Tag: fiber arts

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Handspun sock yarn WIP

Autumn

I received the supplies for this project with Paradise Fiber’s fiber of the month club, back in May 2022, and I’ve been sloooooowly working on it since August.

The wool is the Walkin’ On Sunshine blend, which is 75% cheviot and 25% faux cashmere.

I’m only partway done. I decided that I would pause the spinning process to dye the singles before plying them, and as of this moment, the other half is still in the dye pot. I plan on using my spinning wheel to ply, so I handwound the finished portion onto a bobbin.

I used a drop spindle, which is part of why it’s been taking me so long. The other part is my tiny humans providing plenty of interruptions.

Instagrammers be crazy jealous of my breathtakingly beautiful yarn turtles.

Actually, despite how it looks, those little yarn balls are easy to hold in the palm of my hand and wind up into a proper skein. They’re quite handy.

With any luck, I’ll have the yarn completed before too much longer. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get it made into socks for my birthday this month.

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Rigid Heddle Weaving #3

Autumn

I taught my 8-year-old how to spin yarn with a drop spindle. She fell in love with the process and quickly used up the 8oz of corriedale that I gave her, so we dyed it together, and I got her set up on my rigid heddle loom to weave with the yarn she made.

However, after all the stress of what happened to our cat, I commandeered her project — I needed something more potent than crochet for stress relief, and weaving really hits the spot for me.

The thick-thin texture of the yarn my daughter spun was wonderful to work with, and enormously fun to watch it come together. I definitely need her to spin more yarn for me.

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Rigid Heddle

Autumn

Back in January, I got an inkle loom for weaving straps, and fell madly in love with the whole process. A month ago, I got my hands on a rigid heddle loom.

I’ve been going through my stash of acrylic yarn on practicing, experimenting, and learning, and finally decided that I was up for using my handspun on the loom. The result is pictured above.

The kids have claimed all of my earlier pieces for themselves and their toys, so only heaven knows when I’ll see those again, ha ha. I guess they make some pretty good doll blankets and shawls.

Weaving actually has a therapeutic effect because of the repetitive motions of passing the shuttle from one hand to the other, combined with the feeling of accomplishment at making something. I like to joke that maybe it will help get me out of my massive feelings of disillusionment towards humanity, but really, it’s best to be honest with ourselves and accept the fact that the disillusionment is here to stay. The past couple of years have been playing out worse than I expected, and here I thought that I was a cynic before 2020 — now I realize that I had been an optimist.

I’m pretty heavy into the “just one more pass with the shuttle,” as an hour goes by. My husband once took the loom away from me so I would actually go eat. It draws me in, and I love it so much. Weaving makes me happy in a way that knitting and crochet never did — I’m even starting to make a sizeable dent in my yarn stash.

When I don’t have a bunch of small children running around, I’m probably going to end up with one of those big shaft looms.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with all the cloth I’m making.

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Inkle Loom Purple Flowers Pattern

Autumn

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.

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Valentine’s Inkle Pattern

Autumn

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.