Friday, January 27, 2012

To float or not to float

OK  Mike,  I re-read your post about the floater selvage.  But here is what I found.  You can see I was not catching the outside warp on the first few rounds.  so I just did tabby weave for a 3 rows and got my weft started over to the right for my twill sequence.(same as yours) and then each row was catching my last warp just fine.    But I think I do like the idea of 2 floater warps as on a big project it would give you a nice edge.  But somehow starting it out from the left was leaving the edge not caught up.  Interesting.  Would love to hear your take on this. How did you get the zig zag of the twill?    I am trying to do the hem stitch on this but my plastic needle is much to large,  will be putting that on my list for Monday when I go to the big city and do some shopping. 

As for my quilting project.  My sister gave me some pointers and I have started quilting on my Pansy runner.  Got quilt needles on my list too as I am using embroidery needle that is a little large and the one she gave me is only about 1 inch long and I can barely see the eye! I guess they do make quilting needles just a little longer.  And she told me this morning that I should find a square of canning wax and if I am not using quilting thread, I should run the thread along the wax, then cut it and it will be easier the thread.  So glad to have people to teach me these little things.

Thought for the day: If you don't have a sense of humor, you probably don't have any sense at all.

Have a good weekend all!!

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Wet Finish: Sounds naughty to me!

OK  I couldn't resist that naughty comment there.  But here is my Pendleton wool rug that I followed someones instructions (Thanks Mike) and did what he calls a wet finish.  Why couldn't he just say that he threw it in the washer and washed the dang thing?  But it is done carefully,, verrrrrry carefully!  Cold water on gentle, then a little downy in the rinse.  Dried on delicate for about 1 1/2 hr.  It is so soft now.  Washed out alot of tiny loose fibers, but it shrunk up about 2 to 3 inches, and the warp is a little less noticeable.  I think if I do it again, I will only let the dashing cycle go for a minute.  The edges are sort of fuzzy, but I like the look.  Thanks Mike.  We keep learning stuff.

At the college this week, I helped wrap warp (try saying that 5 times real fast) on a warping board for an "older" lady that has trouble standing.  It was good for me to practice again.  Had one oops, about cracked the top right post on the board.  Seems I wrapped it a little to tight.  Lesson learned! 
Then the instructor set me up to weave some sample of a tweed pattern.  This is my first try a changing from plain tabby weave.  This is really fun.  Have to pay attention to the sequencing of each row, and we added a second color.  Will have to whip out my cell phone and take a few pictures of what I am dong there.    So at the store  I am going to set my little table top up with about a 5 inch wide set up and practice the patterns at home between classes.  Can always use them as coasters or something.

Thought for the day:  Egotism enables a man in a rut to think he is in the groove... unknown

Saturday, January 21, 2012

More ity bity rugs

Sometimes I get carried away!  Thus I made the long mug rug.  Actually it was at the end of the warp so I just said what the heck, I would just run it out.  I think it would work across the center of the table to put the salt and pepper on.  The blue ones are strips of blue jeans, one of my favorite fabrics to weave.

My thought for the day I copied from a long list of Thomas Jefferson's accomplishments and quotes:

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
-- Thomas Jefferson

Friday, January 20, 2012

So many things to do and so little time. How did I find time to work??

More little mug rugs I did yesterday.  Granny's night gown recycled!  These are so much fun to make, not sure what to charge for a set of 4.  Or should it be set of 6?  Or just individual?  Going to make some out of green and white stripped soft knit today.  Decided no weaving at home Sun, Mon, Tue.  Going to focus on my quilting and get my pansy wall hanging done.  Also I bought a long pair of light weight denim curtains at the thrift store when I stopped to check out their books and for 10$ They look like new.  I have enough to make a great denim quilt that I have been wanting to start.  You sandwich a fabric in the middle of 2 pieces of denim.  Stitching is on the outside and you clip the seams when done and fray them out.  I made a sample one with red checked gingham for the center of the sandwich, and it looks great.  I think I might be OCD!!  Help!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Yea, I am a college girl again. (Well sorta)

To start with, this is my 40 in. by 26 in. rug from my Pendleton wool selvage, that I just finished last week.  I think I will do my first "wet" finish as Mr. Mike did with his and see how it goes.  If he did it then I figure I can too.

OK I had my first class at the college at the weaving class.  Seems it is about 6 to 8 women who just keep coming back to the class each semester and just pick up with their project that they had on "their" loom from the last semester.  Anyway the instructor is Gary and he started me off with winding warp on a warping board for 36 inch strands, and warping front to back!  I was anxious to learn this as I just have not had the "hands on" for this yet as I use a tall rack for my spools, and I have to have 24 spools to warp the loom.  Here is a picture of my rack.  I have been planning on making a more compact one that lets the spools all set on a more even level.  Still with me?
As you can see this is quite cumbersome.  Now I am thinking I want to make a warping board instead and wrap individual sections from it.  We will see.  I do like to load my warp so I can do several rugs at a time so warping directly from the spool rack is good for that. I know I have alot of wasted warp too.

LOL, I guess as I get a little more refined on my weaving I will want to do projects that warping smaller amounts will make the warping board more practical.  So guess I need both.

The other thing I learned after I warped a little table top loom and put a header on, was to do the hem stitch!  That was my highlight of the day as I was wanting to learn that technique and there is nothing like Hands On!  Show me, then get out of my way!

I told Gary that I would like to do a tapestry wall hanging of an Native Am. Indian design.  I want to learn how to do a design.  I already know how to do tabby weave, as that is all I do.  So we will see what he comes up with and maybe next week I will be using that warping board again to warp a big loom.  Probably take me a couple classes just to get things set up.

So there you have it for now.  Now if I can just keep the weaving and quilting stuff I am learning separated!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Books, books, books

During Christmas week, while I was weaving, I kept hearing an advertisement about a big book sale down near my daughter's home.  So I went down yesterday to visit with her and we headed out and after 2 phone calls to the "store" we found it in a warehouse district.  Seems it is one of those warehouse businesses that sell on the Internet.  They must have had at least 50,000 books or maybe double that.  They were trying to get rid of excess so have this big book sale going on.  They took us back into the warehouse and showed us which "walls" of books we could choose from, plus a half dozen huge boxes (like you see pumpkins in at the store".  All were 25 cents each.  Wow, talk about a pig in a mud hole!
I managed to stop at about 200 books and we got out of there.  But I will definitely go back and take my list of books that customers are looking for.
Well that's all for today, will tell about my first day at the college this morning for the weaving class.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Too much fun!

This is so much fun weaving these ity bity rugs!  My mug rugs! I whipped out 4 yesterday in just a little bit.  It is fun to weave using my fingers instead of shuttle sticks.  They are only 4 inches wide. I brought my little table top loom into the store and had to move the sewing machine aside for now.  Seems funny to use this little loom now that I have the floor loom.
Doesn't take much to make me happy huh?
Got lots going on the next 3 days while I am away from my computer, so will report next week.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Rag Time

A friend of my daughter's sent a stack of "big" jeans that her hubby didn't need for me to use in my rug making.  They were nice and clean and very little wear, so I was happy to get them.  Hubby helped me rip them up this last weekend and I ended up with this nice stack to add to my denim stash. 
I have set my baby loom up now to make mug rugs to sell in my store.  (This first pair is for Lori. Thanks for the jeans!) They are fun to make and I have some ideas to make denim ones and some out of soft knit fabric I have cut to narrow to use on the big loom.                          
This is a rag rug I keep weaving just to get all the cream colored warp used up so I could get that dark warp put on the loom.  It ended up being almost 6 foot long.  Maybe someone will like all the purple and pinks for a bedroom.  It is about the longest one I have made so far.
Also on my days at home, I got the big loom warped with  my black, gray, & tan warp and of course       had to stay up last nite and weave a few inches of some of my Pendleton wool just to see how it would look.  Thats just the way I am ;)

Thought for the day:  3 rules of work
1. Out of clutter, find simplicity
2. From discord, find harmony.
                        3. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity...
Albert Einstein

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Weighing in

Saw a funny cartoon in the paper this week.  It was on about the 3rd of Jan.  A gal weighing herself and she says:   So far so good!

I about cracked up!  That was ME that day.  LOL

Friday, January 6, 2012

Potato Chip anyone?

This is my version of the potato chip scarf, "double".  Why do single when you can do double right?
This was crocheted.  Had to hunt for directions.  A friend had knitted one and I really liked it.  But don't have circular needles so this is what I got.  I kind of like it.