Moving forward

If you’re visiting hoping to see photos of the gifts I made for Christmas, you’ll have to wait and come back. My visit with my friend got postponed so I’m still not sharing those and spoiling her surprise. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to show you!

I’ve continued to knit for donating to people who need things. Just one hat-and I probably won’t knit more unless they are requested-and 3 pairs of mittens. Two are for primary-aged kids, one for toddlers. More mittens on my needles, this time for elementary-aged kids or adults with small hands. I’ll keep knitting mittens until the weather warms up dramatically.

I’ve also done a fair bit of work preparing for my 2022 Christmas cards. I spent a bunch of time deciding on a weave structure, planning it out for the number of ends I need and centering the design. Just 185 ends. Wanting to stick to my stash yarns, I decided on 20/2 mercerized cotton, sett at 36 ends per inch. Doesn’t take long to measure out the warp or get it on the loom.

I downloaded an audiobook, planning to listen while I wove. Well. Since this design is weave-as-drawn-in, that also means 185 picks. It therefore requires far more concentration than I can achieve while listening to a book, or even listening to music that will tempt me to sing along. So I stick with NPR. Still, I learn that I can’t weave more than 3 cards at one sitting or I lose my focus. No biggie; I don’t need these for 10 months. Although of course they can’t tie up my loom that long. 🙂

Now it’s time to start auditioning wefts, again sticking with the colors of 20/2 cotton in my stash. I started with a light-ish blue. Not enough contrast. Plus I wasn’t beating hard enough so the design was elongated and unclear for that reason as well. Next I went to a very dark purple. Both too dark and beat too firmly.

Moving on. Here’s a nice Christmas red, beat to just about square. Yep, this’ll work. I wove 5 of these.

I didn’t want to weave 30+ cards exactly the same, as it would be even more challenging for me to maintain sufficient focus. So I dug out a Christmas green. That worked, too, so I wove 5 green.

Then I found a slightly darker blue, although it’s slightly thicker at roughly 6,000 yards per pound compared to the 7,200 yards per pound of the 20/2. So I couldn’t get this color quite square, but I was okay with that. And although it’s not my favorite color combo, I wove 5 blue.

Woah! I found a small spool of gold metallic, so wound a bobbin with that and the gold 20/2 and checked it out. I liked it so wove 5 of these, as well. You can’t really see the metallic in the straight-on photo, so I took one at an angle, too. I also couldn’t get this design square as the gold & metal together are thicker than 20/2, but again was okay with that.

Because I liked that, I tried using that metallic thread with the red yarn. I definitely preferred the red on its own, but wove 2 cards with the red & gold because I’d wound a bobbin with that much thread.

Then, since I like the gold with the metallic, I figured I should try the gold on its own. Meh.

So I wove an additional 4 (so far) cards in just red.

If you’re counting, that’s up to 27 cards. I don’t need many more. But it’s clear that I have A LOT of warp left. I haven’t yet decided if I’ll keep weaving this design or just cut it off and toss the remaining warp. It’ll depend on where I am mood-wise when I get to that point. I’ll weave one more red, then I want to try one with just metallic, then…we’ll see.

It’s a real change for me not to worry at all about the fact that my selvedges are sort of ugly. They won’t be seen. 🙂