Last weaving class project

As my last project for the Beginning Weaving class, I decided that I wanted to try overshot. Another student showed an overshot sample she was working on, and I decided it was time to try it while I would still be able to bring it in for the teacher's critique and help if needed.

The scarf pattern is the His and Hers Scarf, and I thought I'd use green and berry colors, especially the lime green, so worked up my sample.


At first, I didn't like the color stripes, so went back to the shop and purchased additional colors to stay in a blue-violet to hot pink range, and made it up.



Here's the scarf, showing front and some of the wrong side. (Sorry about my toes, not enough time for Photoshop editing right now.)

Now that the scarf is off the loom, and I'm looking at my colorful sample and the scarf side-by-side, I'm thinking I should go ahead and work it up in the bright colors too (when I have the time).

Update on what I've been doing

The Mukilteo Quilt Guild is a very nice group of people, the lecture went well, and there is lots of interest in future classes, so we'll see what can be scheduled.

My self portrait is now quilted and has a bit of lacy embellishment, but still needs binding and a sleeve to be ready for the Stray Threads quilt show, along with finishing up a couple other little quilts. All need to be finished this week, so they can be turned in Thursday evening, and I had planned to work this weekend, but now we're off to work on moving in our renovated home, along with some yard work there.


Last week I managed another weaving sample with my handspun yarn, and after a bit of testing with different yarns, I settled on the blue tweedy one that I spun from a colorful, funky batt of wool and other fibers.

I really love the way it came out!

Lecture tonight

Today is a busy day. Yesterday I picked up quilts from my local quilt shop (of course, I forgot one, and am hoping to have time to pick it up on my way out), and am busy sorting and packing quilts. I take a lot of quilts for trunk shows that are within driving distance. Some old, some new, and I do my best to have at least one sample for each of my patterns.

Here's the quilt that started my business, my first pattern!

Weaving lace, or not

Well, I had intended to make a lace scarf with my handspun wools:


Specifics:

Pattern: Swarthmore Lace Weave, on p. 94 of A Handweaver'sPattern Book (The pattern has 5 grouped threads in one slot, skip a slot,and repeat)

Yarn: Handspun warp (Masham wool) and weft (Corriedale and Angelina), 16wpi, so I'm assuming 8epi to start with

Reeds available: 10 and 12, I'm using the 10

Warping back to front, with warp spread to 8epi. Warp width would be 10" for plain weaveI began threading the reed 5" right of center, and quickly realized that thewarp would be pulling diagonally and not work, so began again, working fromthe center out, with one skipped slot, as the pattern stated, but it wouldhave too much draw in, so began a third time, skipping 2 slots instead of one. [Reed is threaded 5,0,0,1,0,0,5,0,0,1,0,0 (original pattern stated it should be threaded 5,0,1,0,5,0,1,0).] I had what I thought were huge gaps, and the grouped threads didn't spread much to fill in, so I asked the WeaveTech group: Should I stop worrying about the draw-in, andjust rethread, skipping one slot, as the pattern stated, continue, because the large spaces are expected, and finish the sample to see what I think, or pick a different pattern for this yarn, until I can get an 8 reed?

I received several great answers, which I plan to try in the future, and in the meantime, I cut the sample off the loom and finished it - it's the sample pictured above, and if my warp and weft were the same yarn, I would make the scarf without making any changes. However, I only have a small amount of the green left, and I really don't like it with the weft being a different color from the warp, so am going to choose another pattern for this yarn combination, re-thread, and begin again.

I'm currently spinning up 8 oz. of a varigated yarn that I may use for this pattern in the future.

Studio - Moving In

Yep, I'm moving some of my stuff to the new studio!!! Since it's my second studio, and the second studio at our last house had built-ins, I've got to do some IKEA shopping before I can put things away, but it's great to be able to get my things in there, and not have 2 studios worth of stuff in one, not to mention easier to walk around!

Hot off the loom

I'm in love with this fabric! It's made up of carpet warp and 1/2" fabric strips, and when I started weaving I worried that I had cut too many strips that might end up going to waste, but now I'm looking forward to weaving more of it in the future.


It's my first real weaving project in the weaving class I'm taking at Weaving Works in Seattle, and destined to be a bag, although I could easily make two bags from this yardage, or one huge bag and several small, I'll just have to decide when I get it down to the sewing / quilting studio. I had also been considering inkle band strap(s), but now I'm thinking it may take away instead of adding to it.

A little progress, lesson learned

It's been busy around here, between family, the book (which should be back in the editor's hands by now), weaving classes (once a week with homework - I'll have to post those later), my pattern business, work on the new shop hop block for this year's Western Washington Quilt Shop Hop.

For the weaving class I'm taking, I've rented a table loom from the shop, and after weaving the first few samples on it, decided it was best to finish my scarf (pictured above, in progress, finished pictures to come later), so I could get it off the loom and do my weaving homework on my Spring loom, as I'm much more comfortable warping my floor loom, than the table loom, and the weaving usually goes much faster too.

I found several problems when warping and weaving this scarf. It all started with one or two threading errors, which I thought I had fixed, until I was well into the scarf and stubbornly refused to rip again (the yarn wanted to stick to itself, and was aweful to unweave), and then there were occasional uneaven beating areas. I really NEEDED to just sit and weave to relax. Of course, when I had woven the long 72" scarf (because I wasn't thinking!), I found that I had enough leftover warp, that I could have just cut the first part of the loom, fixed the remaining errors, and still had enough warp for a perfect scarf (or close), so if I was to do it over, I'd rather have a short scarf than a flawed one.

Now just because I said I wanted to use the floor loom to go faster, the project I'm working on for class right now is a rug warp with fabric strip weft bag, and since I decided to pick and choose the fabric strips as I went, it is not going all that fast (although faster than I thought it would).

Thank you!!!

Thank you everyone for all the kind words, I can't wait to post a picture of the book when my copy arrives, although it will still be quite a while until then.

I did take some in-progress pictures as I was working on the projects and once I finish editing and send the copy on to the editor, I'll contact Martingale to see just what I can and cannot share at this time.

In the meantime, I'll share my Fall Basket quilt, which is a class project, but related to the book.