A shout out to Tuesday Weavers!!!

I have enjoyed the Tuesday Weaver's blog for quite some time now, and we've even enjoyed exchanging Christmas cards for a few years!  I've never had the chance to meet them, but I want to someday!!  I would love to see their studio and meet all the weavers!  Anyway, a wonderful shoutout of THANKS to them for their lovely package for the baby!!  It was full of all kinds of goodies!!!  When the postman brought it by, I was on the phone with my mom and told her what was left on the doorstep.  She wanted me to make sure I tell them that we have relatives that are from Tennessee!

Thank you Tuesday Weavers!!  I love it all, and so will the baby!!!!





We are feeling more and more ready for the baby, who should be making an appearance in the next month or so.  We are very excited!!  I should also mention that I am super excited to get my body back after the baby comes!  I haven't said much yet about my weird pregnancy symptom because I got my blog so far ahead with pre-scheduled posts that I could hide it for awhile, but since January I haven't been able to feel my right hand very well.  In fact, touching fabrics, yarns, and textiles with my right hand is unpleasant!  Even typing is hard to do.  The dr says it should go away once the baby comes, but it makes all jobs harder to do.  In fact, I haven't woven or sewn very much since January, but like I said I got the blog so far ahead that I could cover it up until now... because I am finally out of posts!  Without much weaving or sewing, I have actually been filling my time since January studying electronics and computer programming.  Ever since I discovered RGB LEDs (which are red, green, and blue lights) I have had this nightlight in mind for the baby.  I finally figured out how to make it using my own computer chip and circuits.  Here are the insides:

It's all based on the open-source prototype called Arduino, but to make a full circuit using an Arduino board and shields would be a lot of money... like $60.  This circuit that uses just the computer chip is about $15 in electronic parts... plus the challenge and fun of figuring out how to use things like voltage regulators, capacitors, 16 mhz crystals, voltage meters... all without burning the house down or electrocuting something or someone!

Here is a picture of the light in use:

The left picture is the back of the nightlight.  There is a silver knob that can control the speed of the color changing.  It can change 512 colors within a second, which is the fastest, to something really slow an relaxing that takes 13 minutes to cycle through all the colors.  My dad and I made a housing for it using sanded plexiglass.  And I love it!!  In fact, I have been running it every evening since I made it!

It really was intended for the baby... but I may have to "store" it in the living room so we can all enjoy it for awhile!

Fresh from the dryer

The blanket was 44" square before washing, and 43" square after washing.

Here is the worst part of the center fold, before washing:

Same area, after washing: 

Washing definitely brought out the best in this blanket and relaxed some areas like the center fold.  I think this little section is so small that it will be overlooked.  Best of all, is is even softer than it was before, which I didn't even think was possible!

Ready for the baby!

I almost ran out of yarn on this one... wow, I really cut it close!

On the last stripe, I ran out of blue, so I had to substitute in a few shots of teal.  I don't think anyone will even notice, and I think it looks cool that way, anyway!  It's a good story!

The warp was plenty long!  I advanced it a little bit more before cutting it completely off to make the fringe a little longer.  I actually cut the fringe off 8 strands at a time, and then tie it right then.  Otherwise, the weft just pops out of place so quickly!  One thing I liked about having a slightly longer than needed warp on the doubleweave was the threads not sticking together in the end and causing seriously bad floats.  I had one float I had to deal with, and it was so easy to fix because it was near a short piece of yarn anyway.

Lots of work to do when it comes off... it took awhile!

But good thing I had Scout to help keep me company!

I love the way it turned out!!!

It looks great with the white crib!

I think our baby boy will love it!  I still need to send this blanket through the washer and dryer, and I think that will take out a few of the abnormalities that I see, as well as relax the center fold.

Until then... we wait for him to come... but it's still a little bit early for him to arrive!

My to-do list is almost done!!!  Yay!  My goal is to complete it before little baby boy comes!

And without much effort at all...

This blanket is almost done!  I love how quick these blankets go.  I can usually whip out a doubleweave worsted weight polyester blanket in 24 hours time, but I'm going a little slower than usual lately!
 

Here is a list of the order of colors.  I tried not to repeat too many colors in a row, but I was also rapidly running out of a few colors, so I had to use them wisely in some of the smaller sections.  I wish now that I would have not used the skeins to make some last minute Christmas scarves, or replaced what I had used, but I think I am at least going to make it to the end of this project without having to buy more yarn!  Total skeins used: 6.  Total cost: $12.

Love this!

 This is for my little boy! 

 I love this weave so far!

I love the deviation from my usual same sized squares!  I did find that the folded edge still had some weirdness going on with it, but after really thinking it through, I did figure it out.  I have to go back and weave the yarn back in for about 3" of the blanket, but I don't think it will be all that bad!  I'll just count over 4 warp threads and follow that thread down to match the pattern.  It does work now!   I had to thread the end as
1 turquoise
2 blue
3 turquoise
4 blue
5 turquoise
6 blue
1 blue
8 blue

I love the colors so much!  I am only using 6, and I did use some yarns before hand to make a scarf for someone, so some of the colors are getting sparse.  I'm not sure yet if I'm going to replace them or just keep going, even though the balance will be off just a little tiny bit.  The original price for this yarn should have been $24, but with my coupons for Hobby Lobby, I ended up spending only $12!  Plus, because I made 2 scarves out of some of the yarn, I actually made some money off of this one!  I love bargain projects like this!  Oh, and by the way, the yarn is soooooo super soft!  I used Hobby Lobby's "I love this yarn!"  I'm so glad that I did!

All loaded...

... and ready for threading!

Threading is not my favorite activity, but it should go fast now that I figured out a new way to do it!  Also, 418 with worsted weight polyester is not as bad as the blanket made from 12/2 cotton!  I don't even remember how many heddles was on that one...  I think it was well over 1,000!

The whole picture

I don't usually draw out all of my plans completely before I get started, but this time I wanted a whole visual to make sure I really was seeing everything I needed to.  I also wanted to make sure that I had all my numbers correct.  For my warp, I wanted numbers that were divisible by 8 because I am going to be threading it 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 and then on the next round, it will be starting half way (at the 4th heddle) and working its way opposite, so 4-3-2-1-8-7-6-5.  I just thought it would be so much easier to make it all divisible by 8!  My baby wolf loom can handle 204 threads across, so 416 for a doubleweave blanket.  Fortunately, all of this can be divided by 8.  Here are my plans:

 

Last baby blanket I made for my niece was a 2 yard warp, and it was just a little too small. A 2.5 yard warp makes for a good sized adult throw, which is too big. So I am going to make this one peg larger than a 2.25 yard warp and hope that it’s perfect!!  I will be measuring my warp today!

 This is going to be fantastic!

That darn middle fold

I haven't liked what the middle fold section is doing in this sample piece I wove.  It looks like the fold area has a double thread going on, like this:

If I add a thread to the 4th heddle, I now get this:

This is closer, but still not spot on.  I want this:

But I can get it two ways.  I can get it by adding one to either side.  I'm not sure which is better, or if I can add one to each color, or do I need to add two threads to just one color???  This is the other way I can get the same design, but it will make the other side two threads bigger. So can I add one thread color to each side and get the same thing??

I think the answer is no:

The pattern color needs to change at the point of the design change:

Now the question is, where do I add it to the doubleweave pattern?  So far, I have added one to heddle 4, and it is working, but not quite there.  If I continue down in the same order, that means I have to add one to heddle 3 of the same color and have it be 2 colors bigger.  I can also get the same pattern I'm looking for by taking out one thread from the other color after adding that extra heddle on 4.  I decided to go with the second option of adding one and taking one out.

And it works!!!

If I were to actually write the pattern to what it would look like on the loom, this is what it would be:

 

Notice there are 3 threads in a row of the same color.  We added one to heddle 4 and took out one from heddle 6 of the other layer's color.  Here is the weird center-fold spot up close:

At this point, I can't really explain the WHY's, except that it breaks the pattern like it's supposed to be broken.  I think it's because the pattern is already folding behind it, which is kind of making it opposite anyway, and then having the pattern be opposite again on top of that opposite, it kind of cancels it out.  I think this was an issue on my other blankets as well, so I don't think it's the new threading or tie-up that is making the problem.  At least it works!!  I guess just make note of it for next time!

Sample

It's almost right!  Something about the center seam doesn't seem quite right... the twill doesn't do the reverse thing quite right, but otherwise, the sample looks great!

Just need to tweak it a little bit and it will be perfect for a blanket!

A better doubleweave pattern

I had a friend try out the doubleweave pattern I used for the other blankets and she didn't like how the threading bounced around.  Originally, the threading was to help make sure you threaded the lights and darks on the correct heddles.  But she was right, it was a pain in the bum bum!  While working on the 4-shaft doubleweave project, I thought and thought about re-vamping the entire thing.  Here is the pattern I have come up with.  When you weave it, you will also have a straight treadling.  This is just showing the separation of the 2 layers.

Here is the pattern in the way I want to thread it and weave it.  Between the small stripes would be a perfect place to hide the middle fold in the blanket!

When unfolded, each layer should weave up to look like this:

The tie-up was the most confusing part to come up with, especially if we are keeping a straight threading and treadling.  Here is an easy way to see (and draw) the layers yourself:

#1.  Figure out what shafts your layers 1 and 2 will be on.  Red is layer 1 (odd shafts 1-3-5-7) and blue is layer 2 (even shafts 2-4-6-8).  Here they are marked on an 8-shaft tie-up so you can see it:

The pattern seams to skip around because of the order we weave the layers.  It is done in 8 moves, and kind of looks like this, from the side looking across:

This is why you need to skip a few columns between the treadlings on your pattern.

#2.  Fill in the first layer with 2-2 twill.  Layer 1 will be a 2-2 twill done like this: 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, and 4-1.  Layer 1 is also on only the odd shafts and they have to appear in this order because we are weaving the layers back and forth in this order.

 

#3. Fill in the 2nd layer with the first layer treadles up, so that they can be out of the way when you are threading.  All the odd shafts (layer 1) need to be raised out of the way.  This is what it will look like with layer 1 marked and raised out of the way, before we mark layer 2:

#4.  Fill in a 2-2 twill your treadling draft for layer 2.  Make sure it continues correctly with layer 1's 2-2 twill.  We are making this one continue opposite of the other one so that when it changes squares, the direction changes. 

This is the tie-up for 2-2 twill to look like this: 

So while layer 1 is doing the 2-2 twill that looks like this: 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-1, layer 2 has to start where layer 1 left off.  Since layer 1 is 1-2, layer 2 will be the other shafts, or 3-4.  Layer 2's twill will look like this: 3-4, 4-1, 1-2, 2-3.  Also don't forget that layer 2 is only on the even shafts.  This is our final tie-up:

I hope this helps you understand 8-shaft doubleweave just a little bit more and maybe even want to try something yourself!  Have fun!

New Doubleweave pattern

I have been planning this blanket ever since I found out I was pregnant!  Even before I knew it was a boy, I planned and purchased these yarn colors, too!  The colors I want to use are blues and greens. I am using soft polyester yarn from Hobby Lobby. I am also buying the yarn one at a time with 40% off coupons. I’m glad it’s taking me awhile to get all the yarn together because I have a huge to-do list and I want this to be one of the last weaving projects before the baby comes in April!  I have almost collected enough yarns for it.  I haven't been as diligent lately, so I will need to get on it again because I need to add some yellow, navy, gray, and possibly an orange to spice it up a bit.  This is what I have so far:

 

I have been diligently practicing my doubleweave skills for quite awhile now, and I feel that I've gotten pretty good at it all.  However, I am ready to branch out and make a somewhat new design based on the old one.  This is the pattern spiced up a bit:

Instead of plain squares all the same size, I am going to be doing some of different sizes.  This should be fun!  My seam for the doubleweave blanket will go between two of the small columns.

Mini Sunday Best

The whole reason I wanted to learn how to make collared shirts was so that I could make a shirt and tie combo!  I love little boys in white shirts and ties! They look so cute!  

This fabric made the best looking tie!  (And just to let you know, it's velcro holding it together in the back so if you give it a good yank, it comes right off!  Safety first!)

PS.  Tie pattern can be found here.  I bet it would look cute in handwoven fabric, too!

Bow-tie

A driver's cap in good fabric!  Oh, and this one is reversible with the green stripes underneath.  I also used a heavy fusing fabric in the brim, so it's nice and stiff!

And a little green bow-tie to go with the button-up shirt... which I totally plan on doing again because I have improvements I want to work on.

Now I just need to focus on getting a few inter-changeable outfits together that won't clash!

This one is a good start:

I'll be working on some booties next, along with a few more shirts and bow-ties!