When I left the Letchworth Arts & Crafts show last year I decided I had to have more small items to sell this year. Way back in December I started some pick up weaving on my rigid heddle loom specifically for this purpose. I finally finished the weaving in May.
Now, I’ve really finished the pieces. Here are some little magnets.
They’re quite small. The interior dimensions are about 1.75″ x 2.2″. Trust me when I tell you that it was quite a challenge to get the weaving into the magnet straight. Or even to get it into the frame, period. Weaving is a lot thicker than a photo, which is what the frames were designed for. I don’t know that I’ll do this again. Nor do I know what happened to the 12th frame I bought. So there are 11 of these little guys. Perhaps for all time.
Now the cards are a different story. I’m not overjoyed with some of the weaving, but it was really easy to machine stitch the raw edges to an appropriate size and make the cards. They came with heavy duty double-sided tape in 4 places, and the end result is a finished piece.
I definitely like the white card stock better than the ivory, and I probably won’t do all pick up next time I make cards, but if these sell I think I’ll make some more of these.
Then I wove another two dozen bookmarks. My customers love the ones made with variegated yarns, so I used left overs of Tammy’s hand painted yarns for all of them. This makes 112 that I’ve woven so far this year. Sounds like a lot to me, till I remember that Amanda made 2,000!
I figured I’d round out the small items with some mug rugs. I haven’t had any of them available in quite a while. I used a cotton/rayon/flax blend for the warp & wool or blends for the weft. I wove a total of 22 mug rugs.
It’s impossible to tell the colors in the photo, but from top left the warp is black wool, burgundy wool, variegated wool/acrylic blend, and variegated sock yarn.
I managed to weave & finish three more rayon chenille scarves. Tammy’s Magic Kingdom colorway is the warp. Two had her azure weft, the last had a navy weft. I like them all.
[…] than a year later I tried some clasped weft with the little pickup pieces I did on my rigid heddle. Never having seen it done I no doubt did it the hardest way […]
[…] I can now show you my latest weaving efforts. I made everyone bookmarks, but not my ordinary bookmarks, which are woven using a 5/2 cotton warp and similar sized wefts, all woven on four shafts. I like […]
I really like the refrigerator magnets. (Sorry they’re a pain!) And the cards are lovely!!
You do such good work!
Yeah, I’m sorry they’re such a pain, too, Alma. I like them, and think they’d be better sellers than the cards. That’s how life goes, eh?
Your bookmarks are very pretty! You definitely have quality over quantity there.
Thanks, Amanda, but you imply that yours weren’t pretty, and that’s certainly not true!