Episode 23:

Finished objects!

Erica:

Erica completely finished her 7th C Persian Cowl made from her handwoven damask silk! This has been a long term goal. This is one of the things she really wanted to weave when she decided to purchase her drawloom over 10 years ago! I turned out beautiful and she really feels like a Persian Countess when she wears it. :)

The campervan arrived, finally!!! Erica and her family have also finished their first camping (or glamping) trip in the van! The top photo shows Erica in her Hogwarts camping pj's and the shawl she wove 8 years ago. She also enjoyed wearing her hand-knit socks on the trip! The second photo is Erica roasting a marshmallow over a camp stove, she really needs to get a small fire pit just for S'mores. ;) You can also see camping with her family includes a lot of art supplies, yarn, knitting, drawing, coloring, etc. :)

Michelle:

Michelle did a bunch of spinning and dyeing. She has been having fun dyeing gradient/variegated combed top using one color of dye. Here is a sample of one in the dye pot.

Some of the colors she's dyed:

Michelle has confirmed that she doesn't like spinning Merino wool. Targhee is enough like Merino that she wasn't really enjoying that either, so she's braided up what she dyed with a plan to sell it. She had lots of undyed Targhee top from her Washtenaw Wool days. Most of it is in the picture above.

Some of her spinning:

Here's a couple samples of how the gradient yarn spins up when 2-ply. Michelle loved the result of the first few she spun, so she kept up that style of dyeing.

Works in Progress:

Erica:

Erica's glamping trip helped her get some good progress going on the second pair of socks for her husband. She finally feels like a sock knitter. Erica has set a long, long term goal of knitting about 5 pairs of socks for everyone in her immediate family. She is on round 2 and will keep a pair of socks on the needles until she reaches her goal. These socks are being knit on 2 mm/ size 0 Chiaogoo needles with a 37" cable. The socks are knit in Crafty Jak's Tough and Tender Pine Needle yarn. When the trip started Erica had only knit a few inches, by the end of the weekend trip she had knit over 3" and changed to the main gauge needle!

Erica has also picked up knitting on her semi-circular shawl, which she also knit on her camping trip. The shawl was more van driving knitting than hanging around knitting. :) She has made it past the halfway point, in terms of the number of rows. However there is still 1 increase row left, which will double the number of stitches in each row, but we're not going to do the calculations to see if the halfway point in the number of stitches has been reached yet. :)

Erica and TJ are now weaving the hem reinforcement band together! This long thing band of plain weave linen, will be used to finish and reinforce the seams on her handwoven 7th Persian wool jacket/robe. While handing out in the studio with Erica, TJ asked if he could weave on this warp. Erica was happy to show him how to weave this. Can you tell where TJ was weaving and where Erica was weaving? Erica is so please that TJ is interested in weaving on this warp!