so it's been a while, but I'm still weaving....

It has been almost a year since I wrote here, but I haven't been ignoring the loom too much.  The year was a busy one.  I did some grad school work and have been running my theater's improv group.  I also started a job!

I have been weaving, but have been too lazy to take pictures of my work and post them here.

BUT I WILL..... soon.

The move

I started school again back in September.  I didn't do much weaving after that, although I did do some.  Then, in early November we found out we were moving in six weeks.  So everything except for the essentials stopped as we prepared our cross-country move.  The loom, which still had it's yellow chenille warp on it was carefully wrapped up.

We have moved and are settleing in.  Last night I fixed up my loom from it's move.  Three warp threads had broken.  Not bad.  I did what I could to repair those and I started weaving again.  I broke two more threads.  Repair.

Considering the trama my loom just went through, I have to say it came out well.  I'm looking forward to sitting down to it more often and working on my projects again.  Right now I'm making some simple fabric.  My weaving vocabulary has left my mind and I can't think of the kind of pattern I'm doing.  I have plans for it.  A few months ago, I saw the cutest hat made from hand woven fabric, like I'm doing now.  I'm going to try and make me a hat with it.  I love hats and recently, my daughter has gotten into wearing hats too.  I'll make us matching ones. 

Fall project

Being in school and running my theater, I've been busy and haven't spent much time weaving, but here is what I finished most recently.


It's purdy.

I don't know why my computer is doing this with my pictures.  I rotate them, but they aren't saving properly, I guess.  Still, you can get an idea of what it looks like.  It's a gold and navy blue chenille/rayon yarn.  It's about 6 feet long and almost 3 feet wide.

Blue and Gold Overshot project

A picture update on my latest project.  It's a blue and gold chenille overshot weave.  It's looking so cool!

 I love the way overshot looks.  Those are some amazing patterns!

You have just seen AWESOMENESS!

A new project

It's been three months since I updated this blog.  I didn't do any weaving for about 2 months.  I was busy with other projects.  Last week I finished what was on the loom.  I quickly decided on my next project and decided to go BIG!

The next project will use the full width of the loom - all three feet of it.  It will be 402 (if I counted properly) pieces of yarn.  I don't have any idea how long it will be.  I really should measure that.  My loom can hold 432 strands of yard, but the pattern I'm going to do is in multiples of 67.

This is all the yarn and the four pages of pattern that I'll use to thread the loom.

So, over the last three days I've been putting the thread on the warping board.  My board can only hold about two hundred threads at a time, so I had to do two groups.  This evening I managed to tie the threads to the back of the loom and now is my least favorite part of weaving, winding the thread onto the loom.  It gets tangled so easily.  This is scary:

I've only just started and already it's a tangled mess!  Oh well, there is no rush and each time I do this, I learn a little more.  It's going to look great!  Just you wait.

Preparing the Loom

Getting the loom ready. What a process.
First, I get the warp onto the warping board.
  
Next is the hardest part for me:  Getting the warp off the warping board and onto the loom without making a huge tangled mess.

There is a special kind of braid that can be done to keep the yarn in some sort of order.  Here I've placed the yarn onto the back of the loom with the aid of lease sticks.  I don't know why they are called that.  Then I'll tie the warp onto the dowel that goes over the back beam.

Next I wind the thread onto the back of the loom. Then with the greatest of patience, I thread each individual thread through a heddle (those metal pieces that are vertical).  After I get each thread in, I thread the yarns though the beater.  You can see here in the picture the green threads that have already been put into the beater.

Many slip knots are used to keep the threads separated and to keep them from sliding out of place.  Once I have all the yarn though the beater, I tie it to the front beam.  With that done, I'm are almost ready to weave.  Almost.
 
This picture jumps ahead a bit, but you can see the very beginning of the weave.  I've got toilet paper separating the threads and keeping them nice and even and in place.  Yep, toilet paper.

 
I use floating selvages on my edges.  They are not tied to the back of the loom, only the front, so they hang off the back beam of the loom.  To keep these floating bits of yarn in place, I use weights on the back.  In the past I've used PVC pipes, with the thread wrapped around it.  It didn't work well.  So, this time, I was trying to find something that would work better.  A quick glimpse into my children's room provided me with my answer.
 
Meet my weaving buddies, Gollum and Smeagol.

They hang around and keep my floating yarns in place.  They are perfect for the job!

That's how I get my loom ready to weave.  Now, off to weave.  These colors and this pattern are going to look great!

Pretty, but what is it?

I have some beautiful cotton chenille threads right now to play with.  One of them is a gorgeous lavender color.  I had to do something with it.

I've been having a lot of trouble getting the patterns in my weaving to show up.  One theory was I was using too thin of a warp thread for the larger, thicker chenille weft.  So, this project used the purple and blue chenille for the warp and then I woven entirely with the purple thread.  It is so soft!

The pattern still didn't show up like I had hoped, but it worked out better.  So, I played with it.  It's pretty and it is soft, but I'm not sure what I want to do with it.  I'm thinking I might sew it into large bags.
This is weave #1

Hold it up to the window and you can see a bit of the pattern.  It's isn't spectacular, but it's nice.  You can see in the weave there are darker threads, they are random blue threads I threw into the warp to spice it up a bit.

Weave #2

Here it is up to the window.  You can see the pattern so much better with light behind it:

I like this a lot.  It's got a nice stripe thing going on in it.

I like the idea of making some bags out of this, but I don't know what to use for a bag strap.  I thought about using the inkle loom to make nice straps, but you can see in the previous post, that turned into a disaster.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do.