End of March Goings On

Sandra's Log Cabin cotton dishtowels

Lambswool houndstooth check for hunting jackets

Stevie's Pinwheel wool/silk scarves

threading up for some fine wool serge 

Rose's rayon spot weave

starting dishtowel production again

Susan O's fine cotton for napkins

It's a quiet end to winter/beginning of spring this week, and we're back to more seasonable cold temperatures. There's no snow on the ground after our heat wave the weeks previous, but we've been having dustings of snow overnight that vanish during the day, and it's been too raw outdoors to dispense with heating the barn.

We've been quietly and busily finishing up projects and starting new ones this week. I made the rounds of the looms to check in with what's being worked on right now.

Sandra's been working on two long log cabin warps for dishtowels in 8/2 cotton. They're really beautiful! But she's been getting tired of weaving the same pattern at home and here at the studio, so she's started weaving up the remainders in a 2/2 twill to change what she's looking at.

I just made a warp of fine lambswool to weave nine yards of checked houndstooth for a client who wants some jackets made. It was a great warping exercise for me...24 spools on the skarne in this springy delicate yarn...it was such a good opportunity to practice picking a cross with more warps than I've ever attempted before, and to refine my hand technique to manipulate the tension in the least possible way.

Stevie's weaving another run of pinwheel scarves in wool/silk...this time a very elegant combination of navy blue and a golden curry color. The sett is more open on these, which flattens out the pinwheel shapes in the weave, but they're really great-looking.

After much back-and-forth getting the dye color right, we've just put on a warp of fine worsted to weave a run of serge for another client. It's very bouncy yarn...lots of fun to thread!

Rose has been working on a spot weave piece with some rayon yarn we've had kicking around here. It's an old pattern of roses and diamonds that's apparently traditional to Vermont. She's been having a good time learning about weaving with fine slippery stuff, and about how the weft color can change so much about the appearance of her pattern.

Of course, we have more dishtowel warps going on to start producing for the holiday sale...it is never too early to do that, it seems, and in addition, many of the away students buy these finished towels to take home while they're here taking a course.

Susan O has got another fine cotton warp on for more napkins...her color choices are so beautiful for spring, I think.

Susan W is warping to weave up more linen cloth. Her last project, which was a 5-harness satin weave in white linen with hand-dyed blue stripes washed up with some of that blue running into the white. But she managed to figure out how to clear those stains out of the white...she applied straight bleach to dry fabric, in the white areas, not the blue, and then neutralized the bleach with hydrogen peroxide. All the stains came right out and her white is snowy once more.

Well, that's all for this week...