{"id":4405,"date":"2013-03-16T07:26:15","date_gmt":"2013-03-16T12:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/?p=4405"},"modified":"2013-03-16T07:27:07","modified_gmt":"2013-03-16T12:27:07","slug":"rainbows-for-the-kitchen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/2013\/03\/rainbows-for-the-kitchen\/","title":{"rendered":"Rainbows for the kitchen"},"content":{"rendered":"

If I tell you I sometimes overthink things, I’m exaggerating. But not in a good way. I’ve mentioned before that I have a tendency to be obsessive. So when I get an idea in my head I all-too-often give it way too much mental and sometimes physical energy than is appropriate. <\/p>\n

After making all those placemats & napkins for my special order I got on a table linens kick and wanted to make more. I’d seen an online photo of something else that was handwoven out of cotton, in a lovely rainbow, and wanted to try that. All my other handwoven table linens are neutral colored & subdued. I wanted to weave something bright & cheery. <\/p>\n

The photo I saw had some interesting patterning in the rainbow, easing from one color to the next gradually. Yeah, that’s what I wanted to do! “Just the time to go for the Fibonacci series<\/a>,” I said to myself. So I sat myself down in front of my computer and started planning the colors. <\/p>\n

Hmmmmm. With 6 colors and only 270 threads I couldn’t work Fibonacci in well. So after a long time of trying this, that, and the other pattern I finally arrived at one I was happy with. <\/p>\n

Move to the warping board. Poop. Putting 1 thread of a different color in lots of places is far from easy. Or quick. Took a long time to measure this warp. <\/p>\n

Finally, to the loom. The warp beamed and threaded fine, so it’s time to start weaving. I started out and made a set of four placemats in a plaid, with equal-sized weft stripes of the rainbow colors.
\n\"rainbow<\/a><\/p>\n

I liked them, but in typical fashion for me, wanted to make the next set a bit different. So I wove the next four with a solid white weft.
\n\"rainbow<\/a><\/p>\n

I also liked these. Still I moved forward to a slightly different weft. I made six placemats each with a different solid color weft.
\n\"six<\/a><\/p>\n

As it turns out these are my least favorite. What was fine in the plaid placemats (for example purple crossing orange) was WAAAYY too much with a whole placemat in those colors. Too soon old, too late smart – that’s me.<\/p>\n

For the last length of warp I wove a runner with a solid white weft. Tossed the woven fabric into the washer & dryer, then had to face the issue of hemming. I decided it was best to take the advice I’d gotten from some other weavers (after I’d hemmed those special order ones) to buy a walking foot for my sewing machine. I’d never used one before, but went to my local Singer store & bought one. (Sorry for the fuzzy photo.)
\n\"walking<\/a><\/p>\n

Oh. My. God! After using it on a few placemats I called the store and told them I don’t know how I’d lived this long without one! It was AMAZINGLY easier to get a good hem with the walking foot than with a regular presser foot. This is particularly important when doing something with these narrow stripes that I had – generally impossible to match up. But now look!
\n\"rainbow<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m sure this walking foot will also make putting polyester binding on my baby blankets easier, too.<\/p>\n

So back to the beginning for a moment. When all is said & done I don’t think that it made one whit of difference that I spent all that time planning and then measuring out the warp with thin stripes of color. I think six solid blocks of color would have looked just as good. Another life lesson.<\/p>\n

Next I’m going to warp for some more towels. Most of the yarn I ordered has arrived, although some of it is back ordered. I’m going to get started now and I’ll have another option for my giveaway<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I tell you I sometimes overthink things, I’m exaggerating. But not in a good way. I’ve mentioned before that I have a tendency to be obsessive. So when I get an idea in my head I all-too-often give it way too much mental and sometimes physical energy than is appropriate. <\/p>\n

After making all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[530,304],"class_list":["post-4405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weaving","tag-cotton","tag-towels-linens","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4405"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4418,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4405\/revisions\/4418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}