Just Our Yarn Does it Again!

Several years ago, I came upon a lovely yarn company---JUST OUR YARN.

I wove a couple of delicious horoscope weavings and made some delightful wrappings with the yarn. I even overdyed in Turned Weft Ikat, and then I put the rest of the yarn away (I knew I had enough of another Color Horoscope Weaving). You know how it is when you want to hold back special yarn for a special project.

I had just enough of the ikat bits to frame each of the planets.


When I finished the weaving, I decided to wash it in the machine (I always do that), dry in the dryer (I always do that too), and then just wear it without pressing (I never do that)---just to road test it and see what happens.


Well, I think I have belatedly fallen in love with tencel! I wore like a dream. It didn't wrinkle anywhere near what I imagined, and what little it wrinkled just smoothed out when I draped it over a chair between wearings.


I know there is a lot of tencel yarn out there, but richness of colors in JUST OUR YARN is matchless! Brava!

I just spend far to long trying to find links to earlier posts showing my other cloth woven with the yarn. It turns out that I have been blogging a really long time, and my labeling system obviously leaves much to be desired. But if you have several hours with nothing to do, search through my archives (grin)

Cuttin' Off Missoula

GOOD NEWS! The downstairs neighbor cannot hear me weaving !
MORE GOOD NEWS! Another weaving off the loom!

What can I say?!
Like bubbles, the cashmere yarn rises up to celebrate!

So I Cranked Up the Air Con

And pulled out the recycled cashmere
And started winding another warp---Missoula's horoscope. (use the date and time of the founding of any place)
But this time I tried something just a little different. A couple of years ago, a student (Karen Driscoll) said to me during a Color Horoscope Weaving Workshop, "What would happen if you put an ikat stripe around each planet?"


This isn't the first time I tried out this delicious idea. In my previous weaving, however, each ikat stripe was the same width. On this one, I varied the width of the stripes---the Sun being the widest stripe, next the Moon, then the inner planets, and the outer planets with the narrowest stripe.


If there ever was a reason to continue teaching workshops, this weaving is it!


Just when I was getting bored with horoscope weaving, along comes this and I am all fired up again. The Sun is the big stripe to the left and the Moon is just to the right of it.

I can't wait to see this finished!

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...er Apartment

Will weaving in the new studio bother the neighbor? Will I be comfortable in a more confined space? What do I want to weave?


I always think it is a good idea to eliminate as many variables as possible, so I thought Gandhi's horoscope weaving was ---well, peaceful at the very least.


I also tried weaving as quietly as possible. Maybe this makes weaving a little bit slower, but it certainly was peaceful AND not a peep from the downstairs neighbor.

Now onto something I have been thinking about for a while---a bit of an experiment.......

AND GARY?

Well, he has found a home in the country. See the nice view from his window.And he is in great company! The vacuum insisted on getting into the picture (grin) All looms are currently at rest.

Gary looks so small in comparison with the 13' loom.


And here is the amazing rug that Barbara Hand just completed after 6 months! I couldn't get far enough away to get the whole rug into the picture, but Barbara said she would get me a picture of the whole piece.

Here is a little something that came out of Barbara's amazing garden. Sometimes vegetables say it best (grin)


What to weave? Stay tuned.....

The Shifting Whispering Studio

So I had been weaving for a full 10 minutes when the downstairs neighbor came knocking on my door. She said that it sounded like an army marching on her head. I knew this might be a possibility as jack looms tend to be somewhat loud (and after living here for a while I realize that the sound proofing in non-existent). I had purchased a sheet of something I hoped would absorb the sound, but no dice. I invited my neighbor in and we discussed the possibilities and options and decided to try moving the loom into the guest bedroom. So here is Grace moving yet again.I had been using the guest bedroom as my office, so here is the office now where the loom used to be.

Here is where the loom will now live. Someone asked me about the "platform" the loom was on, so here it is, a 2" thick piece of foam isolation which I covered with a rug.
And now Grace has a room of her own.

My neighbor downstairs does not spend much time is the room directly below, so I have my fingers crossed (which makes it much harder to weave). The room is really much brighter than it looks in this picture.

And the Weave Goes On

Here is my new Grace-full studio. Gary, as you know, is living elsewhere for the foreseeable future.
My first piece in the new studio will be a Bambu 12 Woven Words scarf with the words
(fittingly) GRACE/RELEASE. I like to do a wrapping before I wind a warp. It gives a chance to see and work out some of the colors.


As you know, the client selects both the words and the colors. I am merely the agent in this co-creating process. I use the black and white "almost ikat" to separate the words.

And, again, that most wonderful and scary moment---cutting the weaving off the loom.

And then the most exciting moment--walking backwards across the studio while holding the beginning edge of the weaving.

Stay tuned for more on the words: Grace and Release!