Friday 17 February 2012

Hellebores

There is a story behind these flowers. When we moved here 27 years ago, there was one hellebore. We did a lot of replanning and rebuilding of the garden, by which I mean we had the builders in!!! Eventually we got round to the hellebore patch to discover that it had had lots of seedlings and they were all flowering!! Some were lovely and some were awful but they were all very healthy so we dedicated that bit of garden to them. I rogued the poor ones and let the rest get on with it  and they repay us every year with a 15 ft long , 3 ft wide bed of bloom. They have been in flower for a month and I guess we have at least another 6  weeks to go.


I was worried about our snowdrops. Two weeks ago, they had not broken through the ground. Where were they all? What were they up to? I can report that they were just resting. Theye have come into full flower in two weeks.

There is nothing to show on the textile front. I have managed to speed up the weaving rate on the Megado. The problem was the sticky, hairy warp and it is double cloth. I was sitting at the loom clearing each shed manually and suddenly thought, 'I've been here before - the Newbury Coat'. Our weaving guru, Mr Skidmore, told us to try spray starch on the Newbury Coat and it worked. I had a can left over from that so I tried it and it makes an enormous difference. At least the warp yarn itself is not disintegrating which held up weaving the Newbury Coat. I managed to weave one foot yesterday and hope to weave two feet today. Blankets fortunately are not large and I think there are eight feet on the Megado.

Tomorrow I am off to Birmingham to attend a Midlands Textile Forum meeting. I will go to the Rag Market before hand. I have been meaning to make this visit for two or three years.

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I am weaver and - -. I dye my yarns with acid dyes, I paint my warps, put fabric collages and stencils on my weaving. I have three looms, a 12 inch wide, 12 shaft Meyer for demos and courses, a 30 inch Louet Kombo which is nominally portable but has a stand, two extra beams and a home-made device containing a fan reed. And last a 32 shaft Louet Megado which is computer controlled, has a sectional warp and a second warp beam and I am the proud owner of an AVL warping wheel which I love to bits and started by drilling holes in. I inserted a device for putting a cross in. I have just acquired an inkle loom and had a lesson from an expert so I can watch TV and weave at the same time. I am interested in weaving with silk mostly 60/2 although I do quite a bit with 90/2 silk. I also count myself as a bookbinder with a special interest in Coptic binding.