Scarf and a half

So it turns out there was only half a scarf left on Joey, which means I now have about 40" of narrow sample fabric to turn into ... something, and 6 yards of crackle warp on the loom!

Since I'm thinking of using crackle for the rocking chair fabric, I figured I might as well make some samples that will give me an idea of what that'd be like. I chose four colours that are reminiscent of the colours in our drapes (natural, blue, green and yellow) and rotated them through the warp stripes: NB, BG, GY, YN. I'll change threading blocks at the colour boundaries but will rotate through them in a way that will keep the same colours from appearing in the same blocks every time. Or something - I'm making this up as I go along.

Still trying to decide whether to stick to a 4 shaft threading to begin with or try an 8 shaft threading. Will probably go with the 4 and try some of the traditional tie ups and treadlings (overshot, summer & winter) as well as the style I'm thinking of for the chair - the point of the exercise is to learn about crackle in all (well, many) of its permutations. I can always do an 8 shaft threading on the next warp.

Ooo, the dryer's buzzing. Time to go see how my scarf and a half turned out!

Row, row, row your boat...

Argh! Or should I say "Ark!"? I had very good intentions of weaving all day or until I finished my warp but Ron came down after I'd gotten a yard or so done and said, "omg, there's water on the floor!" Needless to say, this announcement heralded a change in plans.

We've had a fair bit of snow since Christmas and then frigid weather and now it's above freezing and simply gushing rain... or was until late this afternoon anyway. Looks like the snow and ice on the roof have worked the flashing round the chimney loose and now there's water seeping out from under the subfloor in my weaving room. He noticed it right away before it damaged anything (except for the subfloor itself, maybe - gah!) but we've spent the afternoon sopping it up as it appears so that it won't overflow its banks and spread across the wood floor.

Still, there's always a bright side! In this case, it's an exciting one, too. We moved a bunch of stuff out of the way of the rising tide, including a truly decrepit old rocker we've had for years and years¹:


We've talked off and on about having it reupholstered or getting rid of it but have never done anything about either one... until now! I finally just bit the bullet and googled "furniture repair" for our area and - lo and behold! - there's a place just around the corner. Considering that we live in a residential area, this probably means that it's a home based business like mine, which always makes me happy. So I called her up, and then I took a whole whack of pictures and measurements and sent them off, and now I'm anxiously awaiting a rough estimate of what it'll cost to completely restore it.

So what's the fibre angle here, you're thinking... the angle is this: we're talking about recovering it in handwoven fabric, OF COURSE. Ron and I have talked for years about covering a couple of rockers with handwoven fabric and I even wove some samples ages ago that we thought would do nicely. Now it looks like it might actually become a reality, which would be Oh, So Cool.

I'm already envisioning submitting the covered chair for a show at the Centre for Craft and Design at some point and maybe taking orders for custom upholstery fabrics, too... Mmmm!

1. We didn't do that to the rocker, you understand. It was in that shape when we got it. Really.