beaming and sleying

Beaming:

Oh my gawd, it's the German flag! Not on purpose though. You know, I should just give up on careful planning. I spent days sewing, systematically, strips together for a patterned rug. The overall colorway is black and white with shorter strips of red and gold (until I ran out and had to use beige). I wanted a side border and chose what turned out to be German Flag Colors. It'll be interesting.

Sleying: Goth

Marie's Saturday

Four pieces are off the loom. Plain weave table runner

Plain weave shawl

Twill side one

Twill side 2

Company is coming for dinner. The pound cake is in the oven.

The blueberry sauce is simmering

Italian bread is rising.

Linguine and white wine clam sauce is waiting in the wings

....The garden is plowed and Bob and Richard are toiling away de-bouldering the trench so they can run electric to the barn. My own personal Chain Gang.

I lead an exciting life.

Prep work for rag rugs

Here are some denim strips sewn together for a rug. I have more to go. I'm not crazy about cutting old jeans. There is a lot of waste and they're difficult to cut probably because of the ground in dirt that never gets washed out.

I wish I would have taken pictures of this process. This will be a "hit or miss" rug. Three pieces are joined into a tube then cut in a continuous strip. That took most of Saturday. That is, the sewing together, folding, pinning and drawing the 3" strips.

It took all day yesterday to cut. And cut. And cut.

To complain further, it took all day to do this.

Voila!

In the future the length of each panel will be considerably shorter. I think my panels, two were bed sheets, are too long, which will give me longer lengths of the same color.

I finally got the painted green warp onto the loom. This view is from the warp beam.

This view is from the breast beam. I don't remember leaving any white areas, but there you go..........some white. I like it but I think the rest is all painted in greens, blues and a smattering of violet.

I didn't use all the bouts that I had painted. I wanted to weave some narrower pieces.

What will it be? I think there are 6 yds including waste. Maybe there are 7 yds. Could be a lot of dish towels? A wide scarf or narrow shawl? My spinning a weaving is more process than project. In the end, it all becomes "something". I think once I weave about 24" I'll know what I'm doing. Or maybe not!

Two Green Rugs

Small rug in the kitchen.
















Long rug




















The same long rug


















A more accurate color









I just ordered more of this fabric, like 11.5#s more! Not only do I like the dark green, it's better suited for our life style, ie. manure. I also ordered the companion color fabric, burgundy. Now I'll have to change the stripes since there is red in there. I think next time I'll have stripes only on the sides and black in the center. To do that I must order more black since I only have 12 cones of black. The set is 12 epi, the sectional beam is 2". No, I will NOT wind off. Too labor intensive and my brain leaks when having to make sure the counter is actually counting.

Mr Princess put another back beam on for me. He had dried a piece of cherry that he milled a few years ago. Unfortunately it is beginning to bow. He'll cut another piece and attach a piece of angle iron. I sure hope that works. I was so pleased with the new beam and the rugs were the better for it! Once that is rectified, I'll take the first rugs I made on the Union apart and reweave them.

Rag Rug Weaving

Spool rack: the rug warp was occasionally slipping off the spools and onto the rods that support the spools. In the deep recesses of my mind I recalled reading about a solution to this problem. Take a strong, smooth cord and measure 4 1/2 times the height of the rack. Double the strand a wrap it around the the spool rack, place it in the center of the spools and then tie the strand tightly. Do this for each row of spools. Take the end of the warp and bring it between the two strands of cord. This will be your guide and will keep the string/warp centered on the spool.

The bottom of the photo shows the 3" hem woven using three strands of black cotton rug warp. One of these days I'm going to weave a yard of fabric this way, wash it and see what kind of hand it has. I'm wondering if it would have enough body to be a runner or even a placemat. Perhaps when this rug is complete I'll give it a try.

This rug is set at 12 epi using 8/4 cotton rug warp from Leesburg Looms.

I've been cutting this material for days. It's 3" wide and wound into a tube. I have no idea how many pounds I had, but it took forever to cut using a rotary cutter (Olfa). The mounds of strips were every where. Once wound however, it doesn't look like much. My plan was to use only the green strips and not the green with the plum colored diamonds. Oops, not enough "all" green. I'll alternate between the two, hoping that the red and plum don't assault the eyes.

Wind a center pull tube. When pulling from the center, the fabric naturally coils with the right side facing. It's then wrapped tightly onto a rag shuttle.

.....and unrelated to the rug weaving

The warp has been sitting on the other loom for two weeks waiting to be wound on. Avoidance?

Shawl is woven and given

Here is a photo of the shawl I made for Mim. She brought back a sarong for me from India late last year. Mim just got back from Rwanda and (brain fart) where ever the wild critter roam.** Poor girl is freezing. She hasn't been in cooler weather for quite a while.

There was enough left on the warp to weave a 60" runner, a 36" dish towel and a smaller piece at the very end that could be a liner for a bread basket.

I'm very pleased.

I hope Mim catches up with her sleep soon. Poor girl. It took 24 hrs to get back home.

**Kenya