The First Set of Rugs Leave the Loom

It is always sad when someone leaves home, unless they are simply going around the corner and will return in a few minutes with ice-cream sandwiches.  

~ Lemony Snicket

As I think I may have mentioned once or twice (or one million times) before, once the loom is set up, the weaving goes really quickly!  Look at this big roll on my front beam that contains FIVE completed rugs:  

I was so excited by my progress that I cut the rugs off the loom before getting to that part in my video lessons - and I quickly discovered that tying the fringe neatly is not so easy - the last row or two of t-shirt yarn wants to come apart and the warp threads don't necessarily stay distributed evenly across the rug:  

So, it's to the sewing machine I go!  I stitched down the outermost row on each side of each rug.  That big thick white stuff was my divider yarn - I put in five inches between each rug, hoping that 2.5 inches would be a good length for the fringe:  

This made all the difference - look how my outermost row of t-shirt yarn stays in place, with the warp threads evenly distributed:  

Everything is ready for the fringe knots - and the length turned out just perfect!  :)

I have A LOT more knots to tie - plus the wet finishing - before I can show off these five rugs...  But, I'm working on it!  ;)

So, my first five "babies" have left my loom - the only home they've ever known - and they won't be returning with ice-cream sandwiches...  

But don't feel sad for me, because there are seven more waiting to be born.  ;)

Color Selections - Part 2

Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment.  

~ Claude Monet

I have another set of color selections to show you today:  

Row #1: Dark purple, pink and turquoise

Row #2: Light grey, lilac and purple

Row #3: Black, rust and dark green

Each one of these sets will turn into one, three-striped rag rug - the order displayed above will be the order of the stripes (although only the middle color is really relevant, as there is no defined start point...)

Across all the combinations (not just these three), there are some that I love, some that I like and some that just don't appeal to me.  The cool thing is that, for each combination, there is someone who really, really likes it!  

It's going to be fun to see how the rugs turn out!  :)

More of A Good Thing

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful!

~ Mae West

More shopping spree results from my stop at "A & E Pharmacy" in Pensacola, Florida!  

First, a yard of this Seminoles print to make a Christmas gift (car trash bag) for a friend/fan.  ;)

Another perfect Hawaiian shirt print for my husband - this one featuring state "postcards" from along Route 66:  

And one more top and skirt combination for me!  I'm envisioning a cute, little short sleeved (or sleeveless) blouse with the butterfly print and a flow-y skirt in this cotton fabric that blends from a very light orange into a very dark orange.  (I'll put the dark along the bottom, obviously.)  

Somewhere along the blended continuum, the orange color in the skirt fabric matches the orange in the butterflies in the top - so I hope those two will look good together.  :)

I seriously need to quit my job and stay home to sew and weave all day long...  Here's wishing all of you a wonderful sewing weekend!  :)

A Good Thing

If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.

~ Ayn Rand

I'm on a business trip this week to Pensacola, Florida and that's got me feeling a little sorry for myself, so I decided to temporarily take a "vacation" from my decision to only shop my stash for a while and went on a fabric buying spree at this place: A & E Pharmacy.  

Yup, it's that classic pharmacy-fabric store combination that we all know and love so well...  ;)

Seriously, they consider themselves something of a quilting fabric store, so they stock mostly cotton prints - but they stock A LOT of them and plenty of stuff that I never see in any of the chains back home.  As you probably know, I sew lots of cotton prints, so I was in heaven!  

Here are just a few of the goodies I found and my plans for them:  

This brown fabric with colorful names of national parks will make a perfect Hawaiian shirt for my husband!  :)

I'm thinking of trying something a little different here - I'd like to somehow use both of the cotton prints in a single skirt - maybe with vertical panels?  I can't quite visualize it, but I'm feeling like it's going to be something different.  And then the pink knit will become a top to go with the skirt.  :)

I'll show you the rest of my "loot" tomorrow - needless to say, after my shopping spree, I was no longer feeling sorry for myself!  ;)

Sewing? You Sew?

The secret to enjoying your job is 

to have a hobby that's even worse.

~ Bill Watterson

I am pretty "tied up" with my Christmas weaving (did you see what I did there?), but there is a project waiting for me in the sewing room - a work-worthy skirt and top.  The skirt is a TNT (tried and true) - the view shown in the photograph.  The top is a new pattern - I'm planning to make the v-neck, short sleeve version.  

I particularly love the fabrics I picked out - this beautiful flower print cotton for the skirt and a dark grey knit for the top:  

I don't have much experience working with knits, but am hoping that I can get this pattern to work and that I end up with another TNT.  :)

I don't know when I'm going to get around to them - this whole work thing keeps getting in the way of my life...  I wish Mr. Watterson had explained his secret to me before I got interested in sewing...  ;)

Let the Weaving Begin!

Creative minds have always been known to 

survive any kind of bad training.

~ Anna Freud

I decided to start with my rug, so that I can practice the techniques that I'm learning from my Craftsy class and, hopefully, get all the kinks worked out before weaving gifts for my friends.  Pepper was anxious - insistent, in fact - to help me at each step along the way...  ;)

There are three, related things that I'm trying to re-learn and do correctly.  The first is "throwing" the shuttle  through the "shed" (the opening between the 2 layers of warp threads) - rather than passing it from one hand to the other.  My loom is narrow - only 22 inches - so I can get away with (and usually do) reaching inside and passing it through.  Obviously that won't work with a wider loom, so I want to learn how to do it correctly.  

The second is having the weft thread at an angle before beating it into place:  

The purpose of the angle is to give the thread a little more length than appears necessary.  That extra length is used up, because the weft's path isn't straight across - it goes down and under some warp threads and then up and over other warp threads - that up and down and up and down path requires the extra length.  

Finally, I am trying to learn how to make nice, even edges, without fiddling with each weft thread with my hands.  I'm certainly not perfect, but thanks to my video lessons, my edges are definitely improving!  :)  

Look at how beautifully the pink and yellow/orange look together!  And it looks like the width of this rug is staying pretty constant too - unlike the first rug, that our foster teen and I did together (here)...  

The weaving is my favorite part and, in comparison to all that loom preparation, it goes so quickly!  I can't wait to dive into all the color combinations that my friends chose!  :)

And the Loom is Ready!

A (wo)man is a very small thing,

and the night is very large and full of wonders.

~ Lord Dunsany

The last step in preparing the loom for weaving the Christmas rag rugs was tying the warp threads onto the front apron rod.  This went very quickly.  I learned a trick in my Craftsy video - the more threads you have tied on, the easier it is to tie them tightly (because the other bunches of threads are helping you hold the apron rod in place) - and you want all the threads to have the same amount of tension on them...  

So, my instructor explained that you should tie on about one third of the threads like this:  

And then tighten the apron rod a smidge, before tying on the rest of the warp threads.  

Notice in the picture above how the threads are tied in bunches on the rod and form a series distinct segments?  To weave, I want them evenly distributed - so first I put in a few weft rows of a thick yarn (actually, I think this is the stuff that we used to have in all of our mops).  

Voila!  Now the threads are evenly distributed!  And I am ready to weave!  

More than a month before Christmas!  

Will wonders never cease?  ;)