This Week in Weaving: Return to the Loom

In the spirit of starting more things rather than finishing others, the loom is no longer naked!

If I recall correctly, I have not had a weaving project on this loom since the summer of 2020.

Yikes.

Last Friday afternoon, I picked out some handspun that seemed like a good match for a plain weave project. I chose to use my five mini skeins of Paradise Fibers Eco Soul — a biodegradable nylon and rose fiber blend — to make a gradient warp, and I chose my Shunklies Merino, mulberry silk, and recycled sari silk blend as weft.

To be honest, I was a bit afraid that the strong purple color and interesting white mulberry silk and rainbow sari silk bits would overpower the warp and obscure the gradient, but they haven't! In fact, I'm loving how the dark blue section is contrasting with the colors around it, and it's easy to see where one warp color ends and another starts. 

Even so, I decided to incorporate a very simple pick-up pattern along with the plain weave.

This allows me to easily create a subtle vertical striping pattern on top of the project. I can do this by passing the weft under instead of over on every other down position pick, and the pick-up stick assists when I turn it on its side, lifting those yarns up when they would typically be down. Simple, yet effective!

You might notice the picked-up threads are not quite spaced evenly. I chose to pick up three strands of each color, but when warping the loom I had to fudge the number of threads of each color a bit due to yardage differences. There should be 35 warp threads of each color, but in reality there are anywhere from 30-38. 

Is it going to matter? Absolutely not.

I'm not yet sure what this project's final destination is. It's either going to be a long stole with a lovely rainbow fringe, or it will be yardage to sew something out of. I'll end up with about three yards of roughly 15" wide fabric when finished, so it could really go either way.

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I took nearly this entire week off from crafting in order to prepare for our first camping trip of the year, and thus waited to publish a new post until today. 

If I'm not crafting, there's nothing to post!

I had planned out a backstrap weaving project to take along with me — and I did make an attempt. It consisted of four colors taken from a skein of self-striping sock yarn, which means it was high in wool content and a bit sticky.

What I failed to recall is that the first (and most recent) time I did backstrap weaving, I used cards (also known as tablets). With the cards, I was able to force open a cleaner shed and not have to use string heddles, making it a tad easier to work with wool yarn. 

This time, I set out to do some good ol' plain weave and let the warp colors do all the work. 

While a simpler project in theory, in practice I gave up due to some crossed warp ends, sticky sheds, and lack of warp spacer (someone forgot to buy toothpicks). As a result, I have no weaving to show you from our camping weekend!

Here, have a quail instead.

Don't worry, I have yet another tool on the way to help me out in future travel and outdoor settings. :)

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This week, I'm doing a bit more rearranging of the studio and some thinking about the future. The rearranging never really ends, I just make small changes on a regular basis. 

The thinking about the future is a bit scarier. I've often talked about leaving Twitch as a streaming platform and focusing on the blog and evergreen video content, and I've threatened it twice now. I talk a lot of talk, and then I jump back into what's comfortable, what's easy, what's familiar. 

But — and this is exactly the reason I was considering leaving Twitch this past December — we're planning more excursions and camping and hiking trips, and the fact of the matter is I'm not going to be at home for probably a good 25% of my scheduled stream days. 

I also want to start working on some outdoor crafting content, focusing on outdoor-friendly projects as well as ways to make those projects travel well. The obviously place to go with that sort of content is YouTube, and I think it might be time to make the leap to evergreen video and blogging.

That's not to say I won't hop on Twitch when I am around for it, but I think the streams will be fewer and farther between, and more of a social activity.

I know where my people are, and I know if I make a big change, I'll lose some of my small following. And that's okay. 

We can't progress if we don't allow ourselves to grow and change.

I'm also considering leaving the dyeing business on the back burner, at least for now. I think I need to focus on the projects I have going and the content I want to make out of them, and then if I naturally gravitate back toward dyeing and blending, that's when I'll start adding it back in slowly. Shop-wise, I think I would be perfectly content opening up again with a dozen skeins of handspun yarn and a menagerie of woven lanyards and key fobs.

A couple weeks ago, when I broke out the dye pots and went through the motions, I did it because I felt like it's what I was supposed to be doing. I was supposed to be getting on with it, and pushing toward the shop opening. I think I made myself feel a little excited about it, but my heart wasn't in it. If and when the time is right, my heart will be in it.

It seems like 2022 is shaping up to be a year of soul searching for me, and I'm slowly making my peace with that. I'm enjoying feeling free to be transparent about where I'm at and where I'm wanting to go.

With all that wrapped up, and with eager eyes looking toward the week ahead, I'd like to share what's on the agenda this week:

• Starting my new job
• Resuming knitting on the Umaro blanket
• Continuing to weave on the rainbow/purple project showcased above
• Diving into videography and learning how to use DaVinci Resolve (a free video editing tool)

As always, thank you for reading, for being here, and for following along. I appreciate each and every one of you, and I do promise that I will settle into a comfy routine relatively soon so you'll know where to find me and when.

I expect to be live Saturday morning on Twitch for some coffee and good conversation, and maybe even the following Monday due to the holiday.

I'll see you there. 💜