yarn for the baby blanket

here's what i'm using for weft on my niece's baby blanket; 4/4 cotton

busy, busy, busy

been quite an adventure here at the weavery lately...had a new washer/dryer stacked unit installed and a new water heater, all in the same day in the very small bathroom. afterwards, floors needed cleaning and the closet needed putting back together along with a small mountain of laundry (been without a washer since two days before christmas). glad that's done!

now, onto weaving a baby blanket for my new niece. it'll be made out of 8/2 cotton, natural colored, for the warp and 8/4 and 4/4 cotton for the weft, light green/light blue/natural colors. yes, i said niece, not nephew! might throw some purple in there, too, just see how it goes. the finished blanket will be 36" x 36" so it will be done on the new big loom. the warp calculations declare i need 916 warp ends, each 5 yards long. oh my.

snow and holiday gifts

little bird tracks in the snow on the front porch


seven pounds of 8/2 cotton (two cones stacked on top of one another) waiting to become warps

terra cotta colored 8/2 cotton (4 tubes or 2lbs) waiting for warping

mrs b's give-away-gift WIP

here are the colors for the warp for mrs b's give-away-gift that i'm sponsoring for her 31 days of halloween 2010 as you can see i ran out of my orange and had to use some ivory to help get the total number of threads across (300 total)

here's the already sleyed threads going through the front of my (10 dent) reed (double sleyed)

and here are the threads from the back of the reed waiting to be threaded in a pattern to go into the heddles

woot! my laptop is back!

thanks to the amazing computing powers of two very wonderful friends, i'm back online with my laptop! sooo, here's a picture of pastor m wearing his Advent stole. the warp is an 8/2navy cotton and the pattern weft is white slub cotton in the star of bethlehem pattern. the ground weft is a 4/4 royal blue cotton.

and here is a close-up of the pattern:

my latest finished WIP

pastor m, with his new Ordinary Time stole. he's the music minister at church (hence the piano).

close-up of the design on the stole. it's an overshot called "small honeysuckle", a miniature pattern. the warp is an 8/2 100% cotton green (brownish tint), the ground weft is a 3/2 100% mercerized cotton green (bluish tint), the design is 22/2 cottolin (60/40 cotton/linen) in gold (might be antique gold).

overshot is, by far, my most favorite block pattern to weave. there are so many different designs to be made with just four harnesses (altho' one can weave overshot on more than four as well). and so many variations can be made with just one threading.

new WIP on the loom

i had a plan to take pictures and post them of how i go from the above cones of yarn to setting up the loom for weaving. however, when i took the pictures and looked at them i realized i couldn't post them. in the background were corners filled with cat fur and i could clearly see just how badly the carpet needs steam cleaning. so perhaps with the next project i can set up a more neutral background upon which to photograph the cone-to-loom steps.

for now, you'll just have to take my word that i've wound 5 yds of 8/2 and put it on the loom to weave blue-accented placemats. i'll take pictures of the finished products and post them, hopefully within a week or so.

the loom

this is my baby wolf with three warp chains. putting the yarn on a loom is called 'dressing'.

the main loom that i use is a four-harness baby wolf, made by schacht. i don't think i could possibly say enough good things about this loom; it's a real workhorse! the maximum weaving width is 26" and i've discovered that about 20 yds of 8/2 yarn is the maximum warp length i can wind on comfortably and with confidence.

i have three other looms which get used with less frequency: a small tapestry frame loom, an inkle loom and a square frame two-harness table loom (a dryad leiscester).