Author: horsenettle

Plarn Tote

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  • image from www.flickr.com
  • image from www.flickr.com
  • image from www.flickr.com
  • image from www.flickr.com
  • image from www.flickr.com
image from www.flickr.com

Plarn = plastic bags cut into strips and used as yarn. Plarn is fun, and it's green!

I used the 10 dent heddle on the Kessenich two-harness loom, warping every other slot–70 ends total –with white crochet cotton for the warp, bought for a quarter at a thrift store. I probably used about ten cents worth. Then, I cut ten plastic sacks into strips, using a tutorial I viewed on Youtube. The red handle is some acrylic I spool knitted on a little crank knitter. So, all in all, my weaving cost me about fifty cents. Ritzy!

I wove 20 inches but now wish I would have taken the time for another five to ten, because although this little tote is cute, it's not really useful. It's probably just big enough for a few DVDs or one or two books. I don't plan on lining it, but I am planning on another plarn tote, this time bigger.

Two Harness Patterns

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Last week, I was thinking that maybe, just maybe I'd get bored with a two-harness loom. I mean, using a rigid heddle + another heddle makes a three or four harness loom, which means patterns like twill are possible.

But with the Kessenich two-harness table loom, I'm kinda stuck with two harness. I had thought that meant plain weave, aka tabby.

So, I challenged myself to find some patterns and so I wandered over to Handweaving.net, clicked on the Draft Archives, clicked on search, and then asked for all the drafts with a minimum of two harnesses and a maximum of two harnesses. Guess how many results I had? 772.

Even if many of these are simply repeats of log cabin or stripes, I bet you anything I can find enough to keep myself busy with only two harnesses!

It Weaves! My First Kessenich Project

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  • image from www.flickr.com
  • image from www.flickr.com
  • image from www.flickr.com
  • image from www.flickr.com
image from www.flickr.com

 

I took an old warp I had cut off the Glimakra Emilia after abandoning a project awhile back, and I put it on my new-to-me Kessenich two harness table loom. I don't actually know how to warp a table loom, but I made a guess (and checked in a book). It wasn't picture perfect but somehow it worked. The back beam was messy and tangled, I started too far over to the right, and yet it all wove up very nicely.

I returned to my stash of vintage embroidery floss for the weft, using 20 tiny skeins of blues. It created a striped effect. Personally, I don't know if I would have gone out of my way for a multicolored warp and striped weft, but it all came together, and now I have a 10" x 35" piece of woven fabric. It may end up being something someday (a pillow… a bag…), but for now I'll call it a sample and leave it at that. 

It took four hours to warp and weave this. The loom isn't very big, and yet it's tall enough on a table to have to stand and weave, something I used to like to do with the Emilia until I put it on a stand. I loved using the loom. It could be 40 or 50 years old, but it works wonderfully. I can't wait for the next project.