Blog Archives

New Blue Boat Shoes

5/26/2020

Well..
not entirely blue.

Nor, indeed,
did I make them
for boating.

It's just that the white canvas
was a scrap of the deck cloth
I helped my son put on his boat
a couple of years ago--

and the indigo blue polka dot parts
are left over from a quilt mending project
(dots made with katazome and indigo)--

and I'm a sucker for alliteration and rhyme.

Anyway --
Sewing the uppers together
with my machine was really nice.
I've made previous pairs entirely by hand
and this was a definite improvement --
if not in the beauty department,
definitely in timing and lack of hand fatigue.

The soles still required
hand stitching though.
Thank goodness for Glovers needles.

I make my running shoes for both pleasure and necessity --
the pleasure being getting to run in them,
the necessity being that they are the only ones
my feet really like,
(even though they are often
not even on my feet).

While a thing I'm always happy to have done,
the actual construction
is a task I put off as long as I can
as the stitching is hard on my hands.
so I was nearly done
and feeling relieved,
when a new conundrum arose--
I mean -- who wants to go shopping these days,
or wait for online shoelaces to arrive by mail?

OH JOY!

What's not to love about this little set-up?

Of course it took me a couple of inches
to remember how to weave a warp-faced structure
(as you can see in the photo below),
though once I got going
weaving these was probably faster
than locating a website
with laces I liked.

And OH, I do love these!

So, three runs in, I'm thrilled to bits.
Just what I needed and wanted,
and they delight me every time I catch a glimpse.
Hopefully, they will soon will be
as grubby and broken in
as the pair on the left,
with (I hope)
hundreds of miles
under their soles.

NOTE: For more on my shoemaking endeavors over the past ten-ish years,
including links and sources and process, type "shoes" into the search bar at the top,
or click the SHOES link on the side and scroll down (this post will be at the top).

Oh, and one more thing:

Though August is my usual blog holiday month
my husband is just commencing
what we hope will be a month long
chemotherapy holiday
so I've decided to join him
and take my blog-cation
starting now.

While we have no plans to go anywhere,
the garden is growing madly,
and, as I did manage to figure out
a compelling new set up for my books,
I hope to spend a bunch of time
watching the birds and turning pages.
or... weaving or... knitting...
or doing all of them at once.

The webstore will remain open
and I may send out the odd newsletter,
(vacation post cards of a sort?)
so if you want to get on the list for those
and aren't yet,
there is a sign-up on the right
(or maybe below, depending on your device)

Stay safe,
keep making!

Backson.

backstrap monologue

5/19/2020

You know that feeling
when you've spun some yarn,
generated a few questions,
can't continue without answers,
and Wikipedia just won't cut it?

Of course you do.

Technical and aesthetic inquiry
into physical materials
requires experiment.
At least -- it does for me.

My brain will make stuff up--
and is not to be trusted.

My hands, however,
know what I like.

Sometimes the process
goes like this:

If I spin these batts like this,
leave some as singles
and ply a couple of hundred yards
with that silk/merino stuff
I spun months ago--

--wait-- better size these singles--
what was it I did last time?
Oh yes, right--
gelatine---

---then wind the warp with a strand of each,
and weave them together like houndstooth
(two strands of each in both directions),
at an open sett--

--and how do I... Oh... right--

use the plastic heddle--
works great--

anyway, can't carve 12 epi 10 inches wide--

mmmm love these shuttles--

Nice.

Comfy too--

--and still blending in
with my surroundings

like a chameleon.

Huh.

Best to try several weft combinations--
--test my reactions.

Ugh. Not enough twist.
Oh right, I spun it from the fold
on the Charkha--
only way to cope with top.

I don't like top.
Or silk.

Spindles are better.

And wool I prepare myself.

So fussy.

Oh look! Done already.
Where do the days go?

I thought this was supposed to be slow cloth.

`Gee Whiz.
Silky cheesecloth.

Better after a bath--
some vigorous fulling--
let the wool do its thing.

Ah yes. Much improved.
Nice drape.
Now....stitch between the sections
and cut them apart.

Do so love my sewing machine.
Listen to it purr.

Still don't much care
for the silk/merino part though--
even if it is shiny.
Too shiny, really.
Not enough loft, or bounce.

Darn -- thought I'd figured out
a way to use up that stuff.
Oh well. If it's wrong, it's wrong.

Tapestry warp--there's the answer.
It's worked before.
Silk is strong, anyway.
More twist though.
Maybe a 3 ply.
Back in the cupboard for later.

Now--
keep spinning--
need enough for next time --
all wool--
same structure.
Sizing? Decide then.

OK. Back to it.

What was I doing?
OH yes, re-arranging my studio.
How am I going to store these books?

dressed for the loom

5/12/2020

A few days ago,
weaving along and geeking out
on the continuing love affair
between plied paper
and wedge weave,

I happened to glance down
and notice
that the tapestry I was making
bore more than a little resemblance
to the clothing I had on--

colors, lines, squares,
and the underlying pleasure
of working with what is at hand
coming together in beloved jeans,
a tapestry in progress
and last summer's tabby-tapestry
linsey-woolsey shirt
(about which I just realized I wrote four blog posts;
if you're interested you can find them here, here, here and here).

Well, that was fun, I thought,
and got back to work.

Imagine my surprise, then
when the next day,
as I carefully Tucked My Tails,*
I noticed it again --
not quite as marked, perhaps,
though the silvery-grey/brown combo
went well with the pieced linen shirt
(prototype of sorts for the linsey-woolsey one),
if not the tattered trousers
(almost as thoroughly mended as the jeans).

*readers of the guide might note the use of passive weft in the top middle square above, and the tapered end on the top right one

By the third day,
though I did not make a plan,
I was a little less astonished
when the same thing happened.

Happily, the skirt (a gift from a friend),
has not yet needed mending
though the sweater/shirt is,
as usual, something I made.

This is getting silly, I thought,
weaving on and blissing out
on the energy of the tidy little squares.

The day after that
the white hemp pants I chose
(prototype for the worn out brown ones
and significantly more robust),
did not have much to do
with the colors I was moving into,

but I can't say I was astonished
when I noticed that I was wearing
a Somewhat Slanted Sweater.

The particular pleasure
of making angled squares
is apparently as irresistible just now,
as turning compost into yarn.

And sometimes the colors work too.

It feels like I should be able
to draw some important conclusion(s)
from all of this matchy-matchy
makey-mendy stuff,
but at the moment
I am actually caught up
in the drama of the triangles
that have suddenly shown up
here at the very end of this long narrow tapestry--
for after the calm of the simple squares
the pointy shapes make my heart beat
in a disconcerting (though not unpleasant), way
and I want to see if what I weave next
will calm it down again--
or not.
And if it does,
whether the underlying wedge weave energy
(currently contained by the warp tension)
will go even wilder
once released from the loom.
Stay tuned!

ps.
the "skirt" of today's outfit
is a hastily wrapped scrap
of a worn-out sheet that
ultimately proved to be beyond mending,
wrapped around my waist
to make a pair of leggings
feel like real clothing,
Because sheets are more real
than stuff I buy at the store?
Go figure.

plied paper, medieval midden tools, and other experiments.

5/4/2020

So here's a question.

When a bunch of ideas
all show up at once,
is there a hierarchy among them--
materials, tools, technique(s)--
and if so, what is it?

Do the demands of one idea--

(the absolute need to try to turn a slice of firewood
into another fully functional
medieval midden rigid heddle--

just to take a random example),

take precedence over my desire --
nay, my assumption--
of hand spun linen for its first warp?

After all,
that's what I used last time.
And I'll pretty much always choose (assume)
hand over mill spun yarn for everything.

Well, when the only two ply hand spun flax in my stash
is so rough and uneven that I have three breaks
before I've woven an inch--
a choice must be made.

First choice: a post-warping application
of a flour and water size.
This tamed the hairiness but didn't thin out the thick spots.
Second choice: enlarge the heddle holes --
not possible without the risk of going through the side walls
given my super simple tools and rough construction approach.
Third choice: change either warp or heddle.

Now were the warp yarn the most important/exciting thing
I'd perhaps have re-threaded,
as I think it would have worked just fine
with a plastic heddle's larger, smoother holes.
And I did considered it-- briefly.
But the other ideas rebelled.
I wanted to use, or at least try, the firewood heddle.
And anyway, I needed its sett of 8 epi
for another part of the puzzle.
So a new warp of mill spun linen
it would have to be.

Now I don't keep much mill spun yarn around,
and the linen I have is too fine for that sett,
but doubling the strands while threading
by pulling loops through the slots and holes,
was easy as pie.

And a doubled warp can be a very handy thing--
as readers of Tucking the Tails now know,
(perhaps also noticing how, in the photo below,
I combined the wrapped tail and double warp techniques
to begin the wedge weave square).

Oh right-- WEDGE WEAVE --
that was one of the other unignorable ideas
I wanted to mess around with,
a prime mover in my 'need'
for a new heddle with a sett of 8 epi.

Though I'd never done it before,
just hearing the words "wedge weave"
as part of the discussion on Change the Shed,
led me to try a sample on the last bit of warp
from the book of light and color--
and then again, somewhat more deliberately,
with a four selvedge warp on a pvc pipe loom.

This second photo
(of the clean back of the four selvedge tapestry
as it is being released from the supplemental warps),
was supposed to be a demonstration
of the joys of Tucking the Tails
(if not four selvedge tapestry weaving as well),
but I forgot to put it in the post.

Too busy, I think, geeking out
about the weird and wonderful pleasure
of a somewhat slanted weave structure--
and the love at first pick
between wedge weave
and plied coffee filter paper yarn.

Unfortunately,
the two weaving samples
had used up all my plied paper.
No biggie to make some more--
except then came another idea.
What about plying the singles paper
with some singles hand spun linen?
Would it create a wonderful yarn with linen strength
and the delicious hand of the coffee filters?
Or would I be doing a disservice to them both?
And, in the aforementioned
hierarchy of ideas,
was that a question to ask,
or a thing try?
Try, of course.
At the very least, if I hated it
I'd get to cross the idea off my list.

In module 4 of her Tapestry Design Class
Rebecca Mezoff explores
the reciprocal relationship
between loom structure and design.
In module 5 (which just opened),
she talks about the interactions
between design and materials.
Who, or what, is in charge?
What choices do we have?
Wherein lies control?
And is control even a desirable thing?
How much adventure feels right
or is even possible given the grid of warp and weft?
How much subtle delight can a person stand?

It's fascinating stuff.
Except--that there are never any definitive answers,
at least for me,
beyond the ones I am experiencing
and the choices I am making in the moment,
as this color, this warp, this tension, this sett,
this light, this position, this way of opening the shed,
this hand motion, this mug at my side, this bobbin,
this skill set that I have, this level of strength in my hands today,
this funny heddle notch where my thumb fits so perfectly,
all come together, randomly or no,
to help me make whatever on earth it is
that I am making today.

So that's all I know for sure.
And may the questions keep coming.

New Blue Boat Shoes

backstrap monologue

dressed for the loom

plied paper, medieval midden tools, and other experiments.

Sarah C Swett
tells stories
with
and about
hand spun yarn.

Categories

Archives

New Blue Boat Shoes

backstrap monologue

dressed for the loom

plied paper, medieval midden tools, and other experiments.

​Sarah C Swett tells storieswith​ and about hand spun yarn.

Categories

Archives

Sarah C Swett
tells stories
with
and about
hand spun yarn.