Sleying the reed for the fabulously ugly scarves. The pegs hold the “cross,” which is how weavers keep the yarns in order until they are put on the loom. Otherwise, you get a tangled mess. (Sometimes you still do!) For years I held the cross on my thumb and index finger until I found this great little gadget made to fit on the front of my loom. Now I don’t have to thread the whole thing in one sitting!

Today I did two things - I sent off a packet of letters from 12 people in an attempt to stop the N.C. Agriculture Dept. from requiring farmers to add black dye to raw milk. And I went to an antique festival where I found a bunch of old milk bottle cap labels, some from small North Carolina dairies that are long gone, driven out of business by our agricultural policies. It is illegal to sell raw milk for human consumption in North Carolina.

So I’m playing with the caps and parts of the envelopes I received for a collage about raw milk.

It’s made of wire and it holds hard-boiled eggs and a salt shaker.

I like it very much.

I wants it, I wants it.

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Sewed together the strips for the rainbow pouch. Yes, the photo is crappy - the batteries I bought at the lake were $2 for a four-pack and I’ve got through all four already. I’m on the way to the store to buy some new rechargeables now.

Worked in a little lesson about quantity and quality, there.
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hjyui8 (Guido wrote this line)

It’s Photo Wednesday for my 365 Project!

When I waved hello to the shadow giant, she waved back!

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On the sewing machine, I sewed the rainbow inkle band in even lengths to secure the ends, cut it into eight pieces, and now I’m hand sewing the pieces together for a little pouch, or maybe two pouches. I’m winging it here.

Trying to put several projects in motion so that I can switch off to a different project as the mood strikes me. After last night’s attempt at reviving the mini-tapestry, I think that I’ll switch to a thicker warp thread for the labyrinth tapestry. It won’t be as hard because I cut out that depression in that loom, so the threads won’t be hard to pick up. So I’m not discouraged.

Lesson learned tonight: Sometimes if you find an abandoned cute little project from years ago that looks easy to finish, there is a reason that it was abandoned.

We suppress painful memories.

May or may not work on this one some more. Turns out that my eyes can’t see the difference between the warp thread and the shadow of the warp thread. Dontcha just hate feeling younger than your body?

I took all kinds of possibilities down to the lake so that if I had a whim to do beadwork or tapestry, I could do that. I grabbed an art project bag that I had packed for a trip to the beach many moons ago that I hadn’t inspected since my reorganization of the studio, and found an unfinished small tapestry with shells woven in on a pin loom, and lots of little bits of handspun naturally dyed wool that came with the used Baby Wolf floor loom that I bought from a retired weaver. The first afternoon I had fun pulling it all out, untangling it, and re-stashing it with a plan to finish off the little tapestry.

However, I was very content with inkle weaving so that’s what I did all weekend, between swims and books and food and sunsets and Monopoly and conversation with good company.

Friday afternoon I decided to warp up the inkle loom with leftover cotton yarns from past weaving projects. I threw a bunch of bobbins in the bag and my goal was to use any scraps that were long enough to go around my inkle loom at least once. Now I have empty bobbins and a very colorful inkle band, which I am considering folding and sewing together for a little pouch.

For years my weaving has been very symmetrical and patterned, which is understandable when you consider that I’ve been dealing with an upswing in panic disorder during this time. I was looking for comfort and control. I used to weave tapestry and ikat and I want to move into a less rigid direction again, so I decided to consciously make this inkle band asymmetrical with rainbow colors.

Inkle weaving is usually warp-faced, so the order and number of the warp yarns makes the pattern. You’re pretty limited in what you can do with warp-faced inkle weaving (unless you do pick-up), but sometimes I find limits help me focus. I had a general idea of how this band might look when I was winding on the yarn, but I wouldn’t know exactly until I began weaving. That pleasant surprise is part of the fun of this kind of weaving. The rest of the pleasure is in the rhythm, portability, and relaxation.

Day 16 - warping up

Day 17 - Hey, I like it!

Day 18 - My friend Cat took this photo of me weaving outside.

Tonight I made a cartoon of the photo I took yesterday for a small tapestry. I made a pin loom frame out of a sheet of foam core board. The pins will go across the top and bottom of the design. I like to use foam core board because it is very light and it’s easier on my injured elbow, but you could use cardboard or wood with nails or even a book with the yarn wrapped around it. This is four panels thick with a window cut out of just the top panel.

Anybody can weave on a loom like this very cheaply and create some amazing work. For examples, see these small tapestries I wove several years ago on looms just like this one. You can incorporate beads with this technique also.

I’m heading out for a 3 day vacation early in the morning and will be offline until Sunday night. I hope that I’ll have some interesting art work to post!

I have some handwoven samples and scraps - I need a pin cushion. I’m going to try this:
Biscornu instructions and patterns