Mistakes

One of my mentors always used to say "If you aren't making mistakes, you aren't learning anything."  And would then share her latest 'mistakes' and the lessons she'd learned from them.

So very early in my career I learned that displeasing results were not terminal, just a stepping stone on the journey of learning.

This series of towels is meant to use up a bunch of yarn that I either inherited or purchased to re-sell.  I began, as I usually do, by making a striped design that appealed to me (based on the Fibonacci series) and then began to play with the colours to go into those stripes.

I set myself some design constraints:  the centre stripe would be one of the variegated cotton yarns I'd bought to sell, the weft would be yarn from Lynn's Legacy or, if that didn't have the right colour for the warp, from cotton slub I'd bought to sell.

The centre stripe on this warp is a rather dull and fairly dark varigation with a 'sad' green (with a bit of blue), lavender, and a dark-ish greyed blue.  I didn't have the right shade of lavender so I went with a quite dark value purple, which I'm still not sure I like but does give the rather dull warp a little 'zing'.  And of course I never judge a textile on the loom but only after wet finishing.

The colour palette isn't to my personal taste, but for those who like more subdued hues, I think this is working ok.  In spite of that dull beige stripe which, quite frankly, I agonized over.

The weft is a dull sage green which seems to be working as I'd hoped and pulling all the different colours together visually.  

Currently reading Hidden Figures.  I bought the DVD and will watch that with Mary in June.  But movies never have the scope to go into detail so I'm glad I'm reading the book beforehand.

Tricks We Play on Ourselves

These three cones are part of the inheritance I received a few years ago.  Lynn had an eye for a bargain and would routinely buy yarns on deep discount, not necessarily with any project in mind, just because it was 'cheap' and too good a deal to pass on.

When I sorted through her literally rooms full of yarn, I kept pretty much all the linen.  Much of it simply wasn't any longer available and I knew I could use all those singles linen yarns as weft in tea towels.

Since bringing the 600 or so pounds of yarn home (not all of it linen, there is also cotton slub, some of it destined for this towel series, some very fine worsted wool, which will be used to ply my handspun) I have made dozens and dozens of towels from Lynn's linen.  Fine yarn goes a very long way!

This yarn was left until 'last' because it isn't the best quality.  It is primarily tow linen with chaff left in it, but also fluffy bits of what I think are likely cotton.  But there was no information on fibre content with this yarn.  And now I'm determined to use it up so I'm using it 'first' before I can use the 'nicer' yarn in my stash.

The down side of using it is that it is dusting off copious amounts of fibre - something I knew would happen.  It's textured, so selvedges are pretty ratty, but textured yarns will do that.

The up side is that it is getting used up fairly quickly.  I've woven four towels and it looks like the first cone will be enough weft to weave six.  With three cones, I should come pretty close to using most of this yarn up on the two beige (predominantly) warps I've wound with this yarn in mind.  Once this yarn is done I have one large cone of a nicer linen/cotton blend.  And then Lynn's linen will be all used up.

But right now I'm feeling a wee bit like Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoon strip.  Only with fibre, instead of mud...

Lynn's Legacy

next in the queue - the lighter coloured cones on the right 

30 yard warp cut off the loom and mounted onto the work table to be cut apart and serged

This evening I finished weaving the cream warp, cut it off the loom and readied it for the next step in the process - cutting the towels apart and serging the ends.  I ran out of weft right about the time I ran out of warp - there was a half bobbin of tow linen left and a yard of warp - too little to weave another towel.

Yesterday and today I have been working on the next warp.  The tubes are pulled and set onto the spool rack, threading worked out, two options for treadling ready.

The yarn on the right used to be fairly easy to buy - I think the company (Linos La Union) has gone out of business as it's been many years since I've seen this particular yarn available.  I don't know the size nor the yards per pound.  All I know is that it is a lovely yarn and weaves up beautifully.  Lynn had already given me several cones of this yarn before she died.  Imagine my surprise when we found three more cones.  And they are hefty cones.  The two larger ones weigh in at 3 pounds 13 ounces each, the smaller one is 2 pounds 4 ounces.  It appears to be about half the thickness of the singles 12 tow linen (yes I found more cones - much darker brown than the 11 pounds I just finished!) so I'm thinking it must be around 6000 to 7200 yards per pound.  With nearly 10 pounds of this fine singles, I am going to be weaving tea towels for a very long time.

In fact, I'm starting to run out of the 2/16 cotton and will be forced to buy more next month.  In the meantime I have enough to wind this warp and a few more but I'd also like to have a broader range of colours for people to choose from than what I have available here and now.

Need to start dreaming some new fibre dreams.  Brassard will soon be open for business again after their summer vacation.