I've spent the day plying two bobbins of 'old wool' (the blue and teal heathered stuff I got last month) in an attempt to free up said bobbins for new color experiments with the wool that got here yesterday. Two solid hours of treadling later, I've got one stinkin' bobbin of plied yarn:
And I have barely scratched (spun?) the surface of the two bobbins I'm plying FROM:
... no idea what that lopsided tumor-looking bobbin has going on. I'll be lucky to get this done by the end of the weekend. The plan, originally, was to knit a felted bag with this yarn, but now I'm wondering if there will be enough to knit a sweater. Or three. Urgh.
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Thank you to all who are weighing in on the weaving issue. As usual, I don't think I've properly expressed exactly what I'm thinking of doing, so I'll give it another shot. First, I intend to fool around with plain weaving, to get a feel for it and decide if I enjoy it enough to get more serious about it. (Not to mention the hand issues - I have to make sure I can do it without winding up on painkillers regularly.) This phase, I'm thinking some place mats, maybe a table runner, some dish cloths. Cotton thread, tabby weave. I might get wild and put in some stripes or something. That's it.
THEN, assuming I'm still having a good time (big assumption; we'll see), I want to try my hand at some wall hangings, which would be in brocade, which appears to be (from my reading) fairly simple, but tedious. We're talking cotton or linen warp and weft, with whatever strikes my fancy for secondary weft. Again, we'll see. I'd also been thinking of giving rug weaving a try, until I researched it further and saw how those knots have to be tied... forget that. My hand hurts just looking at the diagrams.
At the back of my mind is lurking the thought that it would be cool to knit enough yardage to make myself a kimono, but I doubt I'd ever get that far.
If you've just decided I am insane, my only comment is, what, haven't you been paying attention?
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Last night the Husbeast brought home a box of diapers, and after we put them away, he was looking at the box and said "You know, I bet the Goob would fit in here." and the next thing I know...
9 comments:
Those bobbins look pretty good for a new spinner. You seem to pick up things quickly. I have always thought that I can teach myself anything I have a mind to (the exception being geometry but I don't really have a mind to do that) and I'm looking forward to trying the spinning. The spindle is ok but so slow it makes me crazy sometimes. And I love the box full of Goober!
Seal that box and mail that Goober here!!
Yay on the spinning. I have no idea how to weave, but go you for trying.
Trish
any chance you could take an intro to weaving class and get a feel before picking out the type of loom you'd like? than might help you zero in on direction you'd like to go.
Looms are tools and as such different ones are suited better to one purpose on another. After 25 years of weaving on floor looms, I had my son make me a copper pipe tapestry loom for Mother's day last year. It's on my blog and will come up if you search for the May 19 and July 4 posts from last year. Info for web directions for building them are in the posts.
Better yet....can you get a copy of Sara Swett's book Kid's Weaving from the library. You may find some ideas there that you would like to try.
The yarn looks like a bluejay (we call them camp-robbers.) Very nice and cheery.
Damn I wish you lived closer. I would loan you my two harness floor loom and see how you like tabby-weave. Are you sure there aren't any classes in your neighborhood? You really shouldn't invest in the equipment till you've given the craft a try.
As for wall-hangings, just slap together a frame of cnavas stretchers and wrap it with warp, then weave your little heart out. Many folks, prop the frame against a desk or table, rest the other end on their lap, and go to town. This is even an acceptable way of creating placemats, one at a time. Warp, weave, cut the warp threads, and tie them into fringes.
I'll leave the weaving to you, no desire to tackle one more hobby around here. However I will be more than happy to take the beautiful blue yarn off your hands and I live in Mount Pleasant!
I just finished a one week beginning weaving class at The Mannings here in PA. Oh my lord!! Now I want a loom, and I even know which one I want. Of course my dear husband is choking over the cost, and pointing out that we have no room with two wheels already taking up valuable living room space. But I can be patient.
If you have any chance, I would say take a class. Mine was incredible, and I came home with 3 kitchen towels (one of them overshot), a lovely table runner (twill sampler), a beautiful rose path twill scarf of my own design, and more information and enthusiasm than is good for someone like me. Of course, not every instructor is like Tom Knisely, who is patient and accomodating beyond belief. I bet he would even have ideas about how to deal with some of your physical limitations, as that was one of the first questions he asked us during the first day. Just knowing that if my degenerative disk problems started giving me grief, he would accomodate me made me relax quite a bit. And he asked me if I wanted to bring in some of my handspun to weave with! I declined, since spring is here and I didn't want to use wool in my scarf project, but he was very encouraging about using handspun in weaving (of course, he has also been my beginning and intermediate spinning instructor).
By the way, your spinning looks great. I took much longer to become as consistent as you seem to be already!
Okay...I think all this messing with stone-aged domesticity calls for a radical yarn tattoo, don't you?
(Fun with cardboard boxes...we've had one around the house for a month because we cut a spot in it for a head and two for arms and decorated it with buttons, and now the cave troll puts it on sometimes and tells us that he's a robot and we have to press his 'on-button' (by his neck) for him to do what we ask him. They really are as good as it says in sponge bob squarepants:-)
I just wanna hug her (it may be the logo on the box)!
He's not the only one:
http://historicstitcher.blogspot.com/2006/08/im-back.html
Scroll down to the bottom of the post.
And let me know if you want me to ship you a small weaving loom. I have a spare 2-harness table loom.
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