These are the new colorways for the looms. Don’t they look great all woven up?
These will be listed in my etsy shop over the new few days and then for sale at the Shepherds Harvest Festival in May. I will be sharing a booth with my friends Jen (Strawberry Moon Fibers) and Doreen (Goldfish Love Fibers). I taught a couple of classes at this festival a few years ago. Technology classes in the 4H barn, one of my most unique teaching situations.
My favorite yarn for making the tiny weaving loom ornaments has been discontinued and so I needed some variegated yarn with very short repeats or color sections. When you are weaving something that is less than 2 inches across, you need only a few inches of each color to get nifty stripes. So this afternoon I split up a ball of nice wool yarn and I dyed 5 new colorways. Now I need to give them names. When I sell these in my etsy shop, you choose the colorway – I weave one up for you “on demand” out of one of these yarns, so each one varies a bit but you will have the set of colors you choose. I am thinking #1 is Rhubarb and #4 is Violas, but would love suggestions for all 5. What would you call these colors?
Look what was featured on Craftzine.com yesterday! Do you see a familiar little loom there?
The looms are almost sold out in my Etsy shop, but I have more parts ordered and should have more soon!
If you read Andy’s blog, then you got a behind-the-scenes sneak peak of these in progress. These are two of my new items for the holidays! Tiny weaving loom and drop spindle ornaments.
Weaving Looms: The looms are about 1 5/8 in high x 2 1/4 wide, warp and weft from sock yarn. The tiny shuttle is wound with the remaining yarn and attached to the loom. They will hang from loops of perle cotton.
Drop Spindles: The base of the drop spindle is almost exactly the size of a nickel.
Both are made from bamboo, laser cut by Ponoko.com. Andy designed and set up the file, sent it off to them and we got a whole sheet of laser cut bamboo a few weeks later.
These will be for sale in my etsy shop in just a few days and available at the Textile Center in November & December. Edited 9-17: These are now in my etsy shop!
I had the enormous pleasure of attending a networking meeting with the regional arts council that was also a hands-on art activity, namely weaving on a floor loom. First a huge thanks to MRAC and the Weavers Guild of MN for putting it together and sponsoring it. You guys rock!
Our workshop was based on the Weavers Guild’s “Try It” classes. You show up, a very kind volunteer has “dressed the loom” (aka warped it) for you and you get to just sit down and weave. What a deal. These were warped with Harrisville Shetland wool. There is a whole wall of it in the Guild in gorgeous colors. We had a few minutes of instruction, a demo and then chose a loom. Mine was set up with stripes of blue-violet, raspberry pink and two shades of green. The weft yarn was a heathery purple.
The warp threads were set up at 10 per inch and our goal was to weave 10 weft threads per inch, to make a balanced weave. That meant that your woven piece should look like a windowscreen.
Believe it or not, that was actually easier than it looks. So we wove and wove. I think I worked on my scarf for about 3 hours. I chatted a lot while I was doing it. When I took it off the loom it felt like burlap. Yeah, I know. Yuck. But never fear, I saw finished samples and they were totally amazing. Why the burlap feel? The yarn is full of lanolin and it makes it feel kind of yucky and scratchy. I suspect it makes it easier to weave with because there’s not a lot of fuzz to get caught on the other threads as you go. So then I took my scarf home and gave it a bath.
Warm soapy water. Squishing and scrunching. Within half a minute the yarn is already softer. The goal now is to “full” it. Letting the fibers shrink a little and fluff up to fill in those holes you left when you wove it. Why make holes and then fill them up? Why not just weave it tightly? The answer is drape. If you pack it tightly together, your scarf is like a board when you get done. The looser weave lets it be soft and drapey. Mine started out about 8 inches by 75 inches. It’s now 6 1/2 by about 66 inches.
Out of the bath, roll it in a towel and squeeze out the extra water. Then I spread it out on the guest room bed and brushed it. I used a nylon nail brush. Brushing the surface fluffs the fibers up even more.
The bottom part of this has been brushed, the folded over part not yet. See the ugly orange yarn? That’s the fringe. We wove about a dozen rows of that from an acrylic yarn that doesn’t shrink. After brushing everything, then we unravel those fringe ends.
The last few rows of the wool yarn (before the ugly orange stuff) is a little extra tight, to make a stable edge before the fringe.
Finally, I stretch it all out to dry.
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.
