Overshot Weaving

We've just finished the workshop on Overshot Weaving with Vicki Tardy and what a weekend.  My brain is so full, it's overflowing.  What everyone said about her it true - great teacher, knows her subject back and forth and every which way.  She takes all the mystery our of it and makes it an adventure! 

I used a whig rose pattern and here are some of the samples I was able to get done:

The first one here is my regular pattern woven as drawn in with handspun Border Leicester, then with purple zephyr (wool and silk lace weight).

These are variations of the pattern using variations of the pattern and a variety of pattern threads.

This is the same pattern using a brocade variation (on the left) and 2 variations of the pattern woven "treadled as twill." 

It's all in the teacher, I assure you.  I can't wait to work the remaining warp.  Look, Ma, I'm weaving!  

Warm Hands

Back in February, the Yarn Harlot had a post about knitting mittens from unspun silk hankies, also known as mawata.  I had heard about doing this before but seeing hers gave me that, "I could do that" sort of feeling and, being the possessor of mawata in the undyed format, I decided to truck along.

I got my mawata (have a look at her post because she's got a good explanation of silk and how it gets to be like this) and started drafting. 

I drafted more finely than she did.  That is, I took the hankie as you see it here, stuck my finger through the middle of it and pulled it out into a big circle.  Then I broke the circle open and drafted out until it looked like the strand at the top of this pic.

And I knitted, like she did, just my basic, everyday old mitten pattern until I ended up with these.

Hers were cushy, thick silk mittens.  Mine are thinner, not as cushy but every bit as warm (did you read how warm silk is?) and I made mine so they could be an inner mitten.  I'll have this lovely silk on the inside and wool on the outside. 

Definitely the best of both worlds.  (And it's still cold enough to wear them - unfortunately!)

Progress

After the last post, I did want you to know that, thanks to YouTube, I'm progressing.  Woohoo, YouTube.  I remembered my friend, Jennie, saying that you had to use the 2 shuttles at once but I didn't remember if it was every pass, every couple of passes, every once in a while, everytime I think of you...Wait, I think that's a song.  Anyway, I tried a few things and then decided to find a vid because I was sure someone had posted a vid and viola!

Look, Ma, I'm weaving!

I would tell you more but I'm late for work so that will have to wait for the next post (with more pics).

But I did want to show you my finished "travel" pillow for bobbin lace, which I'm getting used to now and think it's going to work:

The pillow is in a self-contained box and the paraphenalia fits into the second box.  I've just got to rig a carrying case for the two and I'll be set.  I also need to sew a couple more fabric blocs but I'll add as I go along.  There's not much progress here but I do now have a section of the lace completed.  I've also got this going on.  I was told this tread was too thin for this size pricking but I already had the bobbins wound so I'm going to work the length with this tread.  It does for my purposes of practice anyway.

This is also a pillow I made.  Well, most of it is.  The part I'm working on was the pillow from my original Lacis kit.  Beginning steps but, oh so fun!

In Over My Head

One of the disadvantages of wanting to learn new things is that you so often find yourself in that most uncomfortable position of being in over your head.  Boys and girls, I am now officially and undeniably in over my head.  A good "friend" has convinced me to take a workshop on overshot weaving.  If you've ever seen old coverlets, you're probably familiar with the look, even if you didn't know that's what it was called.  Here's a sample:

Pretty but not a beginner technique, I wouldn't have said.  And I am without doubt, the rankest beginner.  In fact, I'm such a beginner that I could count the number of things I've ever woven on the fingers on one hand and those were on rigid heddle looms.  This pretty little pattern is woven with a 4-shaft loom.  And that's a different thing altogether (in case you didn't know it).

Now, in my favor I know the following things:

1. I know what thread is.
2. I know what yarn is.
3. I know what a shuttle is.
4. I know what a loom looks like.
5. I know what a 4-shaft table loom is (because I just purchased a used one from TLD Designs in Westmont - near Chicago - cool place, you should go) but I first handled one about 4 hours ago.

6. I know what the parts of the loom are and what they're supposed to do (sort of).
7. I know people who weave.

No doubt, those are all good things to know and will get me started.  Here are some things I don't know (or don't know much about):

1. I don't really know how to read the weaving patterns.  I thought I did until I tried to actually follow one tonight and realized, I don't really know.
2. I don't know what a block is.
3. I don't know what a tabby is.
4. I don't know what I'm doing.

Granted the don'ts are a shorter list than the dos but, let's be real, I stopped because #4 really just covers it.

In over my head, while it can be uncomfortable, is also kind of exciting.  I like being reminded what it feels like so when I'm teaching, I'm never very far from that feeling that so many of my students are also feeling.  It gives me a lot of patience. 

But it's also uncomfortable enough to feel like the weekend after next is going to be a collosal waste of time - mine and the instructor's.  But I did get a "mini warp" put on the loom tonight and I've almost got my real warp for the workshop finished measuring out (or whatever weavers call it).  Then it's just warping 131 ends of 10/2 cotton (bedspread weight cotton for the rest of us).  I have a feeling I'm going to using a lot of terms like "thingy" or "thingymabob" or "jigger whatsit."  I have a pretty extensive generic vocabulary and it may get some exercise in the next few weeks.

I used to have a pastor who would say he didn't much trust a leader who didn't have at least one major failure in a sincere effort to serve God (or words to that effect).  I've already racked up plenty of those, so what's one more!


P.S.  I'm feeling a lot that way about the bobbin lace right now, too.  I've finished my travel pillow but attempted a new pattern this week and failed miserably.  That's next.

Too Much

There's just so much going on that it's a bit overwhelming.  First of all, I visited (and joined) the Lacemakers and Collectors Exchange (L.A.C.E.) on Saturday in Clarendon Hills (near Chicago).  It was a lovely group of folks and I learned more in that afternoon than I've learned to this point, I think.  The program was an excellent overview of how to read the prickings (patterns), how to choose thread and pins and bobbins.  Although one person was doing the main part of the program, others were jumping in with their preferences and other tips and points.  It was so helpful to hear their thoughts since I'm so new to the discipline. 

The lady who was giving the program had a nifty little travel set so I thought the inevitable thought that takes up all your time over the next weeks that you think the thought:  "I could do that."

So here is my version. 

It's not finished yet but I'm really digging the way it's coming out.  I still need to sew up the pin cushion in the top (which will go into the bottom of the box for storage once it's all finished).  I also need to finish the "skirt" where the bobbins will rest as I'm working.  But I think it's going to work, I really do.

While I was up there, I decided to make a weekend of it but you'll have to wait until next week to hear the big news.

But I can show you what I found on the way home.  This was at a lovely antique shop called 2nd Time Around Antiques:

Tatted doilies.  You hardly ever find proper tatted doilies.  After I got them home, I realized that 2 of them are a smaller and larger version of the same pattern.  I've got this one written out and I'm making my own version of it.

Fab, no?

Living on the Edge

I've finally been brave enough to try an actual edging with the bobbin lace. 

It's one of those things that you learn as you go so you can see quite a few mistakes until the last 2 repeats.  I finally figured out what I was doing wrong and from there it worked just like it was supposed to.  Now I've started on a new one so I can get a good length of proper edging.  Looks almost like the real thing!

Fortunately, the program at the Lacemakers and Collector's Exchange (L.A.C.E.) on Saturday is about reading patterns (or prickings, as it's called in bobbin lace) for beginners.  Yeah, that'd be me.  But, like I tell my students, you just have to press through the mistakes and keep going.  Don't worry about taking all the mistakes out, just keep pressing on. 

Good things come to those who practice and don't freak out about being lousy at something when they're first learning, right?

And let me introduce you to my lunacy.
I, like all of you, don't have an abundance of free time (time not working for the man).  Then once I knit, spin, tat, teach classes and preparing for them, go to meetings, oh, yeah and eat and sleep, there's really not much time left.  So, of course with all this going on, I figure it's time to take on a few new things.  There's the bobbin lace thing but now I've been talked into taking a not-very-beginner (to put it lightly) weekend workshop on overshot weaving (with a 4-harness loom which I've never touched in my life) and now a friend has given me the loan of her smaller harp so I can learn to play the harp.  Actually it's the same person who's talked me into both of these things.  Do you think she's got a little undue influence over me?

More Bobbin Stuff

I've been working more with the bobbin lace stuff and although it feels good to be getting some patterns done, I know I'm still just rankest beginner.  All you have to do is look at all the mistakes in my latest project.  I'm not worrying about it too much because I got the cloth stitches done better than I've ever done before.  That's a success, right?  Now it's just about practice, practice, practice. This is also the most bobbins I've ever worked with at once (16 pairs) and it takes some getting used to as well.

I'm working here on my new "pillow," one that I made myself.  The book I'm working from (Beginner's Guide to Bobbin Lace by Gilian Dye & Adrienne Thunder) gives a description on how to do it and I think it came out pretty well.  Pretty well except for the dimensions.  I would do it differently another time but I suspect part of that is getting used to it.  Here are a couple of other projects I've done from the book.  The one on the left is a straight Torchon background using the interplay of the colors as the design element and the one on the right has a Torchon background with larger and smaller spiders.  This is the first time I've really been able to understand how these work and I was amazed it came out as well as it did.  I love this book and the clear detailed photos it has.  That has helped more than anything.

 So, I'm going to try and visit a lace group that meets near Chicago and see if I can track down some folks that I can watch and learn from.