Handwoven Mermaids

I finished the Mermaid scarves. I am completely in love with weaving handspun silk. It feels great when it comes off the loom, but then, oh my! A hard pressing with an iron gives the silk a fantastic gleam and such a soft feel. These scarves are like butterfly wings.

I'm super-glad I have a whole bin of handdyed silk, because I'm going to spend this year spinning it up into scarf warp. :) For instance, I just finished spinning this skein of 400 yards laceweight silk, handdyed by Southern Cross Fibre:

It'll be the next warp on the Saori loom... but today, I'm finally starting the black rainbow towels!

Mermaid In Progress

The colorway of the silk I spun for this scarf is called "Mermaid Tail", and I can see why! I love the blues and subtle greens in this one. I'm using tencel for the weft, in a color called "Greyed Teal" - it really gives a watery feel to the scarf.

I'm glad I had enough silk to warp for two scarves, because I'm nearly finished weaving the first one, and I'm having too much fun to stop now!

Silk Warp

I spun this silk yarn earlier in the week, now it's wound into a warp for two silk scarves:

It's mostly blue with some mysterious green here and there. The handdyed silk fiber was called "Mermaid's Tail" and I think it's a great description. I can't wait to see how the variegation will look in the scarves!

Handwoven Chocolate

OK, so it's not as tasty as REAL chocolate, but these scarves are delicious in their own way, and calorie-free!

I used a favorite handpainted yarn - Fairy Dust yarn from Enchanted Knoll Farm, in the "Tiger Eye" colorway - comprised of superwash wool, nylon, and sparkle. I warped the Saori loom with enough length for two scarves, one shorter, one longer.

I wove the first shorter one with a caramel brown bamboo, hemstitched it and twisted the fringe. It's 5.5" x 45" with 3.5" fringe on each end. I call it "Chocolate Caramel":

The second longer scarf I wove with a spice tencel, hemstitched it and twisted the fringe. It's 5.5 x 72" with 3.5" fringe on each end. I call it "Spicy Chocolate":

I'm really pleased with the look and feel of both scarves. I hope you can see the sparkle - I took a zillion pictures trying to capture it. I'm glad I have more of this lovely yarn in my stash!

Handwoven Handspun Silk Amethyst Scarf

I spun this purple silk yarn last year, and it's been marinating in my stash waiting for its moment.

This week, I warped it on my Saori loom. I wove it with a tencel yarn in 'eggplant'.

I am so pleased with the way it turned out!







I'm pulling out my stash of silk fiber this afternoon - I see a lot more handspun silk scarves in my future!

SAORI Carnival Scarves

Here are a couple of Saori scarves I wove this past weekend - they're just perfect for our Mardi Gras carnival celebrations here in New Orleans.

I warped 5.5 yards for two scarves using 10/2 and 6/2 cotton, rayon boucle, cotton boucle, and novelty monster yarn from outer space. I wove one with a purple 6/2 cotton and the other with a periwinkle 6/2 cotton. I love how they turned out - they're light, with lots of drape, yet warm. They can be gathered or spread - either way, there's loads of color and texture. Each scarf is 70" long, 7" wide, with 7" of knotted fringe on each end.

First the purple:

And the periwinkle:

These were a lot of fun to weave, and they'll be a lot of fun for someone to wear!

More Scarves - Picture Roundup

As you know, I'm not terribly fond of the photography side of weaving. I could skip it altogether if I didn't want to show them to you and to list them in my shop. Alas, it's a necessary evil. Maybe I could add "joy in photography" to my Christmas list!

Here's the Advancing Twill scarf I wove in an early November workshop. It's two colors of 8/2 bamboo, and I really like the feel/hand of the bamboo fabric. It's silky and soft with great shine, similar to tencel. This one is 64" x 9", with hemstitching and handtwisted 6" fringe on each end.

Next up is a pair of tencel scarves that I wove in October, woven on the same warp - variegated purple/blue/green tencel, with a navy tencel weft for one and a black tencel weft for the other. Both scarves are 64" x 9", with hemstitching and handtwisted 6" fringe on each end.

Black tencel weft

Black tencel weft

Navy tencel weft

Navy tencel weft

And finally, two chenille scarves that I wove for my sister-in-law. I'd hoped to see her at Thanksgiving, but she wasn't able to attend our family feast, so they're being mailed. I wove this in plainweave at 16 epi/ppi, and gave them the "tennis ball treatment" in the dryer after washing. They're buttery kitten soft.

I'm weaving on the rainbow dishtowels today - I've got 4 done (2 pink, 2 teal) and am working on #5. I'm hoping to have them all woven by Friday so I can start the hand-hemming. Fun!

Fotography Friday

Forgive the spelling - I couldn't resist. :)

I've got such a backlog of weaving and spinning to photograph - I'm trying to play a little catch-up here!

I've got 2 scarves and a table runner to show you - they've all been finished for awhile, but haven't had their beauty shots until now...

Handwoven Purple Illusion - this is a shadow weave scarf, woven with 10/2 in two different shades of purple:

Handwoven Northern Lights Scarf, woven in a faux-faux-ikat style - the warp is "fairy dust" yarn from Enchanted Knoll Farm, with a lovely subtle sparkle, and the weft is tencel:

Handwoven Overshot Runner, in 10/2 cotton and 5/2 cotton:

And for reading this far, your reward is a sneak peak of the warp I'm winding for the NEXT batch of random rainbow towels:

This is 1/5 of the warp - with a 13 yard warp, I can only fit so many threads (110) on the warping mill before it cries "I'm full, I'm full!" So I chain it off, set it aside, and start a new bout. This warp will be 5 chains, since I need 550 threads for these towels.

Rainbow Towels in Progress...

I spent the weekend in the company of wonderful friends, the Weavin' Chicks - learning to weave Advancing Twill. We wove a scarf from bamboo, and learned that "Advancing Twill" means "a zillion picks per repeat"! We managed to get some lovely scarves woven - here's mine, before fringe-twisting and washing (I promise a better picture when it's done):

Happy to be able to report some progress on the Rainbow towel warp. Since I have 12 towels on this warp, I decided to weave 6 pairs of weft colors. The first two towels are PINK:

The second set of two towels is PURPLE:

And the third set is BURGUNDY:

I'll weave more tomorrow - I'm hoping to finish the whole warp tomorrow and Wednesday, so I can bring it to show off at the Saori retreat this weekend. A group of us are meeting at my friend Cheryl's Weavin' Place Saori-Style studio-in-the-woods for a Saori "Kai" ("sharing time") retreat, and as a special treat, my dearest friend Sherie is coming from Amarillo for the weekend! I can't wait to see her again.

I've also made great progress on my husband's sweater yarn - I've got two 4-ounce bobbins spun, and am working on the third (of four). This will be my first 4-ply yarn, and I can't wait to start plying, because the colors are gorgeous (pictures tomorrow, I hope!)

Handwoven SAORI Blue

I have so much catching up to do - the fall sweater's body is done and I'm knitting the sleeves, I've finished the tencel twill scarves and the shadow weave scarf, and I've spun several skeins of yarn - but the only thing I've got photographed right now is the SAORI Blue shawl/wrap/scarf:

I used mixed cottons, bamboo, rayon, and fun novelty yarns in both the warp and weft. I love weaving Saori - it's "no rules, just fun!"

Handwoven Tencel Twill Scarf

At the end of August, I warped the borrowed Megado loom for some tencel scarves in a fancy twill.

My friend Susan Harvey of "Thrums" shared the draft (which she used for some gorgeous bookmarks) in this blogpost. I really liked the pattern, but discovered that the 153 picks per repeat couldn't be programmed into the mechanical dobby on the loom - it has only 130 dobby bars. Hmmm. So I turned the draft (swapped the treadling with the threading) and tweaked it a bit, and then I only needed 119 bars.

I got it all warped up, and then... I got busy with other things (commission spinning, the rainbow towels, etc.) and the warp languished on the loom.

My friend Jenny (who allowed me to babysit her loom while she was in England for 6 months) has returned home, and would like her loom back, thank you. :) So I got busy weaving, and now the scarves are well in progress. I really like the way they're turning out.

The warp is a variegated tencel in blue/purple/green, and the weft is black. The little yellow flower pin is marking my progress - I measure, then record the progress and move the pin.

The Kitsune/Harvest sweater is progressing nicely as well - I'm halfway through the decrease section of the body:

 Of course, it won't be cold enough to wear it until late November, so I have plenty of time to knit!