Fourth Time’s a Charm

At last, at last, there is something to say about weaving around here!  In my last entry on yarn, I showed how I struggled getting the wedge weave of the Noro yarn level.  It was growing thicker, which indicates there is too much yarn in there.  From suggestions – I chalked it up to how the Noro yarn packs.  Typically in a wedge weave, I advance one warp with each pass.  With the difference in the packing, I started to take an “on-off” approach.  So I took out the weaving and tried skipping every other warp with the next pass – the top sank which indicates there’s not enough yarn.  Ugh - Unweave that as well.  Now let’s try two rows together, then one single.  Still droops…  Take that out again.  Finally, I went with two together, skip a warp and two together again.  That seems to be working VERY closely to level without much interaction from me.  So now I can show you a complete wedge!!!!

Besides the Noro Yarn, one of the new things about this piece is to make it reversible.  Unweaving and reweaving has given me a great deal of practice since I am working in the ends as I go.

Here’s where I came to the end of one bobbin of yarn: I did secure the end with a half hitch around the warp and brought the end to the front of the weaving.                                   I then split the yarn into it’s number of plies and distributed them around the warps.                                                                            The chocolate yarn breaks down into 4 plies, so I distributed two in either direction.  The far left and the far right ends were woven to hide them within the weave.                                                   From there I threaded each ply through a needle and fed it through the middle of the weaving next to a warp.  In this picture I’ve already finished the first and am about to pull through the second. The ends are carefully trimmed and i even pull a bit on the half hitch to hide the very tip of the yarn into the fabric. Then same is performed with the start of the next piece of yarn.

Hopefully now there will be a bit more news relating to yarn from this neck of the woods!

Celebrating Something New

Cardinals tend to stay with us through the winters and these two are a pair of at least 7 that live in our neighborhood. Their red is a welcome splash of color among all the bare branches of the trees. What's new is with the warmer weather the Carolina Wrens are starting to show up also. I've also started recently putting out seed - so that may be why the wrens have started to come by. ;-)

Last Friday, we were invited by my company to a dinner to celebrate the accomplishments of those who had filed for patents and those who had received patents in 2008. I was granted my first US patent last year and I was glad to be a part of this. It's the only celebration the company will be holding this year with the US recession. They felt this one was important and I agree.

Lastly, I have been able to get the leashes onto the new "big sis" loom. The wedge weave class starts Sunday, so we're getting close to the wire. I want to recheck the needs list tonight to make sure there's nothing I've forgotten! I'd love to get more done, but somehow I just can't quit the job. It seems I'm addicted to eating - I can't live without it! It makes me look forward all the more to a whole week dedicated to just weaving. Ahhh, what a luxury!