Another pillow for my dad

I don't want to make my dad seem too feminine with all these pillow requests.  I mean, he is a macho guy.  But it just seems that lately he's had a lot of pillow-needs.  I made the honeycomb pillow for him back in March, and he loves to use it while watching TV.  But his pillow needs were still left unmet.  You see, my dad is SO tall that no lawn chair really fits him just right.  And we found some really neat lawn chairs on a special trip to Texas last summer.  They're fun to use during family picnics, however his REALLY long legs are always hanging over the edge and he feels uncomfortable.  So he put in his request for an ankle pillow.  Like the last one, I wanted to make it special with something handwoven. 


I always like to weave to the end of my warps and try and find some use for the fabric somewhere.  On the Huichol blanket, I knew that this little leftover piece would be just what I was looking for.  So I saved it for this occasion.  But  I wanted a new look to it.  Instead of switching colors for the weft, I just used the electric blue.





Here is the cloth fresh from the dryer.  It has a very neat look to it and it's different enough from the original draft:















I wove an inkle band for the straps to tie onto the chair.

With a little sewing, it all came together nicely! I put two bands on the back to tie to the foot bottom and when I tested it out, it turned upside down so I decided it needed more stabilizers.  I sewed two more bands up towards the top to tie to the side bars.

And the final project:

 Happy Father's Day, dad!  Now you can really enjoy your lounge chair with comfy ankles!

Sewing the Huichol blanket panels

I have to admit, this was a very hard task!  Finishing the Huichol blanket and sewing the two panels together was just as difficult as I had suspected, but now I know what works and it will definitely help in the future.

Before I share my woes of the panel sewing, here is a picture of the edging.  (I know Judy was asking about how the edges will be finished.)  First, I did some extra light blue for about an inch around each border piece. So the sides and each end have a little light blue border.  Then I did a hemstitch while the fabric was still on the loom.  I made sure to keep enough unwoven material to make fringe.  I love fringe!  When I cut it off the loom, the untamed fringe kept tangling so before I sewed the panels together, I took the time to twist the fringe.  I love it!

So onto sewing the panels together...

I tried several various methods of sewing the two panels together, like three different times I tried the hand-sewn zigzag stitch up the sides, and it just stretched really badly.  I could just see future children pulling the two panels apart accidentally!  I needed something more robust.  So I tried sewing the panels one on top of the other with the sewing machine so each side had a seam and thread showing.  It was even worse.  And I did it twice, once with yarn and once with thread.  The yarn didn't work well, it kept breaking.  The thread was ok and I would have settled for it, but even though the panels are the same length, I had about 3 inches left over the second time because the sewing machine bunched up one of the panels and caused puckering.  It wasn't pretty!  So I ripped out the stitches and just decided to do an old-fashioned "match the right sides together" seam.  I felt like it was my only option.  And it ended up being the best one.  In fact, on the right side of the blanket you can hardly see the seam!

The back-side shows the seam more, but I am sure not many people will be focusing on that.  I think the design and the softness (and that super cool fringe that sways so nicely!!!) will distract them well enough!

 

The finished size after washing is 60" by 44", not including the 4" of super cool swaying fringe on each side.  And it is just perfect for those cool early summer evenings here in northern Arizona, where surprisingly as soon as the sun sets it cools off rather quickly!

Huichol blanket is DONE!

I've finished weaving the Huichol blanket!  Now I have two panels that need to be sewn together and honestly, I'm a little worried about this part.  I have already tried sewing them and didn't like it yet, but I will try it again. I'm sure it will look better once it's washed!  I'm a little worried about sewing it just up the side seams and having it hold together.  I'm going to just trust the process... it's been done for a long time and it seems to work for other people!

In the mean time, here is an interesting view: 

Sneak peek!

I love it!!!  I love the colors and I especially love the pattern!!!  YAY!!!  Now, I just need to conquer my fears about getting the whole blanket thing to work out ok!

 The texture feels so nice, too!  It's going to make a great light summer throw! 

I'm VERY happy with it so far, if you couldn't tell!

Sley bells ring...

Wrong sley AND wrong season...

Besides, we're onto the winding now!  Get this yarn on here so I can get weaving!  And QUICK!

A little peek at Zip, who is staying out of trouble!  I hate when he comes around the sits on my yarn during this point or starts showing too much interest in it when I'm trying to roll it onto the back of loom!  Silly boy!  He's sometimes just a little playful or snugly with the yarn.

I love these two shades of blue together.  It was a happy surprise when the cones were sitting by each other.  I'm glad I went with them!  They look so great. 

I'm almost all set up.  I still have the pedals to tie-up, the floating selves to take care of, winding yarn onto the shuttles, making sure threads aren't crossed, weaving a header, and working on my hemstitch.  THEN I can finally start to sit back and really enjoy the weaving!  It sure is a lot of work to set up a loom.  I do enjoy the whole process though, but I especially like the weaving part!

New warping technique

In the past, I have always measured out a small part of my warp and put it directly onto my loom.  However, I read somewhere that if you tie off your warp in a lot of places, especially at the crossing section, then you can measure everything out at once and then sley your reed all at once.  I decided to try it this time around.  So, I measured out 60 threads of each color 6 times, so 720 threads.  Then I sleyed the reed starting from the center point and added a few colors to the end pieces that were empty. I decided to do a small border around the whole blanket, so the left side got an extra section of light blue.  Then the right section only got threaded half a sequence because that is where the seam will be.

I have decided to mark every 12 inches of woven space, and about 5 feet start the wrap up procedure.  Then I have to make a second panel as close to matching as I possibly can!  I hope this works!

Stormy skies

I saw these two sitting together while I was gathering supplies and thought that it was a nice touch!  It looks like a storm is brewing.  I mean, the project is called "Huichol Lightning" so we'll just follow with this theme!

So I'm going to go with this color combo:

They're going to look really nice together!

Change in Huichol plans

I think I want to try something beyond dishtowels with the Huichol plans.  I really want to make a blanket.  But my loom has a weaving width of 26", so I will have to make 2 panels and sew them together.  I am definitely experiencing some apprehension with this plan.  Do I sew them together before I wash them?  Can I make each panel relatively the same size?  Will the seam be bulky?  That's only a few of them, but I am excited to try something new.

Here's the original draft as a reminder:

I think I'm going to use 12/2 cotton in electric blue and cream.  The pattern calls for 8/2 at a sett of 24 epi, which is a loose twill sett.  Working with 12/2 cotton is a lot like working with 10/2, so I think I will chose a set of 30-32, which is a twill for 10/2.  That means I can either use reed #8 with 4 threads per dent, or reed #10 with 3 threads per dent, or reed #15 with 2 threads per dent.  From the veggie towel experience, I know that it's ok to have 3 threads per dent because they wash out.  So it does leave my options very wide open!

For the size, I'm thinking of filling the across width as much as possible, so 26" across which might shrink down to about 24" or 23".  So 23" x 2 panels = 46" across... with a length of at least that plus more.  I'm thinking if I warp 2 yards per panel, that might have the correct length.  To get the panels to match, I'm going to take careful measurements while I'm weaving.

The only thing I'm not sure about is, do I sew the panels together before I wash it?  If so, I worry about the ends of the threads fraying a little bit, because I'm going to hemstitch the edges and leave a little bit of fringe like I do on my dishtowels.  But maybe I could do the twisted fringe, it would be a bit longer in that case, but wouldn't fray with all the washing it's probably going to go through.  I've never had problems with fraying on my dishtowels if I wash them while they are connected first and then cut them apart.  But if it's a first washing, the ends look like they fray a little bit.  So this is the part I will have to think about a little bit more.  With twisted fringe, I might add 1 more yard to the initial warp length, just to be sure I have enough to get a grip  and twist!

I'm excited to try this blanket!

Huichol lightning towels

When I got the January/February 2011 Handwoven magazine in the mail, I saw the article on the Huichol (pronounced WEE-CHOL) lightning towels on page 56 by Connie Childs Elliott and couldn't wait to make them!  I haven't officially chosen my colors yet, but I always love blue and have plenty of it!  Plus, blue could be the sky and the rain, and the white can be the lightning bolt.  I was thinking of maybe doing yellow, but I think it might look too "sports team-ish" if I do that.  I know 3 schools right off hand that have blue and yellow for their school colors.  So.... I might stick with blue and white instead.

front

back

I was reading about how important weaving is to the Huichol people.  In fact, the Huichol culture believes that weaving is a way that women can communicate with the gods.  They believe that the top of the loom is the sky and the bottom is the earth.  The unwoven warp threads are the sun.  When woven, the sheds are the winds that carry the rain clouds to the Sierra Madres.  And the weaver is making it rain when the shed is beaten into the warp.  In this paticular project, the author talks about how the front is the zigzags of lightning and the back is the straight lines of rain coming down during the storm.  The spindle used to make the yarn is the heart of the sun.  I think that's pretty cool!