Getting on with things

Lots of irises in bloom. I deliberately excluded them from the things to be left. But I am picking and choosing which I take. So there is a large collection of potted up plants sitting on the forecourt.

A few of my Californian irises.

And the first rose. They are going to be covered with flowers. But they can be replaced whereas the irises cannot.

 

And I have got the Megado up and running. Weaving is a bit slow at 35 ppi but I will get there.

 

There is a shadowy pattern and yes the pattern does have short floats in it. They are very short.

Ah well. It's only money

I seem to have done little but spend money in the last two or three days. First I fixed a holiday in Madiera - a life long wish! Second, Dorothy and I went to the best nearby garden centre to buy an orchid as a birthday present and we looked around - the new garden needs a new garden shed and  I fancy a green house. We left having ordered one of each to be delivered in 6 to 8 weeks. Both are a bit bigger than I had envisaged.  We got a very nice orchid too.

 

In the afternoon we went to a smashing  birthday party held in a garden all sitting at tables with the family's best linen,  flowers, best china - and best cakes. And the sun shone!!

 

Third by devious means (Debbie Richardson actually), I learnt of a Louet 24 shaft dobby looking for a new owner. And it is going to be me!!!! Well you can't let something like that languish can you? So tomorrow, I drive up to Cumbria and fetch it. Yes, I know it is mad to buy it when it then has to move to Reading but - - 

 

 

 

And I have started weaving on the Megado. It is slow but it is working. I shall add a photo tomorrow.

 

Chelsea Flower Show

Ruth, Anne and I went to Chelsea yesterday. It rained off and on. It thundered and lightninged. It hailed. And we had a lovely time.

 

From the top

Two models in a dress shop in Sloan Square where most of the shops were dressed up in flowers

potatoes in the Main Pavilion

Thailand's exhibit

Paeonies

a 'jammy dodger' in flowers and three foot across!1 A jammy dodger is a kind of biscuit - part of a stand celebrating the Mad Hatter's Tea party

Another part of the same stand - note the teapot made of folded banana leaves and pouring out flowers.

 

All mad and very cheering.

 



Enviromental search

A most extraordinary document of 32 pages appeared from the lawyer on Saturday. It was an environmental search of the house we are buying. Nothing wrong. But what is interesting is what it covers. Is there any fracking within 4 miles of the house? Are there any old coal mines? Any other cavities, natural or manmade? Any oil rigs? Any radon? And so on and so on for 32 pages. The answer to everything is NO, so that's okay but it makes for interesting reading!! I had no idea the lawyer had to see to this.

 

It cheered me up when suffering from anti-Megado-warpitis. I got everything in the warp mended, started weaving and soon gave up. I admit to ignorance and not having done anything like this before. It is double cloth with two warps of very fine wool, each sett at 30 epi. This means 60 epi in total and it is sleyed at 4 per dent in a 15 dent reed. Basically the two yarns are hairy and cling together. It is impossible to weave. I thought nothing of it beforehand. After all, I have warped up silk at 60 epi often. But I cannot weave this. I considered just dumping it all but had a cup of tea and considered the situation.  I then examined the draft (in Fibreworks) and played with it and decided that it was worthwhile to throw away the two outer sections of warp and resley the warp as a single cloth without rethreading. It is that or abandon 6 yards of rather nice warp. Moral: be careful what yarn you use for double cloth. I have used 2 ply Shetland several times and that worked fine. 

 

I don't often dump a warp. I can think two occasions only in the last several years. One was when I was warping up a very fine black Z-twist. I could not see the threads  to thread up and so abandoned it. The yarn ended up with Cally Booker. I hope she finds it useful. The other was when I was given a white silk warp from Whitchurch Silk Mill. The silk had to sett at 150 epi. That never even made it onto the loom and I gave the warp away. Interesting that all three are very fine threads! 

Looking Around

I am conscious all the time that these are my last few weeks in Malvern. Apart from my own garden, the hills are in late spring and lots of shades of green show.

 My house faces onto Malvern Wells Common and is about straight through the tree on the left. The clutch of houses on the hills is at Wyche Cutting, a mediaeval road over the lowest point of the hills which is the Salt Road from Droitwich (salt since Roman times) into  Wales. It is also a Drover's Road. Cattle from Wales were brought into England for sale.

 

 

Another view of the Malvern Hills. We are already 600 or 600 foot up.

 

Yesterday I started on the Megado again. It must be a lot of weeks since I last touched it and time has not made it any less difficult. In fact something has happened which has never happened before. A clothes moth has eaten a hole in the warp. I am horrified. And I have six threads to repair. Several times it has occurred to me to cut my losses and give up on this warp but I have invested a lot of time in it. So 'ONWARDS' is the cry today. I still reserve the right to cut it off if it proves too awful to weave. 

 

 

 

Warts and All

I started on sewing velvet with the walking foot yesterday and that was fine and the waistcoat lining also worked fine. It is after all cotton. And then the trouble started. This pattern for a waistcoat was a big mistake in velvet or at least using a cotton lining with no give in it. It was extremely difficult to sew the velvet nicely to the cotton lining. I have managed something but it is not good. The pattern is one of the 'sew the made up lining to the made up outer, pull it right out through a shoulder seam, stitch up the sides and complete with hand sewing'.  Not a good idea. I had intended to use bound buttonholes and to practise on scraps of velvet but no way. 

What look like creases are not actually there, I just did not smooth it out enough before photography. I hate it. The only thing nice about it is the lining. The problem is the colour. This is a piece of velvet which I carefully dyed. What was I thinking about when I choose grass green?

But all is not lost because it has served its purpose well. Perhaps I should explain. Two years ago I bought some black velvet printed with an Art Deco design in grey and gold to make a jacket. I did not want to venture into velvet making on that lovely length of fabric so I decided I would make up the same jacket pattern in some remnant lengths of velvet I had. So I dyed the remnants red and purple (that is very nice) and then I thought that maybe I should make up something smaller to start with - hence the green waistcoat.

What have I learnt? That the walking foot is great for sewing two pieces of velvet together but that it is not a good idea to try sewing velvet to a non-stretchy fabric. And in any case it will be a bad idea to use a pattern for a very fitted jacket (my usual type of jacket). So my next job is look for a jacket pattern which specifically states it is suitable for velvet and make up the red jacket in that. Oh and use silk for the lining!

I'll get there in the end, though not wearing a green velvet waistcoat. I can't even give it away because it is too badly made. Bah!!

As you might imagine, nothing else has been accomplished today.

Jerkin Finished

The 20 inch zip arrived this morning so I inserted it.

 So knitted sleeves, woven body panels and some grey needlecord to make up the required fabric. Not the world's best piece of sewing but it does fit and it is very warm. This exercise can rightly be described as a displacement activity because it enables me to put off trying to sew velvet. Oh well, the jerkin is finished so I will have to get on with it.

 

 

The foreground trees are in my garden but the huge conifer (40 to 50 foot) is in my neighbour's garden. It is smothered in the pink flowers of clematis Montana. Interesting because I don't believe they can see it whereas we get a lovely view. In the background to the left you can just make out the Malvern Hills under low cloud.