Take One! I'll start this one over, changing how I weave the opposite colors over and under the floating selvedges. I'm also not crazy about the left and right borders, so now I'll have an option to re-thread those. Too bad I already hemstitched the edge.
I pulled out one of my old Weave-Its and followed the instructions in the 1945 “Weave-It Weaves” booklet to weave the hourglass pattern. In this case, I used an off-white cotton for three sides and swapped to maroon for the third. Now I want to do weave all the patterns.
If you check the January/February 2012 issue of Handwoven, there’s an article devoted to weaving pinwheels on an eight shaft loom. If you also check Ravelry, you’ll find there’s a weave-along featuring pinwheels. So my loom was empty, and I wanted to try eights shafts. Guess what I decided to weave?
With the yarn I chose (crochet cotton at 40 wpi), doubled in a 10 dent reed, the designs that worked the best were the ones marked B and C in the article. After trying five different ones, I finally decided to try either B or C in a slightly longer sample (the second from the bottom and the third from the bottom in these pictures). I have no real goal other than trying something with eight shafts. Because this is only a 3″ wide warp, it could become something crazy like a bookmark.
Next up: another scarf. I’m crazy about scarves!
I finally finished the fringes on my second rambler rose scarf/wrap/shawl. It ended up shrinking down to about 9.75″ wide after washing, which means I lost about 1.5″ in width! Quite a bit. I made a true beginner’s mistake by washing it before twisting the fringes. I’ve done this a dozen times without any problems, but this time, the fringes came out of the washing machine in a big knot. They were twisted around each other and nearly each one separated into its own little fringes, meaning I had a huge mess on my hands. Instead of the hour or so I estimated it would take me to twist the fringes, it ran over three. I also had to spritz them to keep them fairly flat, as they had a mind of their own and curved all over the place. Another lesson learned.
For anyone who is interested, this is a four shaft pattern. I’m am taking a little breather before jumping into the next multi-shaft project which will use all eight–pinwheels! In the meantime, I’ve been playing around on my other looms, making a cotton belt on the Emilia and practicing some inlay on the Kessenich.
