Tvistsöm

Day 48: What accounts for the popularity of some forms of needlework over others? While tvistsöm is really just a long-armed version of cross-stitch and almost as easy to work, it has never achieved the same distinction as its cousin. It gives a more highly textured appearance owing to the fact that it is always worked in one direction (left to right or right to left depending on your handedness), with the work being turned at the end of each row. Individual rows look braided; side-by-side, they resemble cables. It is a very dense stitch when worked with the correct weight thread, allowing "tails" to be concealed on the front of the work. The back, therefore, is much tidier than that resulting from cross-stitch, and what's not to like about that? Here, I am working tvistsöm on a handwoven table runner with clustered warps. The fabric is not the even-weave on which one would normally work tvistsöm, and I found that I got the best results when working the rows on the length of the cloth rather than its width. It is necessary to treat each three-thread warp cluster (where the yellow floats appear) as a "pair" of threads in order to keep the stitches equal to those in the tabby sections. Where single stitches occur in a tvistsöm pattern, they are worked as cross-stitches.

The Arnie Blanket

Day 44: It's close enough to the unavoidable moment for me to post this: Park Plant Ecologist and good friend Arnie is retiring, a fact which saddens me to no end. His wife is also hanging up her hat, so we're having a party for them on Thursday. This handwoven blanket will be my retirement gift to them. I also made a matching scarf for Sara, and Joe Dreimiller mounted photos of Team Biota's most memorable finds in a large frame. During his too-brief stint at Mount Rainier National Park, Arnie has been very supportive of me and of Team Biota. He has also helped me become a better scientist, teaching by example, gently correcting my errors, guiding my focus to the finer details of botany. We had some good days in the field (most of which wound up with me as the punch line when I sunk thigh-deep in mud or took a tumble into a bog), and I will forever be grateful for the hours he spent listening to me rave about a certain rare fungus, absorbing every word and then coming to me at some later date with printouts of research papers on the subject in the hopes of providing further insight into its special ecology. His support has meant the world to me, allowing me to "do science" on the Park's behalf. He will be missed by many people in the Park, but I think none quite so much as me.

Ah, yes, the blanket. It was woven as a double layer on a four-foot floor loom, and the design was based loosely on the famous "Hudson Bay" blankets of yesteryear. I used standard "fabric store" knitting worsted for warp and weft, and finished it with twisted fringe. I'm sure they'll enjoy it during chilly nights at Crater Lake where Arnie plans to continue working as a VOLUNTEER!

Handwoven Rugs

Day 57: This project is no longer looming over me! I started weaving these rugs about a year ago (maybe a little longer) and although I'd sleyed them with the intention of using a traditional bird's-eye weave, it quickly became apparent that the chenille yarn I'd chosen for the weft was too fluffy to allow the warp threads to show. I said a few choice words, picked back the first few throws and resigned myself to the monotony of tabby, i.e., treadles 1,3 and 2, 4 as steadily as if I'd been hiking up a hill. Bored, I only worked on them sporadically and the top of the loom became a repository for quilt parts, other sewing projects and fabric photo backdrops. Every now and then, I'd clear it off and do 25 or 50 throws, "Nope, I'm bored with this. I'm out of here."

A few days ago, I was organizing things in my craft room and was putting away some remnants, and the mood came upon me to weave. I raced through the third rug and began working on the fourth and last one. This morning, I finished up and pulled the cloth from the heddles. I still have to tie fringes, but there you have it: done! And the warp for my next project is laid out and waiting to be measured.