Sample Socks, Cloak and Concrete

We got samples of the socks we are having made from our Black Welsh Mountain wool. We will be offereing both a hiking crew and a terry sock in mens and womens sizes. These are the first 2 samples.


I also put a label on my fabric.


Bill used the tractor to do final filling of the holes before the concrete truck arrives.


Getting the size just right.


Concrete truck pouring the footers.




The extra concrete will be used to change the orientation of the pad for the propane tank. We need to rotate it 90 degrees so its easier to use the new walk-through elk fence gate.


The rams came up to be in the shade but Winnie was very concerned about the concrete truck so was right there with them.

The Cloak - Pattern Testing

The whole reason I have Black Welsh Mountain Sheep is because I wanted a traditional medieval Black Welsh cloak. While most folks would go buy a cloak or at best buy fabric and make one I did things a bit differently.

I bought the sheep, bought a spinning wheel, learned to spin, bought a loom, learned to weave and learned to sew. The idea was I would make my cloak from scratch. That was 12 years ago. I am only just now good enough at spinning to spin fine enough for historically accurate fabric. However, soon after we first got the sheep I had a mill spin some coarse 2-ply yarn from our fleeces. I used this yarn to weave my initial fabric.

Well I finished weaving this first cloak fabric December 2006. It took 6 years and I used the commercially spun yarn from our own flock of sheep. The fabric has been sitting waiting for me to do something with it. Actually, it was waiting for me to get the courage to cut it since it took so long to make.

Along the way I learned that what I had in my mind as a traditional medieval Welsh cloak was not accurate for medieval times but was closer to 18th century styles. So I did nothing.

Well Kass at Reconstructing History makes historically accurate patterns. And she now has a pattern for an 18th Century Women's Hooded cloak. This pattern matches what I originally had in mind as a medieval cloak.

Well I've decided that I really need to get a cloak made, whether it is accurate for medieval times and with appropriate fabric or not. And that I can always work on more accurate fabric for another one later. However, because I am such a novice at sewing I decided to use some commercial fabric first.

Today I made the first revision of the cloak using commercial brown wool fabric.


Here are all the pattern pieces cut out and ready. I cut out for the waistcoat option but I don't think I'll use it.


This is the hood back showing the pleats.


Here is the cloak neckline where it is gathered.

For this test I used a contrasting thread and machine stitched the whole thing.


I am missing the ribbons to tie it closed but here it is all finished.

I learned several things making the pattern that I will have to adjust when doing it with my Black Welsh fabric.

First off my fabric is not as wide as commercial fabric so I will use more pieces to make the cloak body. I've already asked Kass and the suggestion is to make the center back from the full width and then piece to the sides to get the entire cloak body made.

I am not sure the waistcoat looks good on me so I think I'll leave it off. It can easily be added later anyway.

My fabric was woven then fulled but it's still too coarse and will unravel at the edges. So I am going to use a black cotton tape binding on all the edges unlike the extant cloaks that have no hems or binding. The original did not have the seams pressed open or finished but I think I will need to do some pressing and tacking down of the seams because the fabric is so thick. I'll have to see how it fits and feels once it's done.

Next step is to press the Black Welsh fabric and figure out how to lay out the pattern pieces on my narrow fabric.

Weaving and Cats

This is what's on the small loom currently. I'm weaving several placemats. I have 4 cream with red stripes done and one red with cream stripe and have started my second.

I can't remember exactly how much warp I have on so I am not sure when I will be done.

As soon as this warp is finished I'm moving this loom to the shop next to the big loom.

Fortunately our inside cat Shadow does not like to play with strings.

Shadow voicing her displeasure at being photographed.

North Fork Fiber Guild

With the loom assembled the next step was to tie it up and get it ready for warping. Margaret, Monica and Elena all helped me learn how to tie everything up and set it up for weaving. Here they are doing their spinning, naalbinding and knitting after we got the loom tied up.

We set it up for a balanced twill and tabby just to play with initially.

Here I am testing out the treadles to see if I can reach them all easily.

Warped Again

Finished my small sampler of singles yarn. It's probably going to be a handle for some sort of tote or bag. Learned some more about weaving with singles, mostly that I have to spin much tighter twist than I thought to have it sturdy enough for the beating of the reed. I also need to spin much finer. My 30 wpi singles was tight to weave at 15 epi. I need to spin something at closer to 45 or 50 wpi to be able to set the warps tight enough to match some of the historical items I want to make.
Now I'm re-warping the loom with some linen/cotton blend yarn to make some placemats. Yesterday during our Fiber Friday time I got the reed sleyed and about 1/3 of the heddles threaded. I may finish that this weekend then I get to tie on and warp the beam and start weaving.

New Loom

Erika came up from Albuquerque to teach a naalbinding class to members of the North Fork Fiber Guild (NF²G) and brought my new loom up from Santa Fe.

As she said, "All those years playing Tetris have finally paid off." She managed to get a Glimakra 4 shaft 60 inch wide countermarche loom into her van for the trip and still had room to spare.

This loom won't fit into any room in the house but will be installed in the upstairs of the new shop when its finally finished. I'm hoping to be able to weave unbalanced twill fabric on it eventually.