Star Warps

NAME: Zig Zag Placemats DATES: 4/6/2021 - 6/8/2021 YARNS USED: Maurice Brassard 8/4 cotton in Gris Fonce and Natural PATTERN: This zig-zag 8 shaft pattern (I only used one color, obviously). Once I realized the woen fabric wouldn't be wide enough for a dinner plate I put a fabric border around it with my mother's sewing machine. SOURCE: my brain LENGTH OF WARP: 5 yards WIDTH OF WARP: 24" SETT (ENDS PER INCH): 15 DIMENSIONS BEFORE WASHING: I did not measure them, really... DIMENSIONS AFTER WASHING: 11 3/4 x 18 3/4" each placemat % SHRINKAGE: sigh. LENGTH OF WASTE WARP: I didn't measure this either... GOAL OF PROJECT: placemats for my SIL's birthday + a bit of learning WAS GOAL MET? sure... DISCOVERIES: Take the step block out before weaving! Beaming the warp should probably be done slower tahn I did it. I got some great tips on this in the MAFA Weaving 101 class I took. The beacming affected a lot later on. The selvedges of the warp wer...

I hate knitting gauge swatches, but I always knit one because I've been burned making sweaters and shirts that don't fit. My favorite "ugh" was a beautiful black shirt I had knit out of some bamboo silk yarn. I got gauge, but I probably didn't wash the swatch the same way I'd wash the final garment. I had a great time knitting it, and the day after I finished I wore it to work. The hem in the morning was at my waist. The hem at the end of the day was closer to my knees. Since then, I've always washed the swatch the same way I want to wash the finished garment. So why, then, did I decide to wash the swatch for the placemats by hand and air dry instead of tossing it in the machine like I knew the placemats would be laundered? Even my gut was telling me that I was rushing and I should have stuck them in a machine. I don't have a washing machine in Brooklyn, so I washed the sample by hand. HUGE MISTAKE! I was intending to hem these, but if I do, they...

As I was weaving, I found the my post-it note I was using to keep my place in the pattern wasn't sticking too long. So I got an iPad mount for Rey so I could see where I was at all times. It clamps to the castle and holds the iPad really securely as well. I have an app I use for kniting called Goodreader that allows me to draw a line on a pattern, especially a lace or cabled pattern so I can keep track of where I am in the knitting pattern. I turned the image of the zig zags into a pdf and brought it into the app to do the same. I can also make notes on a pdf in this app, so I'm able to keep track of how many repeats of the pattern I've done so I can make sure the placemats are all the same length. (please excuse the mess, since we haven't had any guests due to COVID this bed has become a bit of a weaving catch all) Most of the rest of the weaving of the placemats went rather smoothly once I'd internalized the repeats of the pattern. I didn't think I'd hav...

Since the last project I wove on Rey I warped the loom from front to back, and because I really liked using the raddle to spread out the warp on the table loom I warped in February, I thought I'd try warping Rey from back to front. I finally got all the yarn and measured the warps on April 8th and started to spread out the warp. I think the next time I do it this way I need to keep a cross in the back as well as the front. I'm not sure how, but it feels like things are tangled despite the fact that I was really careful when putting the yarn on the back apron rod. The fear of crossing threads made warping the loom take much longer than I think it should have. The entire time I was worried about warps crossing. Then I was also worried that I'd thread the heddles and/or cross warps in the reed. I did end up missing a heddle and needing to go back to fix it. It's confusing to me because I had counted the warps so many times! And I was even more worried that it wouldn...

Has anyone played the video game Worms? You're a team of worms and try to force another team of worms off an island with a bunch of ridiculous weapons like homing missles (that look like houses) and holy hand grenades (I can't remember if they count up to 3 or 5). When you're playing there is sometimes a crate that drops from the top of the screen with something helpful. Somewhere, a worm yells "reinforcements!" excitedly with a high pitched (think of a record moving too quickly) scottish accent. That's how I've been thinking of this adorable box of yarn from The Woolery . It's been a while since I've been this excited to start a new project! The adorable box is holding the rest of the yarn for the warp for the placemats. I've been incredibly busy at work, but things are about to settle down a bit and I think the warp might be on the loom by the end of the weekend. I started looking closer at the raddle and it seems some pegs are missing so ...

I'm back from my parents' and have been reunited with Rey. I've been thinking of a real project that's not a sampler and have decided to weave a set of placemats to give to my sister-in-law. Her birthday is in June, so that should give me plenty of time to get this project done before the MAFA Conference where I'm hoping to take a few weaving classes. I've been thinking about this project for a long time. I figured I'd weave them sideways since I found a zig-zag twill I like. I think my sister-in-law would like zig-zags so I've been a little fixated on them. I want to hem the edges so they look professional, especially since I"m somewhat new to weaving and worried about how my selvedges will look. The best way to do this wihtout disturbing the pattern of the zig-zag seemed to be to put a border around the placemat so I'd know exactly where the edges that I needed to hem were. When I start a hobby I tend to start with an incredibly complicate...

So, I have some carry over vacation days to use and I'm using them this week. Unfortunately, I'll be spending the week away from Rey at my parents' in Rhode Island. There is, however, a table loom (also from my grandmother) that I'm going to try to use while I'm there just to keep learning. I have a lot of pink wool yarn that I think I'll use with some black Harrisville shetland yarn that came with the Macomber that I'll use to create a scarf. I talked with someone I met at the NY Handweaver's Guild (virtual) meeting in December a couple of weeks ago. She said that one of her first projects was a warp where she tried out a bunch of twill patterns with some plainweave between. She said she learned a lot from that, so I think I might try something similar with this black and pink wool (using the pink as the warp because I have so much of it). When I get back to Rey, after I finish replacing the apron strings, I have a couple of projects in mind. I...