The Blue Brick

Alvin Ramer

June 2, 2014

Last spring, Leslie, Rayna and I went to Colbourne Ontario, to meet Mr. Alvin Ramer. Mr. Ramer is, among many things, a spinning wheel guru, precious piece of Canadian history and, along with his wife Barbara Ann, a very wonderful person.

Sadly, Mr. Ramer is retiring from the wheel business. Last weekend the three of us made another trip, to see them, and wish them well, and also to relieve them of some of the contents of their barn. Between the three of us, we walked away with 2 spinning wheels (I’m in love, more on mine later!) a spinning chair (Mr. Ramer’s prototype of his original design) and a number of little things, including combs and spindles.

We will certainly be going back, not least because Mr. Ramer has kindly offered to repair my antique wheel. If you are interested in purchasing beautiful spinning equipment (some of which is quite rare) here is the Ravelry thread where you can get the contact information for their friend Rosemary, who is helping to sell the items.

I wish Mr Ramer and Barbara Ann all the best. They are not only talented and knowledgeable spinners, but sweet, welcoming, wonderful people, and we can’t wait to see them again!
Infrared photography with the Hoya R72

May 29, 2014

Warning: Geeky photography stuff ahead ;)

Some photographers are purists who stay away from creative techniques that can look bizarre or over-processed, but I believe that every photo trick, be it long exposures, HDR, or bokeh (to name a few) has a creative application that it’s just perfect for.

My latest toy is the Hoya R72 Infrared filter.
Disclaimer: I am still learning, so my understanding of infrared photography is pedestrian at best.

The R72 filters out most of the visible light hitting my sensor, allowing only infrared light through. Here is a sample photo of a birdhouse. You can see that, due to the cloudy day, the colours are quite muted and there is little contrast between the house and the surrounding foliage.

Here is the same photo, converted to a quick n dirty black and white.

The same photo again, but the black and white conversion has the yellows and greens amped up, in an effort to simulate that infrared look. It’s noisy, looks over-sharpened, and the birdhouse is still a bit lost.

But… here is that same photo taken in infrared. Because the chlorophyll in the plants reflects a lot of infrared light, and the birdhouse does not, the contrast is dramatic.

The detail and contrast are phenomenal. The colours, especially with the red and blue channels inverted, are surreal and lovely.

Here is the infrared photo converted to black and white. The detail and contrast are far superior to the black and white produced using just photoshop, even with the yellow and green channels raised.

And just for shock value, here is what that shot looked like fresh out of the camera, before processing ;)

Infrared photography, Hoya R72 Filter

I can see some great applications for this technique; waterfalls, foliage, deep blue skies, all of this will take on new life on the other side of my filter. Here are a few more preliminary test shots – can’t wait to take it out for a proper spin this weekend!
Whoops.

May 28, 2014

So I bought 2 skeins of this colourful stuff called ‘Fame Trend’ (colour 664) thinking it would be just as gorgeous as Noro, but hopefully not as horrid to work with, thus giving me great colour while circumventing Tito’s Noro moratorium.

I got pretty excited about this one. I even pre-wound all my mini-cakes and numbered them so the colours would stay in the right order.

Then I bought a 12 pack of extra bobbins for my boat shuttle.

Tito made me a gift – the Bobbin Assist 2000 which winds them so fast that I occasionally lose control of it. I had so much fun that I wound them all.

Aaaaand it’s over.

Turns out the yarn felts so easily (just look at it wrong, really) that the mere rubbing of the heddle as I beat in the weave and switched positions was sufficient. After 2 inches it was so felted I had to cut it off the loom.

Ah, learning pains.
Peterborough Lift Lock

May 27, 2014

A few weeks ago, Tito and I took the cameras out for a drive to Peterborough to have a look at their 110 year old lift lock.

It’s very cool–basically it’s a boat-sized swimming pool on top of a hydraulic lift, in fact,

The dual lifts are the highest hydraulic boat lifts in the world, with a lift of 19.8 m (65 ft)
Source: Wikipedia

The day was spitting and the light was variable, so I decided to shoot everything underexposed by one stop, and to process to black and white. A virtual red filter in Lightroom was used to bring up my contrast.

This is one of my favourite shots – the tunnel has had a leak in the ceiling that produced little stalactites, and the drip onto the ground has produced little stalagmites.

We did a few other fun things that I shot, including a visit to ‘Needles in the Hay’ and the Riverview Zoo – stay tuned!
Learning Pains

May 26, 2014

I was at Romney Wools, in the early days of loom ownership, looking for colourful self striping yarns to weave up. Weaving with self striping wool is like making a stockinette project for me in knitting – mindless and relaxing, where the beauty of the yarn can do all the work. The difference here is that, personally, I find weaving variegated yarns to be even more beautiful and gratifying than knitting them.

I ended up falling in love with this yarn called ‘Katia’ by a company called Jaipur (based, interestingly, out of Spain). The colour is out of this world.

I bought 3 balls of this stuff, and hoarded it for weeks, waiting for the right moment to warp it up. I ended up warping a 6 foot long scarf, using the same yarn for both warp and weft. From the moment I started to weave, I knew something wasn’t right.

This yarn is 100% mercantile cotton lace weight. It has almost no stretch, and weaves into something that feels, more or less, as though I wove with dental floss. If I had known, I would have been making dish towels instead of a scarf, because that’s what this yarn is for.

The final piece, even when washed, has a rigid, waxy feel to it. Even for my shots, freshly dried, it has wrinkles that I would have had to iron out. Unless I’m making towels, this is the last time I will work with this stuff.

Disappointing, but a good learning experience. I have been busy on the loom but lazy on the blog for a few days, but the next 3 posts after this will both be about painful learning experiences! When this latest one is done I’ll definitely have to warp up something easy and predictable to recover ;)
Fern Bangle

May 24, 2014

Just a few shots of a resin fern bangle in a thin mold that I’ve been working with lately :) If you like it, learn how to make your own here!
Foggy Nights

May 23, 2014

Last night in Toronto we had some pretty amazing fog – couldn’t resist getting a few shots in!
Double Heddle Kit

May 22, 2014
Those of you who read this blog often will know that, lately, I’ve been completely obsessed with my loom (I do have projects on the the needles, and I poured some resin yesterday, but really, it’s been all about the weaving) and, every chance I get, I try to do something new.

I picked up the double heddle kit for my loom a few weeks ago, but it was only this past long weekend that I finally had a chance to warp it up.

Lucky Penny and Aurora together – gorgeous!

The instructions for this can feel confusing, but here is what I did. This is easiest if you use two contrasting colours (I’m using Tanis Fiber Arts Lucky Penny and Aurora in lace weight).
1. Put the heddle closest to your back apron rod in neutral.
2. Warp like you would normally, but pull 2 loops through every slot; one loop of colour A and one loop of colour B. Cut the yarn and reel it onto the back rod like normal.
3. You’ll have 4 strands in each slot, 2 of each colour. Pull out one strand of colour A and pass it through the hole on the left. Continue across the heddle.
4. Put the back heddle in the up position, and put the front heddle on, in neutral. Drape all your ends over the front heddle.
5. Treating the strands in the back heddle as groups of 4 (one in the hole, three in the slot) pull all 4 strands through the corresponding slot in the front heddle. This feels fiddly at first, but it gets faster as you go along.
6. Pull up the 2 strands of colour B, and make sure they’re not crossed under colour A. Grab one of those strands and pull it through the hole on the right. The two most important things are a) that they’re not crossed under the other strands and b) that they’re in the opposite side hole from the back heddle.
There are three main reasons (that I can see) that one would want to try this:
1. To work twill, with 2 pick up sticks.
2. To double your sett, to weave finer threads, or denser cloth
3. To work double weave, or double wide cloth
I warped up only a narrow band, using two 12-dent heddles. Section 1 is modified basket weave; the back heddle stays put and I moved only the front heddle up and down.

Section 2 is the same weave but beating in the weft loosely.

Section 3 is moving both heddles up and down.

Perhaps I didn’t give it a fair chance, because I had only warped up a narrow strip, but my first thought was ‘I don’t like this’. It’s very, very fiddly. It took all morning to warp a 4″ wide piece of cloth, and the 2 heddles feel very clumsy to handle (though I think this would be solved by warping the full width).

You can see the difference here: the swatch at 24 epi is very dense compared to the same yarn at 12 epi. Dense enough, in fact, that it would be great for making bags. The textures that are possible are quite lovely though, so I’m going to borrow a 7.5-dent heddle and give it another try!

Incidentally, here is my loom waste, aren’t Lucky Penny and Aurora gorgeous together? I think I feel another warp design coming on!
Lucky Penny Wrap

May 21, 2014
The goal with this scarf was simple, to design the most ‘Shireen-y’ scarf possible. I definitely succeeded, this one is absolutely my favourite.

Just look at those colours together, aren’t they gorgeous?
- Brown: Debblie Bliss Baby Cashmerino (Sport)
- Bright Blue (top): Indigodragonfly Merino Silk (4ply sock)
- Bottom Left: Tanis Fiber Arts Lucky Penny (Lace)
- Bottom Right: Tanis Fiber Arts Lucky Penny (DK)
This was my first experience really combining different weights of yarn in the warp, and I had no idea whether it would work out. The weft is 100% Lucky Penny Lace.

On the loom it looked a little buckled here and there, especially around the stripes of DK weight, but as soon as I blocked it the entire thing relaxed completely into a flat scarf with beautiful drape.

I decided not to hem stitch this piece. Instead, I ran a zigzag stitch with my sewing machine across the bottom. It’s basically one of the scariest things I’ve ever done since at this point I was in love with the scarf and I really suck at sewing.

However, it worked out :)

The generous size means it wraps twice around my neck with long ends, and the 18” depth means it covers my back for maximum cosiness.

And of course the fact that it’s Lucky Penny and chocolate means that the scarf is absolutely me! It’s light and airy and it will make a great summer wrap :)
After the Rain

May 17, 2014

Just a shot today – we had rain and cloud almost all day, but just at the end the sunset shot through and touched the tops of the trees on Toronto Island. I love the colours… maybe a warp design?