Kelly Casanova Weaving Lessons

weaving

The Simple Life

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It’s quite a popular topic nowadays, the “simple life” and how to obtain it. Do some people spend so much time pursuing this so called simplicity and their ideal of what that is that they miss the point entirely? 


Is the simple life about living the dream or living the reality? The dream for me is a country property and earning a good income through a  handmade business. The reality is suburbia, traffic, very little time to devote to a business of any kind and a very limited budget. But that’s not the point, right? 

The point is, what can I do right now to live the simple life given my circumstances? 


I was pondering the simple life and what simplicity means to me. It occurred to me that one of the most rewarding parts of simple living is that you can take very little and turn it into something 
special.

Home made bread for example. Usually 4 ingredients. Inexpensive, ordinary ingredients. Add time, love, technique and you have something awesome.

Weaving is another example. With threads and a loom I can make the most beautiful variety of things.



Soap making? Once again, very few ingredients. A bit of time and attention and you have a whole batch of creamy, natural soap for your family.


That property in the country may or may not ever happen, in the meantime I will try to be grateful for all I have and all I can do. And if it does happen, I guess I’ll be well prepared šŸ™‚

Weaving twill towels and a fluffy “assistant”

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I’ve been having a bit of fun with some towels this week. I warped with a natural cotton and threaded for twill. This is just one twill variation.


Once you’ve threaded in twill, there are a lot of variations to try. This one is extended twill with a black weft.

Straight up twill with a blue weft.


And here we have extended twill with red weft.

This is what I came across this morning. Note the chewed thread in the mouth. I posted this on a weaving group on Facebook and set off a whole series of naughty kitty photos, it was very amusing. It seems that looms are a magnet for cats! Thankfully the cloth was not damaged, I just had to cut the affected thread and start a new one. Could have been a lot worse!

Clasped weft table runner

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More of a table centre piece, it doesn’t quite have the length of a runner. This is the piece I wove for my recent rigid heddle clasped weft video tutorial.


I dyed the cottons specifically for this project. I wanted a good contrast between the variegated rainbow and the blues.


I love the clasped weft technique, the finished product and the process of randomly incorporating lengths of colour.


I hemstitched whilst on the loom so that the piece would sit flat on the table.

If you like this piece as much as I do it is available to purchase in my Etsy shop. And if you want to give the technique a go yourself please take the time to watch my video, it’s not as scary as it looks!

So, what’s happening next year?

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I don’t know, I really don’t. Of course I have hopes, dreams, aims, goals, but I have learned (and it’s taken a really long time) that life is easier when you let God do the planning and you do the following.



At the moment, I would love to further my business. I’d like to wake up, have a shower, some breakfast, maybe walk the dog and then sit down to my loom and weave. And just keep weaving until I wanted to do something else – probably some dyeing. I’ve tried to work more on being a “real” artist for years and failed over and over. But I don’t feel too sad about it anymore.  Because I’ve come to a realisation.





Being a real artist is not my real job. Being a wife is. Being a mother is. Being a servant of God is. These are the things that God is calling me to first. Everything else has to wait, and this fact is good and right. He gives me time here and there to work on the things I love, but only after my other duties for the day are fulfilled.





Maybe one day I will get to work full time on creative stuff. Or maybe God has other plans for me – whatever the case all He asks is for me to listen and obey, and with His grace, this is what I intend to do.

That awesome feeling!

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Of finishing a project and finding that you love it! Remember this post? My, how things can change.

So, the blanket was woven on 4 shafts with my hand dyed Australian 4ply cotton. I used a twill variation for the pattern.


It’s actually quite thick and heavy, so definitely better suited to cooler times than we are experiencing at the moment! (37 degrees today).


My little sweetheart was good enough to model it for me, even in the heat. 

This blanket will be in my Etsy shop in the near future, so look out for that if you like what you see šŸ™‚

Cutting handwoven cloth, one method

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Cutting a length of cloth of the loom is so exciting! But then what? If you’re not leaving a fringe you have to finish the fabric somehow, and if you’re cutting into it you may be afraid of unravelling. This is a great, easy method to use for either finishing to hem or if you need to cut into the fabric.

Firstly, once off the loom, the fabric needs to be wet finished and dried before you consider cutting.

When you’ve determined your cutting line (whether it’s at the end of the fabric or somewhere else) cut a length of light, fusible interfacing the length of the cut and about 2 inches in width. It must be the fusible type or this won’t work. Iron it so that your cutting line is roughly in the middle (so you have half of the interfacing on either side of the cut line). For me, the cut line was where the end of the woven fabric met the beginning of the fringe. Cover with a pressing cloth and iron until fused. 

The underside of the fabric now looks like this, nothing is really visible from the front side.

 Using your cutting line as a guide, serge right across. Can you see where the fringe begins and woven cloth ends? That was my guideline for serging. If you don’t have a serger, a zigzag stitch on the sewing machine will suffice, but the serger definitely does a superior job. Janome is a reliable brand if you are in the market for a serger.

Now you have a neat serged edge. The threads are completely secure and haven’t moved in the serging process due to the interfacing fixed in place. From this point you can go on to use your fabric according to your plans or begin to hem.

To finish the fabric with a hem, I fold over the serged edge once and iron down flat.

Then a second fold to enclose the serged edge and interfacing, press with the iron once again and pin in place if you wish.

Sewing the hem can be done by machine or hand. I used my machine with a straight stitch, close to the folded edge at the back. My machine is a very simple and straightforward Janome, although mine is an older model you can see something similar here.
Voila! Easy peasy and all secure, no loose or displaced threads and the interfacing gives extra support when hemming!


I have a Youtube video covering this topic for your further research.

One project finished, onto the next!

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The rose path scarf is finished! 

It felt so good to cut my first project on my new loom off and finish it.

It’s the first time I’ve woven with Bambu 7 as well, it is truly beautiful – so soft and a gorgeous sheen.

The reverse side.

The front.

And now I’m working on some more luxury face cloths for my Etsy shop. They were so popular last time, I’ve been wanting to restock ever since. 
I must say, it was really nice to direct warp the rigid heddle loom after going through the debacle of warping the 8 shaft loom for the scarf. So many errors! But, as I’ve heard many people say, you tend to learn more from mistakes than successes. 

New loom progress

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Did I tell you about my new loom? I’ve been saving for this one for a while! It’s an 8 shaft Ashford table loom, and it’s a beauty. And a real learning curve. I’ve had it for a couple of weeks, but only yesterday did I start weaving on it.
The warping and threading process is very different to the simple old rigid heddle, so I’ve had to learn warping on a board, reading pattern drafts, threading texolv heddles and following lift plans.
Lots of reading, watching videos and asking questions on Facebook groups. But it’s all starting to come together and…

The results are stunning. This is a rose path pattern on only 4 shafts (soon I might be brave enough to use all 8 shafts, but oh! the threading time is so long!) I’m starting out with a scarf using Bambu 7, which is just gorgeously soft and shiny.


I’m sure I’ll have my next project planned before this is finished, but for now I will just enjoy having it warped, threaded and the weaving!