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A New Loom!

       I’ve been weaving on a Glimakra 8 harness countermarche loom for almost 10 years now.  I love it!  It weaves like a dream, it’s super heavy, I get an excellent shed when all is going well, and I have a bit of an emotional attachment to it.  The only thing that I don’t love about this loom is that I have to climb on the floor to tie up the treadles.  Depending on the pattern, I could be under there for quite some time.  I’m pretty limber and in pretty good shape but climbing under the loom is back breaking work.  So much so that I’m sometimes out of commission for the remainder of the day after.  Look how pretty this loom is though!       I cleaned out the area that this loom has been designating as it’s home and prepped for the replacement.  I got an amazing deal on a Louet Spring and couldn’t pass it up!        I’ve been doing a lot of research on looms (well, really when am I not looking at looms!) and know that I love Louet.  My Megado has served me well for many years and th
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        You know when you make something and the entire process just seems seamless?  Well, that’s how this project played out.  I have some 10/2 tencel that is natural and I dyed a bunch of it over the summer.  I wound off bouts of around 1700 yards each and now know that I would like to make larger skeins so that I can get a couple of scarves using this pattern again...just a bit longer.       This picture was taken in natural sunlight of the braid after counting the ends on the warping board.  Let’s get this thing on the loom!                  I learned a new trick for spreading the warp in the raddle.  Since this is an A B color pattern, it’s important to not separate the colors in the raddle.  To never “separate the twins” makes beaming the warp a piece of cake!   Another cool trick I learned was to put the warp under tension while beaming.  With a stack of my son’s graphic novels, I had the full six yards beamed in seven minutes!  SEVEN!!! My absolute favorite part, threading

Bring On The Color....Even In The Fringe!

       Last year my number one seller was the Rainbow White Pinwheel and Rainbow Black Pinwheel towels.  I had a bunch of 8/2 unmercerized cotton and thought a pop of color would do the shop some good.  Turns out, a lot of people thought a pop of color would do their kitchen some good!              I love the way the colors interact with each other and this pattern and color combination is quite mesmerizing to weave.  When I had placed the order for more colors since I was nearly out, the black was back ordered, so I’ll get to those when it comes in...if I have any of the other colors left.  Towels have been a hot commodity!                Another hot seller was a run of red, orange, and yellow sunburst towels.  I wound a warp only 8 yards long because I had used some of the main color, orange, in the rainbow pinwheel towels.  I knew that I would run short and would have to improvise with another color but sometimes that’s half the fun!           I love the color pop that the sunburst

More Towels, A Bit of Silk, and A Knitting Project!

       When the quarantine started, I knew for sure that I wouldn’t get bored...I actually don’t think I’ve ever experienced being bored.  With so much time, it was evident that all I had to do was consult my handy dandy ‘things I want to do’ book and start looking through pages that weren’t crossed out.  Dye tencel was written on one of the pages.  Since dying with fiber reactive dyes is a two day process, I had plenty of time to play so I hopped right in and got my tencel looking absolutely beautiful!  I’ve dyed for weaving before so no problem there.  It’s getting the dyed yarn back onto a cone so that I can work with it that has always posed problems in the past.  Quite frankly, warping from the swift or a ball is a pain in the rear end.  Warping from the swift requires another person to feed the yarn and is overly time consuming.  Warping from a ball is a nightmare because oftentimes I can’t get the ball to cooperate.  It jumps all over the place and I spend more time getting it b