Busy bee

I have actually been very busy finishing projects and have gotten 3 done! Yay! Ok, well, almost done.

This is the wall hanging. I still have to hem the bottom and top. I got a dowel and nifty little knobby things to go on the ends to hang it from. I will post finished hanging.

This is the merino that I got last year in PA, all spun and plyed. Did I mention that I Love Spinning!

These are going to be pillows. They are little screen print butterflies on a soft denim material. I still need to heat set them. I think I will go back to block printing. Screen printing is ok, but I like the look of block printing better.

I've ordered some 3/2 perle cotton from the Mannings and am waiting for that to come. I'm going to weave a table runner in a bird's eye pattern...totally stepping out of my rug weaving comfort zone. Really looking forward to this project.

Fibonacci fun

I'm trying out the ol' Fibonacci using color. I've seperated the hanging into 3 areas of 3 numbers in the series; 5", 3", and 13" to give a total of 21" L with 12 " W. The two colors that won't vary are teal and brown. The first 5" will be woven in dark grey. Then 3" in light grey, the the last 13 in natural (white). Should be interesting.

This is the dark to light grey. The white at the bottom will be hemmed up and not visible in the finished piece.

And then light grey to white. I am liking these colors a lot. Just hope I have enough white to take it up to 21". I ordered another white 3 ply rug yarn, but I don't think it's going to match. Well, I'm going to go as far as I can and hope it makes it.

Rug 2

The rug for my mom is done. Finished at 22" x 35 ". I tried to puff up the yarn a little with some hot water finishing, and it worked a bit. But as I was washing it, I noticed a pretty strong smell. I looked at the dog thinking, maybe he got into last nights chili... but it turned out to be the yarn. Very sheepy smell. More like very sheepy pen smell. Weird. Baaaa!

So I decided to play with color. Using what's left of the warp that's still on the loom, I decided to do a wall hanging. Using a different yarn this time. I got it from the Mannings a while back and haven't used it yet. It's a 3 ply wool and sort of coarse. I think it's called Milltop or something like that. I'll have to call them and ask.

I measured out 120 yds. per color so I'll see how far I get with that. Originally this was going to be black, grey and white. Then I thought grey, brown and white (to sort of play with some neutral colors and give my retinas a break). Then I accidentally layed some blue/green yarn next to some brown and grey I'd layed out and loved the combination. So into the dye pot it all went. (And yes, I did wonder if the grey would dull the other colors but I'm going for it anyway.)

This yarn dyed up really nicely and very easy. Came out very even.

And this is how the colors are working together so far. Another krokbragd design. I kind of like it.

Uh oh...looks like someone went to the groomer's. Bwa ha ha ha ha!!!!

Rugs

I was off for a week, so I had the chance to finish my mom's rug. I threw orange in the top and bottom and now I'm not sure I'm happy with those color decisions, but it is what it is. I was in Amish country when I was getting the idea for this design, so thus the purples and oranges, etc. I learned from this rug that the Stitch Nation Full o' Sheep yarn, though lovely and easy to dye, is too lofty for a rug. It just didn't beat down tight enough, and I gave it a major beat down. I'll post a pic when it's hemmed and wet finished. Still plenty of warp on the loom so I'm thinking of a krokbragd table runner. I have a nice 3 ply wool yarn that I got from the Mannings. That should work well.

Progress

Love this pattern. Krokbragd is too cool. I'm using colors inspired by Amish colors. Throwing in orange in small bits just to make it interesting.