Thursday, May 2, 2019

Some more of my week

The plum (?) tree outside the Methodist church is in flower. Nancy and I led Tuesday, until the last hand, when we were swept away by their massive meld.


The week commenced rather coolly, daytime highs barely reaching the sixties, before disappearing. Yesterday Ruth and I took advantage of a fabulously beautiful day to go to Caroline's school and watch her team play its last softball game of the year.

At Ruth's house, mid afternoon and temperatures up to the eighties, I stripped down to one shirt. I tied the hoodie around my waist, just in case. As we sat in the bleachers and cheered the girls, the weather changed literally on a walk off walk. 

We watched it coming, coming, coming, and the big rain started and the temperature dropped thirty degrees in the time it took to  walk fairly quickly the hundred feet to the car. Such a storm!



Back home I began to work on a new project. I bought a skein of cotton yarn, plied with a fine synthetic boucle.  It is the boucle that makes an otherwise nondescript strand of cotton appear so crinkly and interesting.


I calculated enough yardage to put fifteen yards in each of eleven bouts on the loom, and that much at least is working out. I spent the rest of yesterday and most of today putting the fifteen yards on each bout. I've never warped this way, mathematically. Once there were eleven little balls of purple to put on bobbins, my work was over, theoretically.


I merely turned the beam and wound until each fifteen yards of purple was beamed on. A good idea, except I cannot recommend it for boucle yarns. I have figured out how not to have the little bumps catch in the tension box reeds, but it still must go through the heddle eyes and beater bar reed.  We'll see.

















41 comments:

  1. no idea about weaving but that yarn is really gorgeous, it looks forgiving. Weather is every season everyday, Spring- I always forget.

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  2. Looking forward to seeing what happens with the yarn. Your weather is as weird as ours... so tired of it! Of course when it does turn into a typical Missouri summer - hot and dry - I will complain some more!!

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  3. You chose a beautiful color yarn. I can’t wait to see the finished product.

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  4. What's the plan for the plum boucle? Surely not tea towels. That is a beautiful flowering tree. -Jenn

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    1. Much of the warp is a thin cotton boucle, and I'll weave with the thin cotton boucle. It will be a length of fabric with the purple stripe. I'll probably make mobius shrugs. There is enough for two or three. Then I'll see if the gallery will take them.

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  5. Love that tree, and like everyone else look forward to seeing what you create with that beautiful yarn.

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  6. I wondered too about the washability of the yarn mix - is the cotton pre-shrunk? I'm sure you've thought of that. But just in case!

    It's a gorgeous colour. Looking forward to seeing what you're making.

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    1. Well that doesn't sound good, lol Surely the makers would have thought about it though. Good luck!

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  7. Hari o
    Joining the chorus of admiration for yarn and technique.
    Love the prunus blossom.
    Raining here as I tap the screen!
    YAM xx

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  8. What a scary change in the weather! And how gorgeous that boucle is. I love sweaters knit from such yarn. So. I'm planning to be at the Elements event on Saturday morning with my oldest dd Alice. Will you be there then do you think?

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    1. Yes, seated with my towels, probably knitting.

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  9. At least the walk off happened before the rain.That purple is a great color... my favorite. Too bad about the pinochle game was a close one. Sounds fun.

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  10. I have a friend who weaves she makes some lovely things but I have no talent in that area.
    Merle..............

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  11. Stunning color! An echo of the plum tree.

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  12. That is such a pretty color! Its amazing how a storm can come through and drop the temperature so many degrees so fast! Happens a lot here in our monsoon storms.

    betty

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  13. I hope the plan works, the colour is gorgeous. What will you make with it?

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  14. The purple is beautiful, the work seems complicated to me.

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  15. perhaps the boucle yarn is used with larger heddle eyes?

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    1. Yes. I use inserted eye heddles and my reed is ten dent.

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  16. I bought my mother a new fleece that's exactly the colour of that yarn. :) Good luck with it!

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  17. Absolutely one of my favorite colors. Your yarn echoes the plum tree blossoms.
    I think you are a very talented spider-weaver, dear woman. I am humbled at the way your hands and your head must work together to bring to fruition a plan you have dreamed up.

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    1. I screw up as often as not. Then it gets rescued, if possible, or trashed. Our best selling product, back in the day, was the result of figuring out what to make from a screwed up warp.

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  18. I would be surprised if you didn’t have the yarn for this project figured out, Joanne.

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  19. as usual Ms Moon makes my comment. that is a gorgeous tree and the luscious yarn echos the same color. I recognised your picture on John's blog. had to be yours and now the last one here confirms it. the weather sounds like here, drops of 30 to 40 degrees in a matter of minutes.

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    1. Fronts like that don't happen often, and often are accompanied by sky splitting lightening. This time it only was cold, cold rain.

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  20. That is nice yarn. Troublesome sounding though I am sure you will cope! I DO NOT like a situation when you think it's sunny and suddenly a storm creeps up. But good to get out. I love that tree, it is absolutely gorgeous. My neighbour has a smaller one in her front garden and I admire it every year.

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  21. Isn't it amazing that weaving language can sound Greek? At least to me. I do love that color and hope you can work out the heddle eye and beater bar reed challenge.

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  22. It's lovely looking yarn...what's it going to be?

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  23. Yes, the boucle adds texture, but the color is amazing. Electric. You are so good at math...bravo.

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  24. Good luck with the weaving and all the counting. If you change your mind, that would make a lovely scarf...

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  25. Oh dear! I've just had to look up bouclé. Thank you for enriching my vocabulary. It looks wonderful too.

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  26. You weavers amaze me with what you can do. I do like the colour purple in the yarn and I also like boucle.

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  27. My spatial relations are not good enough to ever be a weaver.

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  28. Beautiful colors - tree and yarn.

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