Race for the Cure 2011 post-show

Race day, which was two weeks ago now, was a brisk but sunny day; and as usual, my stomach was turning before the event. The nervousness starts on the drive to the event, as the last few miles take an eternity to drive because traffic is so backed up. Granted, I have learned my lesson with that, but the traffic back up seems to get worse every year. A blessing and a curse, I guess.

Once the car was parked, I got myself to the starting line. I didn’t get a spot as close to the starting line this year as last year because I really don’t like worming my way through all of those people, jockeying for position. They all just kind of look at you like, “And who do you think you are?” And somehow, the response, “The one that is going to beat you to the finish line!” doesn’t seem appropriate.

Not jockeying for a position closer to the starting line turned out to be a big mistake, because my time (24:31.4) was close to a minute slower than last year. And all of that lost time was in the first mile, trying to get out from behind people who decided that maybe they will just walk instead. While the 1 mile clock said 7:00 when I past it last year, it said 8:15 when I passed it this year. Oh well, live and learn.

The actual race isn’t the primary reason for being there anyway.

Everybody there was racing for someone.

I wrote down who I was racing for.

Thank you all for your sponsorship to help me do this.

Now for the shawl.

It is completely finished and ready to go to the winner of the drawing, Joan Hajek.

It took me a while this year to come up with a project to make. Part of the problem is finding a project with some kind of pink in it that I will actually like doing, because I am not a pink person. Surprise! Then, in July, I got the last shipment from Spirit Trail Fiberworks fiber club. Of course, the thought of this shawl didn’t occur to me until the night that Irene hit us when I saw the notice that Jennifer had post on Ravelry that she had 10 ounces still available of the colorway. While the storm was raging away on us, I was messaging with Jennifer to get the rest of the superwash BFL. Good thing we didn’t lose power until later that night!

After spinning the fiber up, I had to figure out what pattern I was going to use to weave it. Since I was using the same yarn for both the warp and the weft, I wanted a pattern that didn’t instantly scream “PLAID!!!!” After playing around with different drawdowns (weaver-talk for how we figure out a weaving pattern), I settled on the one below.

It is what is called a progressive twill, which basically means a basic twill pattern that gets its starting point shifted over to a different set of treadles with each start of the repetition. I thought the long diagonal would be longer than any color repeats, and thus play down the plaid a bit. (BTW, I have nothing against plaids. It was just not something that I wanted to go for here.)

Overall, I think the idea was kind of successful.

On the loom, the shawl was sett at 15 ends per inch, with a weaving width of 16″. Coming off the loom, the shawl measured 14.5″ X 59″. After fulling, the shawl measures 13.25″ x 54″. None of those measurements include the fringe. I believe a good bit of the draw-in, take-up, and shrinkage is due to using wool singles, which have a great deal of energy to release. A plied yarn in a less elastic fiber probably wouldn’t have shrunk down so much.

Again, thank you all for your help and support. I already have next year’s fiber on order!

Copyright 2011 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com.

Rubberband Man

Reference

You know that problem I told you able in the last post where a tie-up came loose? Well, it kept happening, and not just on the one treadle, but some other treadles as well. It seems some of the treadles really don’t like being tied to the eighth shaft. That last tie-up seems to want to work its way out of the treadle.

So, there has been some unweaving to take care of areas that were woven with the correct tie-ups missing. And there has been a treadle fix to keep the ties in place.

It might be a little difficult to see with all of those tie-ups hanging down, but for the eight treadles that I am primarily using in the pattern, I have wrapped a rubberband around the end of the treadle to prevent the ties from sliding out. This has worked out well so far.

I have about 30″ woven so far. I have at least 40″ (if not 50″) more to go.

Thanks to those that have sponsored me already. If you would like to sponsor me in the Race for the Cure, just go here and for every $5 in sponsorship, you are entered in the raffle for this shawl. Thanks again.

Copyright 2011 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com.

Race for the Cure Weaving

So, as some of you have figured out, the shawl that I was putting on the loom if the “thank you!” prize for the those that support me in Race for the Cure. For every $5 you sponsor me for in the Race, you get 1 entry in the raffle for the shawl.

So how is the shawl weaving going?

Well, it is on the loom and the treadles are tied up, and I have started weaving. Here’s a couple close-ups so that you can get a better idea of the design.

Of course, there is always a chance that this could all go horribly wrong. (For example, I have already had one of the tie-ups to one of the treadles come loose, causing a big old problem when trying to weave. I had to cut out the weft and start again.) If things do go so wrong that they are beyond repair, I will weave the winner another shawl just for him or her.

The race is October 23 in Hunt Valley. The drawing for the shawl will be October 30 at 7PM Eastern. Thank you in advance for helping out!

Copyright 2011 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com.

Kinky

Woohoo! Socks are done.

The toe and the heel of these socks are from Charlene Schurch class I took back at the MDSW. For the toe, I used Becker’s magic cast on, rather than knitting a rectangle as the basis for the toe. I think I am going back to the rectangle method, as the magic cast on gives two little points on the toe when the sock is actually on the hoof. For the heel, it is a matter of increasing a number of stitches, than knitting a trapezoid for the bottom heel, followed by picking up stitches along the sides of the trapezoid and gradually knitting in the increased stitches into the back of the heel. That works pretty well, so I may be doing that again.

Not that I waited to be done the socks to start this, but last month I was spinning up July’s shipment from Spirit Trail Fiberworks‘ club.

It is superwash BFL that I spun up as a single at around 24 epi. When I saw a notice on ravelry that she had more of the roving available, I contacted her (during Irene, no less) and snapped up the rest of it. Once it arrived, I spun that up to match the initial shipment so that I had a total of 18.6 ounces of singles.

With that much of one yarn, a woven shawl sounded like a good idea, so the last 10.6 ounces spun got wound into a warp, and the warp is currently being put on the loom.

The yarn is kind of kinky right now, which is making it a bit of a pain sleying the reed, but it is not too big of a deal. I think I might add a dummy warp to the end of all of these warp ends so that I can use as much of the warp as possible.

Who am I weaving this shawl for? More about that later.

Copyright 2011 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com

Through the Storm

Reference

So what did you do to pass the time while you watched the Weather Channel for the constant loop on Irene?

I worked on two things on Saturday.

image

image

The top image is of a pair of socks that I making using Dragonfly Fibers Dragon Sock in the Deep Ocean colorway. I started them a few weeks ago. I got the yarn from Cloverhill during MDSW.

The second image is of the front of the vest. I finished the back before the heatwave began and only recently started working on the back because I really didn’t want a big old lump of alpaca sitting in my lap during the hot spell.

I hope if Irene hit you, you didn’t suffer too much damage and life is returning to normal for you. It finally seems to be doing that here.

Also, a big thank you to Roseann for letting me know of a certain problem I had with the site. I think that I fixed the problem and have reported the issue.

Copyright 2011 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com.

Keep On Truckin’

Reference

It’s been a while since you have heard from me, again, hasn’t it. Every time I think about posting to my blog, I think, if I just wait until X, I can include that in the post as well! The last of those items on the X list happened today, so today I am posting.

First off, I finished some spinning. Both of these fibers are from Fiber Optic.

The first is the 50% superwash merino/ 50% bamboo blend that I got as part of her “As the Whorl Turns” club. It was great to spin, as it was pencil roving and required no predrafting on my part. The second is the BFL/silk that I got from her at MDSW dyed in the gradient from gold-crimson-espresso. It spun incredibly fast. Both need to be blocked yet, since I plan to knit with both of them, but that can wait.

Next up is a toy that I knit for my great-nephew’s first birthday.

The pick-up truck pattern and yarn came as part of a kit from Knitpicks. It was a great project, though sewing the tires on with the black yarn really was a test for my eyes. Here is the little guy after opening up the gift.

He seems to actually like it! And, he will still be able to use it no matter how much of a growth spurt he has.

Finally, the socks in the slip stitch plait pattern are done.

This are part of my gift to Mr. Penney for his birthday, which is today! They are in his favorite color (and that was no accident.) The yarn, Sanguine Gryphon‘s Bugga, was great to work with. Luckily, I have more of this in my stash, so more socks will be on the way (like that was ever in question.)

Happy Birthday, Mr. Penney!

Copyright 2011 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com

Color My World

Reference

While I loved working with the natural gray of the blanket, it was time for some color after completing it. Luckily, it was also time to finish up another project.

My YMCA socks are done. These socks are nice and comfortable and fit well. As an added bonus, the colors didn’t pool or form any noticeable pattern that I could distinguish. Cheers all around!

With YMCA done, I permitted myself to start a new pair of socks.

This is a slip stitch plait pattern that I got out of one of my stitch dictionaries. Part of the pattern is to drop the stitch that has been slipped for a couple rounds while working other stitches before picking it back up to knit it so that the whole pattern looks like a cabled pattern. It was felt odd to purposefully drop a stitch, but it all works out ok because the stitch originates a couple rounds below the round that is being work, so the dropped stitch does not get pulled or anything that would cause a run of dropped stitches. (I hope that all made sense, because I can’t think of another way to describe it.)

The yarn is Sanguine Gryphon’s Bugga that I got at MDSW. It is possibly the softest sock yarn that I have ever felt. No wonder people go on about it like they do.

While we are on green projects, I am trying to get myself back to weaving on my smaller loom.

This is Atropos from Spirit Trail Fiberworks that I got as MDSW a few years ago. I starting putting this warp on the loom a while ago, but let it drift off because warping this loom became a pain, literally. Now that I know that I can use the stepstool to sit on while threading heddles, I hope to get back to it this weekend, as this project has been mocking me every time that I go down into the basement. Just mock mock mock. We shall see who has the last laugh.

There has been spinning as well. Over Memorial day weekend, I did quite a bit of spinning.

The blue at the top is more of the merino/bamboo from Fiber Optic, while the bobbins below it are each two ounces of the BFL/silk in the Espresso-Crimson-Gold gradient that I got from Fiber Optic at MDSW. There will be a good bit of plying action that will be happening soon (mostly to free up bobbins for continued spinning).

On the future spinning front is this.

Back in April was the weaving guild’s auction, and I was lucky enough to get the day with the guild’s dyeing study group. The day was back in May, and I dyed this cashmere and silk blend that I had along with a yak and merino blend that is not seen here. I steamed the rovings the following weekend, and despite my best attempts to ruin everything (the plastic wrapped “burrito” actually fell into the water and boiled away for a while), it all came out great. There are places where I didn’t apply enough dye, but I figure those will work out somehow when I spin it all up.

So, is that enough color for you?

Copyright 2011 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com

Hip to Be Square

Reference

So it all started with the gray Romney fleece that I got at last year’s Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.

That fleece then got spun into singles.

The result of all of that spinning was 10 skeins of singles that contained over 200 yards that were about 14 epi.

Now, I knew I wanted to make a throw, but I wasn’t sure on the design or the colors. I really wanted to dye the yarn to coordinate with the family room; but I am a rather inexperienced dyer, and I am not that secure in my color sense.

Well, I ordered some colors of Washfast acid dyes from Pro Chemical and Dye. They arrived, and they just sat there. I could not decide which colors to use, nor could I figure out how I was going to dye singles and not wind up with a kinky, curly mess. Oooh, kinky!

In the meantime, I started playing around with possible weave structures for the blanket. I already had the idea in my head to do a rib weave similar to this shawl that I wove for my mother a while ago.

After playing around with it, I decided that I wanted to weave squares into the fabric and use a broken twill inside the squares so that the diagonal that you see in the shawl doesn’t distract from the squares.

And then, still more procrastination about color. So much procrastination that is now April, and I need to get a warp on the loom if I want to get this blanket done in time for the festival. So, color problem solved, there will be no dyeing of the yarn because there is now no time for it and the complications that might ensue.

I divided up the ten skeins into groups that were consistent in thickness within the skein and from skein to skein. Those five skeins together would be the weft for the blanket, and the rest would be used for the warp, since it is easier to manipulate where warp threads fall to disguise inconsistencies in yarn.

It turns out that I was pretty consistent throughout most of my spinning, with only one skein that was more thick and thin than the rest. I wound the five warp skeins on my warping mill, and sleyed the thick and thin skein across the width of the blanket in the reed, and filled in the spaces with the other four warp skeins. Overall, the reed was sleyed at 10 epi. Then, I started threading heddles.

Notice that the sectional beam isn’t on my loom anymore. After about five years on the loom, I figured it was impeding my weaving rather than helping it. With the sectional beam off, I am no longer confined to having to have my weaving with being a multiple of two inches. Maybe someday when I am the production weaver that I have always imagined myself to be, the sectional beam will go back on the loom, but not until that day comes.

In threading the heddles, I also found that we have a little Rubbermaid stepstool that is just the right height for me to sit on and do the threading. I have never threaded so many heddles without having a backache after doing so. It was truly a great find.

Once the heddles were threaded, the warp was tied onto the back beam, wound on, then tensioned and tied onto the cloth beam. Weaving commenced, and went fairly quickly, when you consider the size of the weaving.

The only real problem that I had was the selvedges. The selvedge thread kept on getting pulled into the main body of the weaving, rather than staying as the outer most thread. I have an idea of how the solve this for the next time, but I didn’t think of it until I was through with the weaving on this blanket.

After weaving, I did a blanket twist on the fringe (which seemed to take forever), fulled the blanket, let it dry, and trimmed the fringe.

Here is a close up that shows the weave structure.

Overall, I was pretty happy with the way it came out. For a medium course wool (it is a Romney fleece), the blanket is soft and pretty lightweight for what it is.

At the festival, the blanket got a third place in its category and got a Best of Maryland Wool award. I was honestly a little disappointed to get a third place, but was assured that first through fourth place were extremely close in my category and were not decided until the last possible moment. This I believe, because I happened to be there to set up the display of entries, and they still hadn’t decided my category an hour after they were supposed to be done with the judging. That’s the way the ball bounces, sometimes.

Copyright 2011 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com