Friday, March 26, 2010

And Still More Indoor Activity, Dangit

And finally I have made myself start on the rag placemats. Everything that could go wrong, has. It's a great learning experience however, and one thing I've learned is that you really need to cut some of your rags, weave to see if you like the width and if not, adjust. I have had to recut already cut strips, which is much harder than cutting from the original cloth.
The first mat is completed. I thought I had threaded for Double Bind, but this doesn't being to resemble the picture - more unanswered questions. These are for DIL Missy who was visiting from Oregon this week. I showed the project to her and she was thrilled. She was taken by the weaving process so I explained that the pattern is a combination of threading, tie-up and treadling and showed her on this project how those three are represented. She stayed with me and asked really good questions. I ended up telling her when she has space, I have a loom for her, and for the price of room and board, she can have weaving lessons.
And while I'm on the subject of learning, have you ever wondered what would happen if you put variegated yarn in both the warp and weft. Well, wonder no more. It looks like this and it's a good thing I'm weaving this towel for myself because I would be embarrassed to give it to anyone. It is in a word - ugly. Moving on....

Oh, and we awoke this morning to more of this. Over the course of the day it warmed enough to melt it all. The good news is that the moisture was absorbed into the ground with no run-off. The bad news is that we have three more sets of dog tracks throughout the house. If weather can be bi-polar, then we have it.

8 comments:

LA said...

It looks like you are going to have another weaver in your family! Spread the love!!!! I have used variegated yarn as the warp and weft (in the weft I used 1 variegated, and 2 neutral colors) which gave me an ikat effect.

Valerie said...

Sounds like you will have a new weaving buddy! That's a good thing. Yep, the variegated yarns can be a real toss of the dice in weaving.

You know, they always say: "Sample, sample, sample" in weaving. But it takes so much effort to just sample with a warp.

My son brought a new saying home from work: "They never have time to do it right the first time, but they always have time to do it over." I wanted to bop him on the head when I was resleying the loom!

bspinner said...

I wove a couple of shawls with the same varigated cotton yarn. Had some strange sections in it but turned out ok.
Your place mats look great.

Leigh said...

And dangit. Blogger's not loading photos. Not just on your blog, but others as well. I'll just have to come back!

Birdsong said...

I really like the rag placemats... though you don't sound so excited to repeat either of these experiments. More snow headed our way...the weather forecast even said something about tying down the lawn furniture and garbage cans from the high winds expected out your way. You are better off staying indoors awhile yet!

Marion B. said...

Hi sharon, seems like you are having the time of your life at you loom.... LOL. I know the feeling ;)
But seriously, luckily you have a daughter in law (I think it means) who is really interested wich makes it all worth while.... yes?

Benita said...

I was joking when I said you'd get more snow after those second set of barefoot on the deck pictures.

And that is NOT an ugly towel! I absolutely love it! I love the way the colors are blending at the pattern you are getting.

See, no matter how ugly you think somethig is, someone out there will love it. :)

Life Looms Large said...

That's awesome that you might have converted a new weaver!! Always good to have more weaving buddies!

Sue