Success!

The baby blanket is complete.  I am really pleased with it.

Here it is right off the loom.  It measured 43.5" long (plus hem allowance) and 32" wide before washing.  Notice the dog chew at the bottom left?  As soon as I put it on the floor to measure and photograph, Becca ran on it with her chew.  I kicked her off twice and finally had to shut her out of the room in order to get this picture.

Click on this one to see the "hole" made by the dog claw in the center left (yellow section).  I didn't worry too much because it was going to be washed, and it was no problem.  This is also before washing.  You can already see the huck lace/ basketweave pattern with the natural weft.  It is pretty subtle on the gold warp, but very clear on the turquoise and brick red.

This picture was taken later in the afternoon, when the light was warmer.  It shows the colours differently.  The blanket has been hemmed and washed and ironed with a steam iron.

Here it is draped over my warping mill.  I can't share its softness with you, but that 2/8 cotton is pretty soft after only two washes.  The second time I took it right from the front-load washer (which got it pretty dry) to the ironing board.  It now measures 40" long (loss of 3.5") and 30 inches wide (loss of 2").

The light in the living room at night is not great, but I needed to include something of Becca.  Since I was not happy with the idea of doggie claws in the threads, this is as close as I let her get.

I hope the mom and the baby both like the colours.  They are not traditional baby colours, at all, but I thought they looked good together.  I tried using a navy weft for a few rows at the end; it looked much more sophisticated, and the warp colours really popped.  I would like to use this colour combination again.

Next, I will make some 12 shaft tea towels with 2/10 mercerized cotton.  Any suggestions for pattern?  There will be black in them, as a friend here just got new black countertops in her kitchen.  Of course it never entered my mind to order black when I did either of my two last orders of the above cotton.  Oh, well; guess I will just have to buy some more!  Too bad.

I would like to get the warp wound before I leave.  I am going to England for the Tse Qigong Centre's instructor training seminar.  Getting pretty excited as it is only a bit more than a week away.  Surely I will have a couple of blogs worth of tales and photos from my 10 days there.

Finally weaving!

Well, the first warp that I wound to try and make this baby blanket was so bad (had so many mistakes in it) that I threw it out.  Never done that before!

Now the second warp is on the loom and I have started to actually WEAVE on my new Louet Spring.  I decided on wide stripes with navy in between.  Fifteen threads makes one repeat of the basketweave/lace pattern, so the navy stripes are fifteen threads wide.  I did not make the selvedge wider, even though I know it will draw in more.

Here is the warp ready to wind on.

It is as wide as the loom will allow, 35 inches.  I know I should have woven something narrower for my first project, but this was the item I wanted to make.

And here is Jones, enjoying the sunshine as he hopes for some stray threads to come his way.

Here the warp is lashed on to the loom.  I found that I had wound one too few threads in a couple of the colours, so I now have several things dangling off the back beam.  I already had two for the floating selvedges, and then the warp seemed looser at the selvedge edges, so I weighted all 15 threads at each end. Jones loves those dangly things.

And here it is with the hem woven with cotton sewing thread and three repeats of the pattern.  I am using cream weft to soften the effect a bit.  It is a baby blanket, after all.

Jones and Becca are telling me that it is dinner time, so I had better go.  Wish me luck with the weaving!



Becca with good news!

Hi, you remember me from the last post?  Well, the nice people I have been stayin' with have decided to keep me!  I knew they would because I am a nice doggie.  I try really hard to do the right things, but I get it wrong sometimes.

Do you want to know why I was sure they would keep me?  Even when I made a mistake, they didn' get mad at me.  They are both very nice about lettin' me know what I should do.  They even praise me when I get something right.  And the lady gives me yummy treats when I do things right.  I think I will take them up on their offer and stay.

I am also gettin' better about not barking at people as much - better with other dogs too.  But they don't understan' how much I think I should protect us all from strangers.  I had some not so good things happen with strangers in my life.  But we sure are meeting lots of nice people an' dogs.  Life is pretty good. :)

She took this picture of me while I was sleepin' in the "cat bed".  (That's what they call it, even though I am a dog.)  It was dark, cuz I was sleepin', so the picture isn' the best quality.  For some reason, the lady thinks it is cute.

Remember, you can click on it for a better view.

Luv,

Becca