Getting Back to Weaving

I finally got back into the studio to do some weaving. I put on enough warp for four baby blankets. So much for good calculations, I thought I had only enough for three and a little bit. I have a bunch of 1/3 or 2/3rds of blankets. I am planning to some day maybe do a patchwork blanket out the the short pieces.

Here are pictures with more detail of two of the blankets:

I used mostly cotton for the warp and synthetic baby yarn for the weft. It gives a nice hand to the blankets.

I am currently planning hand towels with some sort of huck motifs. Also I still working on "The Complete Book of Drafting for Handweavers" by Madelyn Van Der Hoogt with three other weaving friends. We've gotten to the Tied Weaves chapter.

Back in the Pink

After a long absence, I finally have gotten back into the studio. This isn't the best picture, but I am working on pink baby blankets. It is a great project - not much thinking and so very easy that it helps get me back to the loom. There are girl babies on the horizon for friends of friends so they will not stay here long once they are finished.

Not sure what's next, but at least I'm weaving!

Cheers!

Calendar Sample Pictures

I finally got the picture upload to work. Here is the cloth still on the loom. I did around 4 yards (and actually have more warp that I can weave). This was done in 10/2 cotton. The warp is a yellow and natural alternated. The weft is yellow and a light tan, also alternated.

This detail, isn't great, but the cloth is meant to be reminiscent of

strata of earth.

The samples are all cut and we have started assembling the calendars. We only did 100, so it wasn't too much work.

Calendar Samples

Well, it has been a while and many thing have been going on - not many of them weaving. The latest project is a perpetual calendar with my weaving discussion group. The theme is the Gold Country of California. We are weaving samples to use for each month of the calendar. I have October.

The samples are finished and cut to size and we are currently assembling the calendars.

The mechanism to upload pictures isn't working, so I'll have to post the pictures later.

Fair Results

The County Fair has come and finished this past Sunday. I am pretty excited because I won two ribbons for the three entries I submitted. The baby blanket got a second place in the baby category.


The end of the warp from the Shadow Weave class that I was too lazy to do more than just weave as a runner got a first place in the home accessory (or something like that) category. The third entry was two of the pink striped towels.




I was very impressed with the quality of the other entries. That made the awards more special.

I'm busy working on the next project, but more on that later.

Blankets are Finished - Mostly

At the left are two of the four blankets I got out of the warp I put on earlier this month. Actually I got 4 1/3 blankets. I haven't gotten the calculations correct so that I can just have enough for a specific number and I hate to just cut off the warp and try to figure out something to do with it. I think eventually I can make a kind of patchwork blanket out of all of the 1/3 blankets I have.

Here is a close-up of one of the blankets. (It's not great, but might give you an idea.)

I don't have anything on the loom yet, but I am entering four things for the County Fair next month - oneof these blankets, the brown and white runner and two of the striped towels. Our calendar project is coming together, so that may be the next project.

Towels Finished - On to the Next Project

Well, the cotton towels are finished, hemmed, washed, etc. They turned out pretty well. I used pink, yellow, green and brown for weft. The brown ones (center under the yellow towel) looked better than I thought it would. The green isn't my favorite, but doesn't look too bad. I am thinking about entering them in the county fair in August.



In order to keep the momentum going, I started on some baby blankets. You can kind of see my process for designing the blankets. They are striped using two different colors and yarn types at a time. I have a plan for how wide the stripes are and just pick yarn combinations that seem to go together. These blankers are in peaches, yellows and whites. The warp is all cotton - mostly knitting-type of yarn. The wefts will be some kind of synthetic blend - acrylic/nylon, etc. It makes a very nice hand for the blankets.

If I get these finished, I will probably enter one of these in the fair as well.