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My sometimes annoying process of iteration. Some call it sampling.

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My sometimes annoying process of iteration. Some call it sampling.

I worked on several different making projects this week. I was struck by how much I approached two completely different sorts of projects in the same way. The first was the dye project I talked about last week. The red-orange yarn turned out quite well. I did 22 samples over four days of a color that I had dyed before. In the end, the dye formula I used was the first one—my old tried and true with only two dyes and a toner.*

The final answer was NOT one of those last skeins as I’d hoped in last week’s post, but it was a simple matter of changing the depth of shade slightly before I had it. Matching a color in yarn, including the feeling and depth of that color, isn’t a one-shot deal. Maybe if this had been the yarn I usually dye it could have been, but it was not my yarn. I started by dyeing 8 colors in jars from several different formulas. Some were sort of close, some were not remotely close. In one I inverted the proportion of colors when writing out the formula and ended up with hot pink.

How, why, and when to scour yarn for tapestry weaving

How, why, and when to scour yarn for tapestry weaving

Why would you need to consider scouring yarn for tapestry weaving? And what does scouring mean anyway?

Scouring is simply the textile word for washing. Some (very few) yarns come with machine oil in them from the carding process and that needs to be removed before using the yarn for tapestry weaving. This usually only happens with coned yarns because the yarn goes right from the carder to the spinning and onto cones without any other processing. The oil is added in the picking process so that the fibers go smoothly through the big carding machines.

Nothing rhymes with orange

Nothing rhymes with orange

I’ve been making red-orange yarn this week. According to my dye book, it has been over a year since I did any dyeing and I’ve enjoyed being back in the dye studio (my garage) a great deal. I’m dyeing some yarn for a friend. She might be the only person on the planet who I’d do this for, though no one else has tested it yet. I’m trying to match a naturally dyed yarn that she needs a lot of. Because it is so hard to replicate naturally dyed colors (and she is a master dyer of natural dyes), she asked me to make her this color using synthetic dyes. I can replicate colors without much difficulty and I have a great big pot that I can dye the whole lot at once. I think it will be about four pounds of fiber.

The color is red-orange. I’m pretty happy that I did a lot of sampling of oranges several years ago when I was working on a commission because I learned a lot about orange. I struggled to make it back then, but this time around I felt inundated with options.

The Saffron Pocket Loom has landed

The Saffron Pocket Loom has landed

I have grown quite a collection of small looms over the last few years. I have some favorites and you can see some of them in THIS blog post. But the new kid on the block is definitely Mirrix’s Saffron Pocket Loom.

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This loom is small. And it comes apart into 3 pieces—the top, bottom, and threaded rod. For most people that might not be noteworthy, but in my life before coronavirus, I traveled a lot. My suitcase space when I’m traveling to teach is precious and bringing multiple small looms actually takes up quite a bit of room. The Saffron is tiny when disassembled which immediately led me to think that maybe I COULD provide small looms for relevant workshops now. Because I could fit 12 of these in a suitcase with no problem. I love this aspect of this loom.

But the real beauty of this loom is that it has tensioning. I don’t know of any other loom this small that provides a tensioned warp. This loom does it really well through a simple threaded rod. After warping, the tension can be increased by simply loosening the top nut and tightening the one under the top bar of the loom. When final tension is achieved, the top nut can be snugged up against the top bar and you have excellent tension. I never thought I’d see a loom of this size with adjustable tension. Being able to adjust the tension on a small piece is so wonderful.

Thanks for rocking my world Mirrix.

It was so much fun, I might do it again!

It was so much fun, I might do it again!

I talked about the Hot Flash tapestry I was working on last month HERE. I have now finished it as those of you who are watching my YouTube broadcasts have seen. This tapestry surprised me. It was so much fun. I definitely giggled my way through it. It turns out that a silly subject, bright colors, and playing with a challenging technique makes for a lot of fun.

When last you saw it, it looked something like this.

The Weaving Explorer

The Weaving Explorer

This gorgeous book dropped onto my desk last fall: The Weaving Explorer: Ingenius Techniques, Accessible Tools & Creative Projects with Yarn, Paper, Wire & More.

The Weaving Explorer by Deborah Jarchow & Gwen Steege is definitely a welcome addition to my weaving shelf. Gwen had a huge hand in the production of my own upcoming book, The Art of Tapestry Weaving, and I was so thrilled when she asked to mention my work in her own book in process with Deborah.

As you can tell from the subtitle, this is one of those books that takes on a wide swath of the weaving world. It is an adventurous romp through all kinds of things you can make from fibrous materials. And as in all books by Storey Publishing, it is beautifully produced with large, clear photographs in brilliant colors, clear text, and excellent how-to sections.