... and Baby Makes 3 🍼

 I'm back again already with some new weaving show and tell.   

Our family doctor is a lovely young woman who has taken good care of us and in particular, my hubby with his complex health issues.   She had a baby girl in early July.  They decided to wait the full 9 months  and let it be a surprise.  Rather old fashioned and I love it, but then, I'm an old fashioned, old lady now. 

I had a lovely salmon pink but no soft blues in the stash so I decided to wait and see who arrived, As luck would have it, it worked well with my existing stash.    {although my white is now seriously depleted}.  So one blanket is a gift, and I added two more for the shop and they will nicely pay for my gift.    Less loom waste too.

I used Brassards 8/2 cotton, sett 24 epi and the project used 32 inches of my 34 inch loom!   I had to tie back the unused heddles. 

The draft came from Handweaving.net and no, I don't have the number. My Bad... 

It looked like this:

...and I played with colours and did this....

Then it came out looking like this: (I left the weft blue for pattern clarity)

This one is for the new little girl. I wove 6 inch hems in the pink which nicely showed the pattern over all.  Then I hemstitched every 4 ends. I used a slippery synthetic cord doubled to create my ladder space and wove with white, all using it to hemstitch along that edge. 

Three runners,  12 rows of hem stitching, each 32 inches wide.... I swear it took longer to hemstitch then it did to weave the blanket !    But it looks so wonderful and worth every minute....

Later, I turned the hems, into thirds  to the back of the hemstitching, pressed well and then hand sewed them using a running blind stitch and slipping a needle into the back of every little ladder.  I steam pressed them again once done. 

I dare say this will get a fair amount of laundry time given what babies are known to do!  It will hold up to both machines. 

Both the gift blanket and the blanket below with a green hem are the same: hems woven to 6 inches, main part of blanket woven to 46 inches. Final measurements after draw in, shrinkage, hemming and wet finishing:  28 inches wide and 45 inches in length.   Quite a bit of loss over all!  That's cotton tightening up and it will relax some with use.

The colours used are white, seaton (green), salmon pink, and purple.

The pattern is all threaded over 8 shafts, but it does use 12 treadles.   The bands of braided twill are quite eye catching and I have always enjoyed weaving it up. 

I like to think this blanket and the third are fairly neutral gender wise  inspite of the salmon pink. Its not the girly bubblegum pink but some entirely different.   The purple was too dark for my tastes as a colour for the hems so I stuck with the softer colours.

My husband commented that the cotton was quite soft and can be used right against the skin.   Absorbent, cool in summer, insulating in winter. 

The third blanket is 28 inches by 51 inches finished, so generously large. It cold be used for a full crib blanket or spread out and let baby play with toys and such. 

I had full pirns of all the colours and decided to try out a plaid version and I liked it

A final close up shot reveals the pattern nicely.  

 

🍼👶🍼

The Spring loom is being cleaned up and readied to beam another warp starting today.   Something colourful.   The main focus of my time will shift to the big loom and two shawls already underway there. 

We are starting to compile a list of all the end of season details that a house and yard need to be done before the weather turns wet, cold and nasty.    

Looking a bit further ahead, I even ordered in some Christmas cards so I can write them up when time allows.   Too soon?  😁  Its 13 weeks to Christmas....   🎅🏻 🎄

Simplifying

Yes, some serious warp chicken has been going on! 🐔  Now the loom sits empty until I work out what I want to do next.    But let's back up on this project to the start for now

 

I tend to weave up complicated drafts and sometimes there's no place to go but back to basics.  Back to simple.  I wanted a nice long warp, easy treadling and to use up some small part cones from the stash.   So here's the answer to that.

6 shaft herringbone twill with a pop of colour where I doubled the colour accents. Using all 8/2 cottons, I used two threads treated as one, sharing one heddle and one dent in the reed.  

I found neutral colours worked best as weft: taupe, ivory, a medium blue... and one towel with royal blue to match the edges.  My favourite? The taupe weft.   One might be appearing in my kitchen soon. 

The warp was wound to 9.5 yards and laced on to save warp. Sett is 24 epi and I only weave 5-6 shots of a scrap yarn between towels.   The towels are woven to 36 inches each on the loom.  

The cloth roll got nice and chubby!   Very satisfying.  

Between warp and all the weft yarn, you become aware of the weight of it all when you roll it off the loom. So I wrapped it all up tight and weighed it.   3 lbs, 3 ounces!

My old White serger, running well after a tune up, chugged through all the cotton as I separated the towels.  A wash and dry, followed by a steam pressing and then they were prepped for hemming. I'm a fan of hand sewing hems as I'm not a fan of the stitch ditch line.  It breaks up the flow of your patterns. More honestly, it also shows I can't sew a straight line!  😁

So I was able to eek out 9 full-sized towels but no samples this time.  I can live with that!  So here are some of the beauty shots....

One of the ivory weft towels is on its way to Georgia right now as part of a towel exchange in honour of dear departed friend Padre Wayne. He would have loved this..... and also be annoyed he can't join in.  I'll post my exchange towel next time...

The towels are soft and generously large  21" by 30" so big enough to wrap around a large bowl.  They would suit any kitchen decor and be a fun colour accent.   Practical and pretty. 

So what have I been up to lately?   Well, I have been enjoying my Hansen spinner! Here's my first rolag experience. 

Today my most immediate project is to resolve this hole:

This is where my large Tissart tapestry loom was. Its on a ferry going to its new home on Cortez Island right now as I write to a very excited new owner.  I'm going to rearrange some items in the studio and so free up more room near the Spring loom.  It feels a bit crowded over there and I'd like more room to manoeuvre  when warping the loom up.   I still have a Mirrix Little Guy tapestry loom so can play with that.   

Simplifying things.   Its been part of my plan for time now as I downsize to what I really need and will use.   It feels good!