Still Weaving

I decided that the bright fuschia yarn of unknown composition was tough enough to be used as a warp for my next weaving attempt. After the steady “ping ping ping” of my handspun warp I wanted to be sure that I could concentrate on weaving and not have to constantly worry about the integrity of my warp.

Now what to use as weft? I had a cone of a lilacy fne ribbony yarn and thought I’d give it a try but it didn’y look right. Across the room, I caught sight of some greyish/mauvey stuff that may have been a ghastly yarn that I dunked in the remains of a dyepot a year or two again. Suddenly it seemed to be the right moment to use it. So I wove quite a bit of it. The the lilacy stuff began to look better and I decided that they would work well together. Next I added some thin blue, possibly  mercerised cotton and some of the same fuschia that I used for the warp.

Panic set in when I realised that I had probably already used half the darker  (dyed) stuff and so i had to start rationing it urgently.  Currently I am weaving mainly the lilacy ribbon with intermittent and random thin stripes of mainly combined pink and blue, breakin git up now and agian with a plan blue or pink and just very very occasionaly some of the heavily rationed darker (dyed) yarn.

So far I have woven just over 120cm . I think my fuschia warp is about 2.5 metres long. The work in progress is 42.5 cm wide.

Earning my stripes

Whatever the result of my incarceration with the loom, I had a great time watching a range of DVDS. As well as my dash through the decades (see my previous blogpost), I also watched the Comic Strip “Five Go Mad in Dorset” whilst slurping a mug of tea or tea in the absence of “lashings of ginger beer”. What spiffing fun.

This stripey rug which is about 110cm long started with the mid blue on the left and progressed through a series of random stripes mainly dictated  by odds and ends of yarn. I didn’t want to use anything “proper” in case I wasted it. More or less my only design criteria was that I felt i should have “dark” every now and then so that the tones didn’t all blend into one another. I had fun experimenting with the odd vertical stripe now and again. Confusingly above these vertical stripes will show as horizontal. You may notice the green & white just right of the centre, followed by the dark blue & light blue and brown & white whichis hiding in between a navy and a maroon stripe.

I became rather grandiose suggesting that each of my children have a section that represents them. Son “J” supports Aston Villa so there is a light blue & claret section for him. Son “G” usually has green objects allocated to him and so the green and white vertically-striped section is his. My Little Darling, no longer so little, has a deep pink section shot through with a more vibrant shiny pink.  it doesn’t show on the photo but I know it’s there.

The fringe of the rug is just knotted but I think I will try a twisted fringe next.

Mini rug

Some of you have been supporting me while I try to warp my loom up again and get weaving. Here’s my attempt using some bits and bobs lying around. Next I promise I will listen to you all and plan. Meanwhile here are my strange selvedges and warp-faults for you to give me feed-back on. It is just under A4 in size.

On my 4-shaft counterbalance loom I threaded my heddles up going through shafts 1234,1234
only used the first 4 pedals and treadled 1&2, 2&3, 3&4, 4&1 …..

I have a feeling that this would be an appropriate time to learn about BALANCED WEAVE, & warp-faced & weft-faced.

Can’t work out how I got these “loopy” bits on the selvedge unless I mis-treadled sometimes.
Any ideas?