Miniature Gingham

I absolutely love things that are in miniature, and am a big collector of the historical American Girl dolls (and have been since they first came out!) So, when I got asked by a fellow doll-collecting Instagrammer if I had interest in combining my love for weaving and dolls and weave a modified reproduction of Kirsten’s long-retired St. Lucia tray cloth, I said yes!

Because I had only just dipped my toe into the world of using double heddles, I decided that I would first weave a sample. This would give me a good idea of exactly the size heddle, yarn, etc. that I wanted to use, and I figured it would not be a waste because I could make a little pair of placemats for my own Kirsten.

The warp for this project was, of course, very small! My Mom had a little wooden dish rack she’d brought by for repurposing into something else, but when I saw it, I thought, mini warping board!



I used some Valley Yarns 8/2 Unmercerized Cotton that I’d bought them a few months earlier during one of our Brimfield antiquing adventures, in which I dragged everyone to Webs (and have no regrets because Webs is yarn heaven, people! Also, the staff are amazing, knowledgeable, and super helpful!) These colors are “Natural” and “Sagebrush.”



This was my first adventure in making something where I wanted a fringe on all four sides. The logical thing to do seemed to be to just leave extra yarn loops on each side, and then I figured I’d hem stitch all four sides. (I really am obsessed with this hem stitching thing! It’s just so tidy and perfect, and I love it!) The resulting placemats are super cute!





I was really happy with them, but thought I could do a little bit more tweaking to the sett, and since I was waiting for back-ordered yarn anyhow, I decided to have another go. I used a slightly different sett this time, and the same yarn, but swapped out the green for the “Peaches ‘n Cream” color.



With the green pair, controlling those weft-wise loops was a bit of a fiasco, so this time, I decided to try adding a few ends in waste yarn at approximately where I wanted the loops to end. This worked brilliantly! It really made the weaving fly by. In no time at all, I had another pair of placemats!





By then, I was ready to begin the actual red and white cloths. However, Webs was out of the right color of red that I needed, so I had to go hunting. I decided to try Halcyon Yarn's Homestead 8/2 cotton. I found it to be very comparable to the Valley Yarns cotton I'd been using, though perhaps a hair finer. The colors I used were Light Red 29, and Bleached White.



I ended up making three tray cloths for the lady who inspired this adventure, and her two daughters. They are quite a bit larger than Kirsten’s original tray cloth, per her request, since her tray was also larger than the original. When I finished the three cloths for her, I still had quite a bit of warp left, so I went ahead and made myself a tray cloth as well, but with dimensions closer to the original. Now I just need to come up with some sort of tray to put it on!

Three Woven Scarves

While I was weaving the tartan on the floor loom every Monday night in class, I wasn’t exactly sitting idly at home the rest of the week! In fact, I wove quite a few things on my beloved rigid heddle loom, including three scarves. . .

The first one came about because I was ready for something beyond plain weave, and went looking for something interesting using pick-up stick techniques. Webs' "Charlemont" (draft #55, available for free on their web site, here) fit the bill!



I used Valley Yarns Charlemont in the Light Grey and Teal Blue colorways, and I think this scarf only ended up using about half of each skein. This yarn is just so silky and soft that it’s a pleasure to even hold in your hands. I found that it held up to the weaving quite well, and I would weave with it again, although I suspect it might also be a real treat to knit with!



I think it’s fun the way it looks completely different from the reverse than from the front. I almost think this would have been cool to stitch the ends together and make an infinity scarf out of it, so that when looped around the neck the second time, it could land with the reverse showing, but I guess I could always wrap the scarf that way!



The pattern/draft itself is pretty good, but I ended up with more plain weave ends on one selvedge area than the other. It doesn't feel like enough of a variation to have been intentional, which leads me to believe there is either an error in the pattern, or I did something wrong. I really was quite careful about triple checking everything and know that my number of ends is perfect, and I am wondering if the culprit may have been inserting the pick-up stick. The pattern doesn't tell you in which direction you should insert it, so I had to guess, and perhaps if I'd gone the other way, it would have magically worked out. It really is too bad because that tiny detail has resulted in the scarf feeling uneven, and I likely won't often wear it because it drives me insane to look at the unevenness of it! Also important to note is that the resulting scarf is ridiculously prone to snagging. But all of that aside, I really do love the pattern/texture of it, and it was fun to weave something more challenging for a change!

After the slow-going Charlemont, I was ready for something simple, quick, and satisfying. I decided to make up a plain weave scarf in a variegated purple for my Aunt.



This is Knit Picks’ Stroll Tonal in the Blue Violet Color. I planned my own draft, such that I would use up the entire ball of yarn and not have leftovers. I absolutely love the way this one turned out!



The subtle variegation gives the scarf interest, and I don’t think it needs anything more than plain weave to stand out! I gave the ends delicate hem stitching, and elected not to twist or braid the ends. I think this will be fine because this merino blend has enough nylon in it that it didn’t seem to felt much at all in the washing/blocking, which means those ends shouldn’t get too ratty.



I loved the Stroll yarn so much, that I decided to use it again! This time, I used the “hand-painted” variation, in the color “Koi Pond.” I think that’s the perfect color name, because that’s exactly what this makes me think of!



I used almost the same draft as I did for the purple tonal scarf, but made it a hair wider and shortened the ends so that I would have more yarn for using weft-wise, which therefore allowed me to make it a wee bit longer than the purple one. I absolutely love the way this one has a plaid-like feel, but that also, sometimes the teal would land always on the right while the orange was always on the left, and then shift so gradually as I wove that it almost gave a gentle rippling effect, which is entirely suitable for a pond-themed project! ;)



I also love the way even the hemstitching is variegated. . .



Orange is not my favorite color, and originally I was planning to give this scarf away, but once it was complete, I found I absolutely loved it and think it might be staying with me. . . Although goodness knows how I’ll ever be able to wear as many scarves as I’ve been making lately!

Tartan!!!!!

2015 was such a crazy, full year! Some of it was bad (like one of my classes this semester, with a teacher who was hell bent on trying to fail everyone) but most of it was good (like finally upgrading to a baby grand piano!) I didn't do a lot of costuming this year (just the 1920s ensemble early in the year, the sheer Regency bonnet and red reticule over the summer, and a bit of patterning and fixing/re-fitting here and there throughout the year), and I only sewed a few everyday wearable items, but I still managed to somehow average more than three finished items per month! The majority of this was weaving and miscellaneous doll and craft projects. The weaving and small projects were easier to manage without neglecting school!

I also managed to learn a lot of new stuff this year! For one, I finally converted to continental style knitting. This was well worth the effort, because I can knit so much faster now, and switching between knit and purl stitches is a dream! No regrets on this one! I also made my first foray into quilting, finally got around to trying out using seam tape to bind inner edges (and this is now my favorite edge-finishing technique), and expanded my embroidery skill set to include sashiko and crewel embroidery (which are really just variations on the basic embroidery theme!) I even managed to work in a little jewelry-making, both out of necessity (needed specific stitch markers and a commute-friendly way to count rows, so made beaded stitch markers and a row-counting bracelet) and for fun (a fabulous 18c-early 20c stone necklace, which I'll blog about some day soon!) But by far the most exciting thing I did this year was go insane with weaving!

I bought a rigid heddle loom last fall and made a simple scarf on it, but wasn't until the summer of this year that something in my brain exploded and suddenly I had to weave ALL THE THINGS! Some of it, you've already seen on my blog, and I have several more scarves and projects to post about, (including my first adventures with pick-up sticks and double heddles), but most importantly, I learned to use a floor loom!!!

For the past three months, I've been taking a weekly class at a local weaving studio, and I've been making tartan!!!!!

The loom I was assigned was big and old, and exactly my cup of tea!



First up, warping on the warping board!



Next, the hundreds of ends went on the loom and had to be pulled through metal eyes in a specific order. This took forevvvvvver!



From the back, you can really see the pattern coming together. . .



And then. . . Pulling all the ends through more slots!



Finally, it was time to tie the ends onto the front rod. . .



And at long last, weaving!



It didn’t take long for me to find my groove with the weaving, and then I was zooming along!



And in no time, it was off the loom!



Success! My very first tartan! Major bucket list item checked off!



This is the MacFarlane hunting tartan (the clan I’m descended from), and the yarn is Nature Spun Fingering by Brown Sheep. I decided to finish my fringe by twisting the ends, like this. . .



I’m sorry to say, I haven’t quite finished it yet! I managed to twist the fringe along one side, but I’ve yet to do the other side. Holidays, then a family wedding, and now another holiday slowed me down a bit (but all good reasons to put the project aside, of course!) but hopefully I’ll complete this project this weekend!