Saturday, April 23, 2011

Now What am I Going to Do With You?

Thank-you all for the help with my rainbow scarf. I'm happy to announce it's long since finished, but sits on the desk in my kitchen mocking me for it's lack of finishing. I still need to do the fringe, wash and press it. Soon though.
Yesterday I pulled out some fiber I've had sitting since SAFF last year. An absolutely beautiful Merino/Seacell braid dyed by the amazingly talented Urban GypZ. Her use of colour to create wonderful depth and dimension in her fibers astounds me. Plus the fiber is always wonderful to spin, light, airy with zero need to do any sort of pre drafting. I know we all have favorites, based on colour and application, and Urban GypZ is easily one of mine.

Started out as this fiber:
 Top fiber named Morrel. Very badly photographed unfortunately. (The Bottom is Little Giraffe, which was also a wonderful spin) It's almost like an impressionist painting, lots of spots of colour combined to make one larger colour palette and overall experience.

Bit of a dark photo while spinning. Still a single at this point.




Finished 2 ply worsted weight yarn! My husband claimed the fiber the second I brought it home, and I'm glad I finally sat down to spin it up. It's hard to tell, but it's probably the nicest yarn I've ever spun. Nice and even, smooth (spun worsted) with a good ply. I couldn't wait and took pictures while it is still wet. Hubby was so protective of it when I brought it back inside he exclaimed "Did you bring my yarn outside?" Very cute. It's nice to know he likes it.
Now I have to figure out what to turn it in to! Hat perhaps? Gloves?
Any pattern suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Newbie Weaving Issues

Help!

I'm working on my second ever project. I have a book that helped with figuring out yardage and how to set up for a specific length/witdth item (In this case a scarf) and no issues warping the loom (yay!). Now I'm weaving along, but noticed that where ever the scarf winds along the front bar is warping my weave! It's getting spaces and waves, causing where I'm working to be out of whack and not straight across. I'm going  slow and trying to get a balanced basketweave, but then when it winds on it looks like it's all going to heck in a hand basket.

Here are some pictures. It's harder to see in these, but in person it's really obvious how wavy and warped it is.



Click the pictures to make them larger.
The yellow used to be as nice and straight across as the green above it... but now it's just... ugly.
What am I doing wrong/how do I stop this from happening? Is it something I should even worry about or will it settle down once it's off the loom? It seems most dramatic at the place where the knots are under the weaving, creating holes and large waves.

Thanks!

Edit to add more photos:

I decided to take it off the front beam and see if the weaving went back in place when it wasn't under tension... and it's actually even WORSE when it's off the bar.
This was a fairly balanced weave with just a tiny bit of warp showing through.. now it's ugly and wavy and full of holes and issues that started once it was wound on to the front bar.



 You can see where the yellow was wound on to the bar... and how the green wasn't.


How yuck is that? All the holes and warping. Ugh. I'm going to go to bed and try not to obsess, but this is pretty frustrating. Can I fix this, or do I have to start all over again? (Please say I don't have to start over, please?)

I've been using my fingers to try and fix the problem areas, and I added thick freezer paper when winding on the front. Seems to be doing the trick- is there anything else glaring I should be doing from here on that I haven't been?

Monday, April 4, 2011

The Glass is Always Half Full!

Still some great fibers left in the shop! The Tallulahs are gorgeous, (if you're on the fence) and there are more colours in Inlet then I could properly photograph. Plus it's not everyday you see hand painted Lincoln Longwool!
If you're looking for yarn, Life Aquatic is my favorite of the bunch (although it's like picking between children at times) with a great amount of yardage, and more blues and greens then my little point and click could capture.

Thanks for all the support so far everyone! I think I'm finally finding a flow at the gym. In the evenings I've been a lump, but I'm starting to lose the soreness and consider picking up a project. I have dreams of warping my loom with rainbow soon.
Anyone else getting in shape? A friend sent me this link and it made me stop whining about how slow the weight was coming off. Such a cool blog post eh?

Don't lose interest in my blog! I've had a run of bad computer luck lately but I have a new one coming on May 4th. Yay!