weaving

Weaving sampler

I’ve always avoided doing samples of just about anything, I’m a “just get me to the good part!” kinda girl! But I finally bit the bullet and decided to warp up the rigid heddle loom with cotton (so I can sew them into dish cloths and make the sampler useful). Armed with Jane Patrick’s “The Weaver’s Idea Book” and a couple of pick up sticks I just leafed through, picked a pattern I wanted to try and started.

What a surprise! Weaving patterns is not hard. I repeat. Weaving patterns is not hard! Why did I have this in my too hard basket for so long? Most of these patterns were made with one pick up stick, then once you’re used to that it’s easy to introduce a second stick.

Above you can see a honeycomb pattern, some lace variations and some grouped and paired warp floats. Unfortunately I didn’t write down the patterns as I went, so lost track of a few.

As I wove pattern after pattern I realised just how many patterns are possible. Hundreds.

See the diamond shapes? I did a little surface embellishment with different coloured cottons and a tapestry needle. So effective!

Some more surface embellishment on the orange weave here, just tying in little knots for fun. The pink and blue you see here is a windowpane weave, which is gorgeously textured.

And now for the super cool part. Flip your work over and you have a completely new set of patterns – yes, most of the patterns are reversible and look different on each side.

The back of the honeycomb weave becomes a series of curved weft floats.

The back looks just as good as the front but totally different!

I’ve learned so much from weaving this sampler and it was well worth the time investment.

I discovered things like if you’re weaving different patterns on one piece you need to be aware that individual patterns will have their own draw in rates, so you need to be aware of that unless you want wonky edges.

I learned that my humble rigid heddle weave is capable of much more than I gave it credit for and I still have plenty more to explore.

I learned not to be so afraid of trying something new.

I learned that making great cloth is not hard and is fun and interesting.

So, now I’m settled on a pattern to use for the scarf I’m doing to enter into the Melbourne Show. I’m working on it right now, can’t wait to show you when it’s finished!

Making for cold weather

by Kelly 1 Comment

We’ve had a cold snap this week, Winter is really here. My oldest girl has nearly worn out her handmade tops, so it was time for a new one. The beautiful navy floral print is a gorgeous Stenzo knit from Zebra fabrics, it’s so incredibly soft. Other prints from Crafty Mamas.

The loom is always dressed these days! For this scarf I used hand dyed merino and also my hand dyed, handspun. Simple placement of colours gives such a great effect!

Thin stripes of solid colour paired with a variegated handspun makes a party of colour dots, I love it.

This is a sampler I’ve been working on. I thought it was about time for me to see what this rigid heddle loom can do, I’ve been lazy with all this plain weave! Using Jane Patrick’s book “The Weaver’s Idea Book” I’ve tried out about 8 different patterns using pick up sticks and it’s really not hard!

I posted this photo on the Facebook rigid heddle weaving group, encouraging members to have a go at making patterns and the response was huge! It seems I’m not the only who was stuck in the plain weave comfort zone.

I’ll be utilising some of these newly learned techniques to weave a scarf to enter in the Royal Melbourne Show weaving section, can’t wait to get started!

Fickle

by Kelly 6 Comments

I’ve definitely caught the weaving bug now that the weather is cool and often rainy. The loom is very well dressed these days!

Sometimes I lament that I seem unable creatively to stick to one thing for long – as the title of this post suggests, I am very fickle! I become obsessed with doing something (weaving right now) for a length of time, and then it’s on to the next thing.

This can have benefits – I do come back to things, they don’t get abandoned entirely, unless I really don’t enjoy it. I’m fairly multi skilled and most, if not all of those skills can be used together. However, I often think it would be really wonderful if I could keep the focus on just one or two things and really build that skill to a high level. It seems that the need for change and newness are just part of my restless nature.

I’m still taking photos but the photography passion has subsided a little too. Sigh, such a pity. I’ll keep going regardless, I still have much to learn and many improvements to make.

The rain brings fresh inspiration and life to the garden. We have lots of plans for renewing the garden.

The mexican orange blossom is so pretty in a vase with it’s dark, lush leaves and dainty, sweet flowers.

Plenty of lemons on the tree, but no eggs from the chooks! I just find that when there are lemons around I always want some eggs as well.

The classic and dainty foxglove.

How about you? What’s happening in your part of the world? How are you finding the gradual change in seasons? What are you working on? I’d love to hear from you!

Only half way?!

by Kelly 4 Comments

It’s a little bit sobering to spend hours on a project and only be half way through. I don’t know what I was expecting, but weaving a 3.5 metre in 4ply takes a really long time! Now I really hope the project works out as I envisioned!
I begin to think that more than one loom is a really super idea, I have more projects I want to get on with!
Anyway, here is a work in progress shot of the looooong project.
Hopefully I’ll be back before too long to show you the finished project.

Woven poncho finished

by Kelly 6 Comments

So, the poncho is finished! The hand dyed combined with baby pink yarn worked perfectly.

The yarn is all 8ply, which gives a lovely, light, yet warm feel to the garment.

At this point my little model decided that Mum had really taken enough photographs already.

We escalated into silliness.

And you know you’re pretty much done when it gets to this point!

Anyway, I’m super happy with how the poncho came out, it was a big experiment for me as I made the design from scratch. Now the question is whether to make more for the Etsy shop, what do you think?

Weaving WIP

by Kelly 4 Comments

The cooler weather and wet, gloomy days are doing wonders for my weaving enthusiasm! The loom just looks so bare when it’s undressed, so I’m getting organised with two new projects I’ve had in mind for ages.

First up is a little draped poncho thing for my youngest daughter. I’m not exactly sure how this will pan out yet, but I’ve dyed some brighter than intended wool yarn for the warp and am going to tone it down with some “baby pink” for the weft.

I’m just a wee bit excited about these new projects and hope that if they turn out well I can do some for my lately neglected Etsy shop as well. Stay tuned!

Hand woven dish cloths

by Kelly 9 Comments

Over the weekend I wove some dish cloths with some beautiful Australian 10ply cotton that I rainbow dyed. I’ve been wanting to try out waffle weave and thought that kitchen cloths would be perfect.

All of these were woven on the same warp on my rigid heddle loom. Did you know you can do that? Warp once, weave many, much easier! Just leave a gap of 5 – 6 inches between each cloth, towel or whatever item you’re weaving. I hemstitched each one on the loom and left a short fringe at each end.

They sold like hot cakes with an order for more and I’m not surprised. If you’ve never tried a handmade cotton kitchen cloth (either woven, knitted or crocheted) you really should, they are far superior to any commercial cloth. I use mine as a multi purpose kitchen cloth for wiping and washing. They last a long time and can be thrown in the wash and line dried. My next order is for re-usable baby wipes – another great idea.

These are some other cloths I wove last year in plain weave so the baby wipes will be similar – fairly thin and very soft for baby skin.

The next thing for me to look at is tea towels. I really wasn’t happy with my last lot – I think the cotton was too thick, I need specific weaving cotton.

If you’re interested in trying waffle weave on your own rigid heddle, there is a great pattern sequence HERE, look specifically in the comments section for the sequence.

You need one pick up stick but it’s very easy to master.

Specifications for my cloths:

10 ply cotton (warp & weft)

7.5 dpi

60cm rigid heddle loom

Hemstitched on loom.

Wet finished, laid flat to dry.

Linking up with Creative Friday on Natural Suburbia.

Woven lap blanket

by Kelly 2 Comments

A lot of the things I make by hand are a labour of love these days and this blanket definitely falls into that category!

This was my first double weave project on the rigid heddle loom. A brief explanation: The loom usually has one heddle to weave cloth a certain width and in a single layer. Add a double heddle kit (giving you now two heddles instead of one) and you can weave double the width of cloth. The idea of this really appealed to me, as my loom is 60cm wide which is not wide enough for a blanket.

Well, what a steep learning curve! There is not a lot of information about double weave available and it took me a long time (hours in fact) to get the loom warped (normally takes 20 – 30 minutes) and getting all the heddles threaded was a strain on my back. Did I mention my back injury has flared up again? Anyway, once I got to the actual weaving I encountered more issues and re-started twice before I felt comfortable with what I was doing.

The weaving took a long time too. When I finished and took it off the loom I found a lot of floats (threads that didn’t catch in the weaving pattern and so just “float” on the surface of the work) on the underside which was disappointing – they don’t look good and take a potentially professional looking piece to a somewhat amateur piece.

The story ends well. The blanket isn’t what I hoped it would be but it was an excellent learning exercise (not to mention one in patience!) and it’s a terrifically warm and cosy lap blanket that has been used nearly every day. Success? Sort of!

The specs in case you’re a weaver –

10ply woollen yarn (didn’t record the amount, silly me)

7.5 dpi

60cm Ashford rigid heddle loom

Will I make another blanket? Oh yes I will! Will it be double weave? Oh no it won’t! It will be panels which I will join – I know the seams will show but it has to be easier than double weave!

Linking up with Ginny’s Yarn along 🙂

Rainbow wrap/shawl

by Kelly 5 Comments

I started with these 8ply merino colours from my hand dyed stash.

I warped the loom and wove using a very deep purple.

And this is how it turned out!

There are many styles to wear a wide, long shawl in.

It’s lovely and warm too.

Weaving this has given me some fresh ideas on using the warp as a feature.

I’ve ordered a second heddle kit for my loom, which means that I will be able to weave double the width of cloth without buying a larger loom! Exciting! I’ve always wanted to weave baby blankets and the new kit will allow me to do that.

There is always something new to learn or a way to expand your skills.

Happy creating!

Dye, spin, weave!

by Kelly 3 Comments

My first 100% hand dyed, hand spun and hand woven item! I’ve been working up to this for a while, practicing my spinning to get a more consistent yarn.

I decided on a “long and skinny” style. It is a plain weave but the interplay of colours makes it appear more complicated than it is.

I used First Edition fibre to dye and then spin, it’s lovely and soft.

One of my dreams is to do many more of these types of items and be able to sell them. I love the authenticity of making the item from start to finish (OK, I didn’t shear the sheep!) But from my experience as a handmade artisan I seriously doubt that customers would be willing to pay the amount I would need to charge to cover the time invested – many, many hours. Still, I may just do the occasional piece and make it available for sale. I’d love to do some pieces for exhibition or competition as well.

This was the original yarn.

What’s next? Perhaps a shawl? Phew, that’s going to take a while, I’d better start spinning!