Thursday, November 5, 2009

Weaving 101 Day 1

Today was my first lesson in Weaving 101. I am weaving two scarves with Peruvian alpaca wool. One scarf is a Christmas present for my youngest son and the second scarf is a Christmas present for my daughter-in-law. Both ride motorcycles . . . my son travels approximately 100 miles to work from Bryan, Texas to Houston when the weather is good. My daughter-in-law rides for pleasure, but she also trains her dogs for search and rescue. She and the dogs go when called, and there is practice at least once or twice a week. These scarves should come in very handy considering their various activities.


I am to set aside two days to do the scarves. I've gathered together some necessary equipment to carry me through the hours: a CD player, some protein bars, three CDs, and a screw. Need to take the screw so I can stop at Home Depot to get either a counter sink drill bit or 50 same sized screws with a smaller head for the cabinet hardware for the makeover bathroom and for the kitchen. Twenty-four years with the same kitchen hardware is long enough. :D And, my jeep does not leave the house without several errands on the list.

This is Sandra, my instructor. She is delightful.

This is the Peruvian alpaca wool chosen for the project.

Sandra pre-warped the loom.


The first scarf in progress. Jennifer's scarf will be different because I am using the gray and white thread as the weaving thread whereas black is the weaving thread shown here. Hubby doesn't know it, but it looks like there will plenty of these two colors left to weave him a scarf. I'll add another color, perhaps, or see if Sandra will set the loom up in a different pattern.

Here is a loom being warped. This lady is doing a wrap for herself, and it took hours to set the loom up.

The loom is ready for weaving.

Look at this scarf. Isn't it beautiful?

I am so new to weaving that I cannot remember the type of thread being used, but the design is coming from the weaving thread.

Day 2 of Weaving 101 is tomorrow. Both scarves should be completed. I found a rhythm and am comfortable with a tension. The second scarf should go a little quicker. Weaving is really cool.

Until next time, God bless.

7 comments:

SquirrelQueen said...

I love the wool you chose for the scarves, it looks so soft. I can see where setting up the loom would take hours but the results would be worth the time. The design of the scarf is beautiful.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of the process.

Judy

Al said...

Wow, that looks confusing but challenging. There is a place here where weaving is their main industry they wove hats, bag, mats, scarves and they were always visited because of their products. I hope you have a good time. Now weave! Haha.

AL

DJan said...

Wow! I am impressed, to say the least. I've narrowed my yarn down to a few possibilities, but I never even thought of weaving. I wonder if I can find a class here, it looks so cool! Very nice post and pictures. Thank you.

Lynn said...

The actual weaving seems to be quite easy...that being said after one day, i.e., the looms being warped for me, the design being developed for me, etc. Where the difficulty, experience and challenge comes in are in the warping the loom and weaving the correct color in the right place. The lady doing the warp (stinging the loom)spent at least six hours setting up the loom. It was her first time, I think, to do the set up. It is her third piece and her wool choices require working more pedals than my simple piece.

I use 1 and 3 pedals to lift the wool when going left to right and 2 and 4 to lift the wool going right to left. I'll take more photos today.

Lillian Robinson said...

I looked at the enlarge pic of the scarf. I love the texture! It's beautiful.

Brenda said...

Ohhh they're beautiful!!!! You're so talented!

Astro Galaxy said...

It's interesting to see all these! Thanks for sharing and all the best with the weaving.