3 More Charity Quilts from My Mom's Stash

Gloria K. from Lakeside Quilt Guild picked up this kit last fall at Quilt Camp, and worked it up as a charity quilt. It was on display at the Guild mtg last week.  I love the way it turned out!

 

This one uses a Flying Pigs fabric from my mom's stash.  

Lynn Mozingo added the pinks and the black borders.  

Finding Nemo fabric paired nicely with a gold and blue from Lynn's momentous charity stash for another kid quilt.

All 3 of these quilts will be donated to Sleep in Heavenly Peace next month (I think).

 

 

Holly Matucheski, a generous Quilter in her own right, 

continues to benefit people even after death.

Thanks, Ma!

Another Christmas Quilt Made from My Mom's Stash

Holly's Christmas Quilt #2

This one uses 2 packs of 5-inch squares and some of my mom's signature Holly backing fabric.

The idea is that you sew the squares into 4-patches, then cut on a diagonal.  Then you sew it back together with a 3-inch diagonal.

It's quite versatile in how you can lay out the squares.  This is the one I settled on.  Although now that it's together, I don't think I like it as much. Maybe it needs to hide away for a while?

Pattern / Technique / Tutorial from here. 

Quilt top gifted to my Amanda Yoshida, August 2022.

Emerging ... on the Loom

 

I wanted to share the progress on the Faux Ikat Scarf. Today I wove into the blue / purple parts.  I was excited to see how that would look ...  I knew that the weave pattern would show up better in the blue/purple parts.

Usually, I am very disappointed when a beautifully dyed warp disappears under a white weft, but in this case, it was exactly the effect I was after.  I wanted it to look a little like grunge with bits of wallpaper peeling off in places, but still intact in others ... 

Emerging and subsiding into the background.

Kind of a nice theme for spring, and for beginning to go out into the world again after 2 years cocooning during the pandemic.

 

This is a slightly different weave pattern than I started with last week.  I think I like this one better! 

When I dyed the warp, I did it in 10-inch increments.  Perhaps I should have used shorter increments?  We shall see when it's all done ... 

This is a pretty common twill structure.  This is how I worked it up on the iPad from iWeaveIt of the 2nd twill pattern.  This one seems to be working better than the first one.

 

 

I am very please with how this is going.  I have to remember to be gentle with beating on this project.  It's not a rug.  If I beat too hard, the wefts get too compacted and squashed.  But if I gently "lay them in place," things seem to look better.

Weaving Again: Pretty Warp for Faux Ikat Scarf

I've been dragging my feet a little on this project ...  warping the loom is always such a big multi-step project that takes several days  I have to take it in little steps. 

Still wrapping my head around how to do this project ...  When I dyed the warp, I expected there to be more bleeding at the edges of the ties.  The way it came it, the dye goes straight across all  -- I was hoping for a more dynamic effect.  Patience, Grasshopper.  All will be well!

One way to get around that is to stagger the bouts.  Some weavers flip some of the warp threads.  But I need to figure out how to do that if the cross is only at one end ... [Didn't need to ...]

This is a relatively short warp at 3.5 feet, so it's not all that long, and should not be too hard to flip.   Ah-- the best laid plans.  When I roughly tested the flip, it seems the colored parts were going to be roughly the same spots they are now.  So not worth doing the flip.  I think things might shift enough on their own once I get it all tied on. 

I sleyed the reed last week.  So far so good.  Had enough ends in the dyed warp to do an extra inch -- so 12 inches on the reed, not the original 11 I had planned.  12-dent reed sleyed  1-2-1-2 for 18 epi.  

Yesterday, I threaded the heddles.  Takes concentration.  Take it slow. 1 set at a time. Check your work.  Take breaks. 

Pulling it all through to warp the loom ...  Such pretty colors!

Today, I tied onto the back beam and wound it on.  The moment of truth!

It went mostly well ... 2 broken strings, but the bouts shifted nicely to bring some ikat-like interest to the purple parts.  I dyed this with Wilton's Delphinium blue a few weeks ago in the crock pot.

 

Here it is wrapped on the back beam.  Nice color breaking from Delphinium Blue! 

 

 

 

 

Using my simple tension device to wind on ...  Only 2 dowels for this application, not all 4.

I am trying something new this time, that I heard about on some of the weaving FB Groups: 

Tuesday’s Weaving Tip – Using Fishing Line for Your Selvages

I am using Jaggerspun Zephyr wool / silk mix.  It's fine and strong, but I still worry about broken strings and esp. selvedges.  Hoping this fishing line selvedge method hung over the back beam will mitigate any problems.

 

 

 I am always amazed at how much there is to do before you get to actually throwing a shuttle ...  Once the loom is warped, you still have to tie up the treadles, set the treadle beads, spread the warp, wind bobbins, check your sheds, check your threading -- Yes, I had 1 crossed thread, but easy to fix at this stage.

 

 

And finally, I can start weaving again!

At this early stage, I can experiment a little.  It's gray on gray here, but in the blue/purple part, the gray will show up nicely.

[That ugly brown is the junk thread used to spread the warp, and test for errors.  It will be easily visible and different from my real project that it should make pulling those threads easy.

There are only 16 steps to this treadle sequence -- It seems way too short compared to the 72-step overshot I was working on not so long ago!

 

This yarn is so fine, I think I was beating it too hard in the first few rows.  After that, I started just gently laying the threads in place, rather than a usual beat.

 

I'll have to do a little research on that -- I know the Anne Dixon Book [The Hand Weaver's Pattern Directory] has some recommendations for beating a balanced weave vs. warp-faced or weft-faced.   

Here's what she says on page 17:

 

"Table Loom: Balanced Weave: Insert the weft at an angle and hold the shuttle without any overt tension so that the weft just  fits against the far selvedge.  Beat very gently until the weft is almost in place. Change the shed and beat again into position.

 

Floor Loom Balanced Weave: Work as for table loom, but close the shed before beating and open the next shed as you push the beater away from the fell."

 

I will practice this technique and see if it helps the pattern look less squashed. 

 

I also have treadle beads / patterns for a slightly different pattern, using the same threading, so I am planning to mix things up a bit in this scarf.

 

 

Here it is from the underside.  The light was a little strange ...

 

This is the weave structure, worked up in my iWeaveIt App.

I will post again once I move to the purple / blue sections.  ;-)

3 Handy Items from the Hardware Store that are useful for Warping Your Loom

Ratcheting Screw Driver -- Just like Tom Kniesley has for  removing the bar over the shafts and pulling out and re-installing the reed during warping.  All this time, I've been using a little key-chain type screw-turner.  This works much better!

Yup-- That's 6-pound Fishing Line to be used as floating selvedges with with Jaggerspun Zephyr wool / silk warp. (Actually, it's 10# because my local hardware store didn't have 6#, but ok.)  

If you want to know more about this little tip, read on ...

Tuesday’s Weaving Tip – Using Fishing Line for Your Selvages

 

  

Drawer Pulls - Nice heavy drawer pulls.

Drawer Pulls to separate the heddle sets I need to concentrate on while threading.  Thee work really well to keep the unused heddles out of the way.  They are nice and heavy, and the "wings" keep it from sliding off the rails.  I've used a lot of make-shift items (pipe cleaners, sticks / dowels, etc.) for this purpose and none of them work as well as this.

Now -- Can you guess what I did this weekend?