weaving workshop

This weekend I took the plunge and did something I have been wanting to do for ages and went on a weaving course with the lovely Margo Selby in her very posh studios in Bloomsbury, London.  I really enjoyed the course and learnt an awful lot about weaving and what works well together in terms of colour and texture.  It was also really nice to see what everyone else was creating - no two were alike :-)

The first day we experimented with different weave structures, on point threaded (wool) and straight threaded (bi-colour cotton) warps.

I started off on the wool warp and had a great time trying out different patterns and types of yarn for the weft

Here you can see lots of different structures - extra weft circles, a chequerboard formed by using a satin next to a twill, goose eye, rib, etc.  I fell in love with the colours!

In the afternoon it was time to switch to the much brighter cotton warp, in my case a yellow and red mix.  I found this really challenging as the first few stripes blended in too much with the warp colours.

You can just about see that the blue strip is a herringbone design... so, in theory are the two below it!

But I persevered and managed to weave a sample which I'm relatively happy with.  I much prefer the wool colour palette though.  In real life this is much more garish!

Day 2 was our chance to weave an item, and I decided to try and weave enough for a cushion, using the structures I had best liked from Day 1.  I chose a palette of blues, greens, reds, oranges and pinks in a mixture of wool, feltable wool and silk.

This is part way through

I didn't get much chance to take photos on day 2 as I was frantically trying to get my 14 inches woven by 4pm ;-) but here is my piece coming off the loom

And here is the finished piece!

The next part of the process was the scary bit - I needed to wet finish it and felt the long woollen floats of the circles so that they don't catch.  I made the cushion cover first to help stabilise the shape, then washed it with mild detergent in hot water, rubbing the woolly bits to help them felt.

And this is the finished result, which I am very happy with... now to get my own loom(s) set up... gulp!

Katie xx

folksy friday - weaving

It's been a while since I've done a Folksy Friday post, and as I'm set to do a weaving workshop this weekend I thought I might take weaving as a theme.

My own item is a herringbone tweed woven sleep pillow

Here are some treasures I found on Folksy

Handwoven silk cushion by Maxemilia

Handwoven notebook case by Sue Wright Handknits

Handwoven Rug by Agnis Smallwood

Handwoven Scarf by Studio Thirty8

Wonder what I will come home with this weekend???

warping frame

I'm really proud of myself, as I, not being very good generally at making things square (thank goodness for big perspex thingies with lines on), have actually managed to make myself a warping frame.

I looked at several on the internet, but they seemed pretty expensive for what they were - so, a trip to B&Q and I had timber, two lengths of dowel, some metal plates and a pretty big drill bit.

Lots of sawing and sanding later, here it is!  I'm really pleased at how robust and sturdy it is... and square... which is the main thing!

I've ordered some texsolv heddles for my table loom, so hopefully once they arrive I can start work on warping up and getting some samples done.

Kx

yummy yarns

My yarn arrived this morning from the Handweavers Studio unfortunately I must have messed up the order, so only got 25g of each - so I've just had to ring them to order 200g of each.

But, aren't the colours yummy?  The extra yarn will be slightly different - straw instead of gold and blue ming instead of dark teal, but hopefully they will still work...

Now I just need to work out some designs!  Can you tell I'm excited??

sewing and weaving update

Argh its been one of those busy weeks where everyday I have thought 'I must post some more stuff on the blog' and then haven't had access to my pictures, or the time to compose my thoughts.

I had a productive day's sewing over the bank holiday weekend.  I bought myself a SciPhone (the Chinese version of the iphone) so thought I would sew myself a cosy for it in the meantime whilst I was waiting for it to arrive in the post.  I am really pleased with the phone cosy... I was a little less pleased with the phone (in fact I have sent it back as its rubbish), so the holder is now up for grabs on Etsy.... I do love the Alexander Henry spotted owl print :-)

I also thought I would have a go at customising the phone holder for a small laptop or netbook.  Here is the finished result, I think it works quite well, and matches a camera or small phone holder I made a while ago.

Next on the list was a peg bag, as ours is a horrible brown thing from the dreaded Tesco and has been left out in the rain a few too many times.  I need a better pattern for this - I think the bag bit that holds the pegs needs to be a lot deeper and I had to fudge the edges.  However, I do like the fabric, and was even inspired to embroider a peg on the front!  Excuse the fuzzy photo, I need to take better ones :-s.

Last, but not least, I would like to introduce Lucy - my pretty hen doorstop or paperweight.  I was inspired by my own hens and wanted something which was decorative, but also functional in some ways.  The material is from an old top that no longer fits me (ooh how liberating it was to cut into!) and she now happily sits on my desk.  I'm really, really pleased with her, so hopefully there will be some more in the pipeline soon for sale :-)

On the loom front, it has arrived!  She's now called Millicent (aptly meaning hard worker) and was taken to pieces and put together again in our top room.  She is a 4 shaft counterbalance floor loom, made locally in the 1970s from solid beams of mahogany.  I spent the day on Sunday cleaning her up and linseed oiling her, and she now looks a beauty.  Hopefully, if my yarn arrives on time I will be threading her up and starting to weave some samples later this week... hoorah!

This photo was taken pre-cleaning and oiling, I hasten to add ;-)

Bye for now,

Kx

weaving loom - to go for or not to go for?

As some of you may know I have signed up to do a weaving course with the magnificent Margo Selby down in London later this year.  As luck would have it, I managed to buy a couple of small table looms from my local auction room (I know, serendipity or what?).  One is a simple plainweave loom which I plan to pass on somehow.

The other is more interesting.  Needs a bit of work doing to it to get it workable, but should be ok.  Its a four shaft table loom, not sure who by as the label has disappeared.

Ok, so the serendipity keeps on going... we got a phonecall from a friend saying that they had a loom in the garage which had been sitting there for years and hadn't been used in all that time and would I like it.  So, question is, do I take them up on their incredibly kind and generous offer?

The loom is a six shaft floor loom, measures about 4ft by 3ft and appears to have all if not most of the bits there.

I know it all needs a good clean and a certain amount of reassembly.  But I would appreciate some advice as to whether this would be a good thing to go for?