Storyboards

This week at Digital Photo School, the assignment is to tell a story in 3 pictures. (No words)

I love, love, love this color! (I couldn't resist saying that!)

Around Portsmouth

Portsmouth, NH, (USA): Thursday was a gorgeous warm day with beautiful skies.

Jim and I took a quick photo safari to Portsmouth to play with some of our Christmas presents!! (Camera gear)

St. John's Episcopal Church

Skyline

North Church

South Church

Stonewall Kitchen

Lots of holiday decorations are out, using lots of local greenery.

Market Square

Pigeons

Garden structures at Strawbery Banke

Piles of salt and sand on the pier, waiting to treat our roads during winter storms

With our recent snow still covering the ground and trees, I'm extra glad we spent Thursday afternoon outside enjoying the warmth!

First Snowfall

This morning I awoke to the first snowfall of the winter.


I snapped a few pictures looking out the windows.


The garden is covered with about 4 inches of snow.


Happy Winter!

Finding Time: An Update

Apparently I have a lot to say these days. Here comes a long photo-less post on a Saturday night. I promise I'm not trying to torture you!! (And I will have photos tomorrow!)

I want to post an update on how I'm finding time for creativity these days.

New Schedule

When we got home from vacation in October, I started a new schedule to make sure I was creative each week.

The main parts of my plan were to have 2 design sessions a week, and to work as a production assistant (to myself) for an hour first thing in the morning 5 days a week.

How has it gone?

Short Version

Great!

I'm really happy with this division of time and tasks. I'm in my studio more often. I'm producing more work. I feel like it's a good balance of cranking out work, stretching my design skills and solving tough problems.

The past two weeks have been a real test of my plan. A holiday week like Thanksgiving obviously has schedule disruptions, but I still fit in my creative time.

During the week that's just ending, there was a death in Jim's family. We traveled a bit for the wake and funeral. But I still fit in my creative time. (I didn't keep up with people very well via email or my blog, but I was able to keep my studio commitment to myself and I'm happy about that.)

I feel more confident that if this scheme can work in weeks like the past two, it has a good chance of working until spring. (And if my friends and blog buddies can stand it, hopefully I'll also be able to keep in touch with them!)

Morning Sessions as Production Assistant

The morning sessions were hardest for me to get into, but now they're my favorite part of this plan. At first, I faced the task of weaving 4 more towels on a huck warp, then hemming them. Particularly during the hemming phase, I wasn't exactly excited.

The beauty of this scheme is that I don't have to be excited. I just have to do it. I don't have to be the most efficient, the best, inspired. I just have to sit down and get to work for an hour. No thinking. No questioning. No wondering. Cranking out work. Definitely "Less thinking, more weaving!"

It's working for me. I've really come to enjoy it. The pluses of that morning time are that when I first get up, the house is quiet and my brain is still partially asleep. The hour drifts by even if I'm doing a part of a project that I don't enjoy. My rules of not questioning and just doing whatever comes next keep me focused and make the time more relaxing. If something really doesn't work, I set it aside until my next design session, and move on to something that is working.

By Monday most weeks I look forward to that hour....I do try to spend Mon - Friday mornings that way....but sometimes life gets in the way and it gets pushed off til the weekend.

Design Sessions

My design sessions are a mixture of fun, challenging and hard for me. I am in a rhythm of enjoying that focused time and working on whatever problems I'm trying to solve.

So far I've designed the scarf warp you've heard so much about. Plus I have a secret Christmas project on my other loom, and another project ready for sampling.

I also did my calculations for my two days of dyeing during the design sessions. (I did manage to wind the skeins and actually do the dyeing during other time - not impinging on my studio schedule.)

It's fitting that I'm posting this today since I just had a great design session. I started weaving the first scarf on my 1st-Time-at-WEBS scarf warp. I also figured out what was going wrong on my secret Christmas project. I can start weaving first thing Monday with both projects in good shape.

Right now designing is so new to me that I have trouble keeping my "production assistant" busy with production all of the time. On off days when both projects are stuck, tasks like cleaning the studio, sorting and cleaning all the Texsolv parts of my Toika loom, and cleaning up a gift of shuttles and books easily fill the hour.

I hope that as I get better as a designer, I'll keep my production time productive, and be able to tackle some of the odds and ends that are on the back burner for now.

I guess I'm not really sticking with my "Less Thinking, More Weaving" motto. It's more like, weave in the mornings, think twice a week.

In reality, spending this much time with weaving means that I have great ideas when I'm driving around or out running....my list of different projects I want to do grows and grows. I love that idea phase of weaving (or of anything) the best.

Things Being Neglected

Last time I posted about finding time, a number of people talked about housework. Um, yeah. When I neglect weaving, it's definitely not because I'm doing too much housework!! We don't live in filth, but if I have to schedule time for weaving, I definitely have to schedule time for cleaning and such!

Knitting has kind of fallen off the schedule which isn't great. I have 5 projects on the needles and I need to get back to my knitting group ASAP. I'm such a social knitter! I've just had major schedule conflicts for the past month or so.

I do feel like other things that are important to me are getting short shrift....mostly keeping in touch with friends and relaxing, but hopefully as I get used to working this way, I'll get better at fitting in the things that matter most to me.

The fruits of my labor will be more apparent soon - which will boost my confidence and trust in this plan even more.

Hope you're having a creative December too!!

Down to Brass Tacks

I expected to have trouble weaving these scarves. I didn't expect to have so much trouble choosing a weft!

I'm going to drone on and on and on about my weft dilemma in this post. The good news is that I do reach a conclusion. (And it's also good that I'm warning you of droning right up front. That way you can just scroll through and still get away with commenting without sounding like you didn't read!!)

Washed and unwashed first samples

You may recall that I wasn't happy with the look or feel of my washed and unwashed samples for my First-Time-at-WEBS scarves.

Too stiff, and the wildness of the warp was being tamed too much.

I begged all of you for advice, and you gave me great advice!

Texture Sampler

A few ideas included using green in the weft, using a lighter color in the weft and using mohair in the weft.

In my texture sampler, with just 1 inch squares, I had tried several of these ideas. Mohair seemed the most promising of the ideas, since the resulting fabric was soft and flexible.

After raiding my stash, the first four yarns I wanted to try were my pink Earthguild yarn (rayon, cotton, flax blend), black cotton, purple Earthguild yarn, deep navy wool-silk.

I was also trying twill rather than plain weave for the first time on this warp.

In this picture, you can see the pink yarn in a twill weave, followed by the black, purple and navy and more.

One thing I realized right away is that with twill, the weft shows even more since it's skipping over more of the warp. I'm somewhat anti-twill in general. I know that twill provides drape and there are some really cool twill patterns. But I don't really like twill. I'm learning to like it, but I'm not totally there.

The other thing I realized is that I had much more draw-in in my first sample. So now, even though I hadn't changed the sett, the fabric was more open.

First sample sitting on current warp

You can see that in this warp which is less than 10 inches wide, the sample with the coral and turquoise is over an inch narrower than the samples I'm weaving this time around.

I think it's because when I started weaving last time, I used the technique of throwing 3 picks of plain weave before beating. With each set of 3 picks followed by 1 beat, the edges pulled in more and more.

In that first pink section of weft, I decided to abandon twill for now (even thoughworked hard getting the loom set up with 4 shafts and re-threading so I could weave twill.)

After that small section of pink, I reverted to plain weave for the rest of the samples.

Second set of wefts

My second set of wefts contained some long shots: navy and bright colored ladder yarn, burgundy mohair boucle, thin purple wool, variegated blue ladder yarn, purple luxury yarn (wool, alpaca, angora - who knows what), and pink earthguild again so I could see it with plain weave.

You can see the yarns in order here, starting with the ladder yarn with chartreuse streaks.

I was surprised to like the darker ladder yarn and surprised at how much the boucle overpowered the warp. I had been thinking of ordering a ball of a boucle that would blend with the weft, but I'm so glad I sampled more.

I was also surprised that my first reaction, and Jim's too, was that the first ladder yarn looks the best with the warp. It has a lot of sheen and irregularity, both of which might make a nice scarf. Even though this is a strange use for that yarn, and doesn't really make the most of the ladder yarn.

After sitting with these samples for a few days, to let my intuition have time to develop, the navy wool-silk has grown on me quite a bit.

My three yarn finalists are:

• purple Earthguild yarn (I just can't give up on having this scarf be in the pink/purple family)
• navy wool-silk
• streaky ladder yarn

They ended up in order from bottom to top in that photo of the sample.

Since I'm still fighting to get 3 scarves out of this warp, I cut out weft that I knew I wouldn't use. It's much easier to unweave if you're willing to cut and discard the weft.

Remember when adding a stick and cutting off the start of a warp was a big deal to me?

Now it's run of the mill!

I hemmed the sample and cut it in half down the middle. (I'm pretty sure I heard that idea from Theresa at some point).

One half has gone through the wash and is air-drying.

The hand feels good with all 3 of my yarn choices, so I'm finally ready to start weaving! Phew!!

I try to do 3 posts per project, a beginning, a middle and an end. This project already has a whole lot of middle and I haven't thrown the first picks of the actual scarves!

Here's hoping for smooth weaving ahead!!

Two side notes:

Wikipedia on the phrase "down to brass tacks"

The photo quality in this post suffered from all different lighting conditions - including a power failure. I didn't use a flash for most of the pictures. It's hard to see the color accurately.

After writing the post this morning, I'm wondering if the weft is too dark. I'm still pulled toward the pink and purple. I just hope that I actually have enough warp to make this into 3 scarves....then I can go with the navy, the ladder and the purple or pink. Time will tell! (And you know I'll show you what I come up with!)

If you made it this far, thanks for listening!

Related posts:
Asking for help designing in the reed
Project kickoff
Designing in the reed
Asking for help showing off the warp
Exhaustedly starting to weave samples

Second Dye Day

Over the weekend, I used one of the last somewhat warm days of this year to fire up my dyeworks again. (I have a few questions at the end of this post. If you're a dyer, I'd love to hear your ideas!)

I made two quick improvements to my process. Jim gave me 4 paint stirrers from his stash, so I had separate stirrers for each dye pot.

This time I converted the weight of the table salt needed for each dyepot to fluid ounces so I could just measure it in my dye measuring cups. I used a nifty little online conversion tool that can convert weight to volume for more than 400 substances.

Turquoise & Blue

In my first dye session, I used pure colors as they were given to me.

This time I got a little more adventurous and made some mixtures. The dyes were already dissolved into dye solutions, so I mixed by proportions instead of by exact formulas.

Three resources that helped me were:

• RIT Dye Color Recipes
  
• Advice from the Dye Forum on ProChem Dye Color Combinations
• ProChem's Dye Instructions
  

I pushed the turquoise toward blue and toward green by adding blue or green to the turquoise dye.

I combined orange and brown to make pumpkin. (It darkened to brown about halfway through the dyeing process. Not quite what I wanted, but OK.)

I combined red and orange hoping for something different from the red I dyed last time....and that looks like it was successful.

Note the theme of moving away from orange in those two combinations.

Finally, I combined red with brown in an attempt to make burgundy. I threw a teaspoon or purple in there, and about a quarter cup of black. (Those measurements were of dye mixed with water - not of dye powder!)

I hoped for burgundy. I got something more like eggplant.

Turquoise & Green, Eggplant, Red-Orange

Questions:

1. How do you tie your skeins so they don't get tangled and snarled?
2. To dye yarn a pastel color, do you just add a lot more water (or a lot less dye?)
   
3. Once the yarn reaches a color you like, can you remove it from the dye bath to stop it from getting darker?? I had a combination of orange and brown that looked like pumpkin on the yarn for quite a while. But then it got darker and darker, and is brown now. Was there some way to stop it from changing from pumpkin to brown??
4. Do you just squeeze excess water out of the skeins and hang them to dry? Or is there a trick to get them to dry faster? Mine are drying indoors, and it takes days.
   

If you can answer any of these, please comment or email me!!!

I want to show you pictures of finished yarn. And I will, once it's dry and turned into balls of yarn instead of unruly clumps of color.

I definitely appreciate color, dyers, and all of my colored yarn so much more now!!

Related posts:
First dye session

Thankful

This week's assignment at Digital Photography School was "Thankful".

Photographing something you are thankful for, if possible with a 50 mm lens.

I didn't have much time for this assignment, but I did take one picture with my lens set to 50mm. I had to back up as far as possible to get my subject to fit.

Then I cropped the image - which makes me wonder if I totally changed the 50 mm qualities of this shot. (Gratitude I understand. I am grateful for so much. 50 mm lenses - I don't get them. Maybe next time!!)


I was winding skeins for dyeing. There's just something about the sight of linen in a swift that is beautiful to me.

I relate to linen....something about how it has a mind of its own. It just wants to do what it wants to do, no matter how much a weaver tries to tame it. Its linen-y nature just shines through.

Some day I'll weave with it. For now, I'll just be thankful.