Sunday, December 21, 2008

Yarn gnomes. It's the only reasonable explanation.

This craptacular pile of yarn barf represents my Saturday and Sunday evenings' fibre-related work, and has absolutely nothing to do with weaving. Whoops. I pulled out a brand new ball of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece to swatch something, and hilarity ensued.


DH congratulated me on my debacle (pronounced "de-ball-cle". HAH.)

I have continued to work on the group-project woven pillow with the hand-dyed, hand-spun weft. For all my time, I haven't made a lot of forward progress, and not just because of the above distraction. At one point, I had about two feet of the pillow woven (2/3 of the first half, 1/3 of the whole thing), but then I realized that I hadn't staggered rows of the new skein with the previous one when I started the second skein of weft. The point where the second skein started was an obvious shade change. So a couple weeks ago I ripped out over a good foot of weaving.

When I started again last week, this time staggering the two skeins in alternating rows, I had some problems with the edges. On one side, the final warp thread wasn't being caught by the weft. I ripped out about 6-8 inches again, and figured out that on the right side I needed to run one shuttle of warp thread under the other before throwing it, so that it would bind the right edge. I still don't really understand how warp edges behave in weaving. I want to go back after this and really figure out double weaves on my rigid heddle, beyond just reading a pattern draft. I'm pretty sure that will help me to understand this problem.

Very late Thursday night, while at a friend's place for our weekly Thursday Night Crafts, I figured out the edge thing and wove 8-9 inches again. I need to get the front side of this pillow, three feet of weaving, off my loom some time Monday, so that it can go to the embroiderer, who will most likely be visiting that evening.

I also continue to work on the Double-knit Hat from Hades. I haven't ripped out anything on it recently. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one. It's amazing, though - I sit down to do a single row, and I'm asleep before I'm half-way through. Who needs a sleep aid? I have the double-knit hat.

Finally, I've started a few new super-secret knitting conspiracies.



More details eventually. Mwa Ha Ha. Just as soon as I finish untangling the rest of that skein.

Seriously, how does that happen? I have no good explanation.

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