Monday...

Catchy title, eh? :-) Not much crafting was accomplished over the weekend, and no weaving at all (though I did look at the floor loom as I walked by it 336 times).

I did do another row on the tied rug, and several rows of knitting, but I spent more time doing a little organising in the craft room plus setting up a craft list - my UFOs, projects I want to make, projects that need just a little finishing. Seems like I never remember this stuff when I have time to work on them.

I also spent a little time surfing, and ran across a blogger that is doing the "2007 UFO Resurrection Ring". (http://www.katwithak.com/archives/000593.html) It's a great idea, but I'm already doing too many things to keep track of right now so I won't be joining the blog ring. I am going to try to keep it in the back of my mind. I've tried many times to not start anything before finishing my UFOs, but that just doesn't seem to work for me, so here's my current plan (not set in stone yet):

I can start a new project, but I must continue to work on at least one UFO so I will be actively working on two projects at any one time. Finishing three UFOs will allow me to start another new project (I have an incredible number of UFOs -sigh-).

Currently I have the mistake-rib scarf I'm knitting and the tied rug. Once the tied rug is done I'm going to get something on one of the looms. Once the scarf is done I'm going to start knitting on my Baltic Sea Stole again, and I hope to get it finished by THIS summer.

I'm going to try to go back to my weekly schedule of what to work on which day, with a bit of modification due to trying to get the rug tying done. Since I don't have anything on the larger RHs right now I'll use their time to rug-tie and plan the next weaving project - if I can decide on which project to make.

Waffle-weaving (warning - lots of pictures!)

A commenter asked how I learned to use a waffle-weave loom - the rug tying frame. I went to eBay and bought a small waffle-weave frame that had instructions with it since I couldn't find any info on the 'net. I believe these frames are the basis for the plastic Love & Money looms that you can (usually) buy at WalMart and such places; I used to have a set of hexagonal L&M looms, and if I remember correctly, they used the same tying procedure.

I promised to write up some instructions, so here goes. Keep in mind this is my first project. :-)

First, you need a frame. I have a Sears "Hearthside Adjustable Rug Frame", that uses a shuttle (which of course was missing from mine; I'm using an upholstery needle):

and the eBay purchase - a Bucilla "Adjustable Waffle-Weave Frame" that uses a needle. The Bucilla is about placemat size - most of the patterns in the booklet are for placemats.

Both are adjustable - you can see the short pegged bar on the rug frame, and there are two different spots you can attach that for smaller rugs; and the Bucilla has extra holes in each bar for changing the size, like so:

You need thread or yarn, depending on the size of your frame. The Bucilla booklet calls for crochet cotton (by article numbers, so I don't know for sure what size); I'm using a bulky cotton on the Hearthside. For clarity's sake, I'm using a piece of worsted weight yarn on the Hearthside.
Now you need to wind your thread/yarn onto the frame. Tie a single thread in a corner notch (or on a corner peg), and wind up-and-down. Then wind side-to-side, so you have a cross-hatch. One layer (or ply, as Bucilla calls it) is done. Repeat this for however thick you want your item, then tie off the thread.
Now cut a piece of thread twice the length of what you want. You're going to double this yarn, with the cut ends going through the eye of your needle or being wound first on your shuttle.

I work right to left and top to bottom, so go to the upper right-most crossing of your winding. Insert your needle in the lower-left space, and bring it to the front in the upper-right space, catching the loop and pulling it snug.
Then, put the needle through the upper-left hole, then to the front in the lower right, catching the loop on the way back out, pulling it snug again.

Your first tie!

Go to the next intersection to the left, and repeat the process - in at the lower-left...

out at the upper right picking up the loop.


In at the upper-left, and out at the lower right catching the loop:


Two ties!


Continue across. If you're using a small frame, when you get to the corner you can just turn the frame and keep tying (not an option on the Hearthside). You can probably use one length of thread for the entire project on the small frame. On the rug frame, however, I cut lengths to do one row at a time (it is 4 FEET wide!).

After you've finished tying all the intersections, you can cut the threads that are wound around the teeth to get the project off the frame; or you should be able to just pop it off the frame if you want to leave loops instead of cut fringe.

In the Bucilla booklet, there are instructions for "Diagonal Weaving". This is done on a already-tied project, and involves going from knot to knot diagonally, catching the thread in the knots as you go. It looks like it is more decorative than anything else.

If you don't understand something, just ask!

Saturday was for...

untangling yarn. Sigh. While stash-diving I discovered a dead mouse in one of the very few cardboard boxes that had yarn in it - yuck. What a stink too! I had to take the skeins out of their commerically-wound skeins and make hanks on my new nifty skeinwinder (I sure got that in the nick of time!) so I could wash them. Luckily the only thing the mouse 'ruined' was a short bit of spoolknitted cotton that should've already been in the trash.

And somehow I managed to make quite a mess of this skein too, so I spent the evening untangling and re-winding this ball o'yarn. But isn't it pretty? (You'll probably want to click on the picture for a larger view.)This is one of the yarns my de-stashing spinning friend gave me. Red, white gold, blue, green - all darker shades. This will go really well with my medium-brown corduroy coat, and despite not being able to see my mistakes I'm enjoying the easy knit. I'm using mistake rib (how appropriate, eh?), and after knitting a few more rows yesterday I've decided to keep knitting instead of frogging and switching to weaving.

I was able to do a few rows on the tied rug as well - almost done (at least on the frame)!
Unfortunately I didn't get any weaving done on the small RH scarf, as I can't weave with the hound on my lap, but I did at least get it back on it's stand, and hope to do some weaving today.

And, I'm flashing my (incredibly messy) stash - at least most of it. The rest of the stash is small stuff here and there:



One of the stacks in the first picture is fabric for sewing - I don't have a lot (especially compared to my yarn!) but I do need to get that knocked down as well. The bottom (unseen) basket is full of worn-out jeans that I need to do something with - I'd like to make a bedspread but I don't know enough about sewing/quilting to figure out how I want to do it yet. Better get it done before the mice eat it all (a drawback of living in the country). If the floor loom does fit in that room I'll still be able to weave and sew at the same time, though perhaps with difficulty. My favorite machine - a Singer 15-88 treadle - is in that room; my second-favorite is a 3/4 size handcrank (a Singer 128-23 that I converted from electric) though that I can use anywhere, besides the electric Touch & Sew in the kitchen.

And the spinnnig stash (there's some in the second picture above, plus I still have that 8 ounces of alpaca to spin):



As you can probably tell, the stash is spread amongst three different rooms - guess I need to get busy! A lot of the stash is acrylic though, and I've been moving away from acrylics into natural fibers. One of the huge bins is FULL of Lion Brand Homespun & Chenille - if you have ideas of what to do with it - preferably weaving ideas, but I knit & crochet too - I'd love to hear them!

Time flies and all that...

It's been one of those weeks - not much being done for crafting other than using my gift card to Hobby Lobby, and starting a knitted scarf with some yarn my destashing friend gave me, and thinking about what I want to do next on the looms. I'll probably decide this weekend.

Hmm... now that I think of it - this mystery yarn might work better being woven instead of knitted - it's a very pretty boucle, worsted weight, I think it's cotton but I can't be sure (need to do the fiber test), and it's hard to knit on the size needle I want to use. I do have a cone of wool I bought for warping, or I could use some Fisherman's Wool and try out the 8-dent heddle I just got for the Harp - I could even try to warp with an acrylic yarn and hopefully make a tiny dent in my stash. I think I'll go stash-diving this weekend.

Meanwhile, I'm engrossed in a Clive Cussler book, so I might not do any weaving this weekend - though I really need to get going on the scarf on the small loom so it will be finished before Spring! I will try to work on that this weekend, at the very least. I have one of the first season DVDs of "The Closer" from Netflix, and I think those two would go well together. :-D

Tuesday...

I still don't have much to show for what I got done over the weekend. I did work on cleaning up the floor loom - it's about half done. The beater needs to be cleaned and reinstalled, and once that's done and I've cleared some floor space for it, it will be ready to go. I have been watching floor-loom videos as well - I'm thinking I'm not going to use the floor loom much! LOL I may do a video commentary here.

I've made progress on the tied rug, but it's taking longer than expected. Another week and it should be done, and I can move on to something else. While I'm working on it I'm trying to decide what to do next. I might do Deborah Chandler's sampler on the floor loom, and those sampler strips I found in a 70's-era book on the Harp. Unless I think of something else for the Harp.

That's it for now; perhaps tonight I'll work on the scarf on the small RH loom.

Nothin' new here...

I've been working on the rug frame, and my spinning friend did a destashing and gave me a bunch of yarn which I just had to play with last night. Included was a humongous cone of very nice wool, some acrylic yarns, a bunch of novelty yarns, and what looks like a ball of mohair. It gave me a great excuse to play with my new toy - an umbrella swift. I LOVE IT. :-D I bought the inexpensive metal one; I like that it works both horizontal & vertical.

I'm debating what to do tonight - I need to do some cleaning on the floor loom; I need to do more rug tying as at this rate I won't get the rug off the loom tomorrow; and I've neglected the scarf on the small RH. Hmm... maybe I'll first sit and watch a little tv with the dog, then do some rug-tying, and work on the small loom. Maybe I'll get a lot accomplished! (Though it is quite possible I might end up just sitting in my chair the rest of the night!)

The promised pictures...

First, the knitted gift - a scarf in garter stitch, in Yarn Bee's Cameo, color Ivory Jade, one skein:This is the softest, silkiest yarn I've ever touched. Since it's a bit furry, every once in awhile I'd miss getting the needle throught a loop, but always caught the error. It's made of polyamide, which means nothing to me though it must be a synthetic of some kind. I'm going to have to get some for me too - I could use another scarf! LOL (I have a gift card to Hobby Lobby, so it counts as a gift in the Knit From Your Stash program.) Hmm... perhaps I can run a thin wool yarn with it to make it warmer....


And now, the tied rug (this is called 'waffle-weave', not to be confused with the waffle weave pattern on a loom) on the Hearthside Adjustable Rug Frame. It looks pretty much like the last time I posted a picture - it's hard to see progress, but I'm enjoying doing it. I'm one row short of halfway, and once I get that completed I'm going to flip the frame top-to-bottom since it is much easier to tie if I can reach over the top and work both sides at the same time. My arms aren't long enough to reach for much longer. :-)


I'm using Crafter's Cotton bulky yarn, made by Lily if I remember correctly; but I think it is discontinued. It's not spun very tight, so it's not a very sturdy yarn, depending on what you are doing with it. I get fuzz off of it when I'm using it on the spool knitter, but I like the bulky cotton. I'm using carpet warp to tie; I thought last night perhaps I should be using Crafter's Cotton to tie, but it makes a pretty good-sized bump so I decided against it (whew!). Tonight it took me about an hour to do two rows, so I think I should be able to finish it Saturday, at least enough to take it off of the frame.

Monday was Small Loom Project Day,

but I spent the time straightening up my craft room and working on the tied rug instead. I need to clear out the center of the room to see if I can work on the floor loom in there, since I have a nice big rug on the floor instead of bare concrete and it will be more out of the way. Thankfully the straightening didn't take as long as I thought it would, so I might be able to 'flash my stash' tonight. :-D

Instead of doing my assigned daily projects this week, I'm going to work on the rug so I can finish it and put the huge frame away instead of finding another spot for it. Since the frame comes apart it should be easy to store - assembled it is 4 feet wide and 4 feet tall on its stand, and I'm always tripping over it's feet - it's really in the way. I'll try to post pictures of current progress on the rug tonight - I have a pic of the knitted gift as well (at least, I hope it turned out!).

The Hearthside Project

(Warning - lots of pictures!)

Here is what I can remember of how I made the rug on the Hearthside (I realized after the fact I didn’t measure & write down the finished size – DOH!).

Equipment:
Loom: 27” Hearthside Rigid Heddle Rug loom
Heddle: 9 dent Fiber:
Warp: Crystal Palace cotton 6/2 // 234 ends; 2 yds long
Weft: very old wool quilt batting, pulled into strips approx. 1 – 1 ½” wide (wool in roving form will work much easier) (I also neglected to weigh the rug after weaving, to get an idea of how much batting I used. It is quite lightweight, though, so probably less than 8 ounces?)
original form:
stretched out:Warping: I used 2-foot lengths of kraft paper while winding on. I doubled the edge warp threads for stability. I think it made it look a bit bunched up though, and I probably would not do that again with a roving weft. Also, if you notice on the loom picture above, it has wide strips of fabric (called the apron, I believe) holding the warp dowel to the warp beam. That caused a lot of problems with properly spacing the warp on both warp & cloth dowels. I either saw in a video or read in a book about tying a second dowel to the first with string, which would be an easy way to solve the problem and I will do that next time. Hmm... that might be why those black strings were tied on there. Guess I'd better put them back on!

Weaving: After weaving a header of about 10 shots of bulky yarn, I wove a hem of 7/8” with the warp yarn, and hemstitched it. I used a hair pick to beat the weft, as just using the rigid heddle did not work. I also later added a very small dowel between the header and the hem to give me a straight line to beat against, which I removed before winding onto the cloth beam. If I use this loom more often, I will cut a slat to use instead.Then I wove one shot of batting, and 2 shots of warp cotton (to lock the batt in place). Since the batting pieces were so short, I would just hook them in the shuttle and push them through, (an unusually long piece of weft)

still using the hair pick to beat the weft into place.
In process:At about 34 or 36", I had reached the end of the usable warp and finished off with another 7/8” hem, also hemstitched. Then I cut the rug off the loom, fixed some of the snaggy-looking and extra-puffed up 'stitches' (see that little bit that looks like a pill?),

and tied the fringe. After washing carefully to prevent felting, I shortened the fringe to approx. 4” long, and ‘combed’ the fringe with my fingers so it wouldn’t look so clumpy. And here the recipient with her new rug: Ending Notes: It turned out very lightweight, and not as firmly 'beaten' as it felt while on the loom. I really struggled to get a tight beat on it, but because the batting was so springy I was unsuccessful. I think the rug would be fine if I wanted to felt it, though. It probably will not stand up to being used as a floor rug for very long this way, but felting woud probably 'sturdy it up' quite a bit, and Mom said she would rather use it more like a table runner. I need to allow more warp length for waste as well.

I chose the quilt batting for this project, as it was my grandmother's, as is the loom, giving the project some sentimental value for my mom.


I will try this again, but use 'regular' roving; and I'd like to try a rug with that mop cotton or rug filler stuff, once I find a source, and see if that works better as well.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a safe & happy New Year's Day. :-D We had a bit of computer trouble over the past week, so I haven't gotten the Hearthside project post ready yet (I'm hoping for tomorrow or Thursday). I couldn't tell if the recipient liked it or not - Mom's not a very 'yippee!' kind of person - but I did get nice comments from others on it.

I spent most of this past week knitting - the gift project ended up getting frogged on the 25th as I didn't like how it was turning out. Thankfully I finished it this weekend, it just needs to be washed; so it will be done in plenty of time. :-)

I ordered stuff for the floor loom this past week, but I never did get downstairs to work on it (the broken beater bar arm has been replaced, though). I think this weekend I'll be working on winter-cleaning the house and figuring out what I will doing next and on which loom. I still want to do those sampler strips, probably on the Harp. On the floor loom I'll probably just put a short & narrow warp on and get used to how it works (I do have 2 rental videos coming from Halcyon Yarn to show me how to use and warp the loom). I need to practice using the warping board, as I just don't 'get' the whole cross thing and the one time I used the board I ended up with a terrible mess! Maybe the videos will help with that, too. I still need to finish the scarf on the small RH, or winter will be over and DH still won't have his scarf!