What's Up, Doc

Well, it was a busy weekend. Auntie actually liked her necklace! She even said that she had the perfect outfit to wear with it. A good time was had by all at her party on Saturday. There was dancing and wine (T-Man’s home-vintage) and cake and laughter. DD and her C&C announced they’ve decided on a date at the end of April for their wedding. Luckily (or unfortunately, depending on your outlook) it’s April 2007! It will be a medieval theme so we’ll have to get dressed up in period costume. Sounds like lots of fun! We have more than a year to get it together.

Yesterday I attended a workshop at Birkeland Bros. Wool at the behest of Cara, the owner and also my occasional employer. The instructor was Rowena Hart of Ashford Handicrafts in New Zealand. We wove on their new little Knitter’s Loom. It’s a cute little rigid heddle loom with a specially designed reed that can accommodate lumpy, fat, hairy, or ribbon yarns. You can make a scarf in a fraction of the time it takes to knit one. This loom is actually more expensive than their other rigid heddle looms because it’s completely finished and comes with everything you need to get started including sley hook, threading hook, warping peg, 2 shuttles, 2 clamps, and a cool carry box. They’ve got a padded carry bag coming but I’m sure it will be pretty expensive. I enjoyed weaving even on this little thing after so long a time of not-weaving. It was fun! Here’s the loom and a scan of part of my scarf. I brought my camera but didn’t take any pictures at all during the workshop (naughty me!)

Scarf Details:

Date: January 29, 2006
Workshop: with Rowena Hart at Birkeland Bros. Wool
Loom: Ashford Knitter’s Loom (12” wide rigid heddle loom with 7.5 dent special reed)
Yarn: Warp – Sandnes’ Smart Superwash wool, 100 m = 50 g, colour purple tweed; Herwool Eros, 100% nylon railroad ribbon, 150 m = 50 g, colour variegated yellow-orange/blue/magenta
Weft – both of the warp yarns plus Schoeller-stahl’s Cookie, 42% polyamide/41% polyester/17% acrylic, colour red fine eyelash with magenta/blue/orange tufts and black binder.
Warp length: 2 yards?
Finished length: 54” plus 6” fringes.
Finished width: 5” (varies slightly!)
Comments:
I added a strand of the leftover weft yarns to each knot on the fringes for a thicker effect. This was suggested by Rowena and it does make a difference. This workshop was lots of fun! A funky scarf in 3 hours total.

I also sat in later with some of Ashford’s western dealers and Sue of Treenway, who is Ashford’s Canadian Distributor. I was kind of there on false pretenses — or maybe not, because Cara was really busy with the shop and wasn’t able to be there for most of the presentation. It was very interesting to hear things from the “other side” of the cash register. We had quite a lively discussion of looms and wheels and yarns. And then most of us went out for dinner to The Reef further up Main St. from BB for Jamaican food. I called T-Man and he walked over to join us. It was pouring absolute buckets of rain and we were hopping and skipping over the monster puddles on the way home in the dark.