An author's collection of thoughts and stories
I’m making this one for my baby who loves purple.
I dyed the warp cotton yarn myself, which is much softer and less of a strain on my hands than the popular crochet thread that’s in all the crafting stores (I also like it much better for lace crochet for the same reasons).
It’s kind of like magic to watch all of the individual threads come together into a woven pattern.
Maybe in the future, I’ll have to get myself a heddle loom.
I designed the pattern, and my almost-ten-year-old did the weaving on the inkle loom.
I wasn’t really expecting any of the kids to take an interest in this, but it seems to have tickled the fancy of my two oldest. We’ve been taking turns.
Unfortunately, the pale pink and white threads aren’t easy to distinguish from each other. I have discovered through experience that just because two colors look good next to each other on the spools, that’s not necessarily the effect that you’re going to get with weaving — it’s better to compare individual strands.
Should you decide to use this pattern, I recommend going a little darker with the pink. Also, I forgot to change the weft color in the pattern — it should be black to match the outside edges.
Purely by chance a few months ago, I saw a video on historic tablet weaving. It stayed on my mind, so I looked up instructions on how to do it, made some makeshift cards, and proceeded to string a bunch of yarn between myself and a table leg to experiment with.
It was a chaotic mess, and I loved it.
I then came to the conclusion that I needed to be free to get up move around at the drop of the hat, on account of the toddlers that I live with, lol.
So, for my birthday, I got an inkle loom.
And promptly got sucked into that world of crafting.
I’ve joked with my husband that weaving is telling yourself, “one more pass with the shuttle, then I’ll do something else,” for three hours straight. I actually have a number of bands that I’ve made, and a few that the children have done as well.
Now I’ve begun experimenting with fancier patterns.
Next step: Applying these to clothing.
I also have some bands that I’ve made with the cards, but I’m saving those for another post.
By Autumn Rain 