Habu NS-2B looks like screen on the loom

As you may know, I have a minor obsession with all yarns Habu. I picked up some of their NS-2B wool crepe at Convergence two summers ago, and have only just managed to weave with it.  
 
Well, I ignored their warping advice and warped a full 26" of my Baby Wolf with a four yard warp, front to back. I alternated threading an inch each of 30 ends per inch and 15 ends per inch across the entire warp, but since I wanted to both start and end with an inch of 30 epi, I sett the center two inches at 30 epi. So 30-15-30-15....30-30-15-30-15.......30. I used a total of 590 ends, 15 of which broke over the course of the weaving. On a percentage basis, not bad. I didn't bother fixing these broken threads as the yarn is a high twist yarn, and the end result was meant to be a bubbly, bumpy, crepe-y type thing, and I figured I would be the only one who would ever notice the errors. Way less stressful. Now trying to pick off the cat hair is another problem. Gray yarn, gray cat, you'd think it wouldn't show. Wrong-o.
 

Cut warp ends tied on in overhand knots

Jane Patrick's spaced out fulled scarf was popular enough to be featured in a gallery in Spin-Off at some stage within the past year, and while I contributed a scarf to the gallery, I was never happy with it. So I decided that it was high time I wove one up that would actually get worn. Most importantly I wanted it to be long and wide enough to actually offer some protection against the elements. I'm a double wrapper. If a scarf isn't long enough to wrap around my neck twice, it generally collects dust.
 

The finished product

Recently I purchased some Foxfibre colored organic cotton from A Loom with a View in Newburyport. This is naturally colored cotton has been bred by Sally Fox. Since we were in the midst of enduring what seemed like an eternity of rainy days, I decided that a scarf wrap thing-y would be just the thing to make me feel cozy both in the studio and on the street.
 
I decided to use the 75/25 brown/green shade for my warp and the 50/50 green/white shade for my weft. This is a 10/2 cotton, and I opted for a Bronson spot weave (lots of information on these weaves can be found on (Handweaving.net and also in Anne Dixon's The Handweaver's Pattern Directory) that would enable the green/white weft floats to pop out on one side. I did have to shift some of my heddles from shafts 7 and 8 to shaft 1 to accommodate the threading. My sett for this project was 30 ends per inch, threading two ends per dent in a 15 dent reed.

Photo #1 Fold at the top of the photo

I got to thinking that maybe it would be interesting to add a bit of color. Could be good, could be really wrong. Ultimately I wanted my veil to have a bit of personality without being a personality all its own. So for a whopping $11, I came home with two yards each of three colors of 108" wide tulle plus matching thread.

My handwoven jacket

This past summer, I was lucky enough to attend Convergence, a biennial conference for fiber artists, sponsored by the Handweavers Guild of America (HGA).  This is the event where I went gaga at the Habu booth. Haaaaabuuuuuuu...... Ahem. Anyhow, I spent a bit of time peeking through the garment samples at The Sewing Workshop booth. Sometimes it's a stretch for me to look at a two-dimensional rendering of a garment and envision what it might look like on me after I have invested both time and money in materials and sewing hours. Here I got to try things on before buying the corresponding pattern.

Finished product, with laptop sticking out for show

My sweetheart travels a bit for work. And when he travels, his laptop is his constant companion. Things like jumping in and out of taxis and being shoved under a seat for takeoff and landing, not to mention daily trips between work and home, can do a number on a laptop if it's not properly protected. There are plenty of padded laptop sleeves on the market made of things like neoprene. Bo-ring! And so not personal. A nice fulled laptop sleeve is a cinch to make and is a nice reminder of home.  Here's how.
 
I used two full skeins of Lamb's Pride Worsted (it fulls like a champ) in M-03 and M-04 grey heather and charcoal heather, plus about 30 yards of M-22 autumn harvest and about 3 yards of M-14 sunburst gold in the same material. These specs are for a 15" MacBook Pro, but you can easily make adjustments if your laptop is a different size.

Bamboo is shiny.

 I wanted to make a nice scarf for Kevin for Christmas that was black, but not solid, jet black. Plus, I wanted it to have nice drape and be warm without being oppressive. I had some beautiful Habu XS-32 20/18 bamboo in my stash that I decided would be the perfect weft, providing a soft surface as well as the drape I was looking for. But what to use for the warp. Having recently relocated to Massachusetts, I set out to visit A Loom With A View just down the road in Newburyport. Betsy has a nice selection of both weaving and knitting yarns, and I immediately latched onto some Sulka 60% merino/20% alpaca/20% silk and some Blue Sky Alpacas baby alpaca. While the Blue Sky was a standard charcoal color, the Sulka was black with some subtle but vibrant in the right light bits of blue.  Additionally, the Sulka was bulky and the Blue Sky was sport weight, which would give me some textural contrast in the warp. Sold.  

On the loom

 With two days between me and Thanksgiving, I decided that I wanted to bring along more than just an apple pie for dinner. I didn't have the time to whip up placemats for everyone, but a table runner, now that would be do-able. So what size to make it. I called my mother, and the conversation when something like this:

Me: 'Hi Mom.'

Mom: 'Hi Meliss.'

Me (attempting to be sly): 'Let's say someone had a dining room table about the size of yours and they were going to use a table runner. What size might they like?'

Mom:  'Well, it would depend on whether or not the table runner was going to hang over the edges of the table or not.'

Note: At this point in the conversation, my father gets involved, my secret plan to make them a table runner is exposed, and they determine that it is best for them to call me back once they have taken some measurements.

Phone rings.

Me: 'Hi Mom.'

Mom: 'Hi Meliss. 46" long by 17" or 18" wide.'

Me: 'So 46" long by 17.5" wide?'

A close up before wet finishing

My go to scarf is a plain old charcoal gray wool number that goes with pretty much everything. Not a difficult task, I mean what doesn't go with charcoal gray. There are several things I like about this scarf. It's long - I can double wrap it around my neck and still have plenty of tail to tie it in place. It's wide - I can pull it up over my mouth, and nose if necessary, which is a big plus come February. It's fairly thin - when I'm all wrapped up the layers keep me warm without making me look like Ralphie's kid brother. The one thing I don't like is that it's machine made. So I've decided to make something similar in dimension, but in a fun color.