Home and Nurture

Being home has had its blessings. I made a decision to use the weeks to nurture home life and do all those projects that have been on my list. Probably like most folk I set to, sorting and cleaning and Skipper got a few DIY and painting chores done. What has been much more fun however has been delving into my weaving, spinning and handknitting for our own home

Also the garden has my full attention, over these past weeks and months the greenhouse is full of seedlings, the raised beds planted up with salad and veg as well as my annual flowers for natural dyeing of my wools. Happy days spent in the garden with the spinning wheel working through my stash of fleeces. While Skipper has been busy in his workshop wood turning I have been in my workroom busy weaving. 

A project that has been waiting for some years! I bought the wool, stored it thinking to make a throw/ blanket on my Saori loom knowing that I would have to weave it in panels and sew together due to the loom's width. Now I have the David loom I was able to weave it in one piece.

Checks and Stripes, simple plain weave. A warm, snuggly blanket with red detailing.

A piece of cloth in a twill pattern, woven free style. I will make cushions and a runner from this piece.

Using the same warp as the previous free style weaving-having dressed the loom with over 8 metres so as I could do both projects from the same warp. I then "opened the sett" which entails re threading the reed for a wider cloth. Then I changed the treadle tie up from twill, back to plain weave and using a different colour palette wove this small throw.

And my loom has got a little top runner to protect and decorate. A Rosepath design on cotton and linen.

It has been such fun to make some items for our home. Giving our home a hug as it takes care of us.

While I will have to wait until I can re start my weaving workshops and there are no craft events or outlets open on the Island to sell our work for some time. I will continue to weave, spin and knit supplying our online shops with new stocks of goodness for you and your home to purchase.

Thank you to our customers for keeping us going.

Keep well and keep safe

Weaving Baby Blankets - Follow The Process Part 2

 Summer has taken over here, it has been a busy one with plenty of sunshine for sailing and woolly adventures. But first I must get back to a project I have been "Showing the Process" of (back in May) so here is Part 2 of my Baby Blankets woven on my Saori loom.

Once I have threaded the reed it is time to thread the heddles

This task is very satisfying as I start to see the warp colours take shape and spread out across the loom.

Beaming the Warp

The ends are tied to a tying rod which is attached to the roller

  I need to wind the warp through the loom, towards the back, over the back beam and check the tension ready to weave.

The roller holds the warp neatly and every few turns I insert some card to make sure the warp doesn't develop any tangles.

At the front of the loom the warp is then ready to be attached to another tying rod and clipped to the front cloth roller, again I need to adjust the tension and of course check that all the heddles and reed threads are correctly set.

Now I am ready to weave.

I chose to weave different colourways on the weft, which makes each blanket unique.

Part 3 will show you the weaving and finishing process for the completed blankets.

I will be back very soon!

Weaving Baby Blankets, Follow The Process - Part 1

April came and went and we are well into May! and I haven't got around to writing my blog so - before I show you the weaving process for some baby blankets I told you about in my last posting,  I want to do a quick catch up with the hand spun yarn I was working too. It has been washed and  is now being woven up Saori Style.

Okay sort of caught up, let's get blogging...

 

Baby Blankets Part 1

In my previous post I told you about the inspiration, planning and practicality of these blankets. Now I will try to give you a snapshot of each stage in their making.

Before I start there is always a bit of maths to work out such things as length, width, density and of course the exciting bit yarn, colour and pattern. Once I have got this sorted I start to wind a warp.

Here is my warping frame, note the centre pegs where the cross is formed as I wind the threads. 

Once I have my warp made, I need to remove it without it getting in a tangle! to keep the cross in place, I secure it with ties of strong cord ( shoe laces are brilliant for this). then I chain off the warp which also keeps all the threads in an orderly bunch.

I can now transfer my warp to  my weaving loom. I tie it to the top frame so as it doesn't slip or pull while I'm sleying the reed.

I hold all the threads of the cross in my hand as the photo below shows, this keeps the threads in the correct order and I'm able to take the topmost thread each time and put it through the reed.

This is the loom's reed and my reed tool 

Here you can see the sleying of the reed.

Come back soon  I will show you what happens next.