challenging as I thought it would be. I got a lot accomplished locking myself and the dog in my office for hours at a time while he healed. He liked the constant companionship.

Meanwhile, did I mention we are getting hit with a tropical storm tonight? Note to self, pull in anything that isn’t nailed down, like umbrellas, etc. Better yet, send Brianna out to do it…

Stay tuned…