Running a Cotton Warp for an 8-Shaft Waffle Weave Bath Towel Project

  

 5 or 6 bundles of new warp 

•  8/2 cotton  
• 5-1/2 yard warp
• It's about 700 ends total (I always wind a few extra for repair strings)

 This is what it should look like when it's done:  an 8-shaft waffle weave with lots of texture!

Sumptuous Spa Towels - Kit from Lunatic Fringe

 

This is a kit from Lunatic Fringe.  I don't think they have it anymore ...  I purchased it a few years ago.  It's a bath towel kit (2 towels) that can be done with 4 or 8 shafts.  I've had it for a while, but since my smaller loom isn't quite wide enough, I put off making this one earlier.  It should work well on the wider 8-shaft loom -- and will be a good introduction to using all 8 shafts.  Up until now, I've only used 4 shafts on the Big Loom.  There was enough else to get used to using it without worrying about the extra shafts.  Now is the time to do it!

The last bundle of warp strings -- 100 ends
 

Because it's a shorter warp and the yarn came as part of a kit, I will not be using the new spool rack and the sectional warp on this project.    I am using my trusty and reliable vertical * warping mill--What a game-changer that was!  And I'll be using the old non-sectional warp beam warping front-to-back as I used to always do before the sectional warp.   That makes sense for longer warps, not for a relatively short project like this one.

All run this afternoon!  And I'm not flat on my back in pain.  Like I said, the vertical warping mill was a game changer for me.  If I was still using the warping board, I'd have given up weaving in sheer frustration due to tension issues not only in the strings, but also in my body.    It helps that it's a shorter warp, too -- not 12 yards done in 1-inch increments.

This has been on my to-do list for a couple of months now, so I'm glad to have this step done.  Onto the next step of dressing the loom.  Each step seems like it will take forever, when what I really want to be doing is the fun part -- making cloth!  The truth is that if you want to weave, you have to make peace with the boring and meticulous parts of weaving too. 

Slow Stitching on a Gray Sunday

A Proper Patch in the world of mending.

The kid, now an adult with a professional job and his own apartment 90 minutes away, asked me to do some mending for him.  Before he moved out, his Oshkosh Gramma gave him some lessons on basic mending along with a sewing kit.  He can do some of his own mending, but this job seemed a bit too advanced for his current skill set.

It was a hole in the elbow of his favorite sweatshirt / sweater.

Mending is not my favorite thing to do, so I've been procrastinating.   Although, I don't consider mending to be creative work, it does take a fair bit of creative thought and planning to repair something like this.  I had to watch a video to learn how myself, shown here for documentation's sake and to give the sewist credit for teaching me something new:

 How to Repair and Patch Your Sweater's Elbows - The Daily Sew

 

 

The first step was to add a flannel patch under the hole.   This is sewn by hand at the edges of the patch and again at the edges of the hole.  Doesn't matter what color the patch is because it won't be seen on the outside.

 

The next step is to do a bit of darning with yarn.  I think this is wool.    Although while I was doing it, it felt a lot like weaving.   Not pretty, but it will give him a nice little cushion under his elbow in future.  Again, color doesn't matter.  This doesn't have to match, or even coordinate.  It won't be visible on the outside. 

 The next step is to make a patch of like material to cover the inner mending.  The sweatshrt is some kind of knit material, so I opted for knit material from a pair of pants that are too short for me.  It matches quite well and was easy to hand sew with a whip stitch.   Maybe I should have used an oval shape?  We'll see how this endures ...

 

Here is the final patch.  Looks tidy and neat.  I hope he doesn't blow out the other elbow, because I don't really want to do it again.

Recovering My Big Ironing Board

Ahhh!    Newly re-covered Big ironing board.

 

Grody.

Every 7-8 years, I have to re-cover my ironing board because it gets too stained, torn, or just plain worn out.  The last time, I did it with muslin, and it wore through or tore in some areas.  I had to set my iron on a trivet because it wore through the muslin and made holes in the last cover.  This re-make is LONG overdue.

This time I chose a sturdier fabric -- this 2-yard cut from Walmart feels more like a canvas or a utility home dec. fabric.  I think this will work well.  I've never gone for a patterned fabric on the ironing board -- I guess I wanted to make sure the dyes in my fabrics didn't run or bleed, and that is easier to see on "natural" muslin.  Hopefully, this will wear better than the muslin.

 

 

I laid it out on the weaving room floor so I could easily mark out the 5 inches around the perimeter of the board.  On the one end, my mom had written "Michele from Mom 2006."  It's nice to see her handwriting again after all this time ...  

One of her quilting buddies did carpentry as a family business, and one year they made Big Boards for quilters.  Another year, they made light boxes for tracing designs.  My mom and Aunt Rosita bought 3; 1 for each of us.  It has served me well through the years!  Very solid! 

It fits over a regular/traditional ironing board, but extends the surface to this nice big rectangle, so I have a bigger work surface.

 

Here it is all done and in use.  

I also use it as a cutting board -- hence the green cutting matts piled up at the top edge.  It is so nice to have it cleared off and to be able to use the full surface.  I had one end of it piled up with crap -- I'll have to go through that and pitch it or find other places for that junk.  I want to keep the space for it's intended use now!

 

Here's a quick video tutorial from Man Sewing about how to recover an ironing board.

Basically, the instructions say to cut the new fabric about 5 inches larger on all sides than the top of your ironing board.  

Make a single row of stitching to secure the raw edge, then fold it over again and stitch another line around the edge to make a casing for the parachute cording.  It doesn't have to be pretty or neat.  Just gett 'er done.

Parachute cord and a cord lock to cinch it up.   Ta da! 

 Here's another video from Beyond Fabric with a little more detail.  She uses elastic instead of parachute cord, and shows how to make a new pad underneath, too.

Sunset at Cherokee Marsh: Easiest Bargello with Ombre Fabric

 

 Bargello cut up and laid out on the design wall awaiting reconstitution at the sewing machine.

 

 

Hoffman Paisley in Love ombre fabric.

I bought this ombre handpainted fabric with the idea of making one of Donna Jordan's Easiest Bargello Quilts:

 

"Paisley in Love" a Hoffman Spectrum Print (c2022)

This was the only fabric of this kind that I've been able to find for sale at the moment.  

This was a thing 7 or 8 years ago, and I missed the boat!  I think this will work nicely. 

I suppose I could paint my own -- Summer is coming!  Time to open the wet studio for the season.

 

 

Here it is cut up and unrolled on the design wall.  2 yards of fabric sewn into a tube and then cut in the following sequence:

3 in. - 2-1/2 in - 2 in - 1-1/2 in - 1-1/2 in (Yes, there are 2 of these in the sequence) - 1 in.

Then you repeat the entire sequence in reverse.

1-1/2 in - 1-1/2 in - 2 in - 2-1/2 in - 3 in.

Repeat until you run out of fabric.

It really IS the easiest Bargello ever!  I had it cut out yesterday, and sewed it together today, with time to spare!  [The colors are off in this photo -- It's an overcast day, and the dining room light makes it yellower than it is in real life.]

Once the pieces are all seamed together, you lose a lot of the width, so it shrinks down quite a bit.  I started out with 2 yards of fabric, and ended up with a little more than half of that.

I do like the way it turned out so far -- though I'm not quite sure what to do with borders yet.  Maybe I'll bring it to my Charmer's Group this week and ask the Ladies there what they think I should do with it?

It reminds me of this:

Sunset at my beloved Cherokee Marsh

Not sure when I'll actually get this finished, but I wanted to post the progress so far.