pacific northwest life Archives

A New Loom Joins the Herd

March 20, 2023 by Donna Johnson Leave a Comment

After some time of consideration and budget planning, I decided on a new table loom. The order was placed with the Eugene Textile Center in August. At the end of September 2022, “Louie,” a 16 shaft LeClerc Voyageur table loom arrived at my door.

Getting the packaging open presented more of a challenge than did assembly of the loom. Finn was eager to help with packaging but not so much with assembly. Louie is a very well-made piece of equipment.

My goal in obtaining this loom is to play with more complex twills and, more importantly to me, to learn more about woven structures. Given the slowness of weaving on a table loom, this will undoubtedly take a good deal of time.

I am imagining a series of different structures utilizing the same profile draft and then an exploration of a variety of tied weaves.

While waiting for Louie to arrive I had decided to weave a 12 shaft draft from Handwoven. This was an “extra” for subscribers and is a Summer & Winter draft of cats for dish towels. Working primarily from stash and from pictures of my two grandkitties, I planned to make two towels as a holiday gift for dearest Kiddo.

I used KnitCompanion to track the lift plan. It turns out there is a fair amount to learn about weaving on a table loom after being focused on floor loom weaving. The first towel, a rather ridiculously long towel with several mistakes, now graces my kitchen. I tied on more warp and had another go, including adjusting colors to better depict the cats. Meanwhile, I was getting a better feel for Louie’s brake, weaving sweet spot, and other adjustments. We are getting along pretty well now, despite the slow going.

Of course, time is one thing I usually feel rather short on, especially as holidays approach. While learning Louie’s intricacies, I was also working on landscaping the front yard, dealing with several veterinary encounters, and making plans for the holidays that happen in November and December.

If you have read my previous posts, you know gardening is important to me. I took several months of leave taking from my yard in California where Michael and I grew fruits and a variety of herbs and vegetables. We both knew we wanted to simplify and have much easier maintenance in our new yard. By the time I found Pam, the perfect person to help us design and plant our front yard, the yard was looking pretty ugly. The backyard will be Finn’s with the exception of some planned raised beds and we have left dealing with that until spring.

In a nutshell, with great help and guidance, we got rid of a good deal of lawn and other unwanted vegetation. We planted a lavender hedge, two good sized birch trees and a scarlet hawthorn, and lots of perennials and bulbs. We now have a front yard that I am excited to watch develop. The 20-year-old rosemary bush we brought with us is planted there, too. Our faery altar is graced with a large piece of granite from the Sierras. As things start blooming this spring, I will start taking photos.

So landscaping was a major development during the autumn and consumed a good deal of time. Finn continued to take up a good deal of time and energy with daily exercise and training as well as some unanticipated veterinary needs. In the end, Finn was fine and fit as a fiddle, but we nicknamed him “CreditCard.”

One of his veterinary excursions nearly derailed my long planned trip to a weaving workshop. Fortunately, he recovered, and, at the end of October, I headed to the Eugene Textile Center for a workshop on Transparency weaving with Suzie Liles.

It was wonderful to be at an in-person workshop (my first since COVID) and to be learning. Suzie is a great teacher and the topic strikes me as a possible way for me to work with some ideas in my head.

Once again, the issue of time creeps in and I’m sad to say that I have not done anything with the warp since returning. My Wolf Pup has been rather neglected since traveling with me to Eugene.

Early November brought more veterinary encounters and nursing of Finn who, once again, thankfully, is quite fine.

About this time another new piece of equipment arrived. In the summer I placed an order for a motor for my fabulous Clemes and Clemes Elite drum carder. Again, lots of thought and budget planning went into the decision and I know the workmanship of Henry and Roy Clemes is fantastic.

I have plenty of fleece, lots of ideas, and not enough time, so the motor seemed like a good investment. It is a beauty and exponentially shortens the amount of time it takes to process fiber.

I’ve been blending some of my wool and alpaca with a project in mind that involves lots of spinning and then weaving. This is, of course, a very long-term project but I have completed spinning samples and made some decisions regarding the blends I will be using and a herringbone draft. Stay tuned for more information as this project slowly unfolds.

In late November we celebrated a day of gratitude with friends, including my decades old tradition of making pie from real pumpkins. Training and beach walks with Finn continued and I worked on knitting and spinning when I couldn’t get up to the Loom Room.

Then, of course, there was all the holiday planning. Finn needed a Christmas stocking and dear kiddo was bringing a friend, so they needed one as well. I was not undertaking any major holiday crafting, but it was still very busy.

Finn loved the snow we had in December. Fortunately, both my beloved kids arrived after that storm and left before then next big rain, ice, and wind event. We had a great holiday visit with plenty of good food to share.

In the end, in addition to the cat towels, I made two stockings, a sheep ornament, and some gnomes. The sheep ornament included some of the Shetland fleece from Riplet that I needle felted onto the fleece woven base.

My dear friend, Mary, got me going on knitting gnomes. This seems like a great way to use up all the many bits and bobs of left over fingering weight yarn in my stash. Alas, the arthritis in my hands will definitely limit my gnome knitting but if I plan well and do a little bit at a time ... maybe there will be more gnomes under our tree next year.

Winter was here and we had passed the longest night. A new project was on the Mighty Wolf and on the table loom.

The towels that took months to weave were ready for inventory and Michael’s sweater that I had been knitting for most of a year was ready for seaming. And sometimes we even enjoyed sunshine.

Knowing Imbolc was just around the corner, I was planning my annual meditative lace knitting project. The wheel of the year was turning, and I was encouraged by the additional minutes and then hour of daylight.

And ever grateful as we carry on in our new homeland.

Dirt, Rock, Iris, and Friends

January 7, 2023 by Donna Johnson Leave a Comment

There will always be stunning inspiration from nature. Take dirt, for example. More precisely, take soil. Clearly the folks at Three Waters Farm are inspired by soil. At the time their newsletter came across my inbox I was sure the last thing I needed was more fiber to spin. We were still in temporary quarters and I had packed more spinning fiber than three people could spin in three months. But I could not resist their beautiful colorway “Good Brown Dirt” on Targhee.

Aside from being a beautiful colorway and that I enjoy spinning Targhee, my oldest friend, Paula, is an Agronomist. A doctor of soil. Now retired, Paula spent a very productive career teaching college students about Agronomy and research. Paula is passionate about good brown dirt and has always been as passionate about her family, her students, and her work.

A year and a half earlier I knitted a wrap/blanket for Paula after her daughter contacted me to request a special blanket for her mom who was having great difficult with cancer treatment. Paula had been living with cancer for ten years by then. It was fun putting together the project with Paula’s daughter. Of course, soil was important. Prairie and ocean were Paula’s other inspirations.

Using Malabrigo Rios and a pattern that I modified, a big, soft, cuddly wrap was completed faster than anything I had ever knit. About the time Paula received the blanket, I received the painful news that all treatment was being stopped. The great news is that, although she has challenges, Paula has been living and enjoying friends and family and she continues to do so today. When working out on my elliptical I think of all the challenges Paula has overcome and I keep on track, listening to the Grateful Dead music we shared throughout the years.

Starting in late April I began spinning Good Brown Dirt with the intention of creating something for Paula’s birthday in early October. It was a fun spin, and I produced a two-ply fingering weight yarn. Paula is not a fancy person, so I chose to knit a scarf in the well-known Old Shale pattern. What better pattern to use for Good Brown Dirt?

About the time I finished spinning the Good Brown Dirt, I walked on the beach near my new home with a friend from my old home who now lives one mile from me. How great is that? We did not plan that one but as fate or luck or whatever would have it, we both left California about the same time and ended up with new homes a mile apart.

On that beach walk with my friend, I found an amazing rock. I guess I was rather taken with the rock because I found two weaving drafts and planned some projects. Of course, everything was taking way more time than usual because we were still unpacking and setting up our home. Using stash for two colors of green warp in 8/2 Tencel sett at 36 ends per inch, and weft of 20/2 cotton in black, I selected an echo threading from Marian Stubinitsky on Handweaving.net and started weaving a small scarf.

The rock was captured well enough, but for a variety of reasons, my selvedges were terrible. I used two strands of 8/2 black Tencel for floating selvedges, which I think was too thick for the weft, and the scarf was too narrow for my shortest temple. Close attention to the selvedges was paid while weaving but I decided to consider it a sample and it lives in my drawer full of samples. I will return to the rock and next will try a network twill from Handweaving.net. Meanwhile, a new opportunity was being presented and I decided to leap into a new project.

At the start of the pandemic when I was power walking my old neighborhood instead of going to the gym, I came across an iris of what struck me as exquisite color. As happens, I took photos and figured someday I would use this inspiration in my fiber work. This past summer, thanks to my friend from the beach walk, I finally had the opportunity to play with hand painting (some would say hand dyeing) Tencel warps.

Jan has done quite a bit of dyeing and we planned some projects. One was to dye warp for the iris photo. Thanks to Jan, we had fun and I learned a great deal. It took me two attempts, but I like what we came up with.

In late 2020 I had stored a network till draft on my laptop but, unfortunately, I did not store information on where I found the draft. My bad; I really wish I had.

I used some stash Tencel for accent warp and for weft and I enjoyed weaving this scarf. Thanks to TempoTreadle, keeping track of treadling is a breeze. I used a sett of 24 ends per inch. And, unlike the rock scarf, my selvedges are decent. The hand is nice, too.

Have I mentioned how much I value all my fiber friends and guild mates, both here in Washington and in California? To say nothing of the few non-fiber friends who have blessed my life for decades, such as Paula.

I have been enjoying meeting members of the Whidbey Weavers Guild and having fun with another fiber friend here, also named Donna. Like Jan and I, Donna moved here recently and we share a dear mutual fiber friend from California. Sharing knitting, spinning, and weaving with other equally passionate fiber folks enriches my life and my journey into the fiber arts in so many ways.

I have hand painted warps for two other nature inspired projects and I have been working on several other knitting, spinning, and weaving projects.

Throughout the autumn I kept taking pictures of a certain seaweed I would see on the beach here. Someday that will become something, too.

But Finn is ready for his afternoon constitutional and I’ll save those projects for another post.

Until then, sing praises, enjoy your friends, let them know that you appreciate them, and walk in balance.

Looms Come Home

September 24, 2022 by Donna Johnson Leave a Comment

At last, the day had come. May 3, 2022. The house was ours and we had the keys. Only discouraging news from the moving company could put a damper on our happiness. Broken truck, lack of parts, unknown delivery date, weeks away. Very anxious to exit the Hovel, we had already given notice so we could move as soon as we took possession of the house. To make it more interesting, my daughter was arriving from California that evening and my youngest kiddo was arriving from Indiana in three days. But now there was no telling when the looms, or the rest of our belongings, would come home.

The kids arrived and we all had a wonderful visit and fun camping out in the new house. Visits to thrift stores and the big box store on the island provided the basics to get us through. We could do basic cooking, had clean towels and bedding (if you count an air mattress and cheap sleeping bag as bedding), and we had the new counter stools and a couple of camp chairs, as well as the new washer/dryer and guest bed. I also had the two potholders a dear fiber friend in California dropped off the day before we left town.

Best of all was sharing our new home, the very first home without my kids in over 30 years, with my two awesome adult offspring. Finn was pretty happy to stretch out in the new house as well. It was a busy couple of days but a wonderful time to be together. Geography and busy lives have kept us apart more than this mother would like.

I could still spin and knit and daydream about weaving. And we had plenty to keep us busy as we attempted to have the interior painted before the furniture arrived. That didn’t turn out so well and it certainly complicated attempts to unpack once things did arrive but, in the end and long after we had hoped, the dull and depressing grey walls are now different colors. I chose a basic white for the loom room and my fiber/office room.

Being very moved by world events and a film I saw of a weaving family in Ukraine (Ukrainian Wool Blanket), I purchased a handwoven blanket from them via their Etsy store. We tracked the progress of the package across the world.

It took one month and the blanket arrived about a week after we started camping out in the new house. It is an amazing hand woven, hand washed (in a river), and hand brushed wool blanket and will certainly keep us warm during PNW winters.

Two weeks after the initial promised delivery, our goods were delivered. I was so happy to see my looms and to see that they were in fine shape. I found that it was a challenge to fit all things fiber into two rooms, especially coming from house as studio that had evolved organically over many years.

Things were not set up to function yet in my “studio” and we had company coming. So, Michael, Finn, and I spent our days making the kitchen functional, clearing living space of boxes, and getting ready for visits from friends from California. As always, puppy training and exercise and knitting and spinning continued. We had a wonderful time visiting with dear friends from California throughout June.

In between visitors, Michael and I arranged for Finn to have an overnight at a very nice resort for pups here on the island. We were lucky to get him a spot and it really is a deluxe resort with no crates or cages and lots of space to run and play. It is great to know that he did well and has a place to go, if needed. Meanwhile, the paw parents had our own night at a nice AirBnB in Seattle. Our intention was to visit the Nordic Museum and have a night on our own. We enjoyed a great meal and the museum

A highlight of the museum was the Margaret Bergman display. It was part of the display of individuals from Sweden having made an impact after arrival. She was the only woman mentioned and she was described as “A Weaving Innovator and Entrepreneur.”

The loom could have been much better displayed but what a joy to see the loom I had heard so much about. I intend to learn more about her three-tie unit weave.

I was finally able to start weaving in July. I used some of the handspun wool from our months in transition as pattern weft for an overshot dresser scarf. This was the Stricken Lonk from Edgewood Garden Studio that I wrote about in my last blog.

I had 16/2 linen in my stash and used that for warp and tabby. I decided to start with the Baby Wolf, otherwise known as Fiona. It was so wonderful to be weaving again! The scarf works well on an antique dresser that Michael had in his mountain home.

The loom room is a bright and beautiful place to weave. However, by the time I finished that project and was trying to warp towels on the Mighty Wolf, otherwise known as Wilhelmina, it was clear that the loom room could not accommodate everything that was in there. The Wolf PupLt, as yet unnamed, was already stationed in the family room. But there was just no way to be functional in such tight space that was the loom room at that point.

So, DH volunteered for duty and had some suggestions. We moved a cabinet with thread into the guest room (which already housed my knitting library, tabletop warping mill, mannequin, baskets of yarn as décor, and a closet full of sheep and an alpaca) and found a spot in the guest closet for my rack of reeds, temples, and warping sticks. It is still a very nice guest room with just a bit of fiber art spill over.

At last I had a fiber room/office with a work table and a loom room. Of course, we had not yet unpacked all the photos, wall art, and tchotchkes but now I could function and get a warp on both looms!

Meanwhile, Finn continues to grow and require lots of exercise, there are still many things to unpack in the garage, and we are still exploring our new island home

I am working on learning to be patient with myself. My solo days of being productively lost in fiber arts all day are long gone. Michael is home full time and I have a very large puppy who needs training and exercise. It will take me much longer to plan and warp a project than ever before. And there is nothing more important than being present in this moment with loved ones. So, I aim for balance as I move forward in our new home.

May all beings find balance. May it be so.