Coupon Code, and Towels

Valid for the whole month of December: coupon code FREESHIP for free US shipping on everything in my shop (I'll refund $5 on international sales). Use this link: DebbieBHandspun, Handwoven - or click on the shop in my sidebar.

The blue towels are done, and fresh out of the washer and dryer. I still have lots of teensy thread ends to snip, then the hand-hemming starts. I enjoy hand-hemming, it's good tv-handwork.

Rainbow Candy Towels Finished!

My rainbow candy towels are off the loom, washed and dried, cut apart and hand-hemmed, and pressed. I have 4 navy, 4 burgundy, and 4 teal. They're listed in my shop, the link is in the sidebar, if you're interested in getting one for yourself or a gift.

I love how they came out!

Leaf Peeps!

I finished this fun and happy skein of yarn yesterday - the colorway is called "Leaf Peeps" and it's hand-dyed polwarth wool top from Enchanted Knoll Farm's 'Happy Hooves' club. 250 yards of 2-ply sportweight. It's soft and bouncy and looks like candy!

I also finished hemming the Ocean Towels - They're soft and thirsty and great for not only drying dishes but can be used as placemats or breadcloths. Dimensions are 24" x 16", nice and big. They make great gifts, too.

Both the yarn and the towels are available in my shop, shown in the sidebar.

Handwoven Rainbow Black Towels

I finished the towels! These may be my favorite so far. The rainbow colors against the black background remind me of stained glass. 10/2 cotton, hand-hemmed, 16"x24".

My only regret is not having wound a longer warp! I was low on the black 10/2 cotton, so I only wound an 8 towel warp. Thankfully, I've restocked, so I can weave some more!

Mile 1, and Huck Rainbow Stripes Towels

I started off my walking program, and added a little widget in the sidebar to keep track of miles walked this year. My goal is 365 - one for every day (though I know sometimes I'll miss a day, and some of my walks will be more than a mile). Today's mile was on the treadmill, since it's gloomy and has been threatening rain all day. Still, yay mile!

Got my thick 'n' thirsty Huck Rainbow Stripes towels handhemmed and ready for the shop. I'm super-pleased with the thickness of these towels - they'll be nice for handtowels in the bath as well as in the kitchen. The 6/2 cotton washed up nice and squishy. 24" x 16" each. I gave one as a Christmas gift and have 8 left.

I was thinking about buying a corkboard bulletin board for Goal #4 (setting up a planning board for upcoming weaving projects) but then I thought, "Why buy something, when I could make something from what I've already got around the house?" I have some thick cardboard and some older wrapping paper that's not in good enough shape to use for packages. I'll put together a cute board, hang it on the wall, add some pushpins, and Bob's your Uncle. Free planning board!

Handwoven Huck Rainbow Towels, Finished!

I finally got them all hand-hemmed and photographed! I must confess, the picture-taking is my least favorite thing in the entire process... I'd much rather be weaving! I ended up with 14 towels altogether - 2 of them are reserved for my kitchen, the other 12 went right into the Etsy shop (and as of this afternoon, 8 are already gone - Edit: oh, my! All 12 towels are gone!!!). I wove pairs - 2 pink, 2 purple, 2 navy, 2 teal, 2 burgundy, and 2 black. They're 16" x 24" and nicely textured with the huck structure.

Fun to weave, fun to use! I only have handwoven towels in my kitchen now, in all sorts of colors and structures. They add whimsy and pleasure to the otherwise joyless job of doing the dishes. :)

I may have to wind another dishtowel warp soon... I miss throwing that shuttle! (Edit: since they're all gone so fast, I've started winding a new rainbow warp tonight!)

Rainbow Towel Warp

I wound a new warp for dishtowels today - I wanted color, color, color! This warp used 11 colors of 10/2 mercerized cotton, wound in color sections with lots of random blending. 532 ends plus 2 floating selvages. I'm using a draft from Weaver's Craft magazine, a huck lace. It'll give a lot of texture to go with the color.  The warp is 8.5 yards long, enough for 9 towels. I wound the warp in two bouts - it wouldn't all fit on my warping mill at the same time.

Tomorrow I'll sley the reed and start threading the heddles. I'm eager to get this warp on the loom!

Handwoven Huckleberry Dishtowels

You know, I really thought I blogged these. Apparently not. I wove them last year, but they've sat in my hemming basket awaiting needle and thread. Finally I've done the hand-hemming (I prefer that over machine-hemming, mainly because I'm all thumbs with the sewing machine) and taken some pictures. I've listed them in my Etsy shop - I have 6 available. I also had a short one (end of the warp) that I'm keeping for ME. They remind me of my beloved Montana, and of my friend Sandi who lives there (and bakes huckleberry muffins each time I visit - so the first towel I hemmed was gifted to her!)

The details: I used 6/2 unmercerized cotton (with 20/2 cotton in plum for hems and hemming), in mulberry and purple. The structure is log cabin. The finished towels are 26" x 18". They're soft and absorbent, and will be more so over time and laundering.

I'm transitioning us to using cloth towels in the kitchen and cloth napkins at the table. Not just environmentally friendly, but more pleasing to the hand and the eye!

SAORI Red Shawl - Finished!

The finished shawl is 70" x 13.5", with a 7" handknotted fringe on each end. It washed up so nicely - very soft, with lovely drape. The main body of the shawl is cottons, with rayon and bamboo and novelty accents. I'm really happy with this piece!

Tour de Fleece 2012

Here we go again - the spinning world gears up to ride along with the cyclists as they push themselves to the limit in the Tour de France. The Tour de FLEECE (Ravelry link) lasts for the same duration as the cycling race - Saturday June 30th through Sunday July 22nd. We spinners challenge ourselves, and race against no one but the calendar and our creativity. We make outrageous plans and try to complete as much as we can before the clock runs out.

My plans are skewed a bit this year by the fact that the Tour coincides with two weaving workshops - Rep Weave this weekend and a Saori workshop next weekend. Still, I'll have mornings and evenings free (and the weekdays in between) and I plan to make the most of them.

I have a big pile of fiber that I'm spinning on commission, and that will continue (I do my commission spinning in the mornings). I'll show you that giant pile of yarns soon, when it's finished. That doesn't count (in my mind, which is the only place that matters) toward my TdF spinning.

Here's the fiber I plan to spin up during the Tour. I dug deep into the Southern Cross Fibre, Hello Yarn, and Enchanted Knoll Farm bins - the teams I'm spinning for this year. I belong to all three clubs, and have squirreled away their fiber lovingly for years. I pulled out some golden oldies - well-marinated and loved colourways whose time has come to shine.

Southern Cross Fibre “Equinox”, australian merino, Club, October 2009

Southern Cross Fibre “Funhouse”, falkland, Club, December 2009

Southern Cross Fibre COMBO:
“Irises”, shetland, Club, June 2009
“Deep Thought”, oatmeal bfl, Club, November 2009

HelloYarn “Patchwork”, merino, Club, August 2009

HelloYarn “Red Velvet”, shetland, Club, March 2008

HelloYarn COMBO:
 “Throwing Stones”, rambouillet, update fibre, August 2010
“Pallid”, rambouillet, Club, November 2009

Enchanted Knoll Farm “Treasure Chest”, Hooves Batt Club September 2008

Enchanted Knoll Farm “Harvest”, Hooves Batt Club October 2008

Enchanted Knoll Farm “Pass The Pie”, Hooves Batt Club November 2009

 

 

Look for some of the resulting SCF and HY skeins to show up in my Etsy shop in August. Not sure of the yarn construction plans of these, though I know the Enchanted Knoll batts will all become sock yarn for me (which I'll then madly knit into socks during the Ravellenics following the TdF.) Wish me luck!

Handwoven: Emerald Forest

As the holidays approached, I wove several scarves for gifts and several for the Etsy shop so other people could give them as gifts. :) One of them was the Emerald Forest scarf, woven with a combination of merino/silk/alpaca/sparkle yarns. It was quite lovely, and sold in the shop quickly to someone who wanted a gift for her mother.

Fortunately, I had warped the loom for two scarves. :) This one waited patiently until this week, when I had a chance to weave it. I love the undulating color changes of the greens with the hints of brown. I used one of my favorite yarns as the warp - Enchanted Knoll Farm's "Fairy Dust", a lovely merino/nylon yarn with a touch of sparkle for elegance. The weft is an alpaca/silk blend from WEBS.

The finished scarf is 70" long (excluding fringe) and 7" wide. The hand-twisted fringe on both ends is 5" long.

I sold it in my Etsy shop.

I'm always weaving, though - if you want something custom-woven for you, give me a shout and we'll work something out!

Autumn, How I Love Thee

Autumn - the word conjures images of swirling dry colorful leaves and brisk chilly air. Sounds lovely, and many parts of the country experience this when the season changes in late September.

Not us - we still have temps in the upper 80's, high humidity, and green leaves firmly affixed to trees. We won't experience much in the way of Autumn until late October, and perhaps even early November.

So I wove some Autumn instead. :) Here's a lovely scarf I finished this week, handwoven on a Schacht Flip rigid heddle loom. It's 70" long, 6.5" wide, with additional handtwisted 3.5" fringe on each end. Warp (lengthwise yarn): Enchanted Knoll "blissful" yarn (merino/silk/tencel) in "Sunflower Sampler". Weft (widthwise yarn): 8/2 tencel in "spice".

It's available in my Etsy shop.

I'm attending a weaving workshop with friends this weekend - we're weaving finnish-twill breadcloths in cottolin (blend of cotton and linen). I've not woven with cottolin before - I look forward to learning its unique quirks. I hope to end up with some Christmas gifts for family, and if I love the material and the structure, a new item for the shop. We'll see!

Custom Confetti, and Another Scarf

Remember when I talked about designing a handspun yarn, specifically the rainbow yarn that my customer friend requested? Here's the resulting yarn (remember, she chose the "confetti" option):

Rainbow colors with black accents. I'm happy with the way the two skeins coordinate, considering the original braids of fiber were slightly different. They're 400 and 380 yards of 16wpi fingering weight 3-ply.

And I finished another of those fun scarves on my Cricket loom - this one is the mirror image of the Rainbow Waterfall scarf, which had a purple center that flowed down into red fringe. Instead, this Rainbow Cascade scarf has a red center flowing down into purple fringe:

50" long, with additional 4" handtwisted fringe on each end, 6.5" wide.

I'm really pleased with the way these scarves turned out - they're soft and drapy, colorful and fun. I see more in my future!

Today is World Wide Spinning In Public Day - I'm taking my Matchless to the library. We have a guild meeting, which is usually just us sitting around a table discussing weaving/spinning and passing around FO's. Today I'll demo for passersby and see if we can't attract some new members!

Handwoven: Rainbow Waterfall

How cute is THIS??? And so much fun to weave. The warp yarn (Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport) does all the work - its regular repeat gives the illusion of faux ikat without cutting and tying individual strands.  I direct-warped it on my Cricket loom and wove it off with a bright red 8/2 tencel.

50" long (not including the handtwisted 4" fringe on each end), 6.5" wide, fully reversible.

And did I mention "cute"????