What's on the Loom????

I was absolutely thrilled with my new warp and it's colors.  WAS.  LOL

I decided to warp up with a stripe background because this would allow me to try a speckled background, and I did try it.    It also allowed for the fact that if I could not figure it out, or hated it, I could still revert to my usual simple warp floats.  Had I known that this warp would be soooooo wide (which is a serendipitous good thing), I would have made the stripe area less wide.  Maybe just down the middle, or even on each edge and the center????  Anyway, I have a 96 thread wide pattern area.  I haven't been able to just happen onto a pattern that this works for.   But I digress, back to the speckles...Below you will see a picture.  

First I did just stripes to establish my width, 5 3/4 in.  Then I got out my Helen Bress Inkle book and did some speckles...didn't seem to be working...went and got roommate (2 heads are better than one you know, especially when one used to be a full time weaver)...decided I was indeed doing it correctly and started again.  I didn't like the up 1 down 1, too busy.  So I tried up 2 down 2, hummmm it was o.k...then I tried up one and down two.  Aha!  I love that one.  So I unwove the sample below and started with the up one down two...then I decided to check the backside...;o(...bummer, this system allowed for every so many threads NEVER to be tied down, somehow this way there were threads that would float the entire length of the fabric, that would be 7 feet.  More un-weaving.  I am just glad I looked at the backside when I did.  

Also, I was very mistaken.  This technique is definitely NOT like Laverne's warp float galore tutorial.  ;o(

I have learned alot with this warp already.  Use slightly smaller pattern area, double threading each heddle makes for a wider as well as thicker piece, I love the speckled background and I have indeed figured out how to do it.  Now, of course, I would still have to figure out how to do the speckled background with a pattern.  Didn't get that far.  I learned that to graph a 96 thread count design area you need to tape graphs together and the chart is HUGE!  Good thing I have in abundance lots of that tenacity Laverne talks about.  LOL

In the end I am just doing simple warp floats.  Diamonds so far as I don't know how big a motif will be, or it if will get elongated etc. etc. and etc.

Now for pictures.

Bottom up it goes, stripe, 2x2, 1x1, 1x2....

All of this but the stripes got unwoven...keep watching though the pattern is indeed happening for the next posts' pics.

What I've been up to!

I guess the one thing I haven't been up to is posting on my blog, and for that my friends I do apologize.  

I went into something of an uninspired state of mine after all of the weaving before the holidays.  This is not the first time this has happened to me either.  I often start next years holiday presents in January.  This past year I did not.  So as a result I had alot left to do before Christmas.  Plus, as you know, I was learning new techniques on my little Mini Wave loom.  I made spectacular leaps and bounds with it even if I do say so myself.  But after Christmas I fizzled out.

I did recently start some new projects though and so I thought I needed to give yo an update of sorts.  I really wanted to have the choice of whether or not I had to have horizontal stripes in the background of my weaving's.  This lead me to alot of research, the result of which would be to learn to do double weave pick up.  Definitely not a beginner technique.  I don't consider myself a beginner at this point, but certainly not an expert.  But I dove right in.

You have seen pictures of the first couple small pieces, and then came the black/red and white piece.  After the 4 practices in plain double weave I decided to try for a design element.  No problem right...wrong.  I chose my colors, if you have been following along you know I went with the brown/gold/copper mist and silver.  I figured I would figure out the design as I usually do, make it up as I go along.  Wrong again.

I made an 11 foot warp and the thing was beautimous!  However, it was also done with those tiny little #10 threads.  What a disaster, these old lady eyes just couldn't cut it.  The warp was sixty threads or so wide.  That means that since there were 2 colors in each heddle one side of one shed had 120 threads.  This soon became beyond tedious.  I ended up with twisted threads and I don't even want to think about how many times I tried to do a design and had to un weave.  

This technique is kind of like basket weave the way the rows line up.  Every other row they move to one side.  When you do simple warp floats they go from being picked up in row one, floated over row two and then back into the weave on row three.  As a result these line up perfectly one above the other.  But that is because it is every other row.  On Double weave this is not so.  I had an extremely hard time wrapping my head around this.  Eventually I gave in and decided to use one of Laverne Waddington's charts from her blog.  It worked!  YEAH!  wrong...It was so tiny that on an 11 ft. warp I would have been weaving for the next year.  

So I rolled past that part and started again.  Self, I said, Just do plain double weave and let this beautiful thread speak for it self.  I need a new belt anyway.  Wrong yet AGAIN!  As Laverne warns you have to be very careful of spiraling of the threads one around the other.  So when I rolled up the woven part I flipped it over to see the back side and make sure I was on the right track. I discovered THREE dark brown flecks on the copper mist side.  They were all  spaced through out the piece.  Basically to fix them I would have to un-weave the entire piece...AGAIN!  NOOOOOOOO....I cut that sucker off and threw all 9 feet that were left in the garbage.

Then I did the happy dance.  

You have to understand that since I have no full time job, wasting yarn is not something I take lightly.  I despise waste.  Especially when I had to send to FL to get the yarn in the first place.  This little town has nothing to offer in the way of art supplies of any kind.

But still, I DID THE HAPPY DANCE.  LOL  I felt like I was let out of jail and I don't care even today about the waste.  

On to bigger and better things.  

Wait till you see what I did today! 

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!