Spinning

Spinning a gradient


Creative Fibre Auckland had its annual retreat last weekend at St Francis Retreat Centre in Mt Roskill. It’s a very relaxed weekend, you bring any projects you want to work on and there are also a few informal classes offered. One of the classes was on blending a gradient for spinning. One of my Christmas presents last year was an Ashford Corriedale sliver bright colours sampler pack which I hadn’t used yet so I decided to take it along to the class. Cher Lyall was the tutor, you can find her on Instagram at @waihipi . Cher is always inspiring, I did a slow stitching class with her at the previous retreat.

I blended my fibres using a drum carder, spun them up and washed the yarn to make a felted single. I love the result and am now trying to work out what I can do with it. I’m thinking of weaving with it, using it in the weft.

Bumberet · Weaving

Bumberet Tea Towels

I decided to use up some cones of 8/2 cotton, predominantly shades of green, and weave some tea towels using bumberet weave. I didn’t bother to work out a colour sequence before winding the warp other than winding groups of three to work with the threading. However I was forced to ignore this plan and change colours part way through a group of three in a few places when I ran out of a colour. I was a bit worried when weaving the towels that this was a bad mistake and I should have planned the colours a bit better but once the towels were all finished I’m quite happy with the results.

On the loom
Off the loom, before wet finishing

Threading: point twill on 4 shafts Warp sett: 22 epi

References:

Handwoven March/April 2015

Weavers’ Issue 31

Heddlecraft Vol 6 Issue 1 Jan/Feb 2021

Weaving

Double Two-tie Samples & Weaving Mistakes

I’m weaving double two-tie samples, working my way through some of the drafts in Heddlecraft vol 4 issue 4. The warp is on an Ashford Katie loom that I bought secondhand a few months ago. It’s such an easy loom to take to weaving group meetings, compact when folded up and easy to carry in its bag, no more folding down the back seat of the car to fit my loom in.

Even though I am just following a draft, I have managed to make silly mistakes twice so far. Does anyone else keep weaving even though the sample does not look like the photo by convincing yourself that somehow it will look alright once it’s washed? It wasn’t until I left my weaving and then came back and reread the draft that I realised my mistake.

Fingers crossed I have learnt my lesson and will pay more attention in the future.