Timing is interesting: I just finished meeting some knitting deadlines, have a self-published pattern in the works but no specific release date, C and I are about to acquire a short-term roommate, and my sister’s wonderful (but aged and suffering) dog just passed away.

Like planets aligning, all of these things combined to create the perfect condition for me to work on a project that I have had in mind for YEARS: I have time to weave, I want to do something nice for my sister, and I have to return the floor loom to its owner so its room can go back to being a bedroom.

I don’t remember how I first came across Bonnie Tarses and her horoscope weaving - either in Handwoven magazine, or listening to WeaveCast (a podcast about weaving produced by Syne Mitchell)… but I thought the idea was interesting, and I desperately wanted to try converting her horoscope charts to knitting. I got in touch with Bonnie via email and shared my idea, and she kindly offered to create a horoscope chart for me to use in my experiments.

Bonnie uses a person’s birth day, date, time, and the location of their birth to create an astrological horoscope based on the position of the planets and stars in the sky overhead when they were born. She then converts this into a warping plan that tells the weaver what colour goes where as they are preparing the loom for weaving.

(JARGON ALERT: in weaving, the “warp” is the group of threads or yarn that are pre-strung onto a loom during set-up, the “weft” is the threads or yarn that does the over-under-over-under part across the warp during active weaving.)


I wasn’t able to find my own baby book with all of these details, so I got my sister (or maybe my Mom?) to give me hers, and off it went to Bonnie. Once I had the drafting plan back (along with a cool chart of astrological symbols arranged in a sky-circle) I started plotting my project.

12 colours, in a fairly standard rainbow range? We’ve got Cascade 220 at the store that would work…

A pattern that is simple and doesn’t require lots of darning in of tails at the end of a row? Well, a sweater is out (can’t imagine how I’d do the sleeves), and a scarf isn’t big enough… Hm! Maybe a wrap? Something like the Colourflow Wrap would work well, and it means I just need to knit a giant tube and then I can cut it open, knot the fringe, and call it done. Yay!

Not yay.

Rainbow yarns in a worsted weight held together as three strands at a time doesn’t make the subtle eye-fooling colour blends that rainbow yarns in laceweight do… so my wrap was going to be tragically ugly if I didn’t quickly abandon the idea.

Oh wow.. while composing this blog post, I just came up with another idea for working the horoscope into a knitted garment.. woot, I love inspiration! Not sure if it will work, but I like the vision in my head…

Okay, so aside from THAT bit of excitement that just happened, I hadn’t come up with any really GOOD ideas to make this work using the Cascade 220. Next step: change out my yarn! Lunatic Fringe Yarns has cones of teeny cotton in gorgeous bright colours that they promote for their colour gamp projects or for use with Bonnie’s horoscopes. I loved this yarn, but not for knitting, so the design project was put on hold and I’ve been planning (for years!) to just weave a wrap or blanket for my sister and see for myself how the colours will all blend and work together. Bonnie has always assured me that it would be fabulous, I just need to DO it… so here I go!

(JARGON ALERT: a gamp is a weaving pattern where the colour and/or the stitch pattern changes in a specific way as it moves across the warp AND up the weft)

When I dove into the project today, I realized that I would also need some additional yarn as there is a large amount of the horoscope chart that specifies “favourite colour - your choice” and Heather’s chart already ran pretty heavily through the cone of blue that came with the set of 12 from Lunatic Fringe. I remembered that C had bought some royal blue tencel at a fibre fest many years ago and had never used, so I managed to dig it out of the depths of my stash and got permission to use it (with promises to replace it as he still has plans for it).

These are the “after” cones, once I had taken off between 40 and 100 lengths of approximately 4 yards each. The middle photo up there shows bundles of warp threads chained together (crochet with your hands!) to keep them from tangling between the measuring stage and the actual installation/warping stage. I forgot to take a photo during the warp measuring stage, will try to remember if it turns out that I goofed on my counts and have to do more.

So, I am stopping for tonight, because I think it is a good idea for me to go to sleep fairly soon, after a brief look through my Learning To Weave book to see if there are any hints on sleying the reed when I have more warp ends than I do slots in my reed.

(JARGON ALERT: “sleying” = threading the warp threads into the slots on the thingy (”reed”) that keeps them spaced at a particular distance AND helps to press the weft threads into place)

More photos to come tomorrow! I’ve just figured out how to blog from my iPad, photos and all (assuming this works!) so there will be updates over the next few days.. hoping to finish this by Friday!

The 2010 Winter Olympics are coming to Vancouver, and I’m stoked!

1 - I have auditioned for the Opening Ceremonies as a hoop dancer, and blogged about it over on my hoop site.

2 - Lauren, aka Lolly, and her husband will be staying with us! I read her post on Ravelry asking about Vancouver accommodations (since all of the hotels have been completely booked by the organizers already), so I did a bit of research to find out what the city bylaws said regarding part-time B&B status.. and it turns out that they’ve recently been amended to allow people like us to rent out one room to a maximum of two people during the Olympics. Woot! There are more knitters in the 2010 Olympics group on Ravelry looking for places to stay, so if you’re in the greater Vancouver area and have a suitable space, go get connected!

3 - Dale of Norway has apparently gotten the go-ahead to do an official sweater design for the 2010 event. I’m not sure if I’m likely to knit their design, but it will definitely be inspiration for the stranded colourwork sweater I AM planning to get done for this winter!

In non-Olympic knitting land, I’m planning to take my microphone to work with me today, so I can finish recording Episode 9 of Christa Knits inbetween classes.

I have also completed my Laminaria-inspired top, and am in the final stages of finishing a ponchette for summer, knit in the indigo-dyed slubby silk I brought back from Japan last summer. Pics of that to come, but here’s the Laminiaria top:

Thanks to Francesca of Three Bags Full for taking the photo. I was modelling a shawl knit in Indigo Moon’s yummy laceweight silk, and I’ve never felt so glamourous!

Click on the Laminaria tag below to see all of my posts on this project!

Along with finishing the bottom portion of my Laminaria top-to-be (photos are coming), I have been spending the weekend setting up my new loom, and building gear for it.

Saturday was going to be Measure Warp Using Upside Down Kitchen Chairs day, but instead Chris suggested that it wouldn’t take long to put together a proper warping board.

The two books and various magazines I checked all showed similar designs, but didn’t appear to have any hard and fast rules about the sizing, so we set about figuring out what parameters we’d use.

1 - I wanted to be able to wind a warp long enough to do a bedspread, so at least 7 feet plus loom waste (yes, I think in Imperial measurements for many things)

2 - I wanted to be able to wind the warp standing up, possibly with the board attached to a door (since the doors are some of the few areas that don’t get things piled on them, much)

3 - I didn’t want to bash my knuckles as I passed through the pegs (my recently-dislocated finger is still a bit swollen and doesn’t like getting knocked)

Scribbling, measuring of doors, and placing mugs a few inches apart to figure out minimum hand clearance requirements all led to the successful design, with fabrication to follow, of my new warping board. During production, I learned how to use a stationary belt sander to round off the edges of the pegs, and revisited the drill press to half-hollow places for the pegs to sit.

(It just occurred to me that in the way that other people murder knitting lingo when they try to describe something they don’t really know enough about, I’ve probably just done the same to woodworking language. Sorry.)

Glueing up and clamping done, the board rested overnight and then I started warping this morning.

Things I learned about warping:

1 - Do crosses at both ends so if you figure out a better way to warp without having to tie extra knots, you can implement it without having to rechain all of your warps.

2 - As a beginner warper, mohair is not your friend.

3 - You know that part in the books where they remind you to pull the back apron up over the back beam before you start lashing on? Yup, they mean it.

4 - If you’re going to ask your partner to help you wind on the warp, have all of the various warp threads under control BEFORE giving him the 5-minute call. Also, be prepared to spend some time discussing the wisdom of the method you are following.

5 - Venetian blinds appear to make great lease sticks for popping inbetween warp layers to keep them from imbedding in each other. They may, however, not be needed at every 1/4 crank.

In total, I think measuring the warp and warping the loom took around three hours. Cast On, Its a Purl Man and Lime n Violet’s podcast all kept me company during the process. Chris came back to help out during the heddle-threading and tieing to the front beam, and it was so much easier to have a second set of hands - one could seperate the yarn from its neighbors, and the other could do the threading or sleying.

First impressions on weaving with the floor loom? (A Leclerc, made in Canada! I was tickled when I found the maker’s mark.)

1 - Whoa. Totally cool having my hands free to just manage the shuttle instead of holding the rigid heddle up or down.

2 - Crazy! I was making weft-faced fabric without trying - the beater is a crusher if I don’t hold it back a bit!

3 - Sweet: Chris was having a turn at the loom, weaving twill, and just as I said, ‘I wonder if you can switch…”, he was about to try reversing the treadling directions to make the twill slant the other way. This synchronized thinking happens fairly often

Old knitting needles make great lease stitcks to work a quick header.

I'm not sure how pedals are normally tied up. These cords came attached to the upper thingys (though some weren't in the right place for plain weasve), so I used some split rings to attach them to the treadles.

Hot Man Weaving Action Shot!