8-harness symphony

My most recent weaving project at the Columbus Cultural Arts Center is this two tone Swedish geometric weaving. It will be a very long scarf for me. It was meant to be double the width but my counting was off since I was working double stranded. It'll happen, setting up a weaving loom is one of the more difficult crafts I have done in my life so far. It is much more involved then smocking or my knitting machines. Once it is set up and you are weaving it is a little of bliss and a lot of satisfaction knowing that you set up this complex pattern (unless of course you find mistakes).

A  close up of my pattern being tested. You can see how amazing it is with every single strand in place. The yarn on this is also a cotton flake so I am excited to see how the different textures are going to turn out while I weave.

These pedal however are the guts to this pattern more so then the heddles that the yarn is fed through. It took me a total of about 6 hours to get just the pedals set up and tested properly. I had to make around 36 tie ups for this pattern. Previously I had never chosen a pattern that involved any tie ups what so ever so this was a BIG change for me. I pretty much jumped right into the fire with this project.

This is the belly of the beast where I laid on a yoga mat on my back staring for those 6 hours. The first time I tested it I was really sad when I found out I had done some of these tie ups wrong and had to undo half of them to get them set up again and yet more time on the floor on my back.

Once it was done right and I tested it again after a hiatus I was so happy! You can see where I messed up from the first test after all the tie-ups to testing it to just weave. I like on this picture you can also see some of the texture variances from the flake yarn being used.

Just another close up for posterity so you can see the mistake I made at the bottom a little better and just how lovely this pattern is. I am really happy I chose these colors. I was a little concerned that they would be too close to each other and not give enough impact but they are looking just lovely as they are.  I have about 2ft woven and I am hoping to get at least 5ft to make this extra long scarf for myself. Perhaps even some place mats that I can give someone for Christmas like my Mother in law.

The only problem with weaving is that I want a loom of my own pretty badly now.

Treat Yo Self - B-day Week

Sorry for the MIA, I've been floating around on many thoughts in my head. I am going to be firm, that I don't wait to air dirty laundry or negative feelings on my blog. I want to keep this as a positive and inspiring place for myself and my readers.

My Birthday is fast approaching next week and I have been treating myself very well.  With a little influx of cash from some side projects I was able to get myself one of my long coveted dream knitting machines the Brother KH 260 Bulky.

Please excuse the bad photo, this was off of Ebay and I am expected to receive my lovely in the mail today.  I have so many amazing ideas for her. Some of my friends say that a knitting machine is cheating but there are so many more amazing things you can get done with a machine and faster then handknits.  I'm reminded of this great blog post by StyleBubble on a designer called ALL Knitwear.

 photos from Stylebubble

These pictures get me so excited to get the machine in my hands and to get to work.  I've been away from knitwear too long where my heart lies in design. I'm slowly refocusing and designing a few small run collections.

Aside from that I bought myself this pretty dress from Nasty Gal

Lastly my Weaving teacher Pat Bullen is letting me borrow this little beauty for a month so I've spoiled myself with some new yarns to play with on the loom. It is a 4 harness 26" Kyra table loom with attached legs.

 

This is only the beginning as well.  I have a birthday party this weekend with friends a bit early since my actual birthday falls on a Tuesday.  I look forward to the local Spring flea, Columbus Zoo (which my hubby and I have done every year since we've been together) and dinner with my Parents.  I also plan to pick up this cute Gnome Necklace I spied last week when I was shopping for another friend's B-day present.

 Hopefully they still have it!

Weaving & Card Shuffle

Tuesdays are usually one of my more favorite days but last Tuesday was a little sad.  I got my letter regarding Graduate school and I did not get in.  I'm not upset about not getting into where I applied as I am upset that I have to continue to stay in a stifling day job that is completely without challenge and any sort of artistic endeavor. I have my teaching on Thursday nights and the summer I have that month long stint of teaching both CE and College Preview, but throughout the year sometimes crafting on my own just isn't enough to deal with the depressing day job.

Thankfully from my friend Claire I've found this weaving class.  It is a complete gem. This is something I have been looking forward to on my Tuesday nights which makes the day go by so much more quickly. I really needed it last week and was happy I drudged through and went instead of sulking at home watching Korean Dramas ( which I am now watching Bachelor Vegetable shop)

This is the warp another women set up, It is just so pretty with all the colors.  It's not my personal taste but I can appreciate the visual candy of it.

Every single one of those threads has to go through it's own heddle.  If there is a pattern like the one I am intending on doing you have to thread your heddle into a pattern on a multi harness loom.

This particular loom she is working on is an 8 harness floor loom.

These are the colors I am working with.  I was inspired by a blog I read the day I picked my colors where someone is knitting a scarf row by row each day depending on the clouds or color of the sky that day. Even though I won't be doing that with my weaving the Idea of cloud colors was really nice to me so I wanted to use those.

There is so much prep work to weaving that I had forgotten because in college the Teacher did it all for 3 looms that we time shared in the beginning fibers class.  This is the Inkle loom where we measure out the distance for our warp before we thread the loom.  It took me a little less then two classes to get this done.

There is also a computerized loom in this class that looks amazing!  I want a turn at it so badly!

The full room of looms (swoon)  I could stay in that room forever.  There is just enough space to work and sometimes not even enough space to walk around each other when we are all working.

I'm on a humble little 4 harness loom since my work isn't too wide or complicated.  I got everything threaded in about two classes even with a few mistakes.  My teacher Pat Bullen was impressed that I got it done that quickly (gold star).

Another look at my  390 some threads on the loom.

I also got to do my foundation weaving and play with my design for a little bit 

Tonight I look forward to continue my weaving and getting into my final pattern colors.  I'm hoping to make this simple square bottom tote bag with a flap that I can line with padding for another easy to carry camera bag.

As for Graduate school, it's just not in my cards this year.  I'm going to shuffle the deck again and start over.  Keeping my eyes, ears and heart open while continuing to do the things I love like sewing, craft, being a part of my community.