Leno and Random Plaids -- two weaving experiments

I hadn't gotten out the Cricket loom in a while, so I gave a couple of weaving projects a try this summer. The first was something that I'd had in mind for a while -- making a lightweight linen scarf out of some Fibronatura Flax that I had in my stash.

As weft, it's great. As warp -- not so much. It needs a good sizing first because it abrades and the plies break, and -- bit of a mess to work with. Hello, heavy-duty hair spray, it saved the day and washed out when the scarf was done.

After a long wait on the loom, because I hadn't decided yet how to finish it (in the end, hemstitching, plus making a twisted fringe of two strands twisted together), I finally finished the thing:

I did a 2:2 Leno weave, with six rows of plain weave in between each lace bit. I did a lot of lace because I didn't think I had enough warp to do too much plain weave, and I wanted a light, airy scarf for warmer-season wear. A close-up of the weave:

In the heat of the summer, it's still hot to wear anything around the neck, but on milder days it'll be nice to have an accessory, especially when the university is back in session. Seems like all my good work clothes and accessories are cool-season things. I don't have a lot for warmer times. But then again, the way they turn up the air conditioning to "arctic blast" in the summer (seriously, my digital thermometer in my office usually reads between 67 and 69 degrees F), I need cool weather gear when I'm teaching summer courses!

After finally getting the leno scarf off of the loom, I wanted to try the random plaid thing that you get when you weave a handpaint yarn with long-ish color runs in a balanced weave. So happened that Stephania of Three Fates Yarns came to knitting with two giant duffels 'o goodness. Watching her unload yarn and fiber from those duffels is like watching a clown car unload, only better, because it's pretty fiber instead of scary clowns, but you get the idea. So... much... YARN! She was bringing them for someone who won a choice of yarn as a prize for Tour de Fleece, but of course several more of us went shopping through the piles, and I picked out this one:

The colorway is Bird of Paradise, and it suddenly hit me why the colorway appealed so much -- it's a lot like the colorway I came up with to paint a sock blank a few years ago, and I recall Steph asking me which specific colors I'd mixed for that.

So that's what I put on the loom. I used a kitchen scale to weigh the ball as I warped the loom at 12 ends per inch, and stopped when I'd used about half of the yarn. Then I wound the rest of the yarn onto a shuttle and proceeded to weave a plain tabby weave.

Starting the warping process:

I had the peg about 80 inches from the loom, to make the scarf long enough and to allow for loom waste. That's one thing I have to learn to cope with when it comes to weaving: loom waste. I'm so used to taking a pretty ball of something expensive and knitting it until there's no yarn left. This "waste" thing... it makes me cringe and reach for something less expensive.

Belle photo-bombs the picture of loom warping:

Cut the ends, then separate the pairs of warp threads and load one of each into the holes in the heddle. Then the process of winding-on, which is easier with two people, but can be managed alone:

And with the warp ends tied. There's a lashing-on method that I want to learn to use, too, but this works pretty well, and after watching a video on Craftsy (from their beginning weaving course, which was on sale), I had a better idea of how to tie the ends and make sure that all warp threads are at even tension.

I wove several rows with some scrap acrylic to evenly space the warp threads. I just push a loop through instead of going back and forth so it's easier to pull out when I'm done. I hemstitched the end before going on because it's easier to do while the fabric is still on the loom.

The weaving proceeds:

After hemstitching the other end, I cut the scarf from the loom and did a twisted fringe, twisting two strands together and then those twists together to make a 4-strand fringe. Here's how I made the fringe come out even, using t-pins, a blocking mat, and a piece of junk mail.

Done! The colors are pretty true in this shot:

Colors are kind of washed out in this shot, but you can see the whole scarf and the plaid effect going on (and my Turtleheads -- Chelone -- in bloom).

Now I've got an experiment in weft-faced weaving going on. Have to get some pictures!

Midsummer Spin-In and Fiber Fair -- Can we call it a Wren Faire?

Lois Olund of Bellwether Wool Company waved her magic nostepinne and voila! A new fiber faire happened!

Well, maybe it wasn't quite that easy, but it was nearly that magical. Lois has been busy all over Ravelry, posting notice of her new brainstorm, a spin-in that grew into "maybe a couple of vendors of we're lucky, we'll see, hope someone comes..." and blossomed into a full-fledged brand new fiber fair in the tiny community of Wren, Oregon, catered by New Morning Bakery from Corvallis.

No one is calling it a "Wren Faire" yet, but give 'em time...

To help make this new fair a success, two friends and I carpooled in, two of us from Salem, one from Rickreal, and we drove down Highway 99 to Monmouth, went through that town to get to King's Valley Highway... and drove... and drove... and drove... and said, "How far is it to Wren? Let's see, Peedee comes first, then is it Wren or King's Valley? How much farther, do you think? We haven't passed it yet, have we?"

But no problem, we were driving through some of the most beautiful country on Earth. On the way we discovered a covered bridge, decommissioned now and moved off of the highway. It was going to be torn down, but the schoolkids of Peedee said, "No, not our bridge!" and with the community, raised enough money to preserve the Ritner Creek Bridge. We stopped to see the bridge, and found the foundations of an older bridge and the remains of an old road, probably originally a wagon road, near the bridge itself. A few clues about the history of the area.

Pretty soon after the bridge, there it was, right alongside the road!

The Wren Community Hall was all decked out, with vendors inside and out, and parking in a mowed field across the road.

That "couple of vendors, maybe, don't call it a fiber fair yet," had grown into 25 vendors, many of them well-known among local fiber show aficionados, like Stitch Jones, SpindleWood, Creekside Fiber Mill, and more.

Even the little shavers found something to be interested in. Wheels always fascinate them.

As did the animals: some cashmere goats, some sheep, and some llamas for petting.

Inside, more vendors, and of course the spinning circle for the spin-in as this event was originally envisioned:

Our own Stephania of Three Fates Yarn came with her gorgeous fiber and yarn:

The youngest attendee was but seven weeks old, but having a good time. She's a little Welsh Corgi puppy. I never knew they came in "blue," with blue eyes!

LaVelle and Helen, with whom I carpooled, enjoy the spin-in:

As for the buying part, I made out like a bandit! I didn't buy a lot, but boy, I got some bargains. I picked up nearly 20 oz of washed natural black Wensleydale locks out of a "sale" bin for a mere $4.75 -- for the whole bag! I grabbed up seven full spools of cotton warp yarn for future weaving projects. Why not when they're only $1 each? And the book, The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook, was a door prize! The most expensive thing I bought was lunch, which was $10 and well worth it.

This is definitely going on my calendar for next year!

Tour de Fleece: The Final count

And here it is, my final production for Tour de Fleece 2013:

Finished yarn is 458 yards of 4-ply cable, about sport weight, plus more on the bobbins. The sunlight and my camera make it look darker blue than it really is -- it's lighter and more lavender than that, but the colors look truer in the remaining top that you can see the bobbins resting on.

Not bad for having to help run a county fair right smack dab in the middle of the Tour. Next year -- I think I'll be on the Lantern Rouge team and not go for such lofty goals. Next year it's going to be "spin something." No Climbers or Sprinters for me, not until my tenure with the county fair is done.

Tour de Fleece, Days 21, 22, and 23

The last three days of the Tour! I started off with such high ideals -- I was going to spin two pounds of fiber, enough for two sweaters, and the first pound was going to be my first try at making a cabled yarn.

In the end, I got through a little over 3/4 of a pound. Funny how trying to run a county fair in the middle of the Tour kind of sets one back a bit. But even if it hadn't, I think a pound is as much as I can get through in the weeks of the Tour.

Day 21:

Day 22:

And Day 23:

Tomorrow I'll assemble all that I've done into one shot.

Tour de Fleece, Days 19 and 20

Still making regular progress on the silk/merino, though I think I'll only be accomplishing half my goal: one sweater's worth instead of two. And I think I'm on too many teams this year -- it's taking too long to post pictures on all of the TdF threads on Ravelry!

Yesterday's progress is here:

And today I got this far:

 I'm getting through this at a steady clip and I hope to have all of this spun and plied by the end of the Tour.

Tour de Fleece, Rest Day and Day 18

Yesterday was the second "rest day," but I went ahead and finished some plying, ending up with my first skeins of cabled yarn that I skeined and washed today. On the bobbin, it looks like this:

And the yarn itself looks like this, in close-up:

It looks bluer in the pictures than it does in real life, where it's more of a lavender, but cameras and purples don't always get along.

Today I didn't get a lot done, but did get the first work done on the second 8 ounces, starting the singles.

Behind the Scenes at the County Fair: Fair Highlights and Closing

As a superintendent, volunteer coordinator, and Fair Board member, I spent a considerable amount of time walking, walking, walking, all over the fairgrounds, to the fair office, to the volunteer locations, back to Textiles, and finally got to spin a little bit, especially after things settled down on the last day. Just to prove that I really did get outside the building, here are a few highlights.

My spinners were there every day, showing people what spinning is all about. Kids are just fascinated with the wheel. Many of them have never seen spinning before -- heck, many of the adults had never seen spinning done before!

I had a quilting club bring in a huge quilting frame for opening day. That made for a lot of color in the demo area!

On day two, we had rug hookers. The lovely woman on the left is 95 years old and still making gorgeous rugs. I sincerely hope she's back next year!

Here are just a few samples of the work these ladies do:

We had lots of visitors to the Textiles exhibit, and handed out lots of useful information for people who want to learn to knit, spin, or make quilts:

This year's floral display was gorgeous:

My weaver and a some of my spinners stayed in the evening to help keep an eye on the displays:

And outside of the building...

How about a concert? We had Kenny Loggins there on Friday night. Great performance!

Dogs and their owners were having a wonderful time at the Flyball competitions:

The dogs have to run a course with hurdles, take a ball from a bin, and come racing back over the hurdles again, then the next team goes. The dogs were all happily barking and running the whole time they were there, when they weren't out back splashing in the wading pools.

Of course there are carnival rides and lots of food vendors selling various combinations of starch, grease, sugar, and processed meats, the four Fair food groups!

Our fairgrounds has several buildings on the National Historic Register,  including our little stucco Poultry Building:

Not quite historically accurate, the Titanic sinks again (it's a blow-up toy, a slide for the kids -- hm, cheerful):

I think this one made Weird Oregon -- a headstone for a champion cow:

In the barns, kids could visit the petting zoo:

And of course, livestock on display:

At 6:00 on Sunday night, the fair closed and the hordes descended on the Open Class area to pick up their exhibits. Thanks to a crack team of knitters and spinners all helping me, we got every exhibit back to its rightful owner. This beautiful lady posed for a picture that I'll send to the quilt shop that sent us the gift certificate that she was awarded for winning Best of Show for quilts.

When it's over, it's over! The Textiles all went home, the flowers all vanished, and the foods all get discarded (because even though the cases are closed, flies find their way in and the food has been sitting out for quite a while).

An hour after the fair closed, the building was already looking empty. Crews were hard at work putting away tables, taking down the drapes, and getting ready to haul off the cabinets.

Outdoors, the food vendors were already vanishing:

Bye, bye, county fair! See you next year!