Waste Not, Want Not

Day 110: "Waste not, want not," or as my grandmother used to say, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without," so I'm using up whatever I can salvage from my weaving thrums to make potholders. Since I weave almost exclusively with 8/2 cotton, this is an ideal solution. It must be said, however, that my grandmother was English. My Scottish genes came from my grandfather whose mother, so the story goes, had a dalliance with a McLeod outside her marriage. My knowledge of the backstory ends there, but the frugal DNA runs strong. That said, my grandmother was notorious for using short bits of crochet thread as centers for granny squares, even shorter than the weaving thrums I've used here.

This double-thick pattern is about as simple as it gets in crochet (both sides of one potholder are shown here). Determine the diagonal length you want for your potholder and make an equivalent chain in the fiber of your choice. Cotton insulates your hand against heat quite well (I used a double strand of 8/2 with a 2.0 mm hook). Add an extra inch, ending with an odd number of chains. Sc in the second chain from the hook, and in each subsequent chain. Without turning, sc in the opposite side of the chain until you're back to your starting point (example: I started with 71 sc, which is a nice multiple of 10 plus 1). Crocheting down both sides of the chain gave me 140 sc for the round when I got back to my starting point.) Now without turning, single-crochet half as many rows as you had chains (for me, that was 35). You'll soon see that this begins to form a bag with the chain row at its bottom. When complete, fold the bag, pulling out the closed corners. The opposite corners will be open. Now you'll need to crochet a half row (roughly) to reach an open corner. Once there, make a chain for the hanger. Sc back along the hanger chain, join to the body of the bag and fasten off, leaving a long tail. Use the tail to ladder-stitch the open diagonal (the last sc row made). You're done!

HIndsight: I made this one a little small, having forgotten to allow for the inevitable shrinkage in washing and drying. I should have allowed a few extra stitches in the starting chain to compensate. Not to worry! I still have a bagful of thrums.

Boston Brown Bread

Day 109: If you want to make this recipe, you're going to have to take an unusual step before you begin. You need a mold, so you're going to have to buy a can of brown bread (I think B&M is the only brand in production) just to get the can. Of course, you can eat the brown bread which comes in the can. That's a bonus, but you really need that can.

I love Boston brown bread and have been promising myself to make it from scratch for...oh, I don't know, probably forty years, but I kept buying it in the cans and then forgetting to save them. Well, I finally did it. I used two different steaming methods which worked almost equally well. More on that in a minute. Another thing hanging me up was the fact that you just can't find graham flour these days, but I found several recipes which substituted whole wheat. It changes the texture of the brown bread a little, but the taste is close to the original. Let's get on with my adaptation of the recipe.

Butter the inside of the can (or use a spray) and line the bottom with a piece of wax paper or lightly greased parchment. Have a second round of parchment handy to cover the top of the dough.

Combine thoroughly
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/3cup rye flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp brown sugar
(1/3 cup raisins if desired)

In a second bowl, combine thoroughly
1/4 cup molasses
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 Tbsp melted butter

Stir moist ingredients into dry ingredients and pour into the can. This recipe will fill the can a little under 2/3. Bang on the counter to make any air bubbles rise to the surface. Cover top of dough with the second round of parchment. Place a piece of aluminum foil over the top of the can, pinching firmly all the way around. Fasten with string.

Traditionally, the mold would now be put in a pan filled partway with hot water, the outer pan covered, and set to steam in a 275-degree oven for about three hours. However, many of us have modern equipment which makes steaming more cost-efficient. I put my first loaf in the crock-pot (water 2/3 of the way up the sides of the can) and let it steam for three hours. I made the second loaf in my InstantPot (can 2/3 submerged), processing on high for 45 minutes with a 15-minute natural release of pressure (this does not result in a full release, so finish releasing pressure manually). The InstantPot loaf was slightly drier than the crock-pot loaf, so I think I could cut the cooking time by 5-10 minutes. You'll know your loaf is done when a skewer inserted into it comes out clean. NB: the aluminum foil will cause some slight corrosion where it comes into contact with the exterior of the can, but this does not affect the brown bread. The texture is grainier than B&M brand, perhaps owing to the fact that my rye flour is fairly coarsely ground, or maybe because I used whole wheat instead of the unobtainable graham flour, but the taste is very, very close. And the best part? I can put in just as many raisins as I damn well want!

Up To My Eyeballs In Thrums

Day 108: Weaving of almost any sort generates an incredible amount of waste in the form of warp at both ends of the cloth. On average, I allow for five or six feet of waste on the floor loom (when you're talking about 400 threads, that adds up!), three feet on the table loom, two feet or slightly more on the rigid heddle. Waste in bandweaving or inkle is negligible by comparison. These waste ends are called thrums, and my Scottish heritage will not allow me to throw them away.

And now that I've explained the usual way thrums come about, I have a confession to make. Yesterday, I was working on developing a new krokbragd pattern and when I thought I had it to a point where it would at least yield something useful even if it wasn't perfect, I warped it up on the inkle (the bonker being occupied by a very substantial herd of sheep currently). I began weaving it about half an hour before bedtime, and hadn't done more than five repeats of the feature character before I realized that it was not going to work. Nor was there any way I could redeem my design error. Fortunately, I had only hung the minimum warp (a little over three feet), but it was more waste than I could countenance. In a perfect fit of pique, I cut the threads and consigned the now-dead warp to my thrum bag which, considering the amount of weaving I've been doing lately, was beginning to bulge.

Now there are a number of uses for thrums, but I was up to my eyeballs in them. I needed a project which would use up a lot of them in fairly short order. I'd already tried spool-knitting them and wasn't happy with the results, and the call for finger-woven cords is rather minor. Crocheting cute little animals didn't appeal, and would have only used up some of the colours. I decided I'd try crocheting a pot holder with a double strand, tying on new colours randomly as each one runs out. So there you have it: I'm tying up all my loose ends! And yes, I've resolved the issue with my new krokbragd design.

Rainbow Runner

Day 107: "The job isn't finished until the paperwork is done." In the instance of weaving, the "paperwork" takes the form of tying fringe or otherwise securing the ends of the cloth so that they don't unravel. On a runner, hemming adds excessive bulk and diminishes the graceful drape of the fabric, but even with my handy-dandy fringe tool, twisting is a time-consuming and rather tedious project. I cringe at fringe, quail at the thought of all those tails, but diligent crafter that I am, I set a reasonable goal for each fringing session: halfway, or "through five sequences," or "I'll quit after ten minutes, no matter where I leave off." If I go farther, it's all to the good, but I must never, ever lay the piece aside before the goal has been reached. It took me three days to finish up the Rainbow Runner, and when I laid it over the harpsichord, the crick in my neck hardly mattered. Done and dusted!

Weaving Krokbragd On The Bonker

Day 106: This half-minute video is not meant to be instructional, rather just a demonstration of weaving krokbragd on the Glimakra band loom, lovingly known to myself and friends as the "bonker loom." If you want longer to study the technique, a two-minute version is available on YouTube. However, I will do my best to explain the system so that you can understand what's going on.

When in normal operation, the bonker has two wooden bars each having two projecting pegs which hold the heddles. These bars are attached to the treadles, and a cord runs over a pulley at the top of a stationary middle post. When either treadle is depressed, one bar raises a set of heddles as the other one lowers its set forming, what is known as the "shed" where the two layers of threads separate. These could be called sheds 1 and 2 for the sake of this discussion. Krokbragd is a bit different. It requires three sheds rather than two, and one of the three is repeated twice in the same sequence of four passes of the shuttle. You can think of krokbragd designs as being made with a nine-pin printer. You can only have one of three layers of threads on top at a time, and one layer repeats between the other two, 1-2-1-3, 1-2-1-3 and so on. In order to achieve this on the bonker, one set of threads (the 1s) runs through the heddles on the front pegs. The other two sets of threads are not heddled on the loom itself. They run straight from the warp beam to the cloth beam. By hanging auxiliary heddles over each #2 and each #3 and attaching them in bundles to carabiner handles, they can be pulled DOWN (not up, as they would be on an inkle loom) to separate their respective sheds. However, you need to have room for the threads to separate, and because the righthand set of pegs interfered with dividing them, I had to reverse the bar so that its unused pegs projected out from the back of the loom. I know...that was Greek to a lot (most?) of you, so let's watch the demonstration.

I depress the treadle, raising the #1 threads and pass the shuttle through from front to back and lightly beat the thread into place. I depress the other treadle, lowering the #1 threads. #1 is now the bottom layer. With my left hand, I lift the two upper layers together near the fell line (the point where the new thread will lay). This causes the two layers to separate near the heddles. I insert the band knife between the top and middle layers (remember, the bottom layer is out of service), beat the previous thread into place, pass the shuttle. Then I raise the #1 layer again, beat the last thread into place, pass the shuttle. In the final move, I raise layers #2 and #3 again, separate them by lifting at the fell, insert the band knife between them, beat the previous thread into place, pass the shuttle. And now we're back to the first move in the sequence. There is a definitely rhythm to the action, as you can see. Sometimes a thread gets caught on one adjacent to it and requires a little extra assist to free up, but not nearly as often as happens on the inkle loom.

In conclusion, I'll say that it is a lot easier to weave krokbragd on the band loom than on the inkle, to say nothing of faster. I also make fewer mistakes, so there is very little back-picking to correct errors. And...although this should go without saying...it's just a whole lot of fun.

The Pink Sheep Experiment

Day 105: Although I had already ascertained that it was possible to weave krokbragd on the Glimakra band loom, I wasn't sure how a warp longer than my original sample would behave. To that end, I set up four yards of sheep, a more complex pattern than the flowers in my test piece. There was another foible I hoped to be able to resolve, that being that the lower peg on the back heddle bar prevented two of the three sheds from being opened fully. This had not been a serious issue with the narrow sample, but in the wider band, the interference made it difficult to see whether or not the shed was "clear," i.e., that the shuttle could pass through without picking up threads from the wrong shed. I played around with various solutions for an hour or so, none of which seemed to make any substantial improvement, and then as I leaned back in my chair for a break, the cartoon lightbulb over my head lit up: reverse the heddle bar so that the unused pegs pointed the opposite way! A few seconds later, I had undone the Texsolv cords and had reinstalled the heddle bar backwards. It still rode smoothly in its groove, as if perhaps the loom had been designed to make the reversal possible. As I've said before, there is very little instructional material available for this type of loom, either written or in video, but understanding the mechanics of weaving goes a long way in finding new methods or solutions to problems. The reversed bar solved the issue, and although the second and third sheds still require some manipulation, the actual weaving goes much, much faster than on the inkle loom. In fact, by the time an hour was gone, I had turned out as many sheep as I could have done on the inkle in two or three days, and of course the bonker loom is capable of holding significantly longer warps. Oh yes, you may have noticed that the background for the sheep is pink. I figured if I wound up having to cut the warp off the loom because the experiment failed, I wouldn't shed too many tears over the lost yardage.

Bandweaving

Day 104: Of all the yards of bandweaving I have done, this one has got to be my all-time favourite. It was woven on the bonker loom (Glimakra band loom) and has thirteen doubled pattern threads in three shades of green. It measures out at just shy of five yards. And right there, you have one of the reasons I love working on the bonker loom: I can make longer bands than on the inkle, which is limited to about nine feet. As you can see, either side of the band could be used as the surface. When I first started weaving it, I taped a "cheat sheet" to the loom to remind me which pattern threads were to be picked up with each pass of the shuttle. After weaving for a while, the pattern committed itself to memory and the cheat sheet was only necessary when I needed to pick back because I'd lifted the wrong pattern thread.

My Smartest Pandemic Purchase

Day 103: Oh, I'm sure that under oath, most of us would be compelled to testify to having made at least one purchase during the pandemic which we have come to regret. I know I've made my share. On the other hand, we may also have bought something which was (as the argot goes) a real game-changer. In the last category, mine was a hair clipper. I'm sure my stylist won't be happy to hear that, but even now that her doors are open again, I plan to continue cutting my own hair. In the beginning, there was a noticeable learning curve, but since we were all in pandemic mode anyway, it didn't matter much that I'd sheared myself a bit too close on one side. I've never been one for having to look beautiful (a hopeless cause in any event), and even if I did need to go out in public, I always wear a hat of some sort. As time went on, though, and I was practicing every six weeks or so, I got better at the job and can now get the back straight and neat. Over the course of three years, the clippers have paid for themselves several times over, which is more than I can say for some of the culinary equipment crowding my cupboards.

Fitch

Day 102: Fitch (Hoya fitchii) is at it again, with four umbels of deliciously fragrant coppery-yellow flowers gracing the vine. Unlike Hoya bella which sends out its flower heads from leaf axils, Fitch blooms at the tips of woody spurs which remain on the plant after the flowering period is done. While new spurs will develop as the plant grows, old ones should not be removed because they will "re-bloom" with the next cycle. Fitch is an "intermittent" bloomer, not limited to a particular season like certain other Hoyas. It will produce flowers every six weeks or so, with a slightly longer intermission over the winter months. Needless to say, any houseplant so rewarding moves straight to top billing on my favourites list.

Year Of The Rabbit

Day 101: Happy New Year! It's the Year of the Rabbit, and in honour of the occasion, I tried my hand at making crystal dumplings in the shape of bunnies. No, I am not going to give you a close-up, because although they are recognizable as rabbits (more or less), they certainly do not look like the example I was following. That said, they were delicious! I stuffed them with a mixture of ground pork, shiitake mushrooms and napa cabbage, seasoned with ginger, dark soy and oyster sauce. I would have included green onions, but there weren't any in the fridge. The skins are made with a 1:1 ratio of wheat starch (not wheat flour, mind you!) and tapioca starch plus a little oil and boiling water. I should have made them a bit thinner, but I wasn't sure how far my filling would stretch. As it was, I made 16 and had filling left over. Lack of artistic merit aside, I'd say the Year of the Rabbit has started out more auspiciously than 2023 did. I'm grateful for the second chance!

Weaving The File Sample

Day 100: The rigid-heddle project was relegated to the back burner for several months while I was nursing a bad shoulder. At long last, I finished it up this morning: a 6' table runner, a single placemat and the file sample you see me weaving here. I keep a record card for my weavings, details such as ends per inch, fiber, number of warp threads, pattern, raw vs. fulled measurements, etc., and whenever possible, I like to include a small piece of the cloth so that I have a quick visual reference. These details are often helpful when I want to start a new project. I can look back at my notes to see where I might increase the width/length, identify which colours worked well with others and so on. In order to do this, I add an extra foot or so to the length of the warp. Sometimes, if it's very stretchy, this extra length is enough to make an additional item. If not, I use it to weave the sample. As you can see here, I don't weave the full width, but rather cut away the warps at either side of a central section so that it's easier to see my work, and then weave just enough to show the pattern and/or colour sequence. In this case, I didn't need to show the whole rainbow change, only the transition from one colour to the next.

The Sheep In The Shower

Day 99: Working with fibers isn't all fun and games. In fact, it can be downright inconvenient on occasion. I had thought I'd have more opportunity to get the first two skeins of Coopworth wool off the spindles, but the Pacific Northwest skipped autumn but for three short days this year, going from hot, dry summer to wet, frosty winter in the blink of an eye. Consequently, hanging the wool to dry outdoors would have been an exercise in futility, so I waited...and waited...and waited, in the hopes that we'd get two or three clear, dry days in a row. Meanwhile, I kept at my spinning, wanting to get the Coopworth out of the way so I could move on to a better quality wool. As I edged closer to a fourth full spindle, leaving only one on which to ply the yarn, I came to the crux. I had to get the stuff off the bobbins to make room for the remainder. Plan B went into effect last night, and now for the next several days, possibly even a week, I will be sharing the shower with a sheep as it dries slowly, oh so very slowly, and sets the twist.

Lichens Vs. Mosses

Day 98: Ignoring the Douglas-fir branches, one of these two clumps of green matter is a plant and the other one is not. Do you know the difference between lichen and moss? Bryophytes (mosses) are a simple form of plant life, with structures which fulfill the same functions as the leaves, roots and stems of more well-developed plants. Mosses contain chloroplasts throughout their bodies, while lichens only have chloroplasts in the algal layer on their outer surfaces. On the other hand, a lichen is a symbiotic organism comprised of fungus, algae/cyanobacteria and yeast, each component providing something vital to the survival of the whole. The fungus gives the lichen its shape and aids in moisture retention, while the alga/cyanobacteria provides photosynthesis and contributes nutrients in a form the fungus can utilize. The role of the yeast in lichen is not fully understood, although some research suggests that it helps ward off disease. Although many lichens resemble mosses in outward appearance, they are truly quite different.

Nine-Foot Flock

Day 97: I am a long way from taking Murphy's Band off the bonker loom, but only inches away from completing the Nine-foot Flock on the inkle. Sheep are so much fun to make in krokbragd that I've already picked out the colours for another band. Krokbragd is more difficult when woven on a regular loom because it is composed three sheds in four throws, two of which are identical. That might not seem like a problem, but it means that there is twice as much take-up on one set of warp threads because they pass over two weft threads. This means that the remaining two sets which only pass over one weft tend to go somewhat slack in comparison. While the problem still exists with an inkle loom or band loom, it does not develop to the same extent that it does on a standard loom. Even when working krokbragd on a rigid heddle, I eventually have to add additional weight to the loosened warps in order to maintain equal tension.

Where There's Life...

Day 96: Yeah, yeah, I know. You're getting really tired of weaving posts. You have to realize that it's winter here in the Pacific Northwest, which means that it's mostly gloomy and wet. And even if it wasn't gloomy and wet, some of us scientifically-minded types would rather not take chances with the new covid strains even though we're vaccinated to the max. In other words, I don't have many opportunities to explore strange new woodlands, to seek out new fungi and new plant rarities, or to boldly go where no one has fallen down before. I've been doing these daily posts for thirteen years now and it's always been difficult to find material in the winter, but the Pandemic Winters have been far, far worse. To that end, I have often wasted time prowling my yard for oddities worth mention, seldom finding any. However, I've been watching for signs of growth in the garden, and today I found a handful of Snowdrops peeking through the ground. Spring, then, must be just around the corner. Where there's life, there's hope.

One Thing At A Time

Day 95: You've heard it said that there are exceptions to every rule. Weaving is the exception to my self-imposed restriction which dictates that I can only work on one project at a time of any particular type of fiberart. Knit, crochet, tat, etc., I am only allowed one of each in progress. Why is weaving different? Because there are so many different ways it can be done. Certainly, all of them involve crossing vertical threads with horizontal ones if it comes right down to it, but each style of weaving requires a different skill-set to achieve the end result. Although three of the looms in the picture are small and portable and generally occupy the living room when in service, the floor loom (a corner of which is visible in the lower right) is what gives the "Loom Room" its name. It went into that room in pieces, and the only way it will ever come out is if it is dismantled. It occupies over a quarter of the available floor space. Looms not currently in use take up much of what remains. I nearly always have at least two looms in operation, and there has never been a time when all of them were empty at once.

Murphy's Band

Day 94: Warning: you may want to have a pocket calculator handy.

It was Friday the 13th, and I'm not superstitious in the slightest, but Murphy was ready to try to change my mind. Prior to the grand Krokbragd Experiment, I'd measured off eight yards of warp for a band with 13 pattern threads. That's the three shades of green you see here in the center portion. The red "daisies" don't require pickup. I finished up the krokbragd and really debated whether or not I felt like starting to warp the new band on the bonker before bed, but decided to go ahead and get started. Now I've explained the Gatorade Method to you before, whereby I weight warp bundles with water-filled bottles to hold tension on the warp. The bottles have to be retied every 18 inches or so as I wind the warp onto the beam. In this case, I was using four bottles. Math: 8 yards divided by 18 inches is 16 reties, multiplied by 4 bottles equals 64 knots. It also means 16 times I needed to kneel down to do the tying. We're talking some serious genuflection here. I felt like I was at a Catholic mass before the warp was fully wound.

This particular pattern uses 73 threads which have to be threaded through heddles, alternating between those on the front pegs and those on the back. Additionally, it has those 13 pattern threads (doubled) which do not pass through heddles, but remain "floating" in the middle of the shed so that they can be picked up as required. Once the warp was wound, I began threading heddles. I was slightly over two-thirds of the way across when I noticed something very odd. "Where's my other light green pattern threads?" I said, separating the words with heddles of profanity. Yep, somehow I had missed winding them when I measured the warp. A goodly bit of deliberation suggested that I might be able to redeem the project without unthreading all the heddles if I drew the warp carefully back through them so that I could add the missing threads at the beginning. I probably should have gone to bed right then, but I didn't. Friday the 13th, 13 pattern threads. What could possibly go awry? Halfway through the process, a warp thread snapped, loosening the tension on the ones adjacent to it, those loosening the ones adjacent to them, and before I knew it, I had warp spaghetti behind the heddles. There was nothing for it at that point. I pulled all the warp completely off the loom, chained it and consigned it to the thrum bag for use as something else. And I went to bed, angry at myself for not being more attentive to potential issues.

The warp bundle haunted my dreams that night. I was not happy with relegating it to thrums. There was too much of it which was still usable. In the morning, I stretched it out across my living room floor, over a chair, and weighted the end with a book so that I could draw off one thread at a time as I rethreaded the loom. I tied each pair of threads together and attached them with a lark's-head to the warp beam. That's 36 knots for the warp, plus one odd one tied on singly, and another 13 knots for the pattern threads. When I came to the broken thread, I added a new one in, and likewise added in the missing light green threads. It took about two hours to complete the task. Then it was time to wind the warp again...another 16 genuflections as I retied 4 Gatorade bottles with 64 knots.

Perforce, the "new" warp was a little shorter than originally planned, but Murphy wasn't done with me yet. About three feet from the end, a warp thread tied itself around a fuzzy heddle and popped. At that point, I said, "Okay, that's it. I'm done." I cut off the last three feet of warp and threw it away in a fit of pique. I am now weaving Murphy's Band, and although it won't be as long as I wanted, I didn't have plans for a particular length of it. That said, next Friday the 13th, I'm staying in bed.

Mixed Media

Day 93: There is very little instructional material available for either Scandinavian-style band looms or for krokbragd weaving and, as far as I know, nothing which combines the two. Since krokbragd can be worked on an inkle loom, I was sure there was some way to adapt it to the bonker. I have long known that I do my best thinking when I'm horizontal, and thus it was that I passed a mostly sleepless night visualizing the various ways the loom could be set up to give three sheds. When I finally came up with what I thought was a workable solution, I wasn't sure if I'd have to remove one pair of heddle pegs in order to have enough space to lower...not raise as you would on an inkle loom, mind you...to pull down the threads not required in the active layer. As it turned out, I was able to leave the unused pegs and heddles in place, rigging secondary heddles on two carabiner "handles" so that I could pull them out of the way as groups. There were a few foibles to work out along the way. I'd crossed two threads while I was warping my sample and the sheds wouldn't open properly, and when I tried to shortcut fixing the issue, I compounded it instead. Then in the process of re-warping, I fouled it up even further and wound up cutting the first few inches of the sample off so that I could start over from scratch. Once I got that sorted out, things went smoothly, and I successfully finished up two yards of sample in very short order. That said, it was Friday the 13th, and Murphy had plans. That will be the subject of a future post.

Feeling Sheepish

Day 92: I've been feeling a little "sheepish" these last several days, so I broke out the inkle loom and set up a krokbragd warp with a favourite design. I've been mulling it over, and think I may have figured out how to manipulate krokbragd on the bonker (Glimakra band loom) to make a longer band. Bands on the inkle are limited by its size. This model allows for a warp just slightly longer than nine feet. On the other hand, the bonker loom can hold many more yards of warp. I've never even come close to filling it. Now it has to be mentioned here that I began working with this flock an hour or so before bedtime last night, which may not have been the best idea. It set my mind to puzzling over how best to warp the bonker to get the three sheds required for krokbragd weave. I tucked in for the night with visions of a vast herd of sheep in my head, and counting them as warp threads was certainly not conducive to sleep. In the wee hours, I had mentally drafted several potential experiments with one promising candidate rising to the fore. I intend to run a short test as soon as the current band comes off the bonker despite the fact that I already have measured warp for another project waiting in the wings. Maybe I'll get that paddock built this week after all!

Rank And Order

Day 91: There are several different methods for measuring out warp, each with its own merits and drawbacks. I happen to prefer to wind my threads onto a warping board, although because I don't have a wall on which to hang it, I generally sit on the floor with the frame leaned up against something, although sometimes if I'm winding a particularly long warp, I'll set it on the piano bench and prop it up against the door. In either case, I like to keep the cones of thread more or less ordered by the colour in which they will be needed, removing them from service once they are no longer required. Sometimes it's helpful to leave a full cone in place to hold a nearly empty one upright, such as the yellow shown here which will only be used for two warp strands in the entire piece. I could just as easily have measured off those two threads first and laid them aside until they were called into use, but experience has taught me that no matter how carefully I lay them down, they will find some way to tangle themselves into "warp spaghetti" before I pick them up again. Having to stop mid-wrap to unsnarl a knot can be very annoying.

Winter Cloak

Day 90: The Mountain's presence is always felt by those of us at its base, regardless of whether it is hidden from sight by cloud or no. Still, when its magnificent figure appears again on the horizon, cloaked in a fresh garment of white, one cannot help but be awed. At 14,411', the Mountain rises well above the surrounding foothills, although the closer you get, you lose sight of the broad lower half. From Seattle or other vantage points where an unobstructed view is possible, its massive dominance is even more apparent. On days like today, I look out my window and think how privileged I have been to stand on the summit six times. To look at me now, you would never guess that I had been a climber. But although some in my acquaintance went on to the challenge of Himalayan peaks, they held little or no lure for me. For me, climbing Mount Rainier was a pilgrimage, or a moment of intimacy with one of the most significant figures in my life. The Mountain was not something to be conquered, but a personage I respected, and to whom I entrusted my life each time I set foot on the upper slopes. I still have my wood-handled ice axe and crampons, and although I cannot envision ever using either again, I cannot bear to throw them away. The summit calls to me, even if I can no longer answer.

Windy Days

Day 89: It's blowing again. My yard is full of small branches (I've dragged the big ones away). Earlier this week, I had to tie my wheelie-bin to the back porch because it kept blowing over, even with a paving stone laid on the lid. January has brought higher gusts and stronger sustained winds than any month in the previous year. The power has been out a couple of times, although today it's just flickering occasionally, but to be on the safe side, I've cooked extra food, made a pot of coffee and filled a flush bucket. Warm temps mean I don't have to worry about heat. Our high winds appear to be related to the "atmospheric river" systems currently slamming California, and although January is usually one of our "flood months," at least we're not getting the rain.

This Side Down

Day 88: Let's try this again, shall we? This is the wrong side of the fabric I photographed from underneath yesterday, and also the top/surface of the weaving from the weaver's perspective. The pattern is less apparent on this side, but you can still see that it has texture. That said, summer-and-winter weave should not be about texture, but about pattern. I could have achieved a very similiar look on a Rose Path draft without the additional effort of managing two shuttles. The design is also somewhat obscured by the fact that both shuttles are wound with the same colour per the instructions. The block design is interesting, but in the final accounting, it simply doesn't have that traditional "not quite reversed" appeal of other summer-and-winter drafts. Perhaps I'll like the bottomside/front better, but so far, I'm unimpressed.

Upside-down Weaving

Day 87: First of all, let me apologize for the quality of the photo. It was taken with the camera sandwiched in between the underside of the weaving and the front apron, and all I could see on the viewscreen was what appeared between warp threads. It's even harder to get your head in there to see if the pattern is coming out the way it should.

To explain further, this was the first time I had used a draft from a new book, and there's always a learning curve when the author has tried to improve on standard notation and falls somewhat short in the clarity of her instructions for reading her method. Add a dash of "operator error" into the mix, and an unbelievable number of ways to go wrong appear in very short order. After picking back an inch of weaving several times because I misunderstood her "repeat" indications, I finally got the pattern to work...upside-down. The writer's treadling is apparently for a sinking-shed loom rather than one with a rising shed, hence the need for me to stand on my head. It has taken me roughly five hours to get two inches of weaving done, and even if I'm not quite happy with this first result, I've learned from the experience and will have four more towels after this one to refine into something gift-worthy.

The Gatorade Method

Day 86: Dressing a loom is best done with a partner whenever possible, but it has been many years since I had a helper available to hold tension on the warp while I wound it onto the back beam, and consequently, I have had to improvise. This technique is what I laughingly refer to as the "Gatorade Method." The warp bundles are tied to yarn loops around the necks of empty G2 bottles partially filled with water for weight. Depending on the fiber, more or less water can be used to maintain uniform tension throughout, reducing the amount for delicate threads which might break under greater stress. The drawback to the system is that it requires re-tying every 18" or so in order to keep the bottles suspended, and that means a lot of up-and-down on creaky old knees. By the time I have six yards of warp wound onto the beam, I will have had my exercise and will be more than ready for the less physical work of threading the heddles and the reed. It's important that you keep your electrolyte balance up when weaving. Drink lots of Gatorade!

Nordic Band

Day 85: I believe I can come close to dating when I first became fascinated with Nordic-style bands. When I was still in primary school, my favourite uncle gave my mother and me "car coats" for Christmas. Hers was light blue and mine was red, and both were trimmed with commercially-produced ribbons along the front edge of the hood and the cuffs in a pattern very similar to what you see here. The snowflake designs intrigued me, and I began noticing them elsewhere, notably on garments my classmates wore on skiing trips, and thus the "Nordic" association was firmly instilled in my mind. Only later did I discover that the bands were part of traditional costumes, especially in Norway and Sweden. I first learned to create my own Nordic bands on an inkle loom, pushing down or lifting up the appropriate pattern threads relative to the active layer. The purchase of a Swedish band loom simplified the process enormously. This particular band, similar as it is to that on my old "car coat," is bordered with what Heather Torgenrud calls "an interesting threading" in her book, "Norwegian Pick-up," in that it forms alternating spots of two colours rather than the typical "chain" or "flower" pattern, and for as complex as it appears, it is very easy to memorize.

Waffle Throw

Day 84: Remember Wilson on "Home Improvement?" I bet he never hid behind a waffle! Yes, the waffle throw is complete, and measures 45" x 58", very close to my estimate. Waffle weave has a tendency to pull in on itself both crosswise and lengthwise, and depending on the fiber, you may lose as much as 20% of either dimension. In this case, I don't have to worry. Both warp and weft are fabric-store acrylic worsted yarns, and the colours are tag ends from old projects. I did have to purchase a little more black for the weft (well, I purchased more than a little, because I will definitely be doing this again), but otherwise, the only requirement for a colour was that it yield six 18-foot lengths for the warp. What you can't see in this photo is that I am wearing a thickly textured sweater knit on the same principle, also with a base colour of black. There are a lot of ways to use up all those mini-balls of yarn besides turning them into granny squares. The throw was woven as two panels, and if you look closely, you'll be able to see the horizontal seam where the two selvedges meet. That said, I'm counting on the colours to dazzle your eyes so that you don't notice.

Naked Potential

Day 83: There is so much potential represented in a naked loom! Yes, the waffle throw is off the rollers, although I only have the panels halfway stitched together as yet. There is a Plan in the works, but first I must finish up the last few inches of a band in order to free up the warping board because it currently holds the next warp for the bonker loom. That's a simpler solution than digging into the cupboard to retrieve my second warping board from behind fabric and fiber-arts equipment boxes. There is one major decision to be made, however: colour. I want to try out a new summer-and-winter draft and may have to flip a coin to choose between traditional colours (red or blue) or go with something more modern. I'm leaning slightly toward the latter, just to spice things up a little. Of course, once I've made my test pieces (probably several towels) and know how the draft works up, then I'll have a better perspective for drawing up a Grand Plan for a tablecloth or coverlet. For those of us who love experiments, the promise offered by a naked loom is too much to resist for long.

Leftovers

Day 82: You know how it goes with casseroles: sometimes they're better on the second day. Faced with roughly 18" of leftover warp trailing the two panels of the waffle-weave lap robe, I decided to play around with a different pattern sequence. Normally, I'd weave a sample to include in my files, discarding the remaining thrums or cycling them out for a shorter project, but there was too much potential here. After thinking about several ways I could treadle, I opted for horizontal stripes, alternating 7 throws of tabby ("over-and-under," the simplest weave of all) with a single waffle (8 throws). After a few inchest, the Casserole Effect set in, and as luck would have it, I found myself preferring the pattern over the original all-waffle repeat. Although I won't set it up immediately after I take the throw off the loom (I have another project planned), there's still an abundant supply of tag-end yarns to use up, so at some point in the future, I'll use this treadling sequence for another blanket.

Bringing In 2023

Day 81: Given that New Year's Day brought a circumstance which necessitated a significant dip into my limited financial resources, I am hoping that this morning's spectacular sunrise bodes well for improving conditions. My freezer is terminal, and I hope it will hold together, assisted as it is by a substantial amount of duct tape, long enough for me to eat up the meats and process the fruits into other forms. I am not so gullible that I believe the "promised delivery date" for the new one; too many comments from other purchasers indicated that the supplier is more likely to miss at least once, if not twice. However, the new one will be delivered to my kitchen, and the old one will be hauled away (for a fee, of course). I really had intended those raspberries to be snacks, but they are destined for the jam pot now, and I have my next few days' work cut out for me.

New Year's Weave

Day 80: I hope that all my friends had a New Year's Weave as enjoyable as mine! I decided to experiment with a different warp set-up to see if it made working complex pickup patterns any easier on the bonker loom. Instructional materials for the bonker loom are few and far between, so I am drawing on my years of experience on different types of looms to improvise. Here, rather than running the pattern threads (magenta) through heddles as I've done in the past, I left them free-floating so that when either shed is opened, they form a third layer in the center of the web triangle. Picking of the active threads to bring them to the surface of the band is greatly simplified with this method. For the trial, I only warped a little over two yards, and I am happy to say that it worked out so successfully that I will be measuring new warp today for a longer project (likely a different pattern). Happy New Year!