Dreaming of a move

My 'baby' boy turned 18 recently, and he graduates high school this year. Now, when my (now 20 year old) daughter first started school in kindergarten, we took a pact to try to remain in one place and one house while the kids were growing up and in their school years. We wanted to give them a time of stability and continuity as a foundation for going forward. So we found a lovely house in the Phoenix, AZ suburbs, and it has served us well.

But...my baby boy is graduating this year, and heads off to join his sister at college next fall. That means, should we choose, that we are no longer tied to this house. For the sake of jobs and local family, we'll still stay in the Phoenix area. But sometime between when we moved in here and now, the powers that be put a big mucking football stadium within walking distance --and earshot-- of our house. I'm starting to feel kind of closed in here, as what used to be farmers fields in the neighborhood are filled with arenas, outlet malls, and apartment complexes. It is almost time to move back out beyond the borders of the urban crowding.

So, I've started looking and house listings, and dreaming. And you know one of the things that excites me most about this possible opportunity? I just might be able to find a place where I can expand my studio!

I currently use what used to be our guest bedroom. It is jam packed with looms and sewing machines and bookshelves and storage totes and cutting tables and...and... And I just don't have enough room to work on more than one project at a time. If I have the loom unfolded for a weaving project, there isn't enough space to open up the cutting table to do silk painting. If I have the loom folded up and shoved over so I can get to the sewing machine, I'm blocked from getting in to the sock knitting machine. Etc. Wouldn't it be awesome to find a place where I can spread out, and really flex my creative muscles?

I looked at one house that had a separate apartment down in the basement. Hmmm...main room for the looms and such, a bedroom for storage, and a complete kitchen where I could do the silk painting and dyeing. Very intriguing!

Then I found another listing that had a whole separate 1 bedroom house tucked in behind the main house. Imagine the fun of taking over an entire house for playing with creativity! And if I was in a separate building, I could set aside the fact that I really 'ought' to be doing laundry, or dishes, or vacuuming, or... I'd be away, and at work. But still close enough to trot across the yard home when I needed to. Which means I could still be doing 1 am weaving projects. Love it.

So many possibilities...

After my son graduates. It will be next summer at the earliest, and then we'll see what we can find when.

But...it is a fun mental game. I don't take to change easily, so taking 8 months or so to mull the idea over in my brain means that when the time comes, I should be able to leave here.

So...what would be my ideal studio...?

weaving and slippers

I realized that I hadn't posted the finished picture from my most recent weaving project. I had made a hand painted warp, and then used three different weft colors to make three different garments on the same warp. On the left in the picture above is the dark greyed blue weft. In the middle is the maroon. And on the right is the light blue. I love how the colors blended to make three different looking fabrics!

The fabric on the left has already been cut and sewn into a ruana, and is out the door and sold. The other two are sitting on my loom staring at me, telling me to get back to the sewing machine already. They want to be finished, so I can start on my next batch of fabric. But I have been down this whole week with a nasty cold and a persistent case of the Idon'twannas. Next week. I'll get back to work when I can see straight.

In the meantime, I'm going to kick back, put my feet up, and enjoy the fact that the weather is finally cool enough to enjoy wearing my hand felted wool slippers. Ahhhh..............

Weaving sun beams

I love weaving in the afternoon, with the lowering sun streaming in through the studio windows. I took a picture while I was sitting there, and loved it so much that I had to share with you all.

I just switched to my third color of weft yarn, so I should have this woven off with about 4 more hours of active work. I am really, really loving this fabric!

Now, off the computer and back to work.

Ready to Weave...

There! The loom is warped. 10 hours of active work time into the project, and I can 'start weaving'. That is 408 pieces of yarn, all 43 feet long, dyed and transferred to the loom under the same tension and with no tangles. I suspect it will take me about another 12 hours to weave it all off.

My next step, after weaving the header, will be to sample different weft colors. I added about a foot to the length of the warp for this purpose, so I can play and see which color combinations I like best. I picked out three weft yarns at the beginning of the project (one for each ruana/shawl), and have three other ones to try just because I have them on hand. The other benefit of sampling for the first foot of the weaving? By the time I'm done, the edges of the weaving will have drawn in to their working size, so I'll have a consistent width in the finished ruanas.

Here's hoping it all works like I have envisioned!

Threading the Heddles

I'm still working on getting my loom warped up for the next set of ruanas. I've dyed the yarn, sleyed it through the reed, and today I'm in the process of threading the heddles. To do this part, I have to take the back beam off and sit down right inside the loom. That puts things at a really convenient angle to work with. And I even have a head rest of sorts.

  

Here's my view from inside the loom. Each individual piece of yarn gets threaded through the eye of one of those metal heddles. That makes it so I can raise and lower various threads when I get to the actual weaving portion of the project.

This part of the process though? It is kind of tedious. And I can only work for about a half of an hour before my legs fall asleep. So it is kind of slow going today, as I keep getting up and then getting distracted by this bright shiny thing called the internet...

Oh yeah. Internet. Like what I'm doing right now. Off the computer and back to work!!

Marking the order of warp chains for dyeing

It was a pretty laid back day today. But I did manage to get the freshly colored warp chains transferred over to the loom, and put them back in the same order that they were in on the dyeing table. I'm happy to say that writing numbers with a sharpie on scraps of plastic bag worked well. I tied the numbered bits of plastic on the ends of the warp chains before dyeing them. They came through the dyeing process without the numbers washing away. Yay! Anyway, now to warp the loom with the pretty pretty yarn.

Tutorial: Warp Painting

Earlier this summer, I wove this prototype hand-painted cotton ruana/shawl. I loved the way it turned out so much that I'm in the process of making three more for the Etsy shop. (If they make it that far. I've got tentative nibbles on two of the three already.) This week I've been working on measuring and painting the warp. A couple of folks have asked me how I do that, so I took some pictures as I went along. I used 3/2 Valley mercerized perle cotton from Webs (www.yarn.com) and the Dharma fiber reactive Procion dyes (http://www.dharmatrading.com). (In fact, all of the various powders and such are from Dharma.) So the specific instructions are for that combination, but you could use the basic idea with whichever dye system and fiber you're working with.

How to Paint a Warp

Ingredients
-cotton warp yarn
-Dharma fiber reactive Procion dyes in various colors
-Urea
-Soda ash fixative
-Water

Tools (Note: do NOT use any of these items for cooking ever again!)
-measuring cups
-measuring spoons
-wooden spoon
-bin for mixing chemical water
-smaller bins for the dyes
-sponge brushes
-saran wrap
-buckets
-breathing mask
-rubber gloves

Recipe
Chemical water = 3/4 c urea + 1 qt water
Dye = 1 c chemical water + 1 tsp soda ash fixer + dye to taste (about 2 tsp)

First, measure out your warp. I'm going to assume you already know how to do this part. In this case, I made warp chains that will be 3" wide.

Instead of tying up your warp with the typical choke ties, use a looser figure 8 tie. This will keep things pretty much in order, but the dye will be able to get under the tie to the yarn. The first time I tried this I tied things too tightly, and ended up with white stripes. It was a cool effect, but not what I wanted this time around. (It would be fun to experiment with, though!)

Chain up your warp to keep it under control. This is another thing I'm assuming you already know how to do, so I can keep the tutorial focused just on the dyeing.

Toss your warp in a bucket of water to soak for awhile. This will let the dye penetrate more evenly and completely.

Gather up your materials.

Protect your work surface with long strips of cellophane wrap.

Wring out your warp chains. Lay them on the cellophane strips, leaving an inch or so gap between each one and an inch or so at the edges. If your warp is shorter than your work space, you've got it easy. If not, you can do what I did and work in sections. I've got the still chained ends of the warp hanging off my table into totes, so I don't get water all over my floor.

If you want to get your warp chains on the loom in the same order that they're laid out on the table, you'll need to mark the chains somehow. I've used plastic with water proof marker here. I've also tied a string onto the end of the chains with one, two, three, four, etc. knots.

Now it is time to mix up your dye. First, make up your chemical water. For my 14+ yard long warp I ended up using almost 4 quarts. You can mix up more as you go along though, so no need to go overboard.

Put on your dust mask and gloves. You don't want this stuff in your lungs. Mix up your dyes. I made a cup of each color at a time, and mixed more as needed as I went along. (The recipe is up at the top of this tutorial.)

Now for the fun part! Wet down your sponge brush and have at it. The colors will wick up the cotton yarn, and blend into each other where they meet. Know your color theory as to which colors will blend to give you which effects. Colors that are across the color wheel from each other will give you more earthy tones. I chose wine red, turquoise, cobalt blue, and black, to keep things in the red/purple/blue range.

Check to make sure the color is saturating all of the yarn. Turn it over to look on the bottom. Squish the color around with your fingertips. You want enough dye to saturate, but not so much that you end up dripping onto the floor. (I did anyway. I'm a messy artist.) (Having some paper towels around won't hurt.)
 

When you're done painting your current section of warp, fold the edges of the saran wrap in over the yarn. Start at the far end, and roll up the warp and saran wrap toward the unpainted end.

Lay out another strip of saran wrap, and carefully carry your roll of painted warp back down to the end of the table.

Straighten out the next section of warp to be painted.

Back to the fun part!

When you are all done painting, transfer your warp rolls into something that you don't mind getting dye on. (They'll ooze). Make sure your tote doesn't have a hole in the bottom, or you'll have an awful mess. Trust me on that one. Now, leave the yarn and dye to sit for 12 to 24 hours. This will set the dye.

So, the next day unroll your warp bundles somewhere where you don't mind things getting a little messy.

Re-chain up your warp. Now it is safe to move it around again without much fear of tangles.

Take your wet drippy colorful bundle of warp, and rinse it out with cool running water until all the excess dye is washed away. I dumped mine in the shower this time.

Hang the chains to dry. Now you're ready to warp up your loom!