Acquisitions/Collection Curation

I have purchased a couple of weaving books that were recommended to me:

• A Weaver’s Book of 8-Shaft Patterns from the Friends of Handwoven edited by Carol Strickler. (This book is in black print only, but there’s a Facebook group called “Strickler in Colour” that owners of this book have shared the projects they’ve done, tagging the pattern draft number, so you can see what they look like in colour!) £26.95 new.
• Handweaver’s Pattern Book: The Essential Illustrated Guide to over 600 Fabric Weaves (4-shaft) by Anne Dixon. (It was recommended to me I purchase the spiral bound version which took a few days for one to appear at a reasonable price.) £24.05 for a used copy, including delivery.

Spinning

Tour de fleece is over for another year, this was my final skein of the tour. It’s a blend of merino and silk and has come out Sport weight! That’s pretty thin for me. The colour was called Don’t Blame the Dog…because it’s brussel sprouts coloured 😂

Weaving

8-Shaft Loom

I have continued playing around on the first (test) warp that I put on my new Lojan Flex loom. I played around with the Harris tweed yarns but the contrast with the blue is absolutely hopeless. So I looked in my stash and found some Scottish lambswool that is labelled as 4 ply i.e. fingering weight, but the pink is a lot thinner. I also played with some of the other colours and some work ok, others don’t.

The above photo is trialing the hearts pattern, the bottom is single grey and they are almost invisible, the middle is using 2 threads and still not clear, the top is red and finally a decent contrast against this terrible warp colour.

I did forget to take photos of some of my playing.

This test piece is going to look rather odd with a mishmash of colours but I may as well use it all up so that I know how much yarn wastage I get at both ends of the warp. Plus trying different colours is useful to see contrast and I need the practice at using this type of loom. (Previously I have only used rigid heddle and inkle looms.)

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Fellow YOPers, are my YOP posts getting too weaving jargon heavy? I have been thinking of maybe doing separate weaving blog posts, maybe on Wednesdays, because who doesn’t love a bit of alliteration.

Any weaving technical details and jargon would be on these posts and on my YOP posts I would just share when there’s a photo of a finished woven object with brief details. This should also help others weavers find those weaving specific posts, who maybe aren’t interested in the spinning and knitting etc.

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Other News

Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival was on from Thursday to Saturday. I went with my husband, but we didn’t camp. It is 10 years since I went the first time!

The friends I used to go camping there with, went this year with their new-ish husbands. One couple camping and the other in their motorhome. We still managed to meet up each day which was nice.  Best act of the weekend for me was Cammy Barnes, Mika was pretty good but I only knew a couple of his songs. Razorlight’s lead singer took his top off…I was sat wearing 2 t-shirts, an alpaca cardigan and a sweatshirt…oh and gloves and a hat. 

King Charles III is coming to the town I live in on Friday, as its celebrating 800 years of being a Royal Burgh! 

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This was a Year of Projects post. Officially the Group has just finished its 16th year, my 9th year participating. If you would like to find more about the Year of Projects Group on Ravelry, as you’d be very welcome to join us.

Year 16 list.