2nd Weaving Project

I decided to hurry up and warp the loom before I forgot everything I learned at R&M Yarns. Well, got out the warping board and put it together, got out my beginner book and figured out how much yardage I needed and how many ends. Got that all worked out but it ended up too short so I didn't add enough for waste (or whatever weavers call it). I honestly think I would have had enough if I hadn't tied on the back beam a bit too much yarn. I know, I know...the teacher told us to use as little as possible to tie on. Oh well, it went fairly fast really and I only made one mistake, twisting some yarn as I was putting it through the heddles. I was impressed with myself. Maybe I did retain more than I thought. Before the lesson, I totally messed up the yarns before I ever got it warped. I even managed to do the "Reed Substitution" because my yarn was 20 WPI and my reed is 12 dents per inch. So the book says to sley 0-1-1-1. Doggone, that worked although I wasn't so sure after I looked at it on the loom.

The weaving went fast really. In two days I had finished another table runner. There was one mistake I couldn't have known unless someone had mentioned it to me before hand, the yarn is a linen blend, really pretty stuff but it tends to fuzz a bit. I thought I'd be cute and do a twill pattern about an inch up from the header. It doesn't look like a twill, it looks more like a mistake. Then around the middle I decided to get cute again and that looks even more like a mistake. Oh well--live and learn.

Next, when I took the piece off the loom, I got out the beginners book again and learned how to do a hemstitch. I wasn't thinking straight, I was so excited to get this off the loom. Deborah Chandler says to read through the first part first and then do. Well, I read a little and jumped in (typical for me). If I had read farther, she says Linen doesn't make a very nice fringe. My thought was to take it off the loom and use the linen blend for my fringe rather than the plain old cotton. Well....I cut the cotton too close to the end of the work and if you're a weaver, you know what a mistake that was.

In the end, it didn't really matter, this was just the first practice piece without the teacher standing over me banging my hands with a ruler (wait---that was in school when I took typing). I luckily realized what I had done wrong before I cut the second end. I went ahead and made my fringe with the cotton and it looks great on the second side but the first side is a bit rough. Lesson learned!!!

Next I decided to see how machine embroidery and weaving do together. So I embroidered a design in the middle and on the 2 ends. Doggone--that looks great if I do say so myself.

Here's the pictures of what I've done.



I love how the embroidery turned out and since its my goal to combine all the fun things I do, machine embroidery and/or machine knitting along with weaving, I can see that its going to work just fine. Naturally I don't mean I want to do all 3 on everything, but its definitely do-able.