It's been about a year since I took up #weaving as a hobby! This thread will look back at my projects and progress over the past year.
First let's talk looms. I started as many weavers do on a rigid heddle loom. I opted for the widest Kromski loom they make so I had the most flexibility. Then about a month in, I lucked into a *free* floor loom and since then most of my projects have been on that.
My wife's tote is complete! This is my first #weaving project with significant #sewing. First I came up with the design and wove it on my loom. Then I sewed it into a tote, reinforced it with interfacing, sewed a liner, added straps and sewed it into the hem. I'm very pleased with how it turned out.
A #vintage #weaving book find at Powell's! The author of The Romance of French Weaving started work after the Great War documenting the history of the French weaving tradition, weighing the inevitable march of mechanization and mass-production against craft. Quantity vs quality. The conversation continues today.
I've almost completed half of the fabric for the tote. This picture shows all three stripes and gives a decent idea of what the tote will look like from the side. It will be narrower as I will make pattern-matched shoulder straps from each side. #weaving
After two false starts from trying out a temple for the first time, I'm making progress on fabric I'm going to sew into a tote. #weaving
The wool scarf is done! This is a surprise present for a male family member (who doesn't read my social media feed). It took about 7.5 hours start to finish and I'm pleased with how it turned out. #weaving
Well that was fast. I just finished #weaving the scarf. Now I just need to take it off the loom, tie the fringe, and wash/full it.
My next #weaving project is a simple twill scarf using single-ply, natural color worsted-weight wool raised locally. Doing something this simple is a nice change of pace from my previous projects.
My rug is done! Here it is in its natural habitat. It took me a bit over 55 hours to make it in total. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and learned a lot about Rep #weaving in the process.
Halfway through tying the fringe on the rug. I'm using a double Damascus edge which takes about 6 hours per side. #weaving
My rug is almost ready to take off the loom. The #weaving went quickly compared to the set up, but at the end here I'm struggling because I've run out of warp! I've had to pull many tricks out of my bag to finish this, but I think the final product will still be great.
I decided to measure my rug and remaining warp and I'm glad I did! This technique draws up much more warp than I was expecting so this 3'x5' rug will now be 3'x4'. Thankfully I caught it in time to adjust the pattern so it will still be symmetrical. #weaving
I have a rule that I don't buy yarn unless I already have a project in mind. I broke that rule today because, come on, local yarn with mug shots of the sheep it came from? How can you resist that? #weaving #fibershed
After a few false starts, the rug is finally starting to take shape! I think this is going to go pretty quickly at this point. #weaving
I'm now 24 working hours into my rug #weaving project. I had to buy more heddles to weave this dense, wide, large project. I have finished dressing the loom and am finally at the point where I can start weaving the rug itself.
Everything about #weaving this rug has been intimidating so far because of the giant scope of the project. For instance it took me almost four hours to wind the warp onto the warp beam. Threading the loom is next and it is equally daunting.
Technical author, FOSS advocate, public speaker, Linux security & infrastructure geek, author of The Best of Hack and /: Linux Admin Crash Course, Linux Hardening in Hostile Networks and many other books, ex-Linux Journal columnist.