Well-in-Advance Planning

Last summer at Convergence, I was walking through the vendor hall, and a skein of 60/2 silk in the Just Our Yarn booth reached out and grabbed me by the elbow, shouting "Take me home!!" So I obediently took it home with me, and put it in a basket where I could admire the beautiful colors.

A few weeks ago, I saw a notice about an exhibit sponsored by Just Our Yarn, to be held at the Midwest Weavers Conference in June. The rules of the exhibit state (among other things) that 50% of the project must be made from JOY yarns. (Full information about the exhibit, including entry info, is available here.)

There's a weave structure I've been wanting to try: double-faced satin. I'm thinking of stripes of double-faced satin in 2 different JOY colorways, interspersed with stripes of sheer 120/2 silk in plainweave dyed a solid color. After contacting the ladies at JOY, I've now got two beautiful and very different cones of their handpainted 60/2 silk - the original skein, in dark blues and purples, and another that is mostly greens with splashes of earthtones.





From one side, the scarf will be thick, dense variegated blue stripes and sheer blue stripes; from the other side, thick, dense variegated green stripes and sheer blue stripes. That's the plan, anyway.



That's the skein of 120/2 silk, dyed with Lanaset navy with a touch of green.

Note the snazzy new cone adapters DH made. They're made of lathe-turned hard white plastic, and they fit permanently on the pirn winder. Because the original steel points still stick out, I can wind pirns or cones without having to mount or dismount adapters. The only size cone I've found that doesn't fit is the little white plastic cone from 8-oz UKI yarn packages. To wind one of these little cones, I remove the larger adapter piece, and orient the cone with its larger end on the smaller adapter piece; the smaller end engages the original steel point, so only one adapter piece is required.

We've turned the design over to Bob Kruger at AVL, in hopes that AVL will take over production. In order for DH to manufacture them for an acceptable cost, he'd need to acquire an expensive CNC (computer numeric control) lathe so that the various shapes and angles could be programmed in, resulting in a consistent product. Otherwise, each time he makes a set, he has to shape the pieces manually, which is very time-consuming (and thus expensive). Besides, he'd rather spend his time on his own woodworking projects, and not be a factory.