What's on the Loom????

March 13, 2011 to be posted April 22, 2011

As most of you know I have started a Weave Along in the Inkle Group on Ravelry! You have seen the baby blue, forest green and teal piece...now on to the next one.

This is done in espresso brown, ecru and copper mist #10 mercerized cotton crochet thread.  It is 208 warp count per shed, total 416 threads, which means at 6 1/2 in. wide it has 64 threads to the inch.  It is being woven on the Large Gilmore Wave Loom.

It has 148 thread wide pattern area.  I chose a knot work chart from Laverne Waddington's blog and here is how it is coming along.  She only lifted in pairs, but I am lifting 4 threads at a time.  I do this because this thread is so fine and I wanted the pattern to show more prominently, this is also why the lifts are done in the darkest color, espresso, this time.  It made the pattern twice as large as it would have been also.

Here are a couple of pictures.

Relay for Life

February 19, 2011

I am having to do some re-thinking on my piece for 'Relay for Life'.  After getting everything warped up, I decided all of the pinks and reds were screaming at me to do hearts.  It was indeed Valentine's day when I wound the warp onto the warpboard.  Must have been some silly subconscious thing.  LOL

Anyway, I started out with a heart and of course decided on LARGE BOLD design motif's.  It actually looks great, but I am having tension problems with the warp.  This is not totally unexpected as I used multiple stranding and multiple yarn weights.  It was bound to happen.  DUH!

  Even though it is a 7 ft. warp, I will be doing it in several pieces instead of one long piece as I had intended.

Each panel will approximately 8 in, wide and about 12 in long.  I am thinking of doing a set, maybe...A hear, an X and an O, that could be auctioned as a set.  Keep in mind I am having to adjust on the fly and things are subject to change at any point. 

I will keep you posted.

Aren't the colors divine!

What's on the Loom????

Written Monday, February 7, 2011, posted March 4, 2011

Here we have pictures of what I did yesterday, Sunday.  I warped both 'Wave' looms.  I warped KraftyMax's Large Wave with the fabric that will be used for the side panels of her camera tote.  It is a little, o.k. a lot, larger than I needed actually.  It is 6 in. wide and 116 heddles of double stranded 100% cotton.  Double threaded is made it thicker than I intended.  But, on the plus side, we will have plenty of fabric to work with.  Better that than not enough and have to weave it again.

Then I wove my 'Mini Wave' with double weave for the camera strap.  I used #3 mercerized cotton.  It is doubled stranded in 40 heddles.  It gave me exactly the 2 in. width that I wanted.  It is only two colors and I made my borders with the same two colors.  I am going to have to chart her logo before I go any further on the double weave.

I knew that the large piece would be done pretty quick, as it is plain weave.  When I go to Tapestry workshop on Thursday evening, I will give it and the body piece over to Dana for the construction of the cube.  She will have it until the following Thursday.  In the meanwhile I will be working on the double weave as it is ready and waiting.  I am hoping everything is complete at that point.  

There are variables though with the timing.  Dana lives in the REAL world and has a REAL job.  So I hope she has time to complete it in a week but if not that's o.k. too.  Especially since I rarely work on double weave and it could indeed take me longer than that to complete the strap.  It needs to be at least 30 in. long.  I warped up 5 ft. so I think I have enough warp.  We'll see.  

I also snapped a shot of my bedroom...WALL TO WALL looms...LOL.  Here you go!

Big Wave with wide piece.

 Baby Wave with double weave!

Very full bedroom!

Update!

I finally got the courage to sit down at my sewing machine.  Thanks to my friend Dana.  She sat down with me, after making up the prototype envelope bag, and helped me get the tension correct on my sewing machine.  I needed to reacquaint myself with the machine it had been so long since I used one.   

So I made up some little 'envelope' bags.  They are so cute I can hardly believe I am the one who made them!  I even put them for sale in the consignment booth.  Here are a few pictures.

I kept these for myself!

These are for sale in my consignment booth.

Now that they have a purpose I can consider their structure when developing the designs.

The final pink and green band!

I finished the NEVER ENDING pink, green and white warp at last!  I know that you guys have seen lots of pictures of the other two pieces, but this one I gave to my roommate.  I did one design that looks like its Peruvian, or Bolivian or something.  I got it off of the backstrap blog by Laverne Waddington.  The other, I call that one a "  Pandula".  It is my version of a flower which lives only in my imagination.

As you know that is the very definition of a Pandula.  I got the term from an article in Rug Hooking magazine.  There was a woman who had hooked her entire life and all of her creations were Pandula's.  This where I got the name for all of my sites. 

A Pandula is a flower which lives only in one's imagination.

Today is Saturday and I spent the ENTIRE day yesterday warping various looms.  As you know I have been really struggling with the warp board style of warping necessary for my new Gilmore Mini Wave.  I have also learned that it is hard to translate warping instructions from Inkle weaving patterns to the warp board.

I ended up with a green and white stripe background.  After first annihilating a beautiful white on white warp for an idea I had in my head.  Then when I went to do the green and white one, because I wanted high contrast, I discovered that the green I chose was hemp.  If you know anything about hemp, you know that it is very 'sticky' to work with.  Needless to say I had a very frustrating day at the warping board.

Most people are not aware of how many hours it takes to do these things.  Since everything I have done before now has been weftfaced, where the warp is completely covered, figuring all of this out with noone to help me has been difficult to say the least.  Each warp is another adventure.  Sometimes pleasant, sometimes not so much.  But I will persevere!

Anyway I digress, I just wanted to post a couple more pictures for you.  So here they are.

I was going for a flower in the one below!

This is what is on the loom right now!  Not really sure if I like this one yet.  Might have to do some frogging!

New loom

I am still in Jacksonville, FL., and I still don't have MY new loom, of course.  It is not even due to arrive in GA till Tuesday the 5th.

However, since I am visiting the daughter (KraftyMax) of the owner of Gilmore looms, I have access to her loom.  She has the largest of the WAVE table/inkle looms.  Mine will be the smallest, called the MINI WAVE.   Soooo, I have warped up Max's and would like to share pictures of what I am doing.

I used a traditional warping board.  Do keep in mind that normally I use one continuous warp thread that is wrapped around my frame and a warp stick, even my rigid heddle had an alternate method for warping.  It was called the peg method and it also was one continuous thread, no warping board.

This is only my 3rd time warping with a warp board.  VERY DIFFICULT! at least for me.  I put 11 feet on it.  I found it to definitely be a learning curve.  Moving the warp from the board in an organized fashion and mounting it onto the frame is all foreign to me.  I must also say there were several major problems...somehow I managed to correct them for the most part and not waste the warp.  The yarn I used for the warp also came from Max and I believe it is silk.  Definitely didn't want to waste it.  It is beautiful, very bright and shimmery.

I have indeed been weaving a lovely 4 inch wide inkle/warpface band.  I intend to make Max and her daughter ( who now proudly wears the blue and brown prototype cuff bracelet) matching cell phone pouchs, myself a bracelet and I am not sure what else.  I have never had the option of this much warp before.  Of course now I also get to learn how to hem stitch.  I always used half hitches on my tapestries.  Hemstitching was never necessary, I never minded the fringe either.

I may have to get out the sewing machine eventually.  I am trying to avoid that though, I really don't need another hobby or to try to figure out where to put it.  Lack of space remember, is why I sold the rigid heddle.

In tapestry, warping takes very little time, weaving much longer.  In warpface textile, warping is MUCH more time consuming, weaving very much faster.  Everything is backwards for me, the design, the warping, the types of yarns, even the hand motions.

I am making some strides though.  Check it out for yourself.  The pictures aren't great, please forgive me.  I will get better ones soon....even the finished projects will be posted.

I had my reservations about ordering the smallest wave, but this one is a bit of a moose.  I think I will be quite happy with one that is a little less bulky for my smallish person.

Warp Floats!