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Showing posts with label receiving blankets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label receiving blankets. Show all posts

Monday, April 30, 2012

Soft Hearted


It seems little Ethan is having some trouble settling into his new home and is keeping his parents up at night. He is showing  personality already with likes and dislikes, or is that preferences? Ah, I remember those days and nights with my two children as babies!  My son says that what seems to work (for now at least) is to breastfeed him into a 'milk coma' and gently lay him down in his bassinet.   Poor guy sounded real tired! No doubt new Mum is too...

Lets talk more baby blankies! These are meant as receiving blankets. The first post, including draft can be found here.  Its an 8 shaft, 10 treadle point twill pattern and I've used 8/2 cottons, sett 24 epi. They were 36" in the reed and woven to 36" in length. The small turned hem matched the draw in and shrinkage and so they are still relatively square.   Here's the plaid one closer up:


The colours used in larger portion in the blanket formed my weft choices: lilac and peach. Remember, at the time the project was planned, we didn't know it was a boy so all choices were gender neutral.



Lilac version and a close up view..... (all which will show better if you click on them)



... and the peach version.  Oh, he's going to be one spoilt baby from all the visitors, and relatives that have been lining up to see him.  

I'd come to appreciate the quieter life here on Vancouver Island with no big city stuff such as traffic jams, pollution (noise, light and air) and more affordable living.  Now I feel too far away!  I guess we'll be going over more often and we can look forward to them coming here. 

In the mean time....


Happy Birthday Petunia!  
My daughter in 1986, chosen to the the flower girl at the 100th anniversary celebration of the CP steam locomotive 374's  arrival in Vancouver. 



Thursday, April 12, 2012

Biding Our Time

The  grand baby is due this weekend but it sounds like he or she might like to stay in a bit longer. Well, its warm and cosy in there so you can't blame the wee thing.  :) Mum would rather it was all over of course...

Waiting around for the big day is exciting and so I've been keeping myself busy with another project for the baby and making receiving blankets. The larger crib blankets were fairly neutral in colour (white, beige and a crisp green) and so I wanted receiving blankets that would be colourful and complimentary with the other blankets and also go with the crib and baby room decor.

I have lots of 8/2 cotton on hand and only needed to pick up a softer gold cotton. The rest was on hand! Wasn't that  great?   ... some stash busting. (Its but a very small dent but nice to see!)


Both side borders are in a soft lilac, with alternating stripes of peach, gold and a pastel green. The width is 36 inches in the reed and the sett is  24 epi and the warp length is four yards, for three blankets, samples and take up and loom waste.  The pattern? What else could it be, but hearts! Fully reversible hearts too.



I believe the draft came from Handweaving.net (I forgot to make notes on that!) If I find that the source is different, I will edit the change in later.

The lilac and peach stripes are the wider ones of the four colours and so I decided to use all lilac as weft for the first one, and all peach for the second blanket.  The third would be a plaid using all the colours in the warp as weft.

lilac

peach

pretty in plaid

I'm using a temple which requires frequent moves and chugging along. I'm about half way on the third blanket.  As you can imagine, I'm okay with the baby taking its time!  I'm finding between the wider warp and throwing the shuttle and the treadling, its aggravating my lower back and so I can only weave for a short time and then must switch to either the other loom or another task in the studio.  But there's not much more to go and I'll be hemming soon. I'm thinking of some kitchen towels on the big loom next and so looking at drafts for that. Maybe more stash busting?   They'll be a skinny 24 inches wide and will be a breeze!

Now on the Louet Spring loom, I'm discovering that third time is *not* a charm but soldiering on with it. It will all work out in the end.  The aggravation factor is huge... but that's a story for next time!