Fire & Water

I started just playing around with different colour combinations, since I have a lot of colours to work with, this year, so I made a scarf with a combination of red/orange/yellow in the warp.  I was going to do the whole weft in a lighter yellow (as you see in the bottom right of the photo) but decided that the light colour was washing out all of the vibrancy of the warp.  I plopped some orange stripes in there, and that helped, so then I switched to some darker paprika stripes and liked that too.  For the darkest colour, I also shrunk the width of the stripe, just to keep things interesting.  I think the way it changes looks pretty cool.

Then I decided to try something with a greenier tone, so I put a couple of pale greens and a yellow in the next warp and wove it with a light blue and a darker blue/green, in an unequal ratio.  The combination of colours makes me think of Aquaman, though I'm sure no kids today would even know who that is.

It's Time to Light the Lights

Two more scarves for the kids:

I was looking at an example of the clasped weft technique in one of my old weaving magazines, a while ago, and had an epiphany, that I could use it to make a cool zig-zag scarf.  It didn't take long to get from there to the idea of a Kermit the Frog scarf, emulating the little green pointy collar he has around his neck.  The technique worked perfectly and was so easy!  Maybe I'll use it again sometime to do something more harlequin-y.

Having done a Kermie scarf, I thought the pink and purple one I followed up with might suit Miss Piggy, since it made me think of her purple opera gloves.  I chose a bunch of colours for evenly spaced stripes in the warp and then did a two-colour stripe for the weft.  It's nicer than this, in person, I just couldn't get the colours right in the photo.

More to come!

Using the Leftovers - Oranges & Pinks

Once I've made a few of these scarves, I have enough leftovers from the colours used to make a new scarf with the combination.  This time I added a bit of Galway wool in Natural and a bit of Custom Woolen Mills wool in Red, to round things out and give a bit more contrast.

I kept it in hopsack, which for some reason I thought would end up looking different than just a fat plain weave.  Live and learn.

I do love these crazy plaids, and I'm betting some of the kids do, too.

Using the Leftovers - Purples/Grey

And so my beautiful loom, Miss Bennet, is naked again.  (Don't look!  She's shy.)  The last of this year's series of Kindergarten Scarves is finished, washed and dried and ready to go.

For this one, I did another plaid in 2/2 twill - this time I didn't mirror the colour sequence, but rather repeated it twice across the width of the scarf.  Then I wove the same repeat for the length.  Because I had more of the grey and lavender (Montmartre) left over, I doubled the width of those stripes in comparison to the other four, which worked out perfectly to balance the light shades and dark shades.  My only regret is the lack of symmetry, i.e. not having one more column up one side to make it five colour blocks wide instead of four.  That would satisfy my aesthetic side a bit better.

The funny thing is that of this year's scarves, the ones that were unplanned were the ones I got the best feedback on.  Maybe next year I'll just skip the planning and do a series of assorted plaids.

I present to you, the Kindergarten Scarves, 2012 series:

Not Quite a Burberry Scarf

When I first put these leftover shades together for a scarf, I thought of it as just a bunch of autumn tones.  After weaving a bit, they started to remind me of a Burberry Scarf, if only the colours were a bit different (and of course the plaid was more regular.)

I started this one out with a warp using a 6:2:6:10:4 repeat.  With only four colours, this means that it would make an irregular-looking pattern.  Once I started weaving, using the same repeat, I soon realized that I wouldn't have enough of most of the colours to make the scarf long enough.  I had lots of the natural, though, so I started to incorporate longer sections of natural within a random design.  You can see the transition between the left and right panels.  It certainly ended up an irregular scarf, but still sort of cute.

Warm Plaid Blanket

I've put off blogging this finished object for a while, until I could come to terms with it.


I finished the weaving and sewed the panels together - it was huge and wooly and lovely. Then I took a couple of days to twist the fringe at either end, which took a while since there are so many ends. Having done that, I was left with the question of how to finish it. Back when I made my series of Kindergarten Scarves, I would wash each one by hand as I finished it, using friction to lightly full them. Well, this blanket is far too big for that sort of thing, so I decided to use technology to aid me. I soaked and washed it in the bathtub, and then put it in the dryer.


I know, I know - the dryer?! Well, to be honest, I've had a couple of felting projects that I've tried to felt in the washer/dryer in my building, and have had little success with it, even when running the item through the machine two or three times, so I was quite confident that it wouldn't be a problem. Well, okay, only confident enough to leave it for a few minutes before checking on it. Fifteen minutes in, I opened the dryer, and was disheartened to see that it had already felted further than I'd intended. Sigh. Lesson learned. So it ended up a bit narrower and a bit thicker and a bit fuzzier than was my intention. I was pretty upset about it, but friends and family have reassured me that it isn't actually a total failure on my part (as I had initially worried) so I am learning to enjoy it. By the time I use it on some bright spring mornings on the balcony, I think I'll even learn to love it.

Sunshine Plaid Towels

Just in time for holiday gifting, I finished my towels. There were three in total, and on Sunday night, I finished the weaving, zigzagged the hems, cut them apart, sewed the hems down, machine washed them, and then ironed them partially dry before laying them flat to dry overnight. Then on Monday morning, I folded one up and gave it away. Phew. The other two will be going to new homes, as well, which means I still won't know, firsthand, how well they will work to dry dishes. I will have to trust others' opinions on that, at least for now. I believe I mentioned previously that I have more of the cotton/linen blend that I will make more towels with, sometime soon. Perhaps I will keep some of those to try them out.

After washing, the fabric softened up and fluffed up, and now it has quite a nice soft hand. The selvedges evened up a bit, too, which is nice. While I was weaving, the warp threads along either side of the cloth were looser than the ones in the middle (despite me trying to fix this prior to weaving.) I was worried that the selvedges would end up wobbly because of it, but they looked okay off the loom and even better once washed. As per usual, finishing can hide many errors.


There were a few errors, alas, that I noticed on the underside of at least one of the towels, where a few warp threads were skipped and left a little block of threads. I think it gives the towels character. It certainly proves they were handmade.

My biggest lesson with these towels was in changing weft colours (and frequently.) I mostly just wove in the starting tail in the next shed, but left the finishing tails hanging. I am a bit worried about it, since I don't know how well the cut ends will stay in place. I certainly don't want them developing holes along that selvedge, especially as they are gifts. I am placing my trust in more experienced weavers, who say that it will work out.

Overall, I did enjoy this pattern. The repetitive nature of the blocks kept me wanting to weave Just One More, and they also gave a way to gauge how far I had woven, without the fuss of trying to measure the cloth before it wound around the beam. I will, however, be taking a break from plaid to go back to something simpler (one colour in the warp, one in the weft) for some little facecloths in the leftover cotton/linen. I am going to sample a few patterns I invented, and see how they turn out. Then maybe back to the plaid for that woven blanket I had planned...?