Relay for Life

February 21, 2011

TA DA!!!!

It isn't even close to what I had I mind when I started.  The warp gave me fits!  But I LOVE it anyway and I think the pair will make a nice donation to the 'Relay for Life' cancer fund raiser.

Camera Tote for KraftyMax!

Written Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Here is the completed piece that will be the side panels.  It is exactly 6 in. wide and 24 in. long without fringe.  

Both pieces came out exactly the same size.  Consistency is a GREAT thing.  It looks like one end of the green piece is a little wider than the other.  After measuring though I have found that the ends are exactly the same width.

What's on the Loom????

I have started KraftyMax's camera tote.

The first thing I did was try using the nylon!  What a nightmare!  No give, toooooo slippery and very tangely (is that even a word?).  So even though the colors were beautiful, I can't weave with it.  

So I went to plan B.  She said I love blue and yellow together, purple and green together....So I gathered up all of my purples and greens, blues and yellows and just started warping.  I double and triple stranded throughout, and this is what I got.

The tote will be a cube shape and I will lay them in a t shape, sew them together and maybe add a strap.  Actually Dana will do the construction this time.  Love you Dana.

This piece will be the front, bottom and back sides.  

The side pieces will have the same outter edges as the main body piece, but the center will be double stranded 2 tones of green.

What's on the Loom????

Definition - Art - Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium. 

Definition - Mind - The human consciousness that originates in the brain and is manifested especially in thought, perception, emotion, will, memory, and imagination.

And I could not have said it better myself.

Now I will show you my newest ART!  I did a DAWG motif!  I saw one, or at least something that resembled one, in the book "  By Ways in Handweaving",  by Mary Meigs Atwater.  So of course I had to SERIOUSLY ENLARGE it to fit my huge weaving platform.  After I completed it just like the pattern, I then seriously embellished on him.  I actually tried to make him look like Wiggles.  Note the ears that are out to the side and the curly tail.  WIGGLES through and through, actually Lacy too.  Both dogs have those characteristics.  She measures 3 1/2 in x 3 1/2 in.  I love this little dawg.  

I still have about 2 ft. on this warp, I definitely have to do a male 'people', and who knows what else.  Maybe a chicken...so many motif's it's hard to choose. 

First you see the little pattern that gave me my inspiration.  Thank you Mary Atwater!   It is the one in the lower left hand corner.  Sorta like a dog..

Then here you see what I came up with.  I am so proud of myself.I am going to have to be careful or I will break my arm patting myself on the back.  LOL

Finally, pictorials, of a sort anyway!

2nd Attempt at one weft double weave.

#10 Mercerized cotton ‘Espresso’

#10 Copper mist

#3 Gold metallic

#3 Silver metallic

This is another attempt at one weft double weave. There will be a design, but as of now I am not sure what it will be. Wish me luck.

First we wind the warp!

Then we wind it onto the loom!

Getting ready to thread the heddles.

Getting started with the actual weaving.  Notice how we have copper with silver on one layer and Espresso with gold on the other layer.

 

Had some trouble with the warp, so I had to cut off the beginning, re-establish the cross, re-thread the heddles, re-tie onto the front beam and start over.  I thought you might like to see the little samples.

UPDATE:    

As for this weave along, I am stepping away from my current project. It is on the largest wave loom (borrowed from my friend in Jacksonville, who’s parents own Gilmore Looms), and I am not sure that my living situation, as in where I weave, is conducive to this larger one. I just can’t get comfortable with it.

However, that is just the tip of the iceberg.  What is really happening is that this #10 I am using is simply too hard to see for doing a design. At the moment I can’t seem to find a reason to torture myself with continuing. After, what? 5 days or more, I have woven and unwoven so many times that I am still in the 1st 2 inches of the weave. ;-( Also, I can’t for the life of me imagine what I would do with another long thin band, as this warp is 11 foot long.


So I am going to sit this one aside, my frustration level is just toooooooo much. I will think of another project and put it on my mini, using number 3 like I did with the black, white and red piece I completed earlier in this WAL.


So for now I will be lurking for a while, thinking, thinking, thinking. I might try warp floats galore from Laverne's blog/tutorials!  Maybe I will draw for a while.

Just a little update!

So here we go with an update!  There are weavings that I couldn't show before Christmas because certain people were not supposed to see them.  There are also pics of yarn gifting.  Just scroll down and you will get the picture.

First, it's Wiggles, ever watchful and eternally cute!

This is the largest Gilmore Wave loom that I borrowed from KraftyMax.  Here you see it with my roommate's Christmas present on it.  She wanted a band to hang pictures of her dogs!  This one was verrrrrry long.

Here we have the first panel for a '1 skein project bag' for my weave workshop buddy.  I will make 5 of these panels, 4 for the body and 1 for the flap.  Each will be different and she wants it to open on the long side.  We decided mutually that she will assemble it so it is the way she wants it.  She is a graduate of Florida State University is how I decided on garnet with a little bit of gold.  I will post completed pics when it is indeed complete.

Now for the Christmas presents of yarn!  Here we have #10 Bamboo crochet thread.

I also received alot of cotton.  Here you see # 3 mercerized cotton crochet thread!  Lots of yummy colors.

Here we have a combination of #10 mercerized cotton crochet thread along with the #3's.  These are the best yarns for warpface weaving.  I don't have it in me to fight with hairy yarns that stick to each other and make the weaving ALOT less than enjoyable.

 

I think I am set for yarn for a little while!  I am soooooo looking forward to weaving just for the fun of it and experimenting with some new techniques.

Now for the best ever!  Here you see Crystal Pistal's custom made cotton warpface scarf.  She wanted it long and since she is in FL cotton works fabulously!  


She loves hearts and I threw in the X's and O's.  If you look close enough you might be able to see that one of the X's is made up of little x's and o's!  You might also notice that the design is only on one side!  Plain stripes on the other.  You can read more about how I discovered how to do this here!  It is my absolute best piece yet and she LOVED it!

I, unfortunately didn't take pictures of all of my completed pictures.  Somehow I simply forgot to do it. ;-{  But I am told that everything reached everyone on time and all of my family loved their gifts.  Seems to big talk was how much my weaving has changed and improved.  Merry Christmas to me.


I hope that you and yours had a lovely holiday!  Me I am actually just glad it has come and gone.  Lots of fun...lots of work and stress.  


NOW ON TO THE NEW YEAR!

Creative glitches...hate 'em!!!

Well here it is December 21st...I only have 2 small things left to weave, everything else is packaged and out the door.  Seems, as usual, that I have been thinking about Christmas for months.  Oh yeah...thaaaats right I have.  Takes a pretty long time to do all of these gifts by hand.  Not a single thing was bought for my Christmas, except the yarn to produce the pieces of course.

Just a little bit of update...since I haven't posted in over a week.

Carol went to Jacksonville about a week and a half ago...got broke down.  So I have been on my own for ten days (makes for alot of conversations with my dogs) LOL.  At that point I guess I decided mentally to take a break for all of the hub ub about Christmas.  At that point the GLITCH set in.  I should never have stopped long enough to take that breath, because since then I couldn't seem to weave anything...until yesterday. 

I want to make a cell phone pouch, (she just got a new Droid) and a one skein project bag ( she says she needs a 'small' project bag) for my weave workshop student, Dana.  So I warped up after looking at empty looms for a week...double threaded (meaning two threads in each heddle) and 75 warp ends.  On another project, which must remain a mystery due to the holiday thing, this became exactly 4 in wide.  Keep in mind alot of my yarns do not have tags on the cones.  So I have no way, most of the time, to know what size my thread is.  I think one of the ones I am currently looking at on the loom is a 20.  Very fine!  Much finer that I would choose.  Thus I only got 3 in. on this project, instead of the 4 in. I got on the other project that I warped the same way.  Bummer.  Droid won't fit in a 3 in. wide pouch, especially after the sides are stitched up.

So ALL I could do was stare at it and rethink my ideas.

SOOOOOOOOOO I loaned her one of my own pouches for her phone while I figure out what to do.  Then I warped up the small tapestry loom and thought I would make her a bag of each technique.  A weftface phone pouch and a warpface project bag.  Even though I would use my own homespun for the tapestry bag.  Turns out the roving is prettier than the yarn it produces.  First time that ever happened...not feeling the tapestry weave (weftface).  So I benched that one too.

After several days I thought that since I need to piece the warpface together to produce something larger...because it is too narrow as it stands... I would make her one project bag in panels.  Each panel will be different.  Dana only wants it to be about 6 to 8 in. wide and 12 in. long.  I figure I need at least 6, 12 in. x 3 in. wide panels.  Once they are sewn together that will produce a bag the size I need. She wants the long side to be the one that opens so we even discussed her sewing the bag together herself so that she gets exactly what she wants.

She is a huge Florida Seminoles fan as she went to college in Tallahassee, FL.  She also likes jewel tones.  I had her some over and we chose garnet and kind of a coral with gold trim.  Unfortunately the coral looks much pinker next to the garnet...hope she still likes it.  This project is definitely challenging me. 

I completed the first 12 in. band yesterday.  I did the 3d effect and it is stunning.  I think this is going to work.

I was also loaned the largest of the Gilmore Wave looms.  There is a picture of it here on the blog, it is the loom with the blue/purple warp on it.  Mine is the smaller Mini loom by the same company.  This way I can do a few larger pieces of warpface before I return it to my friend KraftyMax whose parents own Gilmore Looms.

Since we have no art stores here in Moultrie I asked Ms. Carol to also visit Joann's ETC. (much larger than a normal Joann Fabric store) in Jacksonville, FL.  I have a hard time finding mercerized cotton here so I had her spend about $40.00 there for me.  Lots of new colors to play with now.  After I complete my last 2 Christmas projects of course!  I promised Carol 2 red, white, and blue inkle bands to hang her dogs' pictures with.  She has these cut out mat boards that spell their names and the boards are red/white and blue.  Behind each letter she can place a picture of the appropriate dog, cute.  Piece of cake. 

Then I want to concentrate on trying double weave...or at least somehow figure out how to have a solid background on my warpface lifts.  No stripes or specs...it is possible that double weave is the only way to achieve this - that I have been able to understand anyway.  Remember all of the info I get is via books and internet.  The only weaving instructor around is me.  Also keep in mind that my loom is just as much table loom as inkle loom.  Not all inkle information works exactly the same way with a cloth and warp beam on the loom.  Lots of translating going on.

So No all I have to do is post pictures of these various activities.  Most of those will be posted through out the up-coming days...I realize that reading my blog is not of the UTMOST importance during the holidays.  So I will only post occasionally during the next couple of weeks.  Things will go back more to the norm after the New Year.

Hope you and yours are happy and enjoying the holidays to the fullest and in the safest ways possible. 

Second half of the Green warp

I just wanted to share.  This is the rest of the green warp that gave me fits.  I finished it on Wednesday the 17th...I have a little niece that is into green.  I think I will make 2 little envelope bags that match for her out of these.  I actually like these bands.  This comes as a surprise since I hated the warp AND it gave me tension issues.  They turned out really well.  I love the larger designs.  I think my favorite is my version of the little 'person'.  I embellished the design I found and used on the other band, the little 'man person' and tried to get a female.  She is shaped a little funny, reminds me of a witch...LOL.  But cute right?

Anyway here are the pictures.

Another practice band on the Mini Wave!

This one is green on green.  After threading up the loom, I discovered I really didn't like these two colors together.  No 'pop', no 'pizaz' and certainly not enough contrast. :-{

But being a trooper and all I persevered and then discovered, low and behold I also have tension problems with this warp.  Drat!  Still I plugged along.  I found a couple of new PDF articles on inkle weaving with some nice pictures and applied a couple of their designs.  

My favorite is the little 'man' figure.  SOooooo kewl, if I do say so myself.   I had to complete this warp is two pieces.  The first piece is complete.  I had to cut it off so that I could retie onto the the front beam to correct the ridiculous tension problems I was having.  It's not written in concrete but I will probably make an envelope bag out of it.  For not I just want to look at it while I complete the rest of the warp.  

Here are a few pictures.  Let me know what you think.

One weft double weave!

I finally succeeded in one weft double weave!  I got all of my information for the very informative blog on Backstrap weaving by Laverne Waddington.

I discovered her on Weavolution and Weavezine.  Then I stumbled on her information again on Ravelry.  All three of these are full of great information on weaving and fiber arts in general.  The really great thing is the information is free for the offering.  

One weft double weave allows the weaver to have one color on one side and another on the back side.  It also provides for the weaver to have design on the front that is the reverse color on the back.  I am still trying to get the basic weave down so mine has no design...yet.  It produces a very thick and sturdy band.  I think for myself I will use finer threads next time and produce a finer band.  I can see where this would be great for dog collars, leashes, mug rugs, hot pads and even belts.  It is a labor intensive weave, which in my case made for time consuming as well.  We all know though, that weaving in general is not a 'fast' form of art.  This weave actually forms kind of a tube.

I took some pictures for you.  I did break a warp thread with all of the fraying going on from all of the manipulations while weaving.  It requires very minute changes in the weave tension that I am absolutely sure would be easier with a backstrap loom.  I can see another session with the backstrap in my future.  

Keep an eye peeled.  More to come soon.

My Pandula Band!

I finished it! and it is 7 1/2 ft long before the fringe!  Now two Pandula's are alike and I love this.  It is for sale on my Artfire site for $28.00,  It would be a great textile trim, dog leash, or even a sash belt.  

Guess its time to re-warp the loom.

I wish I had a better camera, these pictures don't begin to do this piece justice.  The cotton  has a beautiful sheen and the colors just 'pop'!