Weaving Away...

I'm still experimenting and learning about weaving and having a ball, which is not to say that I'm not working on other wips as well. :)

I assembled a 2" square loom from the Martha Stewart loom kit and followed directions in her instruction booklet to make these flowers in different yarns. Fun to make and can be used on lots of things.

More fun! The red one is a fuzzy novelty yarn, kind of tricky to weave, but it feels like a really soft powder puff. The two top ones are potholder sized, the long one bookmark sized, and the small one about 1" x 1 1/2" or pendent sized.

I decided to try another heart shaped weaving before I took the loom apart to make the others. I actually wove this one twice. I used a heavy yarn and the first one was so tight that it cupped up all the way around, and it was stiff feeling. So I unraveled the whole thing, warp, weft, edging, and all (very difficult and irritating!) and began at square one again, this time I only wrapped every other peg, so it came out much flatter, softer, and lighter, I did, however, goof up the top and got one side a little wider than the other. I'm for sure not going to unravel it again though. This piece is about the size of a small pillow.

 I kind of like it wonky! Wonkiness has character! :)

I'm using mostly yarns that I had left over from crocheted projects over the years on these, but I can't wait to get some new different textures and colors to play with.

I've also finished two Saori weavings (freestyle) and I have a large square weaving in progress, but I don't have pictures yet. Soon though!

Happy creating!

Weaving Adventures

Happy New Year! I hope you all had as good a Christmas and happy holidays as I had. I picked up another hobby before Christmas. I saw all those gorgeous woven pieces on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try with a homemade cardboard loom and yarn I had left over from crocheted projects. Enjoyed it so much I invested in one of those kid's plastic potholder looms with the nylon loops (which are for decorative purposes only, not for hot pots it seems), made one loop potholder and proceeded on to yarn. Then I saw the Martha Stewart knitting/weaving loom kit that makes about 30 sizes and configurations of looms for $20.00 at Walmart and was debating on whether to get one or not. Lo and behold, Santa hubby got me one for Christmas! Loving it!

 

I find weaving very relaxing and meditative, until I have to finish it off the loom...not my favorite part, but necessary. I'm sharing my practice experiments with you below. I shared a couple of them before, but I thought I'd include them in the group. 

The striped one, the hairy one, and the knobby one were made on the handmade cardboard loom. They are varigated and novelty yarns. The square ones are a heavy yarn (white one) and a lighter, softer, fuzzy yarn ( purple one) were made on the plastic potholder loom. I could use the skinny ones for bookmarks or in my mixed media pieces.

The purply one was made on the plastic potholder loom and the striped one was made on the cardboard loom. Big enough to fold in half, stitch together, and make ipod, camera, cell phone cases.

 

I configured a larger square with the Martha Stewart loom kit and using two colors of rug yarn, wove this square. This is before it was finished off the loom. This one could be folded in half and stitched together to make a great pencil case, glasses case, or I could make a bunch more squares and stitch them together for blankets, rugs, purses, etc.

 

 

I watched a video tutorial on utube using the MS loom kit, where a heart loom was configured and woven on. It was beautiful, so you know I had to give it a try. So I configured the heart and got busy! My heart didn't turn out quite as well as hers did. I made a couple of mistakes at the top and a couple more when I was trying to finish it off the loom, which made the edge kind of wonky looking. NOT to worry! I crocheted two rows of single stitches around the edge to finish it off and straighten it up. It's rather large, but it would be gorgeous on the back of a denim jacket or on a pillow top, or framed, etc. Will definitely make more!

 

The pieces with the looms they were made on. The cardboard one doesn't show up much, but it's there! This also gives a sense of the sizes of the fnished pieces.

 

So this is my newest obsession, but I'm still very much into my mixed media art journals, dolls, etc. :)

 

Wishing you a safe, prosperous, healthy, happy, creative 2013!