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.
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.
I was only able to get three swatches from my Tencel sample, knitted, crocheted, and woven. I wove this swatch on a Clover mini loom, with the warp doubled. To finish it I ran the warp back up through the weft passes. I like the edge the method makes, but I don’t like how wonky this piece came out.
I’m going to blame the spin on this one.
P.S. Sorry if you received this post twice by email. I usually schedule my posts about three days out, and I hit the wrong button, tried to retract it, and put it on the proper schedule. I wasn’t fast enough and the email went out. It bothered me to have this series of posts out of order, so I fixed it for the blog, but those emails may have a duplicate or not resend. Ah, technology.
The warp I prepared for a local kid’s event has been on my tapestry loom for awhile. I did get to use it as a demonstration, and was hoping to use it again, but it didn’t happen this summer, and I want to use the loom for something else, so I finished it.
The edges were wonky, so I decided to run a row of coordinating crochet stitches along the outer double warp. It helped hide the contrasting weft and gave it a nicer finish.
I think it is interesting that even though the warp and the weft are visible in the weave, the warp color shift is much more prominent, I was hoping for an even split.
I completed the fiber page for my spindle spun Ramie top fiber from Hearthside fibers. Ramie was pleasant to spin and has a cottony feel but with a long staple length. I experimented with three and four ply yarns.
I’ve wanted to try finger weaving since I heard about it on a Sprang group (it was misidentified as Sprang). In Sprang, there are no weft threads, the vertical warp threads are overlapped consecutively. In finger weaving the warp threads become the weft threads, similar to braiding, but with more threads. I watched video after video before I found this video showing the weaving going out from the center, which made sense to me, and seemed balanced.
I wasn’t sure how to end the weaving, I’ve seen some bands just knotted at the end, but I want to put it in my fiber book, so the finish needed to be relatively flat. I opted to run two rows of double half hitch knots along the angles of the weave, which I think came out complimentary.
This was an interesting exercise, and finger weaving is a nice addition to my craft repertoire. It is nice that it can be done by anchoring one end, rather than needing a loom, and it comes out thinner and more flexible than macrame. It is more interesting with multiple colors.
