Jeanette's baby blanket

These are pictures of a baby blanket that I made for a girl that I work with. I knit it with two strands, on e of the purple and one of the green. I used size 10.5 circular needles.

Fiesta Towels #1

I made 5 towels, well 4 plus a smaller version.
They are from the "Weaver's Craft" April/May 2000 Issue.

Used 5/2 pearl cotton at 2100 yd/lb.

The instructions called for a 4.25 yd warp, and said to allow 1 pound for the warp. I thought that is what I got although after warping it and then coming up short and taking it off and then doing it again I was still a bit short.
I made the warp with two strands together as there was 360 ends. I think this may have contributed to the constant knotting up that happened regularly. It was rather a hassle. I think next time I would do it in maybe 4 sections and do one strand at a time.
E.P.I. 18 I have a 15 dent reed so I slayed it 1,1,2.
Width in reed is 20"
P.P.I. 18
On Loom length 32"
Shrinkage and take up 12%

I got 3 ounces of red, blue, pink, dark pink and yellow.

They all wove up pretty fast. I started with red and did not think to put a selvage at the start but did put one about 1/2" at the end. The rest I did put selvages on. There was enough on the loom that I could make about 4/5 of one more therefore the pink one. So I think if I would have just made it 4 1/2 yards I could have gotten a full 5 towels. They did turn out fairly nicely. I dont' think any of them was perfect and the last one I did was the least perfect. Maybe too excited it was finally coming to an end.

I was afraid that the darker colors were going to run as someone in my class had this problem but hers was some older pearl cotton from who knows where. So I rinsed them all in cold water and threw them in the dryer to dry. Then ironed them and they were fine.

Barn loom

This is the top set of pulleys.



There are two bars that balance on the top set of pulleys. This is why you can never really do three harnesses against one harness.




This shows the next set of pulleys the two front harnesses are on the left and the two back ones are on the right. i took the warp off the back beam, you can see it laying to the right in a twist

This shows the tie up although you can't see all of the peddles.

Here you can see them all.

weaving class projects

Here are samples of what the people who came to class had to share. They seemed quite a bit more willing to try harder things, and they mostly used material they already had at home. And their weaving was very good.

Jackie's scarf

Did another scarf just like Janice's as it was turned out faily nice and was easy to do and I liked the feel of the material. I still need some work on selvages. I made this one a bit longer.

Janice's scarf

I got this pattern off a book I bought online from Handwoven magazine. It is called "Soft Cotton Scarf with Chenille Stripes" it is from the sept/oct 1995 issue.
The warp is a 4 ply cotton and the cotton chenille. The store I bought my yarn from calls is "dish cloth" yarn. The warp was 2 1/2 yards long. And the epi was 10. The weft was the same 4 ply cotton. and it has ppi of 10.

Used an 8 dent reed that I borrowed from the weaving store.

The chenille sticks together a bit but it was very nice to weave with the “dishcloth” yarn. I did have a crossed yarn in the heddles that I did not figure out until about half way. I cut it and tied it back together, I am not sure that is the correct fix and don’t know how well it will hold up but that was my solution.

Jenny's scarf

Scarf 1-13-08 through 1-15-08


Warp:

Used a boucle and two strands of a wool yarn. Both are 6 epi.

Width: 7”
Take up: 1”
Overall width on reed: 8”

8”x 6 epi + 1 to end in boucle= 49 ends.

Scarves are 3 yards long to get one with 6” fringe each end.

3 yards x 49 ends is 150 yards, 75 yards boucle and 75 yards each of the two strands of wool yarn.

Weft:

Used a wool tweed

Width 7”
Take up 1”
Shrinkage 10% 1”
Total width = 9”
Picks per inch 6
9x6= 54”/inch
Length of scarf: 72”
Length of weft = 3888”/36”/yd = 108 yards.

Used a 15 dent reed. Went 0,0,1

Results:
Found that this spacing in the reed was too far apart. Started weaving too loosely and ended up with a lot of distortion, wound up weaving too tight and the boucle did not show as well.

Pictures showing the distortion.

Pictures showing the finished product and the movement through the tightness of weave. The top picture is the loosest at the beginning and it actually shows the boucle better.