Monday, February 19, 2007

Project Let Down


Have you ever finished a project only to be a little bit disappointed in the final product? This color gamp shawl did exactly what it was supposed to do--it gave me the opportunity to play with color in the warp and weft. And it looks....well....like a table runner, or a carpet. My warp stripes are completely overshadowed by my weft colors!

So, back to the drawing board. Things I learned in this project (in no particular order):
1) warp stripes are easily overshadowed by weft colors
2) 30" is an ok width to weave.
3) 60+ inches of length is ok, but I wound a lot of bobbins!
4) Braided fringe is nice for showing off color and keeping warp ends from getting tangled.
5) Twill patterns are cool! (They look so neat up close!)

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Dust bunnies



As I was winding another bobbin for my color gamp, I found lots of dust on the loom. It turns out my make-shift bobbin winder is slowly being eaten away by the teeth on the conewinder! Go figure! I had no idea I would be spending so much time winding bobbins, but it sure beats having to wind all that yarn by hand onto a shuttle!

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Color!



The Wabash Weavers' Guild is discussing color in warps this month. I decided that it was time for me to do a color gamp. I chose colors from my stash--mostly aiming to use yarns of similar sizes--and trying to cover lots of colors. The warp is threaded in an alternating basket weave/twill variants structure from the book "Twill Thrills". I only have three colors of weft so far, but they are so amazing! The twill patterns show up differently with each color of weft!

My guess is that this shawl won't be done by Friday for our guild meeting. It's 30" wide on loom--the widest piece I've done so far--and will hopefully be 72" long.

Like all projects it has it's challenges. The first inch or so of weaving was plauged with a mysterious weft-removal issue. The basket weave sections at each end were somehow being 'un-woven'! It took a few moments thought before I remembered that basket weave required a double shot of weft, and that since I wasn't doing anything to secure the weft between shots I was unintentionally unweaving with the second shot.

There is also the challenge of trying to get even tension on the warp with a random collection of warp threads. I think my blue stripe is 100% cotton (the others are springy and I think they are likely to be rayon or polyester) and it just doesn't stretch like the others. It's been easy to overtighten this yarn, which looked terrible once I started weaving. I think I finally have the tension even--at least close enough that I've declared it's weaving time!

"Weave like the wind, Bullseye!"
(modification on a quote from "Toy Story 2")

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Finished Object (really!)


I know this looks like a ball of yarn, but it's really the sign of a finished object. The rest of the ball of yarn went to make a pair of socks for my preschooler who turns 4 this month. The socks are a toe-up pattern from Schurch's Sensational Socks book. Kids socks are a great way of trying new patterns because they are small!

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Art and Motion


Here's the latest off the wheel--green romney wool and yellow domestic top. These were part of a dye project a few months ago and I only have an ounce of each color. I am keeping these as singles for now, hoping that they will find a place in a weaving project!