Weaverly
Alice Schlein
recent posts
Category: Uncategorized
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The blanket you saw here is being added to, gradually. It needed to be wider, so I’m adding two more strips, one on each side. Although the first four strips were all handspun warp and weft, for these additional strips I’m using Harrisville Shetland wool from my stash as warp, and handspun wool as weft.…
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Everything looks like rectangles today. The screen of my TempoTreadle, the the number stickers on my Louet Jane, the windows with their weather drama. The little fluffy ends of the heddles add a contrasting illusion of grass on the bottom of the picture, as if this were a prairie scene. The sleet is blowing horizontally…
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It’s not as cold as in other parts of the country, just enough to get my attention. I’m in between warps, but to keep my circulation going, I played around with some 8-shaft drafts on the computer this morning. This one I entitled freezing.wif. It actually looks like icicles to me. There are a lot…
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The first thing I did this morning, after thanking the weather spirits for preserving our electric power, was to take a few ice pictures. Full disclosure: I Photoshopped this first image severely. Couldn’t resist. Back indoors I went to work on the two small warps I wound yesterday for the rigid heddle loom. These will…
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The last few days have been devoted to sewing the final section of blanket to its companion strips. The blanket looks pretty good on the bed, but it’s not quite wide enough yet. I think two more strips, one along each side, will be just about right. The pillow on the right is doublewoven jacquard…
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There are many versions of the children’s folk song “Here we go loopty loop”–you may have learned “looby loo” or other variations — but I especially like the last line of the refrain, which goes “all on a Saturday night.” On a recent Saturday Night I loopty looped this 8″ wide warp as a stashbusting…
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It’s been 20 years since the publication of The Woven Pixel: Designing for Jacquard And Dobby Looms Using Photoshop® (see sidebar). Bhakti Ziek and I, at opposite sides of the country, thought it was important to document our individual explorations in digital weaving and make our joint efforts available to the weaving community. We worked…
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Sometimes it’s simple, like what to have for dinner. Other times, it’s more serious. But mostly, we just enjoy hanging out together. Occasionally I have conversations with my yarn. I find wool yarn is the most forgiving, Too tight? Too loose? Wool doesn’t care. Skipped a dent? No biggie. Here I am working on a…
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What do you do when your hands aren’t working the way they used to, and you have to give them a rest from throwing shuttles? Hereabouts the solution is to make a deep dive into the stash of handspun wool and warp up a rigid heddle loom. The longish skeins of habdspun are used for…
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I’m assembling leftover cones of 30/2 linen in an effort at stash-busting (does that ever end?) and tying to arrange them in order of tonal value. An effective way to do this is to photograph the yarn in olor and then reduce the image to black and white. After the decisions are made, I begin…
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Last night while sorting through a box of stuff in order to make room for more stuff (an endless cycle around here), I found this treasure. It’s a tiny gansey, wingspan 14″, which I knitted many years ago in a workshop taught by knitting genius Beth Brown-Reinsel. Full disclosure: this is Beth’s own design, although…
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Yes, we’re back, with a slightly different look. After blogging for 15+ years on a platform which vanished after a 30-day notice (although I should have seen the warning signs) we are back. Thanks for your support and your patience during this frustrating time. And a very big thanks to Trevor, Andrew, and Cathy, three…
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This draft for 16 shafts combines a 4×6 initial (rosepath or extended point twill) on a straight pattern line, with amalgamation of the resulting threading. Tromp as writ. The maximum float is 5. This draft would be very weavable, with much textural variety in the various blocks. Restrict the length of the floats in the…
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Liftplan created with a simple curved line which was then networked with a rosepath-type initial. It required a bit of cleaning up, but here’s the result. Here’s some Muhly grass from a few years ago. And. in the Department of Books, I just finished reading Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki by Haruki Murakami
Weaverly 