Weaving A Gem Of A Life

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Before I finished NP’s wrap I shot a picture with my cell phone while I was sitting at the loom throwing the shuttle. I thought it would show more action than it does. I guess I’d need a video to do that. I like it anyway.

Right now both RA & NP’s wraps are woven, off the loom, inspected, hemmed, washed and dried. I still have to press and label before I can package them for shipment.

When I took a walk yesterday morning the trees had jewels. It had rained and then got cold. Cold enough to snow, and to make each raindrop linger on the branches and shimmer in the morning light.

Handmade Holiday, part 2

I just can’t get enough of the look of a new warp as it’s wound on the back beam, and this one for RA & NP is no exception. Their shared baby wrap warp is on my loom now. Here you can see both sides of the wrap as it passes over the cloth beam. (The colors ar

In fact, moments ago I finished weaving RA’s wrap with a black tencel weft and started on NP’s with a navy cotton weft.

So what are the other holiday gifts I made?

My daughter requested colorful towels for her kitchen as Christmas presents. Different towels for each season. Here was the criteria I used:

I wouldn’t buy any yarn for these projects, instead using only yarns from my stash.
I would give her 2 towels for each season and have 2 additional towels per season. I would have loved to have more ‘extra’ towels, but time was not on my side since I didn’t get the first towel started until after Thanksgiving. So I warped for 4 towels per season.
I would use different weaving drafts for the towels: 1 crackle, 1 lace, 1 straight draw, and 1?? Except I ended up doing 2 straight draw because of the number of colors in the warps.
My daughter would get the towels with any weaving errors, selvedge issues, or other imperfections; I’d sell the others.

All towels were woven predominantly with Maurice Brassard 8/2 cotton. Here’s the info and photos of each towel set.

Christmas towels: warp: cerise; weft: 1 red, 2 raspberry, 1 gris pale (I thought the pale gray would look like silver with the cerise. It just looks dull. I also ran out of warp for this one so it’s quite short.)

Springtime towels: warp: vert pale, cobalt, handpainted cotton/hemp; weft: 2 jaune pale, 1 orange pale, 1 vert pale

Summer towels: warp: homestead cotton baby blue, blue, nassau blue, Maurice Brassard vert pale; weft: 1 pale blue, 1 A Touch of Twist variegated cotton slub, 2 plaid

Autumn towels: warp: orange pale, brun moyen, limette pale, orange brule, cerise, jaune fonce, sapin, rouille, olive; weft: 1 orange brule, 1 rouille, 2 cerise

Now you’ve seen it all…what came off my loom recently and what’s on it now. I’ve got to go walk Jack, then back to the loom.

Handmade Holiday, part 1

By now everyone for whom I made Christmas gifts has received them, so I can show you. I decided to go with the order in which I made them.

First is a knitted baby blanket for my grandson, RCA, who will likely be born within the next 2-1/2 weeks. The request, from his big brother, was a blanket as soft as his (the brother’s). What he loves about his blanket is the pilling of the acrylic yarn, so that’s what I used. Because RCA will be born in late December/early January I decided to knit with 2 strands of yarn at once to produce a heavier blanket.

Then I went moved to my sewing machine. I made 10 fleece hats for adults. The two on the bottom left of the photo for me, the rest are gifts.

Although I like hats, I know some of the women I was making gifts for prefer handbands, so I made five of those.

Then I made two hats for kids on my list, my 4 year old grandson and 1 year old grand nephew.

I ended the sewing with several infant hats from knit fabric for my new grandson and grand nephew.

I got all the patterns I used free online, but I also made adjustments to every one since they didn’t exactly work as is for me. I should also mention that I don’t really know how any of the hats will fit the intended recipient. I used my head as an adult average, and made a few smaller. For the kids and infants? No real clue.

Then I knit two more hats for my grandson, one with the yarn from his blanket, one with sock yarn. I love that little sock yarn hat.

In my next post I’ll show you what’s come off of and is currently on my looms.

Last wrap of the year

RA and NP have been patiently waiting through the holiday enjoyment and preparation for their wraps to get onto my loom. Here you go, moms!

Choosing five colors for her warp, RA worked carefully, and her choices just couldn’t be better. Every one of her colors works just perfectly with the color next to it.

The photo above is bout 1 – mauve pale to periwinkle. I forgot to take a photo of bout 2, periwinkle to rose pale. The periwinkle, one of my personal favorite colors, plays so nicely with the mauve that I was a bit apprehensive about how it would look with the rose. I needn’t have worried…they’re beautiful together!

Here’s the third bout – rose pale to rose fonce. Again, the colors look great.

I couldn’t get a good photo of bout 4 – rose fonce to fuschia, but it is equally as beautiful as the other 3.

I have the warp spread in the raddle, and I may beam it tomorrow. We’ll see how Christmas Eve plays out. I probably won’t be back at my blog tomorrow regardless, so MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

New aprons

An apron isn’t just something you wear when you cook. In the weaving world, an apron is a piece of sturdy cloth that’s important to the functioning of your loom. A month ago I showed you the worn out, ripped apron on my Macomber. Instead of buying fabric and making new aprons, I took Theresa’s advice and ordered new aprons for both my Mac and my little counterbalance loom. They came in a few days ago, and today I made the time to install them. Sarah, a Macomber saleswoman, was helpful in giving me some phone advice.

Like most tasks, it starts with a bit of demo…removing the old apron.

Once I got the old apron off I could see the pencil line that someone at the Macomber factory drew almost 60 years ago for straight apron placement.

In addition to the aprons, Macomber sent me a whole bunch of staples…the kind you hammer in place…to install them with. I’m a bit, um, hammer impaired. I’ve always had a difficult time hammering a nail straight. So with these fat, little staples it was a challenge for sure. This is not what you want to happen.

I ruined at least 10 staples on that first apron and beam. And I had 3 more aprons and beams to go. The instructions suggested I remove the beams to make the task easier, but I wasn’t prepared to do that for the back beam…it seemed a bit of a big deal.

Taking off the front beam is really easy so I did that. And installing the apron was MUCH easier. I ruined only 3 staples. I think I ruined a total of 3 staples on both beams of my counterbalance.

After the apron cloths were in place I inserted the first apron rod in the hem. Then I inserted the pre-cut waxed strings (not sure if they’re cotton or linen) into the pre-made holes in the apron.

Finally I tied those strings onto the 2nd apron rod. I spent a bunch of time trying to get the tension the same across the width of the rod. I’m used to a continuous string and it’ll take a bit for me to be as comfortable with the individual strings.

After I’ve used the new aprons a few times, making any needed adjustments and/or tightening strings, I’ll trim off the ends of the knots so they’re not clumsy and in my way. But not yet.

I repeated this entire process with the front beam on the Mac and both the beams on the counterbalance.

Looking forward to my first use. Very soon, I think.

Weaving A Gem Of A Life

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Handmade Holiday, part 2

Handmade Holiday, part 1

Last wrap of the year

New aprons

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