Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Woven Pine Trees Warp a Wrap!


The five towel Pine Tree warp is off the loom and ready for serging, washing and hemming.

I have to fix my serger first though as I broke one of the needles. I have been putting it off for over a month because, while I love it and the job it does, I find it fiddly as all get out. I'm counting my blessings that my folks will be coming for the annual visit mid-October and my Dad can do the fiddling should I not get it adjusted back up well.

I had to go right to the very end of the warp to eek out that 5th towel and had I not had such a great shed to begin with I never would have made it.


Three of the towels will go to the Greensprings Fire & Rescue silent auction, one will stay here and one will be for my folks. The bulk of towel weaving sailed along but the pine tree pattern was painfully slow. I did different variations of the trees, some tall,


some short and one towel is just plain with stripes and no trees at all. To recap, the pattern is from A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns edited by Carol Strickler, page 31 pattern #118. It requires 8 shafts and 11 treadles. I set my 6/2 cotton finally at 16 epi. The tabby in this tie up was rather pretty, gave the warp a striped cording effect. Reminded me of dimity which BTW is on my short list of things to weave. I was thinking a very colorful warp of bits and pieces of half balls of yarn from other scarves. We'll see if this idea blossoms or not. I have that linen, mohair and alpaca scarf warp ready to go on the loom next. That will be for the Friends of the Animal Shelter (FOTAS) silent auction in October.

It was a quiet weekend here, filled with almost warm days and cool nights. Critter spotting has been good. The count last week was one fox, three coyotes all together, an eagle, some quail ( they are so cute as they run across the driveway), wild Turkeys with a full brood of this years chicks, two Pileated Woodpeckers, and our handsome Stellar Jays are back for the colder season. They seem to leave us for most of the summer, returning for fall to stay until next summer. I suspect they move closer to the lakes
for our 3 hot months.

I also spent some time thinking about reorganizing my new storage buffet. I just threw things in there willy-nilly to get my stash off the bed. When I opened it up to look for something it was apparent that it needed organization of some sort. Right now, you never know what you'll find or where you'll find it!


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Stella cuteness factor is on full blast! Lovely towels!

LA said...

Stella is such a helper pup! She's just keeping things tidy! The towels are awesome...and inspiring.

Life Looms Large said...

Awesome!! The project looks great! (My double weave is off the loom and lace is partly on.....but no blog posta bout that yet.)

A dog in the yarn cupboard....be afraid, be very afraid!

Sue

bspinner said...

Guard dog guarding your yarn. Hmmm is he going to let you in to reorganaize?

I'm so impressed with your towels!!! Love them!

ladyoftheloom said...

I really like taking towels off the loom and finishing them. Good luck on your serger, mine is suffering from a tensioning disorder.

Stella is posing. She is good at it.

And I love a yellow kitchen! Very cheery!

Judy said...

Wow, did you fly through those towels or what? How nice of you to donate some of them.

I love your yellow kitchen. I painted mine a soft yellow last year and I love it.

My serger isn't working and they are such a pain, a pain, to work on. That's why it is in the back of the closet :-)

Leigh said...

Stella is so cute! We have pileated woodpeckers recently too! I was delighted to hear their call not too long ago and then finally spot one.

The pine tree fabric looks fantastic. What great towels it will make.

Sharon said...

That Stella - she upstages you, you know. BTW, I liked that Classic Elite pattern you put in your last post. I like many of their patterns, very classy. Love the towels and yes, your shed is amazing!