More Projects Completed

Rather than tie up one of my floor looms for just a plain weave project, I put this prayer shawl on my rigid heddle loom.  I used 8/2 cotton for the warp in five colors to go with the rust weft.  It is sett at 12.5 epi.  The odd number is because it is a European loom that a friend from Germany gave me.  At 20" wide, it is the perfect width for the shawls.  The weft from my stash is an acrylic boucle.

This was my choice of yarn for a prayer lap blanket.  I was looking for something suitable for a man.

I think it was a nice choice and will be nice in the chemo room where it is quite often cooler than comfortable, especially when sitting there for hours.  It was given to my neighbor.

The colors are sort of muted in the photo.  The skein captures the actual colors a bit better.  I skipped twisted fringe on this blanket and wove enough for hems with the 8/2 yarn I used for the warp. The threading order is 4-3-2-1 for plain weave.  This was done on my Leclerc Fanny floor loom, since I needed a 34" width.  It is sett at 16 epi.  Both this blanket and the shawl above are not beaten while weaving but just gently placed.  It makes a nice lightweight cover that is still quite warm.

With the remainder of the blanket warp, I chose to weave one of the twill treadlings on page 6 of Marguerite Davison's book, A Handweaver's Pattern Book, version XXXV.

 The patterns in the book are written for counterbalance looms, so I was able to tie up the loom as shown.  If I had been using my jack loom, I would have tied up the spaces instead of the x's.

This is for my almost three year old granddaughter.  Our son says she loves playing with her dolls and blankets.  The warp, as I said before is a teal 8/2 cotton.  The weft is this super soft acrylic and mohair blend and various colors of 8/2 cotton for the dots in the pattern draft.

It isn't very big, but fine for a small child to wrap around her babies.

Now to get back to weaving.  Next to show will be the towels woven with the stripes for the Wanstall tartan.

Young weaver, sewer, knitter

I spent a nice couple days with two of my grandchildren.  Emily and David came over the other night and we worked on some projects, and of course, had to have a tea party or two.

I promised Emily that I would show her how to make a cloth wallet.  We went through my cotton calicos and she picked her colors she wanted to work with.  She is only 11, and I think just a little young to use the rotary cutter yet, so I did the cutting for her.  I suppose I could have traced the pieces and she could have used scissors.  Oh well, I never think of cutting patterns out that way any more.

Here is Emily, showing the inside of the almost completed wallet.

And the outside. 

She did a fine job with the sewing and pressing.  I did let her use the iron.  My old Pfaff 1229 is a great machine for children to learn on.  I've taught a lot of kids to sew on it.   I can reduce the speed quite a bit, and the one stitch at a time feature is great when sewing corners or anywhere a lot of control is needed.  I think Emily is going to take after her mother, Becky, since it seems to come very easy to her.

Emily did a bit of weaving on an ongoing project I have set up on my countermarche floor loom for the older grandkids.  It's just a striped twill, but they are learning how to walk the treadles and how to tell where they are in the pattern.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of Emily weaving.

A friend of mine that used to teach Montosori years ago, gave me a real nice rigid heddle loom so I could use it to teach.  I try to keep a warp on it for the younger kids that can't quite reach the treadles on the floor loom yet.  David took to it like a duck to water.

 

David is really concentrating on getting his angle and edges just right.

Emily recently made a sock monkey, and wanted to make a scarf for him, so we took a look at my yarn choices and she got started on that project after finishing her wallet.  She decided about how many stitches wide she wanted to make it, sampled a little bit and decided it was too wide.  It didn't bother her at all to rip it out and start over.  I think she understands that sampling can be an important part of the process.

Here's Emily, showing "Joe" how to knit.

It was a good couple days.  I love teaching anyone that loves learning.