Anyway, ever since I took the weaving class at Stitches in October I've been gung ho about weaving. I bought a 25" Schacht Flip Rigid Heddle loom and I love, love, love it! I started out weaving a bunch of shawls to play with color and different yarns on a nice long warp. Here are a few:
This shawl used some leftover red mohair I had in stash for the weft and the warp was one of my Stitches purchases. A rayon, mohair twist with a bit of sparkle. I just love the fabric this produced and think it is the warmest of what I have woven. Here's a closeup of the hem, which I added gold sparkle beads to:
This next shawl is mostly all handspun. The warp was that lovely mystery fiber Mary gave me and the weft is a purple fleece roving. Here and there I added bits and bobs of scraps to the warp and weft to make a random plaid. I really like how it came out.
Here is a closeup of the weave with all the handspun. I also put beads on the edging of this shawl.
This next shawl was made with some of the vintage wool I was gifted years ago. I mixed up the three shades in warp and weft for a nice weave. I made two of these and still have lots of yarn left. This blue wool just never seems to end.
Closeup of the weave:
Next up is an all rayon shawl that is super slinky. I just love the way this one flows. I used yarn bought at Stitches once again. The warp is a solid green and the weft is the same green variegated with lavender. I don't have a closeup of this one but you can see I also added beads to the edging.
I made a grey plaid shawl that I could not get a good full pic of but the closeup of the weave is here:
The weft is a special loopy mohair I had in stash I was saving for just the right project and this was it. I just love the texture of this shawl and the grey and black together looks striking.
I made a couple of scarves and here is a picture of one of them:
The weft of this one is handspun from Purple Fleece called Licorice. I made the stripes with black mohair I had in stash.
And the closeup:
I joined a rigid heddle kit of the month club so I can learn more techniques and use up my stash on my loom. January's kit is called Rio Grande and it was for placemats but I decided to make a runner with it since I felt the thread that came with the kit was rather thin for placemats.
The closeup:
On the loom now is another runner experimenting with two different pick-up stick pattern weaves and some tapestry-like inlay. I don't have much done yet but here's a beginning of the trees in snow:
There's been some spinning too! I spun 8 oz of Purple Fleece falkland in the Green With Envy colorway. I got 1062 yards out of this and it was a joy to spin.
I also finished 8 oz of yummy polwarth from Unwind Yarn Company's etsy store. 1086 yards of this poofy, springy yarny goodness:
I've also been back to the embroidery and oh, I've missed it. Sue and I are getting together to work on appliscapes. She is working on summer and I chose autumn. Here are the first two sections of my autumn:
I've been knitting too but don't have any pics. They are all shawls and just look crappy until they are blocked so I haven't even tried to photograph them.
So I've been keeping busy as you can see. Stan got laid off first of the year without any severance pay this time so we are concerned how we will manage. We won't have insurance after the end of this month so keep your fingers crossed something comes up for us and we don't get sick.
Good thing I have a stash to keep me busy while we can't spend any money! There's always a silver lining to be found in every situation. I've been so comforted by my friend's support and encouragement.
Thought for the day: "With gratitude, all life appears as a blessing – without gratitude, all of life is perceived as a burden." Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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