Scrappy woven scarves on the rigid heddle loom

 

Weaving is very meditative once you get the loom warped, and one beauty of weaving scarves is that the warps are skinny and go pretty fast.  

As usual, I was using up bits of this and that, nice yarns I'd picked up at the thrift store, a mix of wool and linen in compatible colors.

I used my little loom, an Ashford Sampleit 8", a tiny thing that doesn't fit on a stand, so I use a cheap work bench I bought for 20 bucks at Harbor Freight. 

In the purplish scarf I also incorporated tiny leftover bits of yarn into the weft, which jazzed up the fairly plain warp.

Both scarves were finished with twisted fringe, which is my favorite way to deal with fringes. Some people finish their wovens by washing them so that the fabric becomes more fuzzy and tight, but I like the look of these as is.

Scarf Weaving on the Rigid Heddle Loom

One of the things I wanted to do over my vacation was to weave.  So I made up these two scarves on my Cricket loom.

 This purple scarf was a scrappy project.  I warped the loom with leftover Lion Homespun and eyelash yarn, and I wove the weft with some thrift-store sourced chenille.  The texture is very soft and fluffy.

This second scarf was made with one skein of Lion Homespun.  I've blogged about weaving with this yarn before.  It's very splitty and unravels if you look at it sideways, so it's a bear to knit or crochet with, but it's wonderful for weaving.  Just make sure to knot and/or apply fray check to any cut ends.

And because I have a lot of small WIPs, I made two more Japanese Knot Bags from the free on-line BHG pattern.  It's been fun using some of my more playful prints.

The three bags fit nicely in a basket and I can grab one and go when I need a bit of knitting meditation.

Weaving with Self-Striping Sock Yarn

I wanted a large shawl for an upcoming trip, so I warped my rigid heddle loom with some inexpensive self-striping sock yarn.  This one is Sensations Truly Pattern, sold at JoAnn Fabrics, a blend of wool, nylon and rayon.  I threw in a few stripes of 100% wool in a light blue to make sure I'd have enough stripped yarn to warp the whole loom.

While I weave I get in a few hours of junk television watching, and listen to a few podcasts.  Lately I've been listening to the New Yorker Fiction podcast, which features the reading of one short story and its discussion in each episode.
 

Then suddenly, the shawl is done!  For the weft I used Yarn Art Kid Mohair Transparent, a blend of mohair and acrylic, that I got on clearance.  This shawl should be warm as well as light weight.

I used a fringe twister to finish the fringes, and ran the shawl through a delicate machine was and dry.  It's ready to go for my summer travels.

Red

I've been MIA for awhile, but going back to work after having a semester off for sabbatical has meant a bit of an adjustment in my schedule.  Then, of course, working and being around a lot of people during the height of the cold and flu season meant that I got what was going around, which knocked me off my game for a few weeks.  I'm happy to be well again.

In the meantime, I made another rag rug on my rigid heddle loom.  I posted a tutorial in 2012, which still brings me lots of blog traffic.   I used a slightly longer 65" warp with this project, and I'll probably go even longer next time.



For this rug I used red cotton for the warp, and various red prints for the weft.

It's a yummy rug for the kitchen.

Off the needles, I finished a pair of socks.   I love knitting striped socks as I can measure my progress with the color changes.   It's hard to stop sometimes because I want to see what the next color will look like.

Weaving on the Cricket Loom with Lion Brand Homespun

I've been giving my little Cricket loom a workout, trying out various yarns and yarn pairings.  While I do this, as you can see, I'm binge watching The Good Wife on Hulu.   I used to watch the series before, but I recently caught up on the episodes I'd missed, and now I'm watching it from the beginning.  The characters are great, and there are some very quirky minor characters.

Here are some of the yarns I've been playing with.   When you weave with them, novelty yarns transform into something altogether amazing.

 These two scarves use novelty yarns in combination with some conventional yarns.

 

This scarf combines a patterned sock yarn warp with a solid black weft that alternates with more self-striping sock yarn.  I love the vertical shots of white in this scarf.

One discovery has been what a joy it is to weave with Lion Brand Homespun.  It's readily available, and inexpensive (especially bought on sale or with a coupon).  One caveat is that once cut, it unravels like crazy, so have your anti-fray product ready.

 

I wove this scarf with a 5 dent heddle and with Homespun in the both the warp and weft.  I threw in a few passes of sparkle yarn at the beginning and end--it's too scratchy to be around your neck.  The finished scarf is incredibly squishy.  Yes, that's an official weaving term.  It's soft and velvety.  Mmm, I can't wait to make the next one.

A Quandary and Some Weaving

The butterfly quilt is still unfinished and I think I may be talking myself out of adding borders. It's 78x 78" and after straightening up my linen closet and quilt truck I realized I really don't need another big quilt.  As is, it will fit nicely on the twin bed in my sewing room.  Any advice before I take it down from the design wall?

While I mull over the future of my quilt, I've done a little weaving.  This lovely scarf was warped with a solid lavender sock yarn, and the weft was a self-striping sock yarn, alternating with a sparkly variegated yarn.

I used the sparkly yarn to break up the solid sections of the self-striping yarn.  The patterned parts of the self-striping yarn wove up into some nice geometric patterns.

Now I'm weaving a sock yarn warp with a variegated wool blend.  That's eyelash yarn in the warp along the sides.  I've picked up several colors in the thrift store and I'm experimenting with weaving with them.  I like the pop of texture it gives.

Two Looms are Better Than One.

I'd been thinking about adding a small loom to my tools for a long time.  My original loom, an Ashford Rigid Heddle loom, is 24" wide, the perfect width for towels and shawls.  You can make narrower projects on it too, though it's a pain to stretch across that frame if you don't need to.

I though about getting a Sampleit Loom, or a Cricket.  But I couldn't justify adding one more thing to the supplies I currently have.  Then, one day on Ravelry, someone posted a practically new used 10" Cricket for sale at a price I couldn't refuse.  It included all the heddles, 5, 8, 10 and 12 dpi, and lots of shuttles.  This smaller loom is easier to warp and it's perfect for scarves and for experimenting with warps and with fancy weaves I have yet to try.

So now I have the Cricket.  That's a sheet of paper inside the frame, so you can see the size.  To keep the karmic balance in my stash, and to make space in the Closet of Doom, I passed one of my old Singer sewing machines to a friend who needed one. 

This scarf, made with some fingering weight yarns, was a fast and easy getting-to-know-you project.  Now that I've given my back yard its Spring spruce up, I have fantasies of sitting out there and weaving with the Cricket.  

Toasty

We're doing what we can here to stay toasty.  The temperatures have been very cold all week: down to the mid-20s overnight, and barely scratching 40 degrees during the day.  I  wanted some long fingerless gloves to keep my wrists warm, so I knit these up from a partial ball of worsted weight wool

The pattern Toasty, is free on line.  I added ribbing to make it fit more snugly, and I'm thinking of adding some crewel embroidery.

I finished the scarf/shawl I was weaving from self-striping sock yarns on my rigid heddle loom.  Here you see it before I twisted the fringes and wet blocked it.

I also used a fine yarn with tiny sequins, which you can see in this photo.  Note to self:  in the future save any yarns that might snag in the heddles for the weft only.  I like how it looks, but it was slow going easing those sequins out of the heddles.

It's too cold to do much in the way of outdoor activities, so I'll warp up  another shawl.  I'm learning a lot about what yarns do best in the warp, so this next one should be smooth sailing.

Ridgid Heddle Weaving With Self-Striping Sock Yarns

I've had a craving to weave for awhile, so I warped my loom with some self-striping sock yarns and  pretty quickly had this lovely shawl.

I'd bought a battery-operated fringe twister, which I got to use for the first time.  It makes fast work of this neat finish.

I used some inexpensive Premier self-striping sock yarns, warping with just over one ball of the purple, and with a little of the pink and the sparkly yarn.  I find I get a beautiful result with these yarns, which produce a plaid-like fabric.  For the weft I randomly alternated the rest of the purple with some solid purple sock yarn.

The sparkly yarn had some slubs, which fit through the 12 dpi heddle with little tugging.  The yarn is a bit scratchy, so I think I'll use it more sparingly in the future.  This was a Tuesday Morning find.

I impressed myself so much with this project, I immediately warped the loom again, this time with blues and greys.  I figure I'll stockpile these shawls for gifts.

Here are some gratuitous pretty photos: the first, a fall scene taken at a rest stop when Michael and I returned from a weekend trip a couple of weeks ago.  That yellow tree called out to me.

Another beauty shot: this time of my cat Louie, who posed so nicely for me.

Weaving a Rag Rug on the Rigid Heddle Loom

I warped my rug with a couple of weights of crochet cotton.  Size 3 crochet cotton (the Aunt Lydia's brand is commonly available) is a great warping material.  Since I only had about half of what I needed, I interspersed it with some lighter weight crochet cotton just to see how it would work.  In retrospect, the size 3 (which I think is also known at #10)  is the perfect weight.  Note to self: stock up.

The numbers: 170 warp threads in the 7.5 dpi heddle, 58 inch warp length.  In the future I'll need about 2 balls of the Aunt Lydia's Size 3. 

 

 For the weft I used 2.5 inch fabric strips.  Quilters may have a few of these around the house.  Join the strips (and avoid knots) by applying glue stick to 1-2 inches of the end of one strip and overlapping it with the next one.   Let it dry 20-30 minutes and then fold in half along the length and wind onto a shuttle.  I chose a palette of blues and yellows.  I'm not sure how much i used, because I have an endless supply of 2.5 inch strips.

In this rug I alternated two passes of the fabric with two passes of worsted weight ("kitchen") cotton.  I used less than a ball of Sugar and Cream for this rug.

The whole project is beaten with a comb.  The heddle isn't strong enough to pack the layers together.

When laying down the rows, twist the fabric at the edges.  I only remembered to do this at the end.  When beating with the comb, I found that I could only really pack in the rows after changing the shed (the position of the heddle).  I found myself working the immediate 4-6 rows, packing them in, while adding new rows.

In the photo above you can see that the new rows are more loosely packed than the previous rows.  They'll gradually get worked down after newer rows are added.

 

The finished rug is 20 x 25 inches.  I tied off the warp threads in groups of 4,  In the future I might add additional passes of the kitchen cotton and turn the hem to the back.  I washed the rug to make sure it will hold up to delicate machine washing, and it came out fine. 

Rag Weaving with a Rigid Heddle Loom

No embroidery this week, I had a craving to start something I could actually finish, something that wouldn't turn into my life's work.  I warped my rigid heddle loom with kitchen cotton (worsted weight 100% cotton yarn) using the 7.5 epi heddle.  If I had a 5 epi I would have used that. 

I have plenty of strips to work with, including this is a ball I strung together with knots some time ago.  For the next rag project, I'll eliminate the knots by overlapping my strips with a bit of glue stick.  This and other tips on weaving with rags are outlined in Jane Patrick's project page "Recessionista Rag Mats," included in this pdf newsletter from the Schacht company.

Bunny thought she was helping.

This is what I got at the end of the afternoon: a runner for my kitchen table. The nitty gritty: finished size 14.5 x 38"  I used both 3/4 inch folded strips and irregularly cut strips under 1" and beat them with a wide toothed comb.  Warp: about 130 yards, 62 warp ends on 7.5 epi heddle.  Warp length: 74".
 

So the cats don't try to claim it as their own personal magic carpet, the violets are anchoring it down.