Socks (the cat)

Socks is our newly adopted shop cat. Or, I should say, we're her newly adopted laps. Once we moved in to our new location, she decided to come on in the backdoor and welcome us to the neighborhood. Ever since, she's been coming by every morning, meeting us at the back with a few hello meows. She comes in, decides on who's lap she plans on sitting in today and makes herself at home. As you can see in the picture above, she really likes to help out with the work being done around here.

Socks actually lives across the street, but it seems like she's made the whole neighborhood hers. Her real owners are gone during the day, so she comes and visits us. We do our best to keep her out of the actual shop part and only in the office, but she does her best to do otherwise. Anytime she sees the opportunity she makes a bee-line for the showroom. Must be all those balls of yarns in there and visions of batting them around.

It's come to the point now, that if Socks doesn't show up we get worried about her. Some days she strolls in a little later than others, but so far she keeps coming by, so I guess she's our shop mascot now. And who are we to say no?

Handwoven chenille scarves

I have a lot of chenille in my stash, so I'm trying to weave a few scarves for Christmas for some extended family members.  I want to get 3 of them done.  At this point, I'm on #3 so it's looking pretty good. 

First up, and completely finished, is one in shades of purple.

 I sett it at 20 epi for plain weave.  Chenille likes to worm (send out squiggly bits from the surface) if it isn't sett nice and snug.  Some of these yarns could have been sett further apart, at say 16 epi, but some of the colors were finer, so I just went with 20 over all.

 Off the loom, the scarf has all of the drape of cardboard.  It's really stiff!!  But I've since twisted the fringes, and washed and dried it - I hand washed, but threw it in the dryer.  Now it's soft and plush and lovely!  But I don't have a picture of that...

 Next up I used 3 shades - one is a marl-ey green, then 2 solids. 

 The blob of yarn (warp chains!), ready to go on the loom.

 This scarf is also off the loom now, but I haven't twisted the fringes yet, or wet finished it...  The 3rd scarf is wound and sleyed, and I've only just started threading it.  I'm a pretty slow warper, but I actually enjoy the process.  I just turn on my iPod and listen to some podcasts, and make my way through it.  I do need to get a hustle on this though so I can finish these other 2 scarves and get them in the mail in time! 

Tick tick tick tick...  hope your holiday projects are coming along nicely!!

Decisions, decisions

I've been admiring and drooling after most of the designs in the book A Fine Fleece ever since it came out.  How I adore cables! 

This book shows every project in both a commercially available yarn, and in handspun. I recently started spinning some fiber from my stash that I'd had processed by Fantasy Fibers into roving, ready to spin.  A few years ago I gathered up a LOT of fibers - fleeces from all over in wools, mohairs, angora, silk - you name it.  I'd dyed lots of things without any projects in mind, just because it's fun.  Stupidly though, I didn't mark what I took in and had blended, so I don't know what sort of fleece or blend I've got in any of the colors I took her that day.  Sigh.  So Janell blended up the blues in one batch, the reds in another, etc.  I recently started spinning up the blue and I have a bit over 2 pounds I think.  Enough for an interesting project!  Now, I don't typically spin for a project.  I spin for the love of the process, just like I dye for the love of the process.  BUT, looking at this book, I keep thinking hmmmm, maybe I should spin for one of these sweaters.  And then I back away - way too ambitious a thought!  But I keep coming back to it. 
This week I committed to buying the book, and now I'm trying to decide which of these sweaters to make: (I apologize for my crummy photos, they looks sooo much nicer in the book!)

I have an abundance of wonderful choices!  I don't know how I'm going to decide.  They're all worsted weight, so I can probably spin a bunch of yarn before I have to decide.  And that's another thing, I'll have to spin some and ply it and SWATCH like crazy!  I tend to do swatches anyway, although I'm not as rigorous about it as I should be.  But this will be really critical - this will tell me if I'm making the right yarn to begin with!! 
There's a lady in Salem named Helen who is making EVERY project in the book.  I am so impressed with that goal!  Here I am barely able to commit to one of them. Helen, you're my inspiration! 
Maybe this will be my New Year's Resolution.  It will definitely be a stretch goal for me. What goals are you stretching for? 

A Handwoven Scarf in Tofutsies

I recently tried weaving some Tofutsies sock yarn, and REALLY like the way it turned out!  I used it as warp, sett at 16 ends per inch in a 2/2 twill, and used 8/2 cotton as weft.  It has a nice cozy hand and was super easy to warp and weave.  I'll be doing this again! 

 I put 2 ends per dent in an 8 dent reed, and used a floating selvedge.  Because a twill doesn't catch the side warp with each pick, using a floating selvedge keeps the edges tidier for me.  Some people don't like them, but I do!  A floating selvedge is a strand on each edge that goes through the reed, but not through a heddle, so it "floats".  When passing the shuttle through, you go over one side and under the other - it doesn't matter which side is over and which is under as long as you are consistent.  I go over at the starting side, and under at the far side - this wraps the edge thread every time.

 I really like a fairly long twisted fringe...  I use a double pronged fringe twister and twist 2 bunches together in the same direction - I count how many twists so I can be consistent across the whole warp.  On this scarf, I put 4 threads in each bundle, twisted a while until it was over twisted, and then put the 2 bundles together and let them ply together and tie an overhead knot at the end.  I like somewhat finer fringe bundles, but you get to choose the look you like.

I really like the way this fabric feels, so I'm toying with the idea of weaving some fabric to make a blouse...  It would feel yummy!  But first I need to finish up my Christmas weaving...  working on it!  Tick tick tick...  Hope your holiday weaving/spinning/knitting/felting is going well and that the recipients love what you make them!

Happy Thanksgiving!

On behalf of all of us here at Woodland Woolworks, we'd like to wish you and yours a very happy Thanksgiving!  Safe travels to anyone traveling!! 

Thanksgiving Wine Weekend

There are dozens and dozens of wineries and tasting rooms in the Yamhill/Carlton area, and there are 2 weekends of the year that are especially big for wine tasters.  One of those is the Thanksgiving weekend.  According to the website Willamette Valley Wineries there will be more than 160 wineries and tasting rooms open with special events for the weekend!   I wonder how many people have been to all 160?  That would be quite a goal - NOT all in one weekend, of course! 

Stop on in for some yarn & fiber fondling on Friday & Saturday, we're right on the way!

Small cones of perle cotton

We've had the small cones of 5/2 and 3/2 perle cotton available for years.  The company we get these from also started offering the 10/2 and 20/2 sizes on small cones as well, but I kept hesitating about offering them because we kept being told by the company that their winding machine was old and cranky and hard to repair and one of these days it was going to die and they just weren't going to replace it.  I just knew that as soon as I made the commitment to all those colors (well over 100!) in both those sizes, that machine would croak.  Well, this has been going on for some years now, and so far it's still winding away.  So, we're going to offer the 10/2 and 20/2 on small cones.  If you order it, we'll order it.  I'm not going to push my luck by trying to invest in all that yarn at one time, but will bring it in as we get requests for colors.  Since they come in boxes of 6, if somebody orders 1 cone of a color, inventory will be built over time.

I'm sure their machine is laughing now, and about to keel over.  But maybe not!  Fans of finer weaving will be happy to get smaller amounts of lots of colors instead of being limited to 1 pound (plus!) cones.  A bit much when you want 5 colors for a scarf!