Quick Weaving

It didn't take long for this project to get on and off the loom. It is a "thick and thin" four-harness weave structure. It was easy to put on and easy to weave...and it's done--wet finished, pressed, and awaiting final decisions on the bag it's going to become.

The thin yarn is a 10/2 cotton; the thick is a 4/2 cotton.















I ran into challenges with my "new" method of warping back to front. When I warp with one color of yarn, it is easy enough to put the lease sticks through the cross, thread a rod through the end of the warp cross, lash on to the back beam and wind the warp. Color changes every few threads is not easy on my warping reel, so I wound two warps--one thick, one thin--and then needed to combine them and get them on the back beam and then threaded without making a mess of the order of the threads.

I ended up using a set of lease sticks for each warp and then carefully picked up threads from each lease stick with my rod to get them lashed to the back beam. It was a little challenging getting the threads picked off the lease sticks and onto the rod, but it did work. Whew!







I found this pretty piece in the kids' dress up box this week. It is (was) a chenille poncho for my then three year old son made by my cousin, Ruthie. Over the years it has been worn as intended, worn as a costume accessory, and played with in countless ways. The yarns are beautiful. When I saw it languishing in the costume box, I couldn't handle it anymore. Such beautiful yarns need to be used!

So, I carefully frogged the knitted poncho and now have some chenille yarn to play with. What am I going to do with it? I'm not sure yet! I know that chenille is not good for warp, so I've got to go digging through my library for ideas on how to show case these yarns (there were two yarns knit together). Stay tuned for future developments!

(edited to add: I may be wrong about chenille in the warp. A quick search on Weavolution showed that it gets used as a warp lots...just keep the tension gentle on the warp and sett it for the core yarn, not the pile. Now to dream of how to use this chenille! :)