Catching up in the Shop

I spent the weekend demonstrating weaving at the Sacramento Weavers and Spinner Guild annual Open House. I knew that if I was going to spend two days there I needed to get something useful done. I wove two more of the scarf warps from the Box of Chenille to end the weekend with six new scarves. Chenille 855These are three from one warp.yarn-bombed bike at SWSGThis is a bike that was parked outside the show.Baby blankets 849 Back at the shop I have been trying to get caught up on weaving jobs. This is part of a baby blanket warp. I cut these off before I finished all of the warp because I had someone waiting for three of them. DSC_8454  I finally finished these cotton blankets that were on the loom a long time. Some are baby blanket size and some are larger for throws.  IMG_8902The next project to finish is a custom king-sized blanket woven of yarn that is a blend of llama and wool. I finished getting this on the sectional beam last night  and started threading it today. I hope that I can finish it by next week and move on to the throws for this customer.  

 

 

 

Fixing a Big Mistake

My largest loom is 60" wide. A queen-size blanket is supposed to be about 90" wide. When I weave a large blanket (full or queen size) I use double weave. This means that I weave two layers of cloth at the same time and they are connected on one side. When the blankets comes off the loom I open it up and it is double-width. Sometimes things don't go as planned. Here is an example:DSC_8050 That is a big OOPS on the underside. (And that wasn't the only one on this warp of two blankets. In fact some of you might notice another error that was THROUGHOUT  the whole warp.) Both of these errors were fixable--it just takes time…and patience...DSC_8052 …and a good audio book. Here is how I fixed the most obvious error (all those skipped warp threads).DSC_8053 I knew that I could pull the warp threads out and needle weave them all the way back to the end of the warp (about 30" I think). I found the correct path above the error and marked it with a needle. It's not just a simple over-under. I think this pattern was under 2, over 1, under 1, over 1, under 1, over 2. I really didn't want to have to do that pattern with a needle for all of those threads. So I tied a thin thread (brown) to the warp thread (wool yarn) that needed to be rewoven and as I pulled it out the brown thread held the place. DSC_8056DSC_8058DSC_8059 Then I untied the brown thread from the wool yarn. Using a tapestry needle I wove the wool yarn over and under the correct yarns in the area where there was a skip.  DSC_8061Then I tied the brown thread back to the wool yarn and pulled it all the way through to the end of the blanket….for all those threads.  After fixing other errors the blankets were washed and they are finally in the mail. Thacher blankets

Here is the stack of blankets that I sent to the customer. There are 8 throws and 2 queen blankets (the ones on the bottom of the stack).