I had have piles of paper all over my desk. Boxes of yarn all over the floor. Weaving shuttles, sticks, bobbins and scissors on the weaving table AND on the floor.  Today was the day to clean - file, toss and put away.

Then when I was done, what did I do? 

I pulled all my pearle cotton out of the closet and books off the shelves so I could finish a Temari ball that I started over FOUR years ago.  

It is not my best work but it is done. It is now hanging in the door way of my office.

I am even thinking of doing another over the 4 day weekend (Christmas) while watching some television.

Here are some pictures

I have just finished my Rainbow Scarf and I am rather frustrated with myself as I did not pay close enough to the tension of the warp when setting up this project. 


I knew I was having issues with the warp because many, many, many times I have had to unweave a few picks (a weft thread) because the adjacent warp threads were sticking to each other and causing vertical floats. I admit it, some were so far back of where I was, I left them [bad me!]

But when I cut the scarf off the loom and turned it over - I found not only vertical floats but horizontal ones as well. The more I thought about it, I began to realize that this must be caused by my shuttle going under the wefts and I did not see it through the shed (the area where you place the shuttle which is created by the raised warp and those at rest). 

But how could the shuttle go under warp threads??? I think that the warp threads were sticking to each other but because of the tension being tooooo loose, these threads may have lifted slightly and the point of my boat shuttle caught it and whoops, under the warp threads it went.

Being the perfectionist I am, it tends to make me wonder that I am not the good weaver I think or would like to believe I am.  Actually what it comes down it is.... experience and paying attention to the warp tension. Hey, it is a learning experience and just had my lesson.

A few weeks ago when Yuko, Randee and I went to the LA Weavers Guild annual show, we bought some rovings. I bought a small package of spaced dyed cotton while Yuko bought all manner of wool from 3 or 4 different vendors, and we all agreed to play with our drop spindles in a few weeks down at the barn.  

Spinning is not new to me but I not an expert at it either. Several years ago, I had used my drop spindle to spin some soy silk for a friend and I even had a charka for a while, which has since been sold on. I used the charka to spin some cotton as well as some silk which I still have in my stash.

The drop spindle event was the week before Thanksgiving and we had fun spinning and more than not, dropping our spindles. While we were trying to spin, Ester wandered by and said that she had two spinning wheels and would be glad to teach us. We settled on this weekend as the date.

When I arrived at the barn, Ester was there and we unloaded the wheels from her car.  Bill, one of the original members of the barn was also there and he also joined in on the teaching. BTW, Bill has been spinning and weaving for over 40 years!

First we were shown how to set up the spinning wheels, oil the various parts that need it and then we sat there spinning air while bill gave us a demo on spinning. The spinning air is to make sure our legs in a comfortable position and that our leg gets use to the movement. Next we moved onto putting some wool into the wheel to start spinning and learning how to advance and feed the wheel.  

Finally we got a rhythm going and we were spinning.   

We took a break for lunch because we were both getting tired. Afterwards we were getting tired so I stopped and Yuko continued to spin but she was having problems too. Ester was nice enough to let Yuko one of the wheels to take home with her for a week which will allow her to do some weaving everyday.

Here is a short video of Yuko spinning in the barn after lunch.