Monday, July 25, 2011

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.

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