Becka’s Project Journal

The fiber art community lost an amazing artist on Friday.  Although I only met Jean a handful of times, her work truly spoke to me.  I work every day surrounded by textile art and I remember the first piece I saw done by Jean and the “wow” reaction I had to it. The first postcard I designed for the Textile Center had a piece by Jean on it.  It was a lime green face with tendrils of hair wound through the words “mind memos”.  It was all hand embroidered with fantastic texture built up in the stitches.  I spent a lot of time looking at that file and the actual piece was even more amazing in person.  I am sad that I never got to take a class from her.  I will always remember how kind and generous she was when she taught classes for us.

You can see her work here and here. 

She will be missed.

I love letters.  Fonts, typefaces, alphabet books.  I have made a bunch of  “Impromptu Alphabet” pieces and wondered if I had enough letters to spell something.  Sure enough!  These are some of the most fun things to make.  I have a scrap bin that lives on a table next to my sewing machine.  Everything that is too-small-to-fold-up but too-big-to-throw-away ends up in the bin.  For these I pull out whatever I put my hands on and see if I can make a letter.  There’s never a pattern and I have learned that some letters are easier than others.

Stacking Fabric Blocks by Oh Fransson!

For your crafting delight, I decided to put together a pattern for my Snaggle Tooth onesie.  With a nephew getting his first teeth in and a very grown up friend who is losing his baby teeth already, I decided there are plenty of reasons to celebrate snaggle teeth.  Click on the cute dino above for a .pdf of the pattern and some ideas about how to use it to make your own snaggle tooth fashions.

My nephew just got his first two teeth in the last week or so.  So I made him this little onesie to celebrate his new snaggletooth status.  The dinosaur is an applique from handdyed cotton and the details were hand embroidered with perle cotton.

This was my knitting project while I was driving to and from the SDA conference.  It’s the Shalom Sweater (look here on Ravelry).

I made lots of modifications, but I like how it turned out.  The yarn is a fun tweed with flecks of yellow and blue in it.  It’s called Trendsetter Oxford – I don’t think they make it any more.  This stash was a gift from a friend.  It’s wool, so I probably won’t wear it much for a few months!

If things look a little different, it’s because they are!  I have just switched a bunch of things including hosting my website.  It might take the internet a day or two to get all of the redirects and nonsense pointed to the right things.

Inkle looms are a little picky about what makes good warp. Whatever you use it has to be smooth.

Good warp:
I often use something called “rug warp”. That’s pictured on the left. I can get it at the Weavers Guild of MN, which is located in the Textile Center. Super convenient. It is strong, ultra smooth and comes in all kinds of colors. About $4.50 for a spool.
I have also used perle cotton 3/2 weight. Again carried at the Weavers Guild. You can get it at craft stores and use the little skeins. Have done that in a pinch, but it is more expensive that way. Perle cotton has beautiful shine.
Embroidery Floss. Works great. The little skeins don’t go very far, but everyone seems to have them lying around.
Bamboo/Tencel yarn. I made a couple of scarves on the inkle with blends of bamboo and tencel. Nice drape, really pretty result.

Bad warp:
Anything with fuzz. I have tried sock yarn. It works ok, but due to the way you move the threads as you weave, any little fuzzy bits that stick out get tangled together and you do a lot of picking fuzz out of your weaving and prying things apart. Some experimenting with sock yarns might get you the perfect thing. Merino yarn is a disaster. I tried a single ply lace weight and it just plain didn’t work. Wrong kind of yarn for this kind of loom.

Probably good:
I haven’t tried but I imagine that cotton yarns would work great, smooth nylon ribbon yarns too.

I had several comments from my last giveaway asking for help with inkle looms. So here is the start to a series all about what I know! First things first, we need to start with vocabulary. Weavers have all kinds of strange words to describe the parts of looms.

Inkle looms are small tabletop looms used to make long narrow bands – up to 4 inches wide, 9 feet long. Mine comes from Beka Inc and I love it. I am the keeper of 18 of these for the kids programs at the Textile Center and these ones are durable!

Shed – the opening that you pass the shuttle through when you are weaving. On an inkle loom, you move one set of strings up and down, creating the shed.

Heddles – hold down every other thread. On an inkle, one set of threads stays in place, one set moves up and down.

Warp – the long threads that you put on the loom. Inkles make a “warp-faced” weave, which means you only see the warp threads in the finished weaving. This inkle has a continuous warp, which means it is one big loop, with all of the separate colors tied to one another.

Tension Bar – this is the only moving piece on this loom. It can be loosened and tightened to adjust the tension in your weaving.

Weft – The thread that you weave back and forth through the warp. You carry it on a shuttle. It passes through the shed. On an inkle, this thread hardly shows in your finished piece.

Shuttle – a thread holder for your weft thread. You also use the shuttle to press or beat the threads tightly together as you weave.