I Have Been Good

I am sure everyone knows the day when you set out to do A, find you have to do B first and then that cannot be done until you do C and you wind up scrubbing the kitchen floor or turning out the scullery first. Last week I decided I really needed to start on the indigo dyeing for the Guild exhibit of cushions where the yarn has been natural dyed. Disappearing into the garage for hours on end is not on so I arranged for a carer to come in so Michael would be looked after. This is happening tomorrow afternoon (Monday). I checked I had enough chemicals last Wednesday - just in case I needed to get some but I didn't. All was well on that front.

The problem started on Saturday (yesterday) night. I decided I should wind my own warp and dye it in one go. That would allow me to work out what weight of yarn everyone required.  So I looked up my EXCEL spreadsheet and it said '? What epi?'And then I remembered. I did a wrapping with this yarn and it came out at 18 ends per inch which means 9 epi for tabby. But I also weighed a length of 10 metres very accurately and worked out the km/kg (yds per pound) and that pointed to a sett of 16 epi. This was really too different to use either. So late last night a decision was made that, since the Voyager was the only free loom, I would do a sample on that today. I got up at 6 am and had the weaving started at 0930 (time out was taken to give Michael pills and breakfast and fetch the paper). I sleyed up at 12 epi quite prepared to resley. But 12 epi is perfect!!! So I have been good. This will enable me to work out weights of yarn much more accurately.

Yesterday at the weaving class, I had a spare five minutes and chose the drafts from Carol Strickler's book  to use for my cushions. I chose a threading from which four different patterns can be  woven which I then changed a lot. So I have woven samples of each draft. The photo above shows, at the left, a weft which is exactly as the warp yarn and this has given me the data of  12 epi. I used up the rest of the warp with samples of each of the four different drafts. The width is 230 mm which is about two fifths of the final width.  I will change the layout of the stripes in the final version. I must wash this now and get a handle on the shrinkage.

Michael looked at the scanned paintings of morning glories, retouched one and replaced another. He also painted some twining morning glories on the title page.  I spent some time creating an end paper, see below.

I have decided to change the layout on each page. As I have had to order some printer ink for the Inkjet which will not be here until at least Wednesday, I have put both books aside till the end of next week. But next weekend should see a flurry of activity on this front as I print and assemble both books. There will only be 'In the Event' but I might make 10 of the Morning Glory to give away as presents. In any case I need to concentrate on the indigo dyeing immediately.