Don't you just love teacosies?

I do, nearly as much as I love teapots! Fortunately I don't really have the soul, the space (or cash) to be a real collector so I only own a few of both.

This cosy was made a few years ago . Double weave is a great structure for this purpose as you can stuff while you weave. I didn't make it reversible - it seemed easier to add a simple cotton lining. To add the flowers in some of the blocks all 16 shafts of the loom were needed for the draft.

I always intended to weave more teacosies in this style but sadly never did. The only other double weave stuff-as-you-go were my sudoku coffee cosies and I don't own them any more.

There is no stitching to show as the drawn thread piece I am stitching at the moment is taking forever to finish. I am quite enjoying the process but, since it is basically an Effie Mitrofanis design from her book on needleweaving, I want to complete it and start a design of my own. Even if it does turn out to be the same old, same old - french knots with some pulled thread stitches and buttonhole circles and maybe some bullion if I really feel adventurous!!!!!! What about an embroidered teacosy?

Undulations - real and perceived.

Side 1 4CDW Reverse 4CDW

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Ripple Scarf

(Sometimes Blogger drives me crazy - I cannot put these photos in the order I would prefer so I will leave them thus and give up!) Please view the photos in reverse order to make sense of the text.

Neki and I have been talking about texture in weaving. This helped me remember a scarf I wove a few years ago - the aim of the exercise simply was to produce a cloth with texture. Many weavers have done this much better than I have ever managed but I was quite proud of this result. I am not quite sure at this distance in time exactly where I got the idea. I think the original fabric inspiration was a 3/1 , 1/3 striped fabric of Bonnie Inouye’s. Since I used 3/1, 1/3 twills often in my weaving it was an easy design to play with, and even easier to weave. The warp was a fairly loosely spun cream wool, 2/18 or thereabouts, (as you can see this was well documented!) and the weft was a more evenly spun 2/24 wool. The secret to the ripples is in the afterwash treatment. After milling, I hung it from the clothes line (quite wet) and tied a half full milk container of water from the other end and pulled the scarf into shape as it dried. Then of course, no pressing! This scarf is so soft and warm - it is one of the few I still own but I am pleased that I managed to hang onto this one.

My next piece is, in some ways, much more interesting – it has marvellous ups and downs but is a smooth piece of fabric. I do hope you can see these undulations in the photos. The structure is one of my favourites – four coloured double weave. The yarn is 2/20 cotton – the musk pink thread in the warp is unmercerised but the other three yarns are mercerised. I am not sure why or how I managed to acquire that musk pink (and I had a kg) but was over the moon to discover I could mess around with its ugliness as well as I did in this piece. Colour is so intriguing!

From the time this fabric started to appear and I realised what was happening I was smitten . From then I felt that I only wanted to weave cloth with hills and valleys. I have not always been as successful as I would like. Whereas sometimes it occurs without even trying - on other occasions it can take a great deal of effort. It all seems to depend on a mysterious interaction between colours (both hues and values) and structure. I have also achieved the effect using a shadow weave structure and 6 colours. It is just magic that sometimes you can make all these elements sing in tune.

From this one warp and a variety of weft colours I made a series of table runners with coordinating plain weave serviettes . Some of the colours had deeper furrows than others. Not sure I have any photographs of them, unfortunately, as I have given away all those runners and this is the only scrap left.

On the Loom once more!

The loom is singing along again this week. Although I had not done any weaving I was thoroughly sick of looking at the black and white warp . It has been on the loom for almost two years.

To finish quickly (and start a new warp sooner) I decided to use one colour only in the weft - three coloured double weave instead of four - and produce a series of samples. After two inches with an Iris weft it was Marine's turn. What a shock! After weaving to free up the loom I was suddenly interested in what was coming off it! There should be just enough warp for fabric for a vest. It is interesting and is a lovely indigo colour.

Embroidery is not at a complete standstill - I am slowly stitching a second version of the May TIF and enjoying the process no end. However the June TIF is still only an idea.

Time for some weaving

I am slowly stitching French knots with not much to show for my effort. However it has been a lovely time for thinking. These days I keep finding things to do that let my mind wander where it will - just one reason why I don't mind ironing. I definitely have no desire to take in ironing but the amount I have to do for two people who are retired is not enormous - despite the fact I am a fibre snob and won't wear anything that is not 100% natural fibre content and that usually means cotton for our climate. When I had 4 children at home, and before I decided they were old enough to do their own, I always seemed to have a basket full that needed ironing.

Yesterday I thought about weaving and how most things that I have produced have been "slow cloth" - not quite as slow as covering four square inches in knots - but nonetheless quite slow. I found a photograph of some coffee cosies that I wove in 2006.

As well as day dreaming I seem to spend hours playing Sudoku (isn't everyone addicted?)- then when I got totally hooked, can you believe they came up with Killer Sudoku and Kakuro? My excuse is that it is keeping my brain sharp (well, that is the story - sometimes I am not so sure that it happens as it should!) . However I do enjoy the exercise very much.

Returning to the coffee cosies - they are in double weave with cross stitch numbers different on both sides of the cosy (yes, the sudoku is solvable) . I embroidered the numbers before stuffing the small squares on the loom. Although the yarn was 10/2 cotton and twice as thick as I usually use it took quite some time to make these. I enjoyed the process. To cover the seams and hem I needed a lining and I didn't want a commercial fabric. The tray mat in this photo is the fabric I used - a summer and winter weave in 2/20 cotton that wove up fairly quickly once I had designed the draft. If you enlarge the photo the lettering is quite visible. It is all fairly simple weaving actually but lots of fun. Cosies made like this are extremely good insulators and will keep a pot warm for up to an hour or more.