Summer Rain – Daryl's Blog

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…

Balloons and Fireworks…

I should be celebrating, this is five months of hard work, and it is finally completed. But I’m already onto the next adventure, so much to cram into this quarantine that doesn’t seem to be going away. Oddly enough there are deadlines looming, pun intended, more about that later.

So we launched the last of the 12 patterns I use for my classes. At this point, you can purchase my patterns, all of them, on my website. This has been a huge deal, we have never worked so hard. It took a team, I created the content, my daughter created the layered files that actually created the patterns, and I hired a tech editor for the instructions. The instructions are, as always available for free on my website. There is a lot of great information in there about sewing with handwovens, but I’m really looking forward to creating YouTube videos on specific areas of support. Like how to actually print and create the full size patterns.

Because so many have written me and asked, and many in the handweaving community haven’t ever purchased a downloadable pattern before, I want to do a video explaining how to basically print and tape together all the sheets into a full size pattern. Yes, you have to print them yourself. Yes, you can have a place like Staples print the file for you. Yes, you have to tape all the pages together. And no, I don’t sell the printed pattern. Only the download. I’m even wanting to get away from printing and shipping the monographs which at the moment are available digitally and in print form. Printing and shipping costs are ridiculous, and with the delays in the post office, I’m wanting to get away from shipping altogether.

Anyway, huge celebration. The last of the patterns is up. This is the 1800 jacket which is like the 800 vest only with sleeves and waist darts. There is a look book available here. There aren’t a lot of images in it because the pattern is only a couple years old. But you’ll get the general idea. You can purchase the pattern here.

Meanwhile, my relationship with Silk City Fibers continues to grow. I’ve always adored their yarn, and I’m getting to really play with styles I normally wouldn’t have looked at. And really loving the possibilities. I wrote in my last post about the yarns that they sent me, new yarns to the collection for me to explore. So refer to the last post about what I actually used. The fabric came out fantastic. I called this Summer Rain, because I was weaving it during tropical storm Isaias, and lucky for me I was one of the few that never lost power. So I kept weaving. The fabric is exactly what I envisioned. It has been washed and dried, and is a gorgeous drapey but stable rayon, cotton, linen, and bamboo fabric that will make a great summer top. I’m thinking I want to combine my 1000 Swing Dress with the 200 Jacket for the armholes and sleeves and make a basic top with short sleeves. At this point, I’m having fun seeing what my patterns can produce by combining them.

Silk City has promised me more yarn. Oh, goodie!

Meanwhile, I finally cleared a loom that has had a bunch of my handdyed scarves on it for more than a year. I was able to move the loom to the new studio with the warp intact, so there it sat. I ended up netting six 2 yard scarves from a 14 yard warp. I love these soft retro looking scarves. They are mostly all handdyed rayons and cottons. The weft is tencel. Actually three of the scarves have a tencel weft, three have a bamboo weft. It is hard to tell the difference.

Normally these scarves would be donated to arts organizations for fundraisers and tricky trays, and whatever makes me feel like donating a scarf worth a couple hundred dollars. I’m really careful whom I donate to. But sadly all of the arts organizations I support have had to cancel major fundraising events this year for obvious reasons. And even my lovely guild show and sale in November has had to move online. So I’ll be populating my eShop with whatever scarves I have, and things like totebags from scraps, that’s my project for the next couple of weeks. We are setting up a lightbox and photography area in one of the guest rooms. Since I can’t have any students or guests, one of the rooms can easily become a photo area.

With that loom cleared, and more yarn from Silk City Fibers coming in the next couple of days, I’m wanting to get another warp on the loom I specifically use for these scarves. It has to have a second beam for the 14 yards of supplemental warps. So I looked through my huge binder of all the color forecasts I developed for Handwoven Magazine, back in the early 2000’s and picked one that appealed to me. Mostly it appealed to me because it was called Autumn Harvest and fall is coming. And I can’t wait. Normally fall means I live on planes and travel and I’m not doing any of that this year. I’m doing different things. I have a huge amount of bookings for guild remote lectures, and some remote workshops and I’ve had to rewrite most of my prospectuses to indicate what can be done remotely. Actually most of them so far. You can look at what I have to offer for remote learning here. I just have to figure out how to do some of my garment classes remotely, especially now that you can buy the patterns… 🙂

So anyway, here is the Autumn Harvest palette drawn from a 2004 column in Handwoven Magazine, and I pulled some yarns to see if I had the right combinations.

I just couldn’t come up with enough of the right muted dusty purple. Everything was too blue, and I needed something softer that leaned warmer. So I dug out the dyepots and for the first time used my new dye sink/area in the new weaving studio. Lots of firsts here. I did have to ask my daughter where we put stuff, but this worked remarkably well. The sink was built high enough so I didn’t have to lean in. It is stainless so I don’t have to worry about stains. And I can hang skeins to dry right over the sink. I think this color will work, if not, I’ll dye another batch. I’ve got plenty of white yarn… And you can purchase the 8 shaft draft I use for all my scarves here.

And the push is on because I’m booked to be the guest on the Shi Show, if you aren’t familiar with this, it is a half hour daily live show on Lion Brand Yarn’s Facebook page. Shira is a descendent of a long line of family that owns Lion Brand Yarns. She is young, and savvy and enthusiastic and represents the next generation of makers. I’ll be the guest host on the September 1st episode that airs 12 noon EDT, I’ll let you know when we get closer, but I need my YouTube channel up and functioning, and the page in my eShop as well, with my lovely scarves and other items that I would have sold at the guild show and sale. This year has been about reinventing myself in fast forward timing. I’m doing my best.

And speaking of my best, my daughter and I came up with a new logo for the videos I want to produce. I’m pretty proud of this. I designed the concept and my daughter turned the whole thing into a vector drawing in layers in Illustrator. Everything is falling into place.

Stay tuned for more adventures of “The Weaver Sews…”