The weather is predicted to get much warmer this weekend here in Ireland – yippee!  It’s definitely warmer, but for a cold-blooded person (part reptile perhaps) like me, it’s still not cardigan free weather.  At least not in this office anyway.  I’m currently wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt, under a short sleeve t-shirt, with a wool cardi on top and I’m considering putting a hat and a pair of fingerless gloves on too 🤣  I should point out, that I know it’s me, the front door is wide open and it’s definitely warmer outside.

It’s been a busy week here since I returned from my latest trip to the UK to see my daughter and her family.  Travelling always makes you a little tired, so I deliberately tried to have a ‘slow’ day on Tuesday, but since then it’s been full steam ahead with lots of different projects.

Despite getting off to a good start with my Explorations in Colour Tapestry, I’ve been too distracted by other wip’s to get back to it this week.  Ideally, I would like to have my pegloom free to use on the Handweavers Guild of Cork stand at the West Cork Yarn Festival, which means I need to finish the project currently languishing on it.

In a bid to use up some more of the exhibits in the Yarn Museum, I had warped up the loom to create a rug with some of my super chunky yarn.  One strand wasn’t thick enough for the weft and two strands held together still felt a little on the thin side.  Three strands produced a fabric similar to what I had imagined, but when I began weaving straight from the balls, I still wasn’t happy with the finish.

Cue my Ashford Country Spinning Wheel.  It’s a real workhorse and perfect for plying three strands of super chunky yarn together.   I’ve deliberately plied the yarn tightly, it’s almost rope like actually and is creating a dense fabric, which works perfectly, but is using rather more yarn than I had first imagined.

Once this bobbin is empty, I will have used eighteen balls of yarn and I’m not convinced that the rug will be long enough.  I have a few more balls in several different colours, but there’s more of this rusty brown than anything else, which brings me to my next dilemma…..

That will be 4 colours in total!

An even number is probably not going to work for me so I might have to bring in a fifth.  Hopefully, I’ll have enough warp left.  (Spot the bright pink cotton I used?  Pure laziness on my part, What was I thinking?)

I haven’t managed to get as much of the rug woven as I would have liked so far, which is due in no small part to my Onion Dyeing Study.  I’ve completely immersed myself in the process and am already amazed by how many different colours I’ve managed to create. The project is for the Handweavers Guild of Cork and as it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for some time, I was thrilled to have the perfect excuse.  Becoming totally blown away with the whole thing, I’ve explored more than I had initially planned and must put everything together in time for our next meeting on April 27th.

I’ll go into more detail here, after that but for now, look at those colours?

Happy Making

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