Weaving Storage Tip

 Every once in a Blue Moon my brain kicks in gear and actually has a useful idea.
I have a bit of a clutter problem in my Wool Room.  I'm finding it difficult to find storage space for my long heddles and shuttles.  I lean them on the wall and they have a tendency to fall over.  Well, today I was looking through the sales ads and the local Target store has it's Christmas items on sale.  I noticed the Christmas Decorations storage containers were included in that sale.  I gave special attention to the Holiday Gift Wrap roll container and thought that it would be perfect for my storage problem.
I have seen the heddle/reed racks sold at fiber shops.  Don't get me wrong, I would love one of those but at $100+ I would much rather spend that money on fiber, yarn or some great Kindle e-books.  My little container was less than $8.00.

BeforeAfter

Much better.
I would love to hear your craft room storage tips.

Mountain Colors Yarn

Here is a link to one of my favorite knitting and weaving  yarns blogspot.  Lots of free knitting patterns.

Mountain Colors Yarn

A Little Knitting and Weaving

I just finished weaving this extra long scarf on my 12 Inch Ashford Knitters Loom.
For the Warp I used my own handyed and handspun Optim Merino yarn and the weft is Adirondack Petite Silk Noir Yarn.  The Petite Noir yarn is extremely thin, and kept breaking, so I wound it into two center pull balls and then plied them together.  I wove this scarf loosely using a 7.5 dent heddle.
This will make a nice weight scarf for our warmer Alabama winters.

Here is a picture of the Dish Cloth shawl that I mentioned in the previous post.  I have woven the icord into the eyelets and decided to leave it long enough to use as a tie so that the wearer would be able to keep the shawl closed.

Icord Everywhere

I recently found this wonderful little gadget for making icord.  It is so much fun and is a great time saver compared to knitting icord with dpns or the little round knitting spool.  This little gadget can crank out the icord in a matter of minutes. It's the Bond Embellish-Knit Automatic Spool Knitter.   I plan to use the icords to embellish my triangular knitted "Dish Cloth Shawls".   I sometimes think that even though the Dishcloth Shawl is an easy and quick knit pattern it can be rather plain looking.  The icord woven over and under through the shawl eyelets will add the perfect touch.

I found the YouTube video very helpful in learning how to use this little gadget.  It's much better than the instructions that were included in the package.

Once my shawl has completed drying I will post pictures.

A Little Weaving

I just finished weaving a Recycled Sari Silk scarf.  My warp is Classic Elite - Classic Silk.  Classic Silk is a blend of 50/50 Cotton, Silk.  The weft is Recycled Sari Silk yarn.  I found that the Sari Silk Yarn has too much twist in it for my tastes so I ran it back through my spinning wheel to "untwist" a bit and give the yarn a softer feel.  I really enjoyed weaving with the Sari Silk it adds beautiful bursts of jewel tone colors and textures to my scarf.  This should be comfortable to wear in Alabama's climate.  Sometimes a wool scarf is just too much.  My scarf is 6 inches wide and 88 inches long with a 1.5 inch fringe.  I wanted to have enough length to do a double wrap with the scarf. 

I love the bold reds in this yarn.

Happy weaving,

Phyllis

A Little Spinning

I recently finished spinning Hoobody Hand Dyed Fiber, Colorway Sakura, 100% superwash Merino.

As you can see it has lots of vibrant pinks and greens sort of a "Lily" color.  I think this would knit into a really warm scarf.

Happy spinning,
Phyllis

Gamp Color Study.

I finally finished my Gamp Color Study. It has taken almost two months of weaving to complete this project.  At the time of weaving I wasn't particularly happy with the project because I chose to weave on my 32 inch rigid heddle loom.  Why you ask?  Well, I have very short arms and weaving on a 32 inch loom can be a bit of a stretch for me.  I am happy with the colorful outcome, and would consider weaving another color study in the future.

I did enjoy watching the interaction of the colors as the weaving progressed.  When finished I added a twisted 2 inch fringe and slightly wet/dry felted the project.  I wanted to close all the "little holes"

I used the Cascade 220 Wool yarns for both the warp and weft.  I'm not really sure what I will do with the finished project.  I might hang it on the wall in my "wool room" or use it as a small blanket.