Catching up with my blog

Sometimes I wonder why I even started  a blog.  It's not like I make the time to write about the stuff I've been doing.  In fact, I've done quite a bit lately and as I don't like to blog during work hours, I'm way behind - so bear with me.  Course blogging also helps me know where I'm at in my fiber growth.

Let's go back to February:

I have a friend, Cindy, who a few years back (OK - maybe 5 - 7 years ago) asked me to help her get started on weaving.  Cindy is the type who always has to be doing something - usually it's embroidery, but she wanted a shawl.  I really don't remember her asking me what she needed, how much etc. but I supposedly told her the whats and hows of.  So Cindy went out and bought a really nice ridged heddle loom and bought two different size reeds.  Now let's jump to last year.

We get the house.  My weaving studio is the garage.  I call people who have fostered my looms for me that I now have room if they are not using them.  Cindy has my 24 inch 4 harness floor loom, so I make arrangements to pick it up (it's been sitting in her storage shed).  While I am there, she asked if I would like her ridged heddle loom (with shawl warpped), because she can't figure it out and it's a big mess.  Those who know me, know I won't turn down a loom.  So I take it and everything gets put in the garage - I mean studio.

February came and I decided it was time to look at the shawl and see what I could do.  The yarn was a nice soft, slightly fuzzy acrylic.  I don't remember ever weaving with acrylic, so this should be fun.   It was also slayed 10epi and the yarn was a thick yarn (more like 8 maybe even 6 epi), plus it was in a 24 inch reed, much to cramped.  I moved it to my large loom and went from the 24 inch wide to something more like 30 inches wide.

I tried to keep to her warp pattern, but missed a few threads in the transfer process. Weaving with acrylic is not much different then weaving with a slightly fuzzy wool.  I had no problem with fraying or pilling, the sheds separately nicer and the acrylic was not extremely stretchy.  I could only weaving on Saturdays as this time of year was a bit chilly and the studio is NOT insulated (yet).

Cindy didn't give me her weft yarn, so I got a Cafe` colored acrylic from Walmart that blended well with her shades of blue, grey, white and brown.  I thought I'd weave a twill pattern to show off her yarns better.  I finished the shawl the middle of March and didn't get a picture of it.  Oh well.  I delivered it to Cindy's house just about a week ago and talkedto her briefly.  She was surprised and said it wasn't what she envisioned, but liked it.  I invited her to come up here and really learn to weave, if she was still interested.