Fringe twister

My cousin Denise in Michigan saw this hair braider in the Paragon catalog and it reminded her of a post on my blog where I use a similar one (Conair) to twist fringes on my scarves and shawls.  I've had mine for years, Conair brand, but then the fad of using it to twist/braid hair passed and weavers could no longer find them. Well, here one is again - fads always return. The price is $14.99 - not too bad for all the time it saves on hand twisting - would only take a scarf or two in time savings to pay for it. What I don't know about this one and someone would have to check on before purchasing is how it works. Mine will twist the individual groups of threads in one direction (they attach to those 'arms') and then I can reverse the direction and the entire head that holds those 'arms' will twist in the other direction. I'm not in the market for one at the moment since I have mine plus a backup but thought others might be interested.  Thanks Denise for passing this along.

I have nothing new to share weaving/knitting/felting/crafting wise - working on gifts at the moment which I can't show on my blog........

Fringe Twister

Pat asked about my fringe twister. I don't know if they can be found in an online store or on Ebay anymore but a friend found one just a couple years ago. It's a Conair Hair Twister although there was at least one other brand at the time. A number of years ago there was a fad for young girls to use these to twist their hair, of course us weavers caught on to this quickly.  They were around $10 but as the fad was on the way out we could find them as low as $4, I bought a second as a back-up (no, I won't sell my extra one). What's nice about the Conair one is that when you press the button forward each shaft holding yarn twists in one direction - then press the button back and the entire head rotates in the other direction twisting the two together. Sometime last year I saw that Lacis had created a battery twister for fringes and cord, much spendier but if the Conair can't be found it's well worth the money for the time it saves. Since I haven't seen one of those in person I can't say if it works the same. Hope this helps you Pat........and anyone else that may be interested.

Hard at work.....uh....play...

Yesterday I had some time at the embroidery machine stitching water bottle cozies, the blanks are made out of neoprene, after stitching I sew up the side and voila, ready for a water bottle. I also embroidered some golf towels.

Then I decided to be brave and take part of the machine apart to clean it, so with manual at hand I started on it, glad I did, the bobbin case was filled with dust that I'm sure would hamper the sensor and cause stitching issues. I stitched this cute flower on a scrap piece of fabric to make sure I got everything back correctly after cleaning.

Today I spent time twisting fringes on scarves - they won't sell if I don't finish them. Photography comes next.

And my major accomplishment for the day was teaching myself, with a couple pages of instruction, how to use the AVL warping wheel. I was a little skeptical about it being easy to learn but I've got it, and it didn't take terribly long either. What a cool tool for sectional warping - no winding of spools, just work from the cone(s) onto the wheel, then onto the beam. It's like magic! So tomorrow I'll wind an actual warp and get it on the AVL, after I get to weaving and see how I like the tension I'll decide if I'm buying it from a local weaving friend, right now I'd say yes, I think I'm going to like it but will give it a complete warp to make sure.

Twisting fringe the fast way......

I thought I'd share how I twist fringe the fast way. Since I do a lot of it I need for it to be quick and efficient. I was so thrilled a number of years ago when there was a new hair craze (I think for little girls) of twisting hair. Many stores/drugstores had the Conair Hair Twister.....and a few months later when the fad died out they were on clearance. All of us local weavers hit the stores buying them up.And you know, of course, I bought a second one just in case the first broke and I couldn't find anymore.  It's battery operated, batteries last a long time in it. Now, of course, they've disappeared but I did hear from someone that they found another brand on Amazon - search under hair twister or hair braider for it.  I do have one of the manual fringe twisters made by a weaver, it's really nice but not as fast and requires extra work on my part, not to mention need 2 hands.

I start out by laying the item on my rotary cutting board - it's great because of the marked off inch gridlines that make it easy to measure where to tie the knot so they're all the same length. I do put weight on the fabric end to keep it from moving....usually whatever is handy, like cones of yarn. I insert the 2 sections to be twisted into the ends of the fringe twister. I push the button forward and it twists the fringe.

Then I push the the button in the opposite direction and the entire head of the unit twists in the other direction to twist them together (see below). It is so fast! What a lifesaver. Usually my knots aren't tied that short but this is a throw and I didn't think having a long fringe was the best for it.

AFter all the twisting is finished I pull out my rotary cutter and trim the ends to a perfect length. Usually I use a longer ruler but I was too lazy to walk in the other room to get the longer one sitting next to the sewing machine. Below is a picture of the finished fringe along with the fringe twister (hair twister). I twisted lots of fringe yesterday working on two chenille throws.