Second

I wanted to show these pictures last week...but couldn't find them, oops.  So here is my weaving from last week.

Second blanket on my warm colors double weave warp.

Love seeing these knots move around the beam...almost finished!

And here is is!  I just tied these tassels (as opposed to twisting the last blanket).  Not sure it would hold up to multiple washing, but for now it worked fine.

This beauty, with its special quirks, will be staying with me at home.  I overstuffed this one and the fabric definitely suffered for it.  From one side, you can't really tell there are problems, so I am thinking of hanging this on my wall.  That is if I can figure out how to suspend something this heavy.

Weekend's Warping

On Friday I was making such great progress warping and said "maybe I will be weaving by the end of the weekend."  I was doing so well it seemed like that would be an easy goal to accomplish.  

But oh yea...today was Father's Day so I spent all day Saturday preparing food for my favorite husband.  I did find sometime for warping this afternoon and here is my beautiful progress.

The full width of this weaving is made from sixteen - two inch squares.  I have eleven areas re-tied.  As I was  at the warping board preparing the final five and thinking about colors, it hit me.  The last two blocks I had tied up were wrong!  Ugh!

Basically, if you look at the bottom two corners of this sample piece, they are both light blue.  Then the two in from there are purple, then blue, pink, green and so on.  This is not how the cloth looks in my head.  It should be a rainbow going from blue on the left to purple on the right (this is why I am re-warping).

Somehow I already forgot about this change that needed to happen (mom brain) and was tying up my new summer colors cloth with this same flaw.  Thankfully, I will only have to re-tie two squares and then the remaining five.  Tomorrow of course, I just didn't have the heart to do it today.  And then I should have sixteen different beautiful squares to weave with!

Rainbow Pockets

Nearly two years ago, I started a project thinking I would make a baby play mat.  I wanted to use a rainbow warp and weft and this was magically going to line up so I would see squares of color in certain areas.  The blanket was to be a double weave with 2 inch "blocks" and I wanted to stuff the pockets to give some textural interest to the blanket.

Warped the loom (480 yarns, wow that took a long time) started weaving and saw multiple problems with my idea.  And then...the big remodel happen.  More on that in another post, but basically I stored my looms away thinking it would be 6 months at the max.

But this week I can happily say I am back at the loom!  Would love to say I am weaving like a crazy person, but all of those issue didn't resolve themselves while in storage.  Go figure.  I started with just white weft in hopes I could make at least one blanket with this warp...no.  There were some tie up problems that were easy to fix...and some warp color issues that although "easy" to fix will require re-warping the loom.  Sigh.

I did make a small sample so I could see how the fabric will behave off the loom.  Good news, I am going to be able to do the original rainbow pockets I had in mind!

The sample before washing.  Threw this beauty in the wash and dryer with a load of towels and it did great.  Nothing is a priceless heirloom here...get used to it.  The pockets puffed more during washing, but other than that there were no changes.