Bigger rainbow weft sections

For this experiment, I went through 4 complete rotations of each color on the same warp, so I did a treadling pattern of A-B-C-D for each color sequence.  Then I would drop one color and add in the next color, so the first rotation was purple, red, orange for 4 treadling rotations, then I dropped the purple and had red, orange, and yellow, for 4 treadling rotations, etc.

 

For the next experiment, I want to figure out if a slightly tighter epi would work well.  The fabric I am currently weaving is kind of on the loose side, because I am not using a thicker yarn for weft, it is three strands that are all the same size.

I also want to use a weaving program to experiment with weft colors, like what would it look like if I had a rotation of 4 columns of red, 4 orange, 4 yellow, etc and threaded each of them as A-B-C-D.  Or what would it look like if I continued with 1 column of each color and just had more repeats, forward backwards forward (like ROYGBIV-IBGYOR vs. ROYGBIV-ROYGBIV).

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!  I'm very overly excited about the gift from my hubby!  He bought me a lazy kate from Paradise Fibers!!  I am so excited that my plies aren't going to be tangling up anymore while I spin them together!!!  I can't wait to "give it a spin"!

Here are a few other favorite gifts that we got this year:

a bamboo cutting board from my dad... it looks like woven wood!

Another sheep painting from my mom... I like how dark the background is and how the sheep really stands out. 

And this glass brick from my sister-in-law.  It's so beautiful, I want to leave it out all year long to enjoy!  It has spent the last few days plugged in and it's just a perfect amount of light for a relaxing evening!

blue pattern weft

 

 I decided on the other experiment to use the same thread throughout the whole gamp.

 

 

 

But this time I wanted to see what would happen if I used the thick thread where it was supposed to go. 

  For this experiment, I used 8/4 cotton warp, and purple and blue for the other 2 colors. 

 I find that this one has more emphasis on the overall stair-step design.

 

 Very pretty!

I love experimental weaving!  It's so stress-free and relaxing.  There are no expectations, and it always seems to look so pretty because it's new and never seen before!

Washed & Sewn Crackle

All washed and ready to sew into something!

It washed up so soft and flexible!  I was afraid that this fabric would be stiff as a board, because I have been warned that it can be!  But mine washed up super soft and super pliable.  Now I just need to fix my mistakes, practice some more, and then I will probably feel comfortable enough to do some sort of project with it.  Up close, it's a pretty neat weave structure.  I really like how the colors are mingling with each other, and the texture is out of this world.  As you can see, the threads rotate between horizontal and vertical quite a bit.  I can't wait to explore this weave some more!

 I decided to turn this little sample into a little pouch!

It's so colorful and cheerful!  It's about the size of a coin-purse.

 I specifically made it to hold all our buckyballs.  Don't know what those are?  Find out here. 

They are actually quite educational and fun to play with.  I think of it as a no-commitment project when I play with them!  (As opposed to weaving, which is such a huge commitment!)  Buckyballs are these tiny strong magnetic balls that are meant to be a desk toy, but some children have been eating them and then it pinches their intestines together and causes a lot of damage.  They end up getting really sick and needing surgery.  If used under the normal conditions, buckyballs are a fun thing to play with.  Unfortunately, the government is taking them off the market though because of the health-risks they pose to small children.  I think of it as one advantage to not having small kids around here...

They are just a lot of fun to build little things with, mess around with, click together, and just not have to think about anything!


This is a little bit off topic, but I have been helping some weavers understand profile drafts and how to use them to convert a project to summer and winter, in order to reduce the huge floats in a project.  So, I thought I would share the stuff here.  If you can't view the original powerpoint on weavingtoday.com, I have saved each individual picture at ravelry.com and also helped a friend convert the whig rose draft from a profile draft to summer and winter.  It is all found at http://ravel.me/cutler070805/pdt for just in case you are also interested in learning this!

Now, time to go warm up with some tea!

1st crackle weave sampler & an edible experiment

 Here is my first sample of my crackle gamp off the loom!

It's not perfect, I see my mistakes and I know where I need to focus my efforts.

But overall, I'm very satisfied with the way it looks, and the weave order isn't all that hard!

I put on a 4 yard warp of 12/2 cotton for this practice, and it's sett is for tabby at 20 epi.  I am using the 4-shaft crackle weave, although a 6-shaft weave probably would have been a great choice, too.

Then I rotated between the pattern, x, & y colors, just like the example on page 25 of the book called Weave Classic Crackle and More by Susan Wilson.

My squint test really helps here!  Depending on your view of in-order vs. out-of-order, I personally feel that I got my warp colors slightly out of order, but I'll fix that in the next round.

Don't you just love it when experiments work out?

I love to experiment!  Not just with weaving, but also with food in the kitchen!  Most of the time it works out well, but sometimes, it doesn't.  Well, I had one of those morning when it worked out really well!

This is an experimental 11 grain cream-of-wheat like breakfast!  It's been ground to a flour-like state in my blender, boiled in water, and presto... it was super yummy cereal just like that!  I love when things work out!  I also added a handful of craisins and some chopped up walnuts.

My very first gamp

Believe it or not, I have never made a color gamp before.  The bookmarks were as close to a color gamp as I've ever been!  I feel like I have had a nontraditional start to my weaving career by teaching myself and learning through books, so that is probably why I skipped the gamp stage.  However, I really want to do a gamp of some sort, so I decided to do one while learning about crackle weave.

We just need "kitty approval" before we begin!  

Approved!

Where to go from here?

I have been at a funny crossroads of sort lately, not sure what I want to do, not sure where I want to go.  I have been so overly focused for the last few months (since about May), that I feel a little bit lost and out of sorts lately, especially with all the sadness that has happened in the last week.

So... I turned to my personal library.  I decided to start learning about crackle weave.  At first when I started reading about it, it seemed SO confusing!!  I just didn't seem to understand anything!  But the more I play around with it on some weaving software, the better I am understanding it.

By the way, a friend on Ravlery showed me this site by pixeLoom.  It has a free download to try out their software before you buy it.  And the free sample is so very comprehensive!  You can do everything, except save and print.  I am really enjoying just playing around and getting to know the software.

Here is my first attempt at traditional crackle weave using the software:

What I also like about this software is that you can treadle 2 or more treadles at once, as for skeleton tie-ups.  I didn't do that here, but it would have been so super useful when I was working on the snowmen project!  However, you can also change the size of threads on this one, like for the pattern weft, and that is a very handy tool to have!

Here is an attempt at crackle weave, treadled as overshot:

What I would like to do is just play on my loom for a bit, trying out all the different ways to treadle crackle.  I know nothing about it, so it's kind of intimidating, yet also very intriguing!  I am thinking of starting out with a gamp of some sort, playing around with color and treadlings.

Here is crackle treadled as  paired summer and winter:

This is just way too cool!  Now, I just need to save up my money so I can unlock the saving and printing features.... because you can never trust technology!  Even though I am not closing the program on my computer, if the computer were to crash, I would lose all my work because I can't save it yet.

PS. Too colorful?

Twill Stripes! & Lots of Luck for me? For you?

Yesterday seemed to be my lucky day because I found a $20 bill on the ground.  Part of me wanted to keep it, but part of me wondered who it belonged to.  I found it in a bathroom shared by only a few people, so I had a chance of finding the owner... who probably would have ended up blaming some innocent student of stealing it, if I hadn't returned it!  Lesson reminder for today: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

And now, the rest of the warp.

When I was in middle school and high school, I had the opportunity to carpool with my dad everyday to school.  It allowed us some great father/daughter bonding moments, lots of time to talk, and just make jokes!  One of our favorite things to listen to at 4:30 on the radio was Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story.  I loved Paul Harvey's voice, the way he would say "Huskkkk-Varhna" for one of the advertisements, I think it was for a chainsaw!  I also loved how the story would be end with a bang, when you would find that this humble little story belongs to someone very famous and seen as very successful.  Good old Paul Harvey!  My title today reminds me of one of his segments: And now, the rest of the warp...

Back in September on Labor day weekend, I started a project on my 4-shaft loom.  I have had it sitting with the end-bits on it for quite some time!  It has looked like this for 3 months:

There was enough here to make another project like the original project, but the original project was just so much work, so I decided to just weave this off as a dishtowel.

This is a combination I came across when I was weaving the bookmarks earlier this summer, so I saved a snippet to experiment with later:

I think this will make a neat little dishtowel, AND it will be great to use up this warp!

Halleluiah!  I'm almost all caught up!

And guess what?  I got fan mail!  YES!  The REAL DEAL!

Check this out:

Isn't this adorable?  It's a little tiny envelope ornament with a little overshot tree stamp!!  It was made by Amy in Washington state, not far from where my husband grew up.  She's a true blue, through and through weave-away blog follower!  She also has a blog, and it's located at fromoneshoretoanother.blogspot.com!  I'm excited to have another blog to follow and explore!

Another one done!

I'm almost caught up with all that I need to get done!

Free Pattern: How to make a Polyester Houndstooth Scarf

I have received two last minute orders for Christmas scarves from friends!  So I decided to make a tutorial for you so you can make your own.  They have been very popular this year! 

Measure out 2.5 yard warps in each color.  There will be one set of 17 threads on the warp and the other set will have 12 threads.  Today, the aqua has 17 on the warp board, or 34 total.  This accounts for 4 stripes of 8 threads each, or 32 threads, plus 2 float threads, one on each side.  The black was the less number today, and it went around 12 times, so we have 24 threads, or 3 stripes of 8 each.

I put the color with more on first, and then the 2nd color on after it.  I am using a #8 reed with 1 thread per dent, so it has an e.p.i. of 8.

Thread the heddles 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 with each color, making sure to start with 1 float and end with 1 float thread.

Wind on the warp.

Tie on the warp...

...and make sure the treadles are tied up as 1-2-3-4, 2-3-4-5, 3-4-5-6, 4-5-6-7, 5-6-7-8, 6-7-8-1, 7-8-1-2, 8-1-2-3.

Weave with the aqua first, or whatever color is on the outside.  Start with 4 rows of plain weave.  Then press treadles in order 1-8 with the one color.  Make a nice little hemstitch to hold the yarn together.

Do the 2nd color with the treadles in order of 1-8.  Then back to the first, etc.  While weaving, make sure not to beat the yarn in too hard.  Just place it into place, or else you will pretty much have a funny looking skinny rug!

When you get to the end, do the outside color last, and then 4 rows of plain weave.  Add another little hemstitch to hold it in.


Cut it off the loom, make sure the fringe is all the same length.  Twist it together, and viola!  You have a polyester scarf!!