Tea towel 3...

Oops. I thought that this one was going to be a simpler pattern, and just be interesting because it has colour. Instead it's turning out to be even fiddlier than the second one.

I think the moral of the story is that I can't cope with doing plain things, at least when I have no set plan. I just have too much fun thinking "I wonder if this will work..."

The other moral of the story is that Swedish Lace appears to be even more fun with a bit of manual manipulation thrown in. I just hope it looks as interesting as it is to make.

Tea towel 2

Is woven. Still on the loom though - I was happy enough with how the first one washed up that I will finish the warp off before cutting it off. Second tea towel is similar to the first one, but should be a bit longer, and was a bit fiddlier to do some of the patterning on.

Planning is now happening on the third one, I think it's going to have some blue stripes at the ends, but I'll see what I think of that once I've actually tried it.

Photos will probably happen sometime after they're off the loom, which I'm hoping will be this weekend.

Photos...

I managed to organise myself enough to take photos after work today. The sun was a bit bright, so I have a bunch of wonderfully washed out pictures, but they give the general idea

First - the tea towel.
The colour is actually somewhere between a light butter yellow and a heavy cream, definitely not the off-white type of cream.
It has Swedish lace patterning:


And the cat seems fairly happy with it (or at least is willing to claim it as his:


There are also some photos of bits of the mystery stole.
It's large and pink (and yes, I'm aware that the deck needs painting):


And this seems like a better choice than the tea towel:

Tea towel 1

Just cut the first tea towel off and hemmed it. It's a bit smaller than I would have liked, but still quite usable - 33.5cm x 59cm before washing.

From a quick measure while damp after washing it looks like the finished dimensions are 32 x 55. It may end up turning into a hand towel or something, if it doesn't seem big enough to be useful.

I'll have a look at it tomorrow, but I'm thinking it's likely that I'll be resleying - it doesn't actually look too tight, but I think it could possibly get away with being a bit looser anyway.

Slack about updating.

I've been pretty slack about updating over the last couple of weeks. What have I been doing?

I wound a cotton warp for making some Swedish Lace tea towels, which then magically got itself onto the loom somehow. The first tea towel is now 2/3rds woven, and I'm procrastinating on rewinding the shuttle. Because I really am that lazy. I think the sett is slightly too tight, so I'm probably going to cut the first one off when it's done and wash it to see how it comes up. I should take a photo of it sometime, but there's procrastination blocking that too...

I've also been knitting a "mystery stole" over the last six weeks. It's large and lacy, and I'm glad it's done. There's nothing wrong with the pattern, it just didn't really click for me. It's currently a fairly drab pink, but I'd always planned to overdye it once it was done (and once I'd seen what colour it looked like it wanted to be). Currently I'm thinking I'll overdye it blue, but I want to let it sit and think about it for a while.

And now that I've gotten the stole off the needles I feel justified in making socks again. I bought a few skeins of Vintage Purls sock wool, and am now working on two pairs of socks (and planning a third)...

Bad waffle photos

I took photos of the scarf this afternoon, but it was very sunny and they're not very good. Here they are anyway...

Here's the whole scarf

Only one end is fringed and had the ends sewn in (and I noticed one fringe that still needed finishing).

And a photo just showing the (mostly) finished end. The fringing still needs to be cut to the right length.

I had fun playing with interlacing the fringe in an attempt to effectively add scarf length. When I tie it around my neck the point of the interlacing almost reaches my waist...

And after that, I wound a cotton warp for some tea towels (otherwise known as an excuse to try Swedish lace...) I probably won't get it on the loom until next weekend though.

Yet another scarf

The wool/rayon warp is now done. After the green scarf I decided to rethread because I was quite keen on trying a waffle weave. The weft is a pale blue 4 ply baby wool (left over from a pair of socks), with a couple of stripes of a grey/purple sock yarn. Total woven length is only 115cm (and I had a whole 60cm of yarn left over). One end is now fringed, but the ends still need to be woven back in, and the fringing needs to be trimmed to length.

It's very soft and squooshy, it's a shame it's so short though. That being said though, it is long enough to tie around my neck once with fancy fringed dangly bits showing.

Photos tomorrow sometime.

Not quite sure what comes next. I'm thinking I'll have to try something texturally interesting, I'm just not quite sure what. Here's hoping that I don't have any sett issues on whatever-it-is...

Oops

I thought I'd posted that last post, but apparently I saved it as a draft instead.

Long story short, I did rethread for a waffle, but I don't really like it. I'm going to try resleying, and if that doesn't help I'll pick some other threading to try. Maybe this weekend...

Two scarves done, madness following

The two scarves are now off the loom and washed. The brown one is 140 cm long. The only thing I don't like about it is the breaks between the patterns. I'm also not quite sure how I want to do the fringing, but that can at least wait until it's dry...



The green one is only 115 cm long, but I am rather enamoured of the effects (particularly on the centre pattern):


And the other side is interesting too:


The only repeats in the pattern are a couple of sections of zigzags, and the mirror image on the second half. It was a little firm before washing, but it seems to have softened up nicely with washing.

And now that they've been cut off I'm planning to re-thread the rest of the warp to make a waffle scarf. I suspect I'm at least a little mad (it's only 105 ends though, so not really too bad).

Second scarf started

I'm about a third of the way through the second scarf. It's going a bit slower than the first one - partly because I haven't even finished drafting up the pattern, but mostly because the weft is finer.

The weft is a white 2-ply tabby and a variegated turquoise 2-ply pattern weft. I'm really enjoying weaving the two colours (now that I've gotten into a rhythm with it) - I'm foreseeing some overshot planning in my future.

I'm quite happy with how the patterns are weaving up too. And now it is time for gratuitous photos of the first 20cm (I've done about 50cm so far).

It looks kind of wonky in this picture because it's not under tension:


Close up on the first part of the pattern:


Close up on the second part of the pattern:


The cloth beam tension issues seemed to settle down after the first little bit of winding on. Either I was being a bit to finicky or I got used to it (I'm not entirely sure which).

Not entirely sure what I want to do with the rest of this warp after I finish the green scarf. I'll see how much I have left when I get that far. I'm currently being very tempted to try re-threading for a waffle weave, but then I don't know what I want in the weft. Maybe I'll get some bamboo, or some of the "weaving silk" from the (semi)local craft shop. Decisions, decisions...