Tag: cotton

Potholder tips

On By CarynIn Craft

As I’m going through my Pumpkin Spice Friendly Loom cotton loops and weaving potholders, I’ve found a few tricks that help my process flow.

Marking the center peg of the Pro Loom helps reduce counting. I used a metallic Sharpie to mark the 14th pin on all four sides of my loom.

Photo description: Pro sized Friendly Loom marked with a gold pen at the middle peg, black dog looking up at the camera in the backgound

Rather opening and closing the bags every time I need a new color as I weave, I loaded my arm with cotton loops in the order I need. The loops are large bracelet sized and quite comfy to wear. This speeds up weaving time as well, since I’m not fumbling for the next color.

Photo description: Pro loom with warp set with alternating colors of spice and linen colored loops and my arm covered in the same alternating colors for the weft

This is the biggest thing, y’all. I stumbled across a vast repository of potholder weaving patterns. Piglet’s Potholder Patterns has over 600 weaving patterns in very easy to read charts, for free. Piglet Evans and Matthew Simon Cavalletto do a fantastic job with the website and have patterns for a variety of loom sizes as well as blank pattern charts. 600 pattern possibilities, I may have swooned.

Photo description: Pot holder woven with spice and linen colored loops along with the weaving chart from Piglet’s Potholder Patterns called Floating Circle

I love optical illusions and just had to try the Floating Circle pattern, which uses straight lines to trick the brain into seeing a circle. So neat.

Couldn’t resist

On By CarynIn Craft

Friendly loom has my number, or rather, my email address, and had a sale and a color collection called “Pumpkin Spice.” I couldn’t resist, especially when I found out they had an online design app. Ooo.

I made one of the designs they suggested on a card they sent, and the card also has a link to the Potholder Design Wizard. Like I said, they have my number.

Photo description: Pro sized potholder made from flax, orange, and tiger lily colored cotton loops with wood ring sitting with the Friendly Loom design card with QR code

I ordered the wood rings too, since they are such a nice way to tie off the last loop, and I didn’t know about them before either. Ooo.

Phone pouch

On By CarynIn Craft

I made an experimental pouch for my phone for when I’m wearing pants with inadequate pockets. It strings onto a belt, has quilted sides and an open top. I made it with two pieces of quilting fabric and polyester batting using my model 66 Singer Treadle machine, including the quilting.

Photo description: quilted phone case with golden ivy on a cream background sitting on the table with of a Singer treadle sewing machine from 1916

I like that I made the pocket for the belt with the seam in the back. I like that it is quilted. I’m not sure how I feel that is it open on top. So far I haven’t dropped the phone out of the pouch, but it would ease my mind if there were a small retention flap in there somehow. Hm. I shall contemplate… I think I have an idea. I’ll make another test case.

Macrame storage part 1

On By CarynIn Craft

Using offset square knots I made a pouch beneath the macrame design I did earlier to hold a tongue drum.

Photo description: green tongue drum hanging in a macrame pouch and gathered tassel with unknotted cotton cord on the sides

The idea is to create more storage for small musical instruments on either side. Knotting continues.

Egyptian cotton 3-ply

On By CarynIn Craft

I finished spinning Egyptian cotton single spun yarn onto three bobbins on an Ashford Traveller spinning wheel (Yes! I spun cotton on a wheel using a high speed whorl.) I found the largest diameter on the high speed whorl, the one that matches the bobbin end diameter, worked best for me. The smaller diameter gears went too fast and I over spun. I also had the wheel set up with Scottish tension with a very light take up on the bobbin. I prefer to dictate the amount of spin in my yarn rather than have it controlled by the wheel.

Photo description: three wood bobbins with cotton singles on the lazy Kate built in to the Ashford Traveller

The next task was to ply the cotton. I was nervous about this because the singles had a high degree of twist, and liked to kink up. If a strand broke I would also be dealing with the rapid unwinding of the single, which results in a whole sale unbinding of a large section of yarn (ask me how I know). I did let the singles sit on the bobbin for a few days to set the twist a little. Remarkably, I was able to ply the yarn from the three bobbins with no breakage and only a few missed kinked knots.

Photo description: three ply Egyptian cotton yarn on a wood bobbin of an Ashford Traveller spinning wheel

My spinning definitely looks like homespun, but as I practiced, my technique improved and there were some sections of smooth and even spun yarn.