Happy Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin Pie

Click on the above link and enjoy, from our family to yours, have a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving, God Bless.

Hannah's Blankie

I finished and in time, the shower was Sunday and I gave my gift to Hannah's mom, she loved it and was so trilled, it made all the boring work worthwhile. I embellished with ribbon and embroidery and a ladybug button.

I Planned, I Warped and I Wove

I warped my loom last nite during the Presidential Race, because quite frankly I was really tired of the campaigning and all that back and forth. I figured I could relax at the loom without any utterance that someone approved this message. I'm glad this only happens every four years, cause after a while it just makes you numb.

Below is the warp and some sample weave, I'm glad I started sampling before diving in to the weaving pattern. From the top of the picture is one shot of each color weft, then two shots of each color, then each color on its own and last is the actual pattern. I like the pattern it's really interesting, but the selvages, ugh! What a task. The lift is up /three shots/ one white, one brown, on white, then down /three shots/ one brown, one white, and one brown. Like this the edges are left open and I don't have a tabby at the end to hold the weft in place. so it's wiggling around and leaving nasty edges and picking up the warp thread that is next to the last and puckering. My question to the more experienced weavers is how do I tabby the last two warp threads on each side so that I can anchor them down? Do I use a pick up stick in the back for each pass? I don't want to leave it the way it is on the sample because the piece is going to be a table runner, if I were to be using the fabric for a sewing project I would not care. Any pearls of wisdom you all would like to share? I need some virtual help.

Bare Loom No More

I decided to warp my loom, it's been sitting in the corner of the dining room nekkid, not a good state for such a great piece of equipment begging to be used. So I rummaged, collected and looked through various weaving books, websites, basically weaving eye candy. I downloaded some charts from Handweaving.net and found the weaving draft below, if I could purchase this book I would in a heartbeat since it's all in 2 shafts, but haven't had any luck locating a copy. I like the effect on paper, I'll have to see how it translates to fabric. I'm going to use the Copper Brown Berroco Naturlin and some 3ply cotton in Bridal White, which really is a cream color and weave a table runner for my entry hall. I have to get my books out and figure how to do the lifts in order to get the right results. And yes, I will be doing some samples on this one in the beginning.

Page 169, Figure 8: Orimono Soshiki Hen [Textile System], Yoshida, Kiju
Title: Orimono Soshiki Hen [Textile System]
Author: Yoshida, Kiju
Date: 1903
Description: Japanese Weaving Book
Drafts: 818