I Am Bound To Be Weaving

Finished my boundweave tote. It was a lot of fun weaving. I didn't follow any set color order, I just played around. The treadling order never changed, but I had free reign on the color choices. I used four colors of wool on a linen warp. A nice trick was to hide a linen thread inside the braid handle. This was to give additional support so the wool would not stretch if your bag was full.

I found this as a kit from Yarn Barn of Kansas. But as we all know, I have to follow my own path instead of the kits directions. A great place to start if you are new to boundweave. Maybe someday I will go to Yarn Barn and see what else they have!

I also ran across this small boundweave wall hanging I had made years ago. I used graph paper to help me with that one. I was going for a farmer, his wife, daughter and some sheep. Two fun projects.

Yummy Weaving

Another guild meeting before the snow 'flies' here in Cabool. As I was in-charge of the meeting, we did a lot of talking. It is always interesting to hear how other weavers solve different problems. Sett, fibers, tension, selvages, and other topics were discusses. Great meeting!!

Vicki had some natural dyed singles wool, from South America, and wove this scarf. Becky plyed it for her.

Shirley C. had a great M's and O's and a painted warp scarf. The colors were divine!

Larry made a table runner with an overshot draft. 

Sam shared some upholstery fabric she wove. Notice the (dark) back side, it shows the long floats you sometimes get with upholstery fabric.

Jane wove turned taquete and used different color wefts for these awesome towels.

Vicki and  novelty yarn scarves. The one on the left has more pink . The one on the right has more blue. Great drape.

Alpaca from South America was used by Vicky for these great scarfs. Her son brought the Alpaca back for her.

False damask towels from Katie. She kept playing with the treadling to get these different looks. WoW!

More towels from Katie.

Overshot from Shirley D. was luscious with this bamboo. She treadled the rose fashion. 

Tying On Bronson Lace

Putting another warp on the same warp.
I had woven a few rows of plain weave, then cut off. Now my threads are in order.

Now when I tie on the new warp, I just remove each thread as I come to it. I had fixed any errors on the first go round, so it is just a matter of tying on, beaming on and weaving away.

I think I am going to do some more woven shibori. I am weaving 8/2 cotton warp and weft sett at 20 epi. My threading is Bronson Lace. But I have 'tweeked' the tie-up for long floats. 

More towels?  Maybe curtains? Maybe just cloth! 

I would call this an overhand know. 

Still Rep-ing

I continue to work on getting my Rep warp onto my loom. I may have gotten carried away with my color blending!!

Rep Workshop Prep

Trying to set up my loom for an April Rep Weave Workshop. Kelly Marshall is going to come down to our neck of the woods to help us understand this weave structure.

I have a 12 dent reed and have 4 threads per dent. Of those 4 threads I will thread them through the heddles as two working ends.  Because I am using my Baby Wolf for the workshop, I can thread the reed and the heddles as I go. I hope this keeps me from making too many errors!

I am using my handy dandy cross holder. This lets me have both my hands free to thread  the reed and heddles. I found this tip in an old Handwoven. (Sorry- don't know what year- maybe 1980's.)

This is showing that I have two working ends (4 threads) in each reed slot.

I am threading the heddles as I go along. I have two  ends in each heddle. 

Another way to dress the loom: My friend, Becky, is going to wind all the background ends and sley the reed, then wind all the pattern ends and go back across the reed and sley the pattern ends. Then she will thread the heddles. Either way should work! 

Boundweave on 4 shafts

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

I have had fun playing with boundweave, but I should have done it on a heaver loom. Or added weight to this loom. I used a linen warp and wool weft. Hopefully it will snug up once I wet set it. I played around with the treadling just to see what I could do. I think I got some interesting motifs.

As you can see, if you look back at yesterdays post,  I was weaving upside down! I call this my "public side."

Bound To Weave

Boundweave has been on this Baby Wolf for so long that my linen is breaking! I guess I should not have this loom right beside the heater vent!! I am using a damp cloth to keep the breakage down. Next time I will not wait so long to weave this off!

No rhyme or reason, just weaving for fun.

Welcome weavers!

Thanks for stopping by to see my blog. 

U.S., Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, United Kingdom, Russia, Czech Republic, Germany, Australia, Ukraine. 

Winter is in full swing, so thought you might like to see some green! Stay warm out there!!

Choke ties

Choke Ties: tie choke ties to contain your warp as need to keep your 'cross' and the warp chain in order as you dress your loom. The choke ties I use are nylon (pot holder) loopers. The cotton loopers will not work very well, so be sure and use the nylon ones. 

February Weaving

One of the fun things about getting together with other weavers is to see what they have been up to. Here we have Rossanna, Marilynn, and Anita sharing.

Rossanna again wowed us with her Kumihimo weaving.

Marilynn has used silk/wool to create two beautiful shawls with awesome drape.

Anita has used her small pin loom for theses sachets. 

Transparent Weaving

Transparencies was the topic of Melissa's February program for the Divas. She presented several webs of multi-hued gossamer suspended in space transparencies.

The weave, characterized by an open tabby ground and colorful weaver-controlled inlay blew our socks off! Experimenting with 4/1 and 20/1 linen, she produced a great variety of exciting textiles.

Basically using this one book for reference, Melissa taught herself this technique. ("Sheer Delight" by Doramay Keasbey)  

Here is has worked on creating curves.

She worked with a cartoon to to create her transpareccies. 

This shows the gossamer effect.

She used positive and negative space and combined it creating effects to truly amaze. Just take a look at her examples.The hand on the left she used the negative space to inlay her yarn. The hand on the right she used the positive. 

Thrumbs

I am weaving towels. To divide them on the loom, I am using some left over threads. Thrumbs!

Heddle Fix

If you look real close you can see I have a safety pen on my heddle bar. Hope this info is helpful.

I know all of us have been there. We have threaded our looms and about four inches in from one side we find we put a thread on shaft one and it should have been on shaft two. Well, here is a way I learned to make a repair heddle that you can use over and over. Just keep it clipped to your loom until needed.

Things needed: scissors, four straight pins, two safety pins, some string and a metal heddle from your loom.

Take your pins and put one on each end and two in the center eye of the metal heddle.

Fold your string in half and slip it onto the safety pin end hole.

Slip this over the pin that is in the metal heddle.

Stretch the string over to the center pins. tie a knot around this first pin,.

Now, tie a know around the next pin. This is the center eye of the heddle you are making.

Go to the other safety pin and go up with one end and down with the other.

Place the safety pin over the pin and pull and tie a knot.



Now you have a repair heddle that you can use over and over. Just hook the two safety pins over your shafts top and bottom bars on your loom.