You can't do that on television.

When I was a kid, there was a funny show on cable tv called "You can't do that on television".  It was one of those bizarre shows where kids pushed the limits of what could be done.  I'm sure as an adult I would find it not only obnoxious, but I would probably blame all of society's problems on tv shows like that one.

When I first started weaving, I remember someone telling me what I could and couldn't do in weaving.  This rule was that you can only do lace weaves with cotton or other fine threads, but not wool.  I have just taken it as fact all these years.

But... I always end up pushing through the limits.

No matter what I do, I find out what the barriers are and try to think beyond those.  And it has been very apparent with the polyester yarn!  I decided to give lace weaves a try.  This skein of polyester yarn was free and so were 3 others, so I figured I had nothing to lose!  (I found them in my box at school... someone out there is looking out for me!  They saved me a few bucks anyway!)

So, here I give you hearts in lace weave with free polyester yarn!

  

The yarn is a wonderfully soft deep cranberry red!  And the hearts are so perfect!!  I love them!!  How can anyone claim that they can't be woven with anything other than dainty froo froo yarn??

I do admit that the edges did end up just a little bit "wrinkly" when I took the scarf off the loom, so next time I need to remember not to pack so much weft into this amount of length!  Perhaps this is why people don't weave lace with polyester yarn... but I think it has more to do with the lacy effect being lost than anything else.

Want the pattern?  Look back here.  I even have the skeleton tie-up already planned out!

Pink Lemonade

Just playing a little bit more with the lace-weave hearts!  This is just a little sample piece.  I wanted to see what a few hearts together would weave up to look like.  It's a 4 yard warp, and the pieces are going to be twice as long as the width, so just a little lace-piece for a small table or something decorative.  This time I have yellow as the warp and I'm switching between pink, green, purple, and yellow for the weft.  This is the pink set.

There are a few threading errors, but I think they can be corrected later and then washed out.  As you can see in both of the right sets of hearts, I accidentally have two threads together in the plain weave.  But if I remove that thread and then wash them, I think it will be unnoticeable.

Otherwise, it's a pretty little sample project PLUS it's fun and quick to weave!

Skeleton tie-up

I was trying to work on the free weavingtoday.com draft for the huck lace heart.

I love this draft and think it's so dainty and cute, way more girly than my usual tastes, however it requires 12 pedals.  I tried to figure out a skeleton tie-up on my own but just couldn't figure out anything that would work.  Then I did a Google search and came up with this website.  At this site, they will figure out your skeleton tie-ups for you!  What's really interesting to note is this designer isn't a weaver, instead he used mathematical calculations to figure out the skeleton tie-ups.  How smart!!









So here is a sample of the website.  The site has spaces to plug in what you want:

And then out pops your solution for the skeleton tie-up.  I just keep this in a notebook next to my draft.  My heart draft is so easy to follow that I didn't bother trying to draw it all out again.  I just work my way from bottom to top with the substitutions.

This is such a time saver!  I hope you find it as useful as I did!