And the winner is... (and Warp #5 review)

Oh boy oh boy! This is it, the results show for my first blog giveaway. :) I am loving this whole thing. It truly IS better to give than to receive - though I hope, of course, that the receiving is pretty good, too!

I woke up from my nap at noon and checked to see how many comments had been posted, then moseyed over to random.org and generated a random number:



As you can see, the lucky winner is Comment #3, posted by Beth. Beth, there's no contact info in your comment and your Blogger Profile is private so I can't reach you that way either. Would you please email me at jandawson[at]gmail[dot]com so that we can sort out the details and I can send your scarf kit? :) I really hope you'll share the results with us!

If I haven't gotten contact info from Beth in ... oh, let's say 10 days (so by March 19), then I'll pick a new comment and try again.

---

And now, the long awaited (at least by me) Warp #5 Review. This review covers scarves 14, 15, 16 and 17:





The vitals for the warp and various scarves are thus:

Warp: 8/8 unmerc cotton, 80 ends at 10 EPI = 8" wide in the reed
Scarf 14: weft = 4/8 unmerc cotton at 9 PPI, finished dimensions: 59" x 6 3/4"
Scarf 15: weft = cotton chenille, finished dimensions: 67" x 5 7/8"
Scarf 16: weft = 4/8 unmerc cotton at 9 PPI, finished dimensions 68" x 6 1/2"
Scarf 17: weft = 6/12 rayon slub, finished dimensions 63" x 6 3/8"

I was interested to note that, when woven with the 4/8 unmercerized cotton, the scarves took up 10% - each 20" length finished up at 18" long. On the other hand, with the cotton chenille the take up was 12.5% and with the rayon it was somewhere in between. Presumably this has something to do with the PPI of the other wefts, which I haven't measured.

In other news, I created an Artfire account the other day. I haven't uploaded anything to it yet, but I'm thinking I'll use it to sell these scarves I've been weaving and maybe also scarf kits. Will keep you posted! In the meantime, if you've seen anything you're interested in - either the scarf itself or a kit to make said scarf - please send me email. :)

Bye bye Peony (for a little while) [Scarf 17]

There it is, that lovely shiny rayon slub again - so pretty! I particularly like the thick-and-thinness of it. Gives a bit of texture to the fabric even though it comes out soooo silky smooth. I know this for a fact since I finally got warp #4 wet finished today. Unfortunately I ran out of time to get all the scarves properly pressed and photographed, so the warp in review will have to wait another day, or two, or three...

I'm sorry that this Peony warp is done already - I still really love these colours. So fresh and springy! I think I'll repeat them again sometime fairly soon but with regular stripes instead so I can compare the results (at least, that's my excuse - mostly I just want to keep weaving this palette!). Even so, at this point I'm thinking my next warp will be more neutrals, perhaps a bit darker. Guy Colours - at least according to my guy, who no one could possibly accuse of being flamboyant where wardrobe is concerned. I was noticing how well the scarf he was wearing this evening matched his sweater and winter coat; I think I might do those colours again, even though I've done them twice already. That feels a bit cheaty but I haven't done them for Scarfaday yet so it's not breaking the rules!

Scarf #17's scarfa day went like this:

2:00ish pm: Start weaving with the little bit of rayon still left over on a pirn from scarf #11. This only gave me about 6" and then I realized I'd better get a move on with wet finishing warp #4. I tossed that into the washer, wound up another bobbin and got back to the loom... at least for a little while.

2:48 pm: Taking another break for wet finishing, snackies with Ron (who was home from work today) and The Petting of the Cats. Looks like I've got maybe 15" done?


I finished up the scarf in pretty short order after my little break, but then spent a while with warp #4, pressing the first couple of scarves and such like. Still didn't get them separated in time to capture the good natural light (what there was of it today - another snowy day here in the Great White North) so no pics yet, ho hum.

And then there was a mad dash into town to disrobe DesBarres, during which we nearly froze our fingers off, and a stop to drop off a friend's new knitting project that had somehow come home with me from the knit-a-thon by mistake, and an invite to a late dinner with said friend - how could we say no? We didn't even try, no sirree, so here I am bloggin' this scarfa quick quick quick so we can turn around and go back out and meet up with them after work. Mmmm, tasty!

Got home around 7:45 and I zipped downstairs to take my end-of-scarf shots:







And also my end-of-warp shots:



Pretty, light pastels. They look a bit like sherbet. They look much too springy and sherbet sounds much too cold for a snowy day like today, but they'll be perfect in a couple of months!

And now: yam fries, here I come!

The calm after the storm [Scarf 16]

Hello and welcome to week four of Scarfaday! Week FOUR! Can you believe it? I can't! I'm definitely not ready for this whole business to be over so I'm working on revised ground rules that'll let me keep going but still restore some balance to my weaving diet. Details will be forthcoming.

We got up really early this morning and drove through rain and sleet and snow for an appointment with a specialist that we've been waiting almost a year to see. Add that to still being a bit worn out from the excitement over the weekend and today turned out to be a really lazy day once I got home. I started my scarfa around noon and got the first 40" done but then I ate a bunch of blogs for lunch and snacked on a really good book all afternoon. By the time Ron came home from work I was almost done with the book, almost done with the scarf, and almost late for my make-up yoga class. Happily, almost was plenty in all cases: I went to yoga, came home and finished the scarfa and will shortly trundle upstairs and finish my book before collapsing in bed. A good day well spent!

The scarf part of my scarfa day went like this:

12:20 pm: Start weaving scarf #16, using the anticipated yellow weft. Incidentally, this warp is 8/8 and the yellow weft in question is a 4/8, both unmercerized cottons. They'll make a really soft, cozy fabric for chilly spring days - just the ticket for the unsuspecting cruise visitors that will arrive in May dressed for Florida weather and feeling like someone has played a very cruel trick on them indeed. ;)

12:24 pm: I stopped to hemstitch the first end...


... and got totally distracted by blogs and stuff when going upstairs to get Bella (the camera) and Lulu (the laptop) to take pics and listen to WeaveCast while weaving.

2:11 pm: Got a phone call from a friend so took the phone downstairs and wove while chatting. Gives one a crick in the neck from clutching the phone on your shoulder, but does get you back the loom and away from the tasty bloggy goodness on the computer! By this time I'd been back at the loom long enough to get the first 40" done...


...but then I wandered back upstairs to get Lulu (still hadn't managed to get her downstairs) and got distracted by Nation, the new book by Terry Pratchett that Ron got me for Christmas that I just started reading last night. I picked it up on page 55 around 2:30 and by the time Ron got home at 5:30 I was near the end - of the book, if not the scarf!

Then there was the aforementioned yoga class, followed by a lovely date with Ron at Tim Horton's, and then finally I got back home and down to the loom. AND I got to listen to the WeaveCast episode finally.


10:25 pm: Scarfadone!



Looks like there's one more scarf on this warp and I'm thinking I might try more of that lovely rayon slub tomorrow. Will also review week three and the last couple of warps. Guess that means I ought to wet finish them, eh wot? I've been awfully lax in that department.

Tomorrow's a busy day - I'll see you then!

Doctor, I need a consult! [Scarf 15]

Gooood mornin' all, and a big hello to anyone who's visiting for the first time after reading my letter to quilt.net's weaving list yesterday. For those of you who aren't members of the listserv, I heartily recommend it: it's a wonderful resource for weavers of all stripes, skill levels and interests. My letter was a plea for guest scarves in order to keep Scarfaday going past the end of the month; I'll be posting more completely about my plans in that regard next weekend. In the meantime, if anyone out there would like to contribute a guest scarfa complete with pics and a write up, please get in touch!

Phew, so that's the paperwork out of the way. Now back to scarves!

Today's post is gonna be a quickie 'cause I'm due at the library in a couple hours for our usual Fibre Friday and then set-up for tomorrow's knit-a-thon afterwards. Because of that, I trotted downstairs bright and early this morning to get started on the scarfa. I got distracted for a bit by email and Twitter and my usual breakfast of weaving blogs. There were also a few trips up and down the stairs (the only exercise I get in a day so I try not to mind when I forget things in one place or another) during which I stopped by the living room for a consult.

I imagine all weavers call for a consult from time to time. Ron, being a long time fibre-husband, is completely used to them by now. I'll throw some apparently random question his way with two or three options presented totally out of context, and expect him to come up with an answer. Today it was "yellow or peach?" to which he promptly replied "peach!" - no questions asked and no details required, bless his pointy little head. :)

Granted, I'm not quite so laissez-faire about these little consults if I'm really in a quandry and don't know what to do. This was a no brainer sort of thing where either answer was correct and I knew I'd spend more time than was required deciding between two equally good options. I'm sure by now he can read my tone of voice and realize when this is the case; in other situations I'll give him lots more details and he'll ask very knowledgable questions in order to give an informed response. How great is that? I have said it before and I'll say it again: I am the luckiest thing!

So today was a peach chenille day. Turns out Bella's got some issues with peach - I tried to balance the whites a few times and no matter what I did the peach came out more yellow than it really is. It's actually a pretty pink peach. I fiddled the colours in Picasa with varying degrees of success but, as you'll see, the peach looks a bit different in each shot. Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter all that much anyway since it's just going to show up differently on every monitor on the planet anyway. Ahhh, colour - ain't it grand?

Anyhoo, I wound my first bobbin, fired up WeaveCast Episode 2.0 which I downloaded last night, and sat down to weave scarfa #15 - the end of Week 3 already, can you believe it!? It took a little bit longer to weave than the others have done, partly because I was listening so intently to the podcast and partly because I'd finally tightened up a nut on one leg of the beater that's been loose for far too long and now Joe's a bit stiffer to beat. No doubt he'll loosen up again before long - he's definitely one loosey goosey kinda guy no matter how often I tighten up his nuts and bolts.

At any rate, this is how it went:

8:33 am: Bobbin's wound, podcast's on and scarf's underway! Just about to do the hemstitching on the first end here:



9:25 am: The first pirn ran out at a bit more than 40". I know it's all just basic maths but I'm still surprised at how much sooner lengthwise the pirns run out when the warp's just one inch wider.


For anyone who's keeping track, I used a 1-5-3 tension for this scarf and the other chenille wefts I used on the last warp.


10:15ish am: (Why won't Twitter tell me the exact time of my tweets for 24 hours? Argh!) My second pirn ran out at 67". I'd planned to weave a little more than 70" so I'd aimed for about that much on the pirn when winding the second one, but obviously I miscalculated. Now I had to decide whether 67" was an okay length or try to wind just the right amount again. My usual MO would have been to call 67" done but now that there are People Watching, I felt obliged to stick to the original plan and weave a bit more. That's peer pressure in action, that is!

10:30 am: Overwound the next pirn by a very little bit but decided to stop at 77" even though there was still a bit of weft left on the pirn. If I'd made this scarf longer and then wind up with a stubby at the end of the warp, I'll be Very Sad Indeed. I don't like being sad, so I broke off the weft and hemstitched right where I was:


At this point the phone rang - someone from ACOA asking if I want to participate in a Product Tours mission to NH, VT and MA at the end of March aimed at "artisans/craftspeople considering how to make their production process into a tourism experience." They're going to be touring through the studios of artists and artisans "that have capitalized on the experiential tourism trend and have created experiences involving production processes and facilities." Sounds like a lot of the usual government and marketing mumbo-jumbo and yet I find myself mildly curious about it. Maybe that's just because they called me specifically rather than just sending out the email (that I ignored), but I can't help but wonder if there might be something useful in it for my Studio 649 idea... Still, it's expensive, and it's a five day trip at a time when I really ought to be making stuff for the shop. Sounds like I need another consult!


10:43 am: Peach scarfadone!


Now I'm off to lunch and the library, and then the knit-a-thon this weekend! Have a lovely weekend everyone. See you Monday, when I suspect it'll be a yellow cotton kind of day.

Introducing 'Peony' [Scarf 14]

Remember this from yesterday?


Let me just say right off the bat that I love this new palette! I can really see myself weaving a lot of it for the shop this year. It's so bright and fresh and springy! Just the thing for a day like today, when we've got a winter storm warning and the snow and wind is most definitely on its way. I really love snow and storms are fun when you don't have any place to go but it was really nice to spend my day weaving something cheery and bright. :D

This palette is one I picked out last year when I'd been looking through some home dec mags - I'm a sucker for home dec mags at this time of year and I often pick out new palettes for the coming summer by paying attention to what I see. I can't remember now if it was House & Home or Style At Home but whichever it was, there was a picture of a dining room with a huge bouquet of peonies on the table. Yeah, sure, the furniture and the fabrics on the chair seats were nice and all, but those peonies were beeeooootiful! Big ol' pink ones with about ten zillion shades of pink and green leaves and even bits of yellow - don't remember if those were other colours in the room or if they were in the bouquet somehow. So out came the sample cards and in went the order and home came the yarn... and then somehow I never got around to actually winding a warp with it. A shame, since it's such a pretty palette! Happily, its time has now arrived. I'm sure I'll be weaving some blankets in this palette (my original plan for the yarn) and maybe also baby blankets and pillows and bags and, and, and... And scarves, evidently.

I warped up the loom this morning and took tons of pictures of the process with the idea of turning them into some kind of photo montage/tutorial of how I dress my loom. Will see about doing that some time in the future; for now I'll share a couple of the highlights since I don't have too many WIP shots of the scarf itself.

My scarfamorning went like this:

9:53 am: Start with this lovely warp chain...


... and begin to dress the loom. That is, put the raddle in the beater and lease sticks through the cross:


...followed by rough sleying, getting the rod through the bouts of warp and onto the back beam and then the obligatory winding on, of course. Took pics of all of those for the tute!

This is one of my faves from the winding pics:


It shows one of the best things about warping your loom from back to front: that's all the loom waste I had. That's not my main reason for choosing to warp B2F now (I'm a convert from F2B) but it sure is a nice perk!


10:47 am: All wound on and ready to start threading. You can clearly see my half-inch bouts in this pic - I rough sleyed in those same half-inch bouts.


This warp is 8" wide rather than the 7" I've been doing just for a change of pace - I tend to weave my scarves narrower than other weavers, I think, and wanted to see how the other half live. ;) I'll be very curious to see how wide these are once they're washed and dried.


10:55 am: Threading and sleying - the first time!



Yes, that's right. I threaded and sleyed a time and a half each. Which is to say: I threaded the whole warp, taking a few snaps as I went, and then started sleying the reed. Somewhere in the middle I thought, "Hey, I should take a video!" and, once I'd done that, I was awfully sorry I hadn't taken a vid of the threading too. THEN I thought, "what the heck? It only takes a couple minutes to thread and sley - far less than putting on a whole new warp and taking all these pictures again!" So I unsleyed the works and unthreaded half the warp and took a vid of threading them back up again. Am I conscientious or what? ;) Too bad the vid of the threading didn't work out very well - my right hand is obscuring the heddles most of the time. Must try to figure out a better camera angle and try again.


Noon o'clock: Time to head upstairs, get cleaned up and go out to lunch with my sweetie. I fear I made him wait and then made him late 'cause I dashed around trying to find some new yarn to cast on a new hat for the knit-a-thon, and then spent all of lunch knitting away. Some lunch date I am! I'm sure the Tim Hortons crowd loved me. I was hoping someone might ask what I was up to so I could plug the knit-a-thon but no such luck. Oh well!


2:52 pm: Back home, back to the loom, back to my pretty peonies! I had a hard time choosing between a peach chenille, a yellow cotton or a green cotton to start with but finally settled on the green. It's not exactly the same shade of green that's in the warp but it's pretty close - this one leans toward blue and the other's more yellow. I like using them together.



3:51 pm: Scarf's done!¹


I'd planned to weave it longer, more like 72", but I'd left a knot in the warp while I was winding 'cause it was almost to the end of my 9+ yard warp and I didn't want to unwind all five colours to deal with it. I thought I'd hit it somewhere in the middle of the scarf but it didn't show up until I had 66" done, right at the same point that bobbin ran out. 66" seems like a fine length for a short scarf, so I let the knot and the bobbin dictate the length of the scarf.

That's the thing about weaving scarves for the shop - there's always someone who'll want the scarf Just That Length. There's always someone who'll want it longer or shorter, too, of course - but eventually someone will come along for whom the length is perfect and that's the person it's meant to go home with. :)


See you tomorrow, with either that yellow or that peach... hmmm...


1. Does that sound like the human peons from Warcraft to anyone else? "Job's done!"