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.

halloween morning at my house

this is one of the views from the front porch...the Fall leaf colors with the past-prime green of the grass framed by the unsettled sky just struck me as amazing...

this was one of the five pictures i took of the sky...it was about 8:45am and was so gorgeous and fascinating that i couldn't resist...

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 big loom

the big loom that i wove on while at school

first, hello to all hopping the link from mrs b's giveaway. if any of ya'll have questions, please don't hesitate to leave a comment and i'll get back to you as soon as i'm able.

i wanted to post a picture of the big loom i used while i was at school learning to weave. yes, there are still schools (i went to the local community college) that have programs to teach people weaving, pottery, woodworking, metal fabrication, jewelry techniques and other crafty arts. i have an Associate in Applied Science in Professional Crafts-Fiber degree (sounds prestigious, doesn't it?). to tell the truth, it was one the BEST times i've ever had learning in an academic setting and hardly seemed like school at all.

but more about the loom. the loom i've got at home has a maximum weaving width of about 24 inches. the one pictured above has a maximum width of around 40 inches (maybe a bit more; 45, perhaps). when i dress my loom at home, there is no dis-assembling it to get all the warp yarn on and ready to weave. when at school, dressing the big loom required dropping down the back and climbing inside it (yes, inside). it was quite a daunting task that very first week of class when my wonderfully talented instructor told us (we were a class of 10 students) to wind our warps and then climb inside our looms. you don't usually hear that every day.

i miss that big loom, sometimes. i could weave larger width pieces on it without having to sew panels together like i'm constrained to do now. i could also put much more warp yardage on to weave (say 25 to 30 yards of warp vs 10 to 15 yards now). but i do love, love, LOVE my smaller (way more portable and practical for the house) baby wolf loom. some people collect stamps or books or artwork from favorite artists; me, i dream of a day when i can collect looms. of course, i'll need several outbuildings to house them.

examples of work-that-has-gone-before

this is a table runner in an overshot pattern called "star of bethlehem." the blue in it is hand-dyed.

this is a placemat with hand-dyed yarn in the japanese ikat tradition (although much american-ized). i'm weaving similar placemats and matching runners now, just without as much hand-dyed yarn (it's a limited commodity) in three colors: the blue pictured here, green and purple.

and here is another runner in the "star of bethlehem" overshot pattern. this is one of my favorite things to do, using a white-on-white approach and letting the pattern be the main feature instead of color.

WIP is finished!

my finished table runner!

WIP (work in progress)

the weft for the WIP

the warp colors of the WIP

the current WIP on the loom

the WIP currently on the loom is a set of Fall-themed table runners. the warp yarn is a mix of pistachio and a blue-green that i hand-dyed, making for an interesting stripe effect.

i sleyed (well, actually i tied on to the previous warp) so that the warp pattern is two pistachio followed by one blue-green, giving the effect of a watermelon rind. the weft is a series of four to five colors (dull gold, garnet, burnt orange, olive green and pistachio between each new color).

i'm not sure how these table runners will end up looking; i find that once i've got the piece(s) off the loom, washed, ironed and fringe attended to, there's a very different look from when it was just a WIP.

introduction to weaving: loom parts

here is the picture i posted before of my baby wolf, but with the parts labeled. enjoy!

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).

welcome to the weavery

welcome to the weavery, the place where i design, create and weave. one of my goals for the Summer (and i hope to have it stick past that) is to blog with regularity about what i'm weaving. having a home-based business isn't all laughs and giggles; there are many of the same struggles as are present in work outside of home. my main one seems to be motivation and i'm hoping that this blog will help in creating more momentum.