Snow in the Garden

The weather forecast said snow and, at 7 am, there was about one tenth of an inch. By 9 am there was four inches and, by 4 pm, there was more than 8 inches. I can hear vehicles struggling up the hill but I am not going anywhere. I stocked up on groceries yesterday and parked the Saab in the forecourt where it is easiest to get of the gate and have settled down to textiles, in particular, weaving. The photos above are of the garden. Tomorrow I must go out and knock the snow off the conifers before the weight damages them. I cancelled going to Bournville today and Rosie cancelled the weaving class at Newbury for tomorrow morning and Hampshire Guild (where I was due to lecture tomorrow afternoon) cancelled their meeting. Anne and family decided not to come over on Sunday for lunch. So my diary is clear!!

The above are samples of four colour double weave woven on one of the 12 shaft looms. The colour combinations are interesting and I find I cannot predict what will turn up.  The top photo shows two weft yarns of wool dyed by me which are used in the sample in the same photo. I like this combination best but the lower photo shows various other combinations. I have finished my samples, cut them off and tied the warp on again. So that's one loom done. I will start on the other one tomorrow but I have work to do on the loom first. It has come with only 50 Tex-solv heddles per shaft and I need to increase that to 100 per shaft. Also I want to colour-code the heddles. Using a highlighter (which I did on some of the Megado heddles) fades while the Megado heddles which I painted with acrylic paint have not faded. I will use Perma-set fabric paints on this new loom.

I have decided how to deal with the enamels and need to rejig the draft. I had designed a 3 by 3 system with one enamel in each row. Now I intend to have only two rows with enamels in the outer two pockets of the lowest row and one enamel in the centre of the top row. That way I ought to be able to get the enamels into the pockets. 

Also I have been asked to weave some handspun into fabric for a waistcoat and have been delving in some of the Bateman books from Shuttlecraft. IThe originator of the yarn wants a tartan but I don't like the idea. Firstly it would need to be matched across seams and secondly can I be sure I can get a tartan absolutely even and equal in dimensions? I want a definite pattern but something that does not have to be matched across seams. So I may knock up some Bateman weaves in Fibreworks to see if they will do.

I have several free days to do this in!!!