Last of the Blues

A couple of small blankets or knee rugs have emerged from pretty much the last of the thicker blue yarns I had accumulated. 

I am not greatly enamoured of the space dyed yarns used in the weft, especially the one that goes so dark in places it is almost black.  It gives dark horizontal lines that detract from the twill line.  In use they are not so noticeable. I suppose if I did my own dyeing I could avoid these problems.

Now I have worked off all the fluffy stuff I am ready for something finer.  This is no.50 Egyptian sewing cotton set at 40epi.

Threading the heddles was a bit of a mission but I used a straight draw on 8 shafts and tied each 8 ends together in a slip knot. That made it easy to sley it 4 ends per dent in a 10 dent reed.  It was only if the slip knot came undone I had do do some sorting out.  It was a dream to wind the warp with one reel of cotton and fit another one directly on to the shuttle to weave.  No knots, no joins, no breaks .  Why did I think it might be difficult?  it wove up really fast in plain weave.  What am I going to do with it?  Watch this space.

Transformation

Weaving has taken a back seat for a few days while I have been finishing a project which is to be part of an exhibition at the Marlborough Museum later in the year.  Several Creative Fibre members were given an opportunity to inspect items from the Museum's textile collection and choose one to use as a subject to 'transform;'  not to reproduce it but use it for inspiration to create something using either colour, shape, texture or motif from the original.  Because I thought I could happily use tatting for this project I chose a purple pillbox shaped hat with bold gold decoration and here is my transformation with a photo of the original alongside.  I reversed the colours and toned down the gold somewhat and turned the shape into a covered box.

I had experimented a bit first and here is my first attempt. At least it was started first but finished last.

I have some weaving though and taken a couple of knee rugs off the loom. I will post photos of them when the finishing is done.  I'm now looking forward to weaving something much finer.