Tartan Cloth

Yes, I am finally done weaving my tartan cloth. All 6 1/2 yards of it. Every night for the past week I've said to myself, I'll get it done tonight. Well, I finished it this morning. I just had to take a crazy lady picture because I really was going a little crazy thinking it would never be done. Between color changes every inch or so, warp threads snapping constantly, and a teething baby... let's just say it was not progressing very quickly.

Here it is before I cut it off of the loom. I think this is the first thing I've woven that I am completely satisfied with. The picture doesn't do the colors justice.

Now the loom looks sad and empty, but I'm only half way through. Now I have to tackle the daunting task of tailoring a kilt out of the cloth. You might not hear from me for a few more weeks, but definitely check back because I have to have it sewn before October.

Tartan... the beginning

I have just jumped off the diving board into the deep end of a huge project that I've wanted to weave for at least three years.... tartan cloth! I designed my own tartan based off of my triangle shawl, since I like the color combination so much. My family name doesn't have a tartan, so I figured making one up was even more fun. It wasn't until after I'd designed it that I realized most tartans are symmetrical. Oh well!

At this point I have all of my warp threads measured, chained, and they are threaded through my reed on the loom. All 900 of them! I'm only half way through the set up process. Next I'll be threading them through the heddles to set up the twill pattern.

My goal is to have it woven before my group dances at our Renaissance Festival the first weekend in October. Ideally, this will be a kilt. But I don't have high hopes since the fabric might be too thick to pleat and wear without sweating to death. We'll see how it turns out I guess. I'm so excited!

Pouches

I have been a busy bee working on all kinds of projects, which is why I haven't had time to post recently. These are going to be Christmas presents for some friends of mine this year. They are from a wonderful and super easy tutorial I found on noodlehead. She did an excellent job with the instructions. The only trouble I had was with the zipper end-covers getting sewn down. But by the fourth one, I was a pro!

The fabric strips on the front of these was a handwoven sampler that I cut up. I originally used the sampler as a practice weaving in my kids fiber art class last year. I wasn't sure what it would become, but I thought it was the perfect accent on these pouches.

This golden twill pattern is the same project as the green diamonds, only woven in a different order. Lots of weaving patterns will give different results depending on the order you raise the threads in.

If you're a sewer, this project is perfect for fabric scraps. You can create all kinds of different effects by mixing and matching. Mine are very subdued, but you could definitely do some bright and spunky ones.

Coverlet

Remember last year about this time... I had just put a project on the loom at Missouri Town (a historical site I volunteer at). Well, it's finally finished. I stitched the two halves down the middle to make one big blanket and hemmed the two ends.

If you've ever read the Kirsten series of American Girl books, it's about Swedish immigrants in 1855, and one of them talks about her mother weaving the coverlets for their beds and thinking that the idea of quilts is strange. So that's what this coverlet would be, a scandinavian type of bed covering.

It's just the right size for a child's trundle bed. Now it's on display in the downstairs bedroom at the tavern. The best part is that it looks like it belongs in the room. It looks just as old as the actual artifacts. It feels good to have completed a project.

Warped

A loom always looks better when it's dressed. I finally got my first project on the new loom and started weaving today. I had forgotten how fast the actual weaving part goes once you get past the set up. I already have two towels done!


I'm using an "undulating herringbone" pattern that I've been wanting to try for years. I'm so pleased with how it's coming out--and I didn't make any threading mistakes, hooray!

Of course, now I'm already planning two more projects. And these are much more complicated than towels. More on that later.

Christmas in July

My first loom was given to me by a woman in the Weavers Guild who had seven other looms in her house. She'd gotten this one at a garage sale for $200. The story was that it belonged to someone's great aunt in Alaska, then went to the niece in California, then somehow to another relative here in Missouri. It hadn't been used in at least 40 years. It's solid cherry and works well, but has some annoying glitches that need to be fixed by someone who knows what they're doing. I wove 3 or 4 projects on it, but they were all narrow--scarves or belts. (I didn't weave the one hanging on it.)

This year, my husband told me I could start looking for a used loom for my Christmas present--the type I wanted to weave yardage on, a Swedish style loom. I started looking around and within a month found this one. It is exactly what I wanted, a Glimakra 4-shaft with a 40" weaving width. If you look closely, you can see it's set up differently than my old one, which is an American style jack loom. If you ever are interested in buying a loom, I would highly recommend getting a used one. There are lots of people who think they're going to weave and never end up using a brand new loom. I paid less than half the price of a new one for this loom.

There are several perks to a Swedish style loom. First of all, a lot of things are adjustable including the bench height, the beater height and position, and the treadle (pedal) height. All that adjusting makes it easier on your body while weaving. It also has cloth heddles instead of metal ones, so no more "clank-clank-bang" noise--very important since I'll probably be weaving when the baby is asleep. Also, it's set up to produce a finer cloth with a tighter weave structure, which is what I'm wanting to do.

I've already started warping my first project: towels. Yes, towels. I never thought I'd waste my time making something like this, but I needed a quick sampler project that I wouldn't mind if it got ruined just to figure out the mechanics of the loom. I had a hard time resisting the urge to jump in and put a 40" wide, 5 yard long warp on right away. But then I actually started thinking about Christmas presents and decided to kill two birds with one stone and do a sampler project that would work for presents too. Thus, Christmas in July, for me and my relatives who will receive the towels. I'm also going to try a new pattern called "undulating herringbone" that I've been wanting to do ever since I started weaving. Hopefully I'll be posting woven towels on here in a month or so, if the baby is cooperative and lets me work on it!

Have you ever made a project that you weren't interested in? Did it end up being worthwhile or not?

skirts

This is the first skirt I ever made. It is an airline blanket that I took with me to the Cornerstone Music Festival, back in the summer of 2001. It was extremely hot and, out of desperation and a newfound hatred of shorts, I sewed this skirt with a sewing kit someone from the next campsite had. It is probably still my favorite skirt even though it looks pretty junky. It's certainly gotten enough wear these past nine years! (wow, I'm old.)

If the airline blanket skirt is my favorite, my brown circle skirt is definitely second favorite. I found this vintage brown linen at a garage sale about four years ago and made my first circle skirt. As you can see, the hemline is very uneven, in fact it's not really a line at all! I did not really know what I was doing and so the sides are shorter than the front and back. But, if you know me, you know that doesn't bother me one bit. I think this is the main reason I've stuck with sewing for so long. When most people would get frustrated and rip something out, I would just say, "eh, it looks fine" and wear it. I have definitely come a long way though...

Here's a close-up of the tie and button to keep the opening closed. (notice the sloppy stitching)

And here is my next attempt at a circle skirt, which as you can see has an even hemline--hooray! I think this one is only two years old. But it doesn't get worn as often because everything goes with brown, and not everything goes with this blue.

So, the point of this post is two-fold:

1) Don't let yourself get overly frustrated if you're learning to sew. If you are, do one of two things, either stop sewing and come back to the project some other day (I do this a lot!) or just say to yourself, "no one else will notice this mistake, so I'm not going to care." and just leave it. (I know I'm making some of you cringe.)

2)I absolutely love and adore circle skirts because they are extremely easy to make and they're very full without having gathers. So I thought I would post a simple tutorial here sometime before the end of summer. Believe me, if you make a circle skirt, you'll fall in love too!

Do you have a favorite skirt? What style is it? What makes you love it?