Festive table runner

 I got this warp on the loom yesterday and almost have it woven off. It's basketweave and twill in 5/2 perle cotton. It was inspired by this fun melamine platter and a matching chip/dip tray I found this summer. They along with the runner will be a fun gift for friends that moved to AZ last year. I just love how festive and cheery it is. I put on enough warp for 2 long runners, not sure if the other will be a gift or if we'll use it ourselves.  I've really been enjoying weaving in fun colors lately, it's nice not to always be thinking about what will sell best, I love weaving what tickles me these days..........

.....that blasted table runner warp.............

 Here is one of the table runners woven from that blasted summer & winter project I posted about two weeks ago. It's still not quite square but that would have taken reworking the entire project, as in changing sett and I really didn't want it wider. I'm happy with the end result even if it's not what it should have been. I guess I really should have ironed it before it's pic but at this point I'm happy to get another post on the blog. I'm going to make an effort to do it more often............

Struggling........

I'm really struggling with coming up with posts for my blog. I'm still not very productive and I'm still not really motivated to do much which includes taking photos. I decided since I had taken these photos that I should force myself to post.

I am weaving a bit again.  It's really hard when going from weaving to sell to just weaving for myself or gifts or to learn something new..........just not as much drive.  I saw this draft over on Susan's blog recently - she wove scarves using it. I thought it might make a nice table runner for our dining room. I like it just fine.  I wove 2 others using different weft colors to use as gifts. 

I just took this warp off the loom and washed it. This undulating twill was being woven by many weavers a couple years ago. I wove it using 10/2 perle cotton to use as the fabric for our holiday cards this year.  I like it so much I may have to weave myself some towels.  Of course I have very little white and red 8/2 unmerc. cotton in my stash which covers 2 walls in the studio from floor to ceiling so I'm going to have to place an order. I suppose that means I'll order some other colors I'm low on at the same time. In the meantime I'm winding a warp for some turned twill towels. Hopefully before fall I'll have a number of warps woven for gift giving. 

On another note I've been so depressed since hearing the official Supreme Court ruling although I could see it coming. I know abortion is a heated topic and I respect other's views but that doesn't mean I think it's right to take away a woman's rights - yes, I am pro-choice and always will be. I will hope that Oregon will be a refuge for those seeking abortions and nothing changes that. How horrible to be setting back a woman's right to choose 50 years. What will come next because something isn't directly addressed in the constitution???  Nasty comments on this subject will not be posted, I will trash them. Respectful comments are welcome.  And that's all I'm going to say on the subject even though it will be on my mind every single day. 

This and that.......

Yes, I rarely post anymore, I just don't feel like I have much share and just don't have much motivation these days to even take the photos. But here are a couple things I've been working on. 

Susan from the blog Thrums posted this draft. She wasn't sure where she got it from, maybe handweaving.net. I thought I'd weave a table runner project using it. This is the gray, working on a pale sage green now and will do a blue one. I'm using 5/2 perle cotton. I originally thought if I liked it I would put on a towel warp using this same draft but I'm not enjoying weaving it that much so I'll pass on towels. I do want to get a towel warp on soon, also a warp for our holiday cards which I've now picked a draft for.

I did some sewing - 17 tote bags for the Head Start kids. Our neighborhood group of the American Sewing Guild does quite a bit of charity sewing.  This is one of the groups we sew for.  We fill these with fun stuff we buy from grant money and deliver them at the holidays. 

Other than this not much to share, just can't think of much to say...............

It's pumpkin time......

I'm very excited that my pumpkin wallhanging long arm quilting was done in time for pumpkin time. As soon as I picked it up I sewed the binding and hanging sleeve on. This will eventually look better once we paint the walls a light gray.  I get to enjoy this quilt until it's time for a christmas/holiday quilt which my husband's cousin made for us a few years ago. (This pattern is called Mini Pumpkins by Some Kind of Wonderful - I made mine much bigger than the original pattern)

And here's my pumpkin table runner finished.  This was a manageable size for me to quilt on my sewing machine. The pumpkin wallhanging is on the wall at the end of where this table is. (This pattern is Punkin' Patch Runner by Bonnie K Hunter of Quiltville) 

I have gotten a little more time at the sewing machine to work on some small holiday gifts for family and friends but I can't show those yet.  I'm almost finished with our holiday cards too. 

Pumpkin season

 

I am trying to make a little time each day for myself rather than be consumed by all that is happening in my life.  My mental health is at stake. 

Remember the pumpkin quilt wallhanging top I pieced?  Well, it's still at the long arm quilter who is swamped but she contacted me earlier this week to get my decision on a stitching design for the quilting so I think it will be ready in the near future. I decided I need to work on making a quilted pumpkin table runner. I still have the borders to add to this and then the quilting. I'll be doing the machine quilting myself since it's a small project - either stitch in the ditch or freeform, undecided at this point.  This pattern is by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville. I love her scrappy patterns and so enjoy reading her blog every day. 

I am more than ready for pumpkin season, hoping for an earlier than normal end to fire season this year. Sure wish the east coast could send those flooding rains out west.

MIA once again

Life keeps throwing me curve balls, actually it would be better to call them stress balls. I'm not getting much done creatively as I'm spending most of my time dealing with family issues. I won't go into the stress in my life as there's no need to share with the world. I keep thinking things can't get worse but they do. 

I forgot to share these table runners I made for gifts this last year - cute little houses with wonky stars in the middle.  Very fun to make.  I bought the pattern from Missouri Star Quilts and even bought some 5", I think they're called charm packs in the blue/green colorway and the red/green colorway. I just needed to buy background, backing and something for binding. 

I can't seem to focus on much these days so whatever I do it can't take too many brain cells. After seeing Bonnie with the Quiltville Inn make a blue jean throw I decided I needed to buy her pattern to make a bigger version for a big picnic blanket........meaning we will be going on many picnics in the future.  I've been saving blue jeans for years, actually decades, thinking there would be fun projects ahead. I thought I would use a lot more of them than I did cutting out all my 5" squares........oh well, at least it's a start moving those things out of bins in the garage. I'm hoping to get time to work on it here and there over the next few weeks. I'll post pictures as that happens. 

I've had many cones of fun spring colored cotton yarns on my work table with plans of a towel warp except I can't get past the planning stage. Maybe I'll be able to focus soon........or not..........

Have been slowing down on weaving to sell.  There are so many other things in life I want to do that have been on my to-do list for years, actually some for decades. Thinking about it and where my weaving career goes from here is unsettling. I need a totally different mindset of not needing to production weave and weaving for myself and gifts.......it's hard. I'd love to eventually focus on weaving for some clothing but hard to move in that direction......maybe once life settles down I'll be able to do that...........

 

A quick project

 I started and finished a quick project yesterday afternoon.  It's a table runner kit I bought from Jordan's Fabrics. I knew there were precision cut pieces but I still thought they were long strips that I would cut for the 4 log cabin blocks as I went. Nope, they were all cut to size - all perfect. Matt at Jordan's does such an incredible job putting these kits together.

And here it is finished, even stitch in the ditch quilted. The kit comes with everything to make 4 blocks, the borders and the backing - all I needed to provide was the batting and thread.  What a deal these kits are - yes, I paid for someone else to cut the fabric but I didn't have to buy lots of extra fabric for all these small pieces...…..fabric that would have ended up in the cabinet for a someday project, taking up valuable space in the meantime.

This runner is for a gift but I have more kits to make runners for us and also have the instructions for taking the runner kit and making 4 placemats.  So, in the near future I'll be making a runner and placemats in grays/light tans and also a runner and placemats in holiday fabric. My only problem at the moment is that I have no more batting so it's either order some online or brave JoAnn's donning mask and gloves.

If you sew/quilt and haven't checked out Jordan's please make sure you do. I am lucky that they are located right here in town, 5 minutes from me, so I can go in to shop (well, not right now) but they have a huge internet ordering presence.  And they have great youtube tutorials and many free patterns.

More rag runners......

Someone asked me for a table runner to go with her new furniture/décor so I finally put a warp on (she's waited for months) and am giving it a try. Special orders are difficult for me because I don't really know what someone is envisioning. Hopefully one of these will work.

The warp has two shades of aqua, a light green and gray....perfect for her colorway.....but getting fabric to end up weaving to match is more difficult.  I love the one above.

This one is much more subtle but I like it also.

This one turned out much lighter than I anticipated - still very nice but not sure if it will work.....

This one using a gray print is not long enough for her table but I had warp left so I wove it - maybe I'll keep this one for myself.

As I look at these photos I realize that they really don't show the colors in the warp or even in the fabric very well - much more attractive in person.

ASG fun

Yesterday was our local ASG (American Sewing Guild) chapter's Make-It-Take-It day. For a very nominal fee of $15 I could take 3 classes and it included lunch, not to mention getting to visit with other sewers/quilters in our region that I wouldn't normally see.

I pieced this runner. It's really long and will just fit on the buffet. I've already cut out more pieces to make a smaller runner for the table. It will still need to be layered with batting and a backing fabric and then I'll need to quilt it......most probably stitch in the ditch.

Here is the pieced runner top from another class. It's pretty small, not sure where I'll use it, maybe I'll make another one larger and use this one for a gift. This was called the easy peasy runner because it's ironed onto a grid stabilizer and then folded to do the stitching - very quick piecing technique. This one also needs batting, backing and quilting. The instructor for this project was the president of our local ASG chapter - big thanks to her for all her organizing skills and work in our region.

My third class was making these Swedish stars out of fabric strips.  A bit fiddly on the first one but then once over the learning curve it was easy. The instructor made over 80 of these for gifts - yikes - that's a lot of stars.

I haven't gotten back to that gingko quilted wallhanging I want to make - there just hasn't been time and I don't see much free time this week to work on that or finishing up the table runners. I did buy a few more pieces of mostly black fabrics that may replace a few of the others that I wasn't happy with in the mock up.

We've emptied out all the kitchen cabinets and are ready for kitchen cabinet demolition tomorrow morning. They have to be removed to get final measurements for the peninsula. 'Hopefully' the following week new cabinets will be in and the granite guy will be out to make the template for our countertops.  It's going to be a disaster in here for several weeks and probably some eating out.

Table runners ready for new homes......

Handwoven rag table runners for sale in my etsy shop - look for these in the table runner section of my shop. Calling these 'rag' runners is a bit misleading as they are made from high quality cotton quilt fabric cut 1" wide for the weft.

Rag weaving fini

 This is the last of the rag weaving for quite a while...........

 .......it's been really fun........

.........now to hem them all and wait for a brighter day for good photo taking......

More rag runners.....

 More rag runners came off the loom yesterday. They sure are quick to warp and weave......

.....next warp up will have corals, rust, tans - 3 runners each in a different fabric......then I put the rag weaving aside, it's been fun. I'll probably put on a towel warp next. I also have some sewing I'd like to do - I need to design and sew/quilt a quilted wall hanging for over our couch.  Our last house didn't have as much wall space as this one, I need something fairly big for the wall the couch is on. I've been looking at some commercial patterns - one is very intriguing - not sure if I'll end up using that or pull ideas from it and go off on my own.......which is what I'm thinking......

Rag weaving

This type of weaving is usually called rag weaving, as in rag rugs.....in this case rag table runners. This comes from times when true rags were used for rugs rather than throwing those old clothes and sheets out, we'd call it up-cycling today. But can these runners really be called rag weaving - this fabric was never rags, it's good quality quilting cottons straight from the store..........after a lengthy stay marinating in my fabric cupboard.  I need to come up with another name so those who may be interested in purchasing a table runner know it was not made of rags.

The other day I was getting ready to warp up the Macomber with another towel warp. Then I opened that cupboard and saw stacks and stacks of fabric and thought maybe some table runners were in order instead.

I pulled out enough fabric for 9 table runners, that 2 yards each, that's 18 yards.  Did it make a dent in the fabric cupboard - heck no.....but I'm giving it my best.

There is still so much fabric in that cupboard. Actually it outgrew that cupboard and has taken over some shelves in another cupboard.

But I'm making a small dent in it. After 9 table runners are woven I'll set aside this idea again and move on to that towel warp. 4 runners down, 5 to go........

Pancake Quilt Table Runner

I'm planning on sewing a quilted afghan for a spring graduation present. Since it's a pattern I haven't done before I thought I should do some sort of sampling. So, into my stash I went and pulled out two great fabrics to make a table runner.

I used the instruction booklet and plexiglass template for Circle Magic from Missouri Star Quilt Co. I first saw this quilt on LuAnn Kessi's blog, I learned of her when my friend Janette attended her Permission to Play classes while she was fighting a losing battle with cancer. Luann has a great blog on quilting, dyeing, surface design and many other crafts. 

Here are the two fabrics I picked out from my way too big fabric stash. I cut 12 circles of each, which were then backed with iron on interfacing. I also cut 12 squares of cotton quilt batting.

Here I'm pinning everything readying it for sewing. Of course, you know what comes next, turning all those circles - argh but not too bad for 12 of them. Not sure how it will be when I have to turn 70 of them for the afghan......will definitely spread that chore out and work on it here and there.

Here are my circles ready to stitch an X in the middle and then the 2 on the right are already sewn together. The beauty of this pattern is that it's all done once the circles are sewn together, the backing for the quilt is the back side of the circle - no quilting and binding like traditional quilts.

And here's the completed table runner - I love it and it will look great on our dining room table. It was a good learning project and I can see where I can improve for the afghan project. I'm anxious to start on it but I need to buy more interfacing.........I bought medium weight for the afghan but I think lightweight is better. I can start cutting out all the circles and batting. I'll be using 12 different coordinating fabrics for the afghan.

New handwovens in shop

I finally did a bit of photography work......dreaded photography work........so I could list a few items in my etsy shop.

The handwoven table runner using a hand-dyed warp.

A white chenille shawl - perfect for a wedding or any ole' time.

Another white chenille shawl using a seed rayon as weft to give a nubby or pearl like look

Fun effect

 Recently I asked friend Verna to knit me a blank on her knitting machine so I could experiment with dyeing and weaving it. I forgot to take a pic of it in the dyeing process, I folded it over so it would be a mirror image along the length of it and blended from a grey dye to eggplant. Above is what it looked like after being dyed and washed  - it's all curled up into a tube which will happen being stockinette. I could have wound the warp straight from the knit piece but the last time I did it I was dealing with corkscrews of yarn while trying to thread heddles and reed.........so I wound the knit blank into a skein and wet it to get those curly-q's out of it so it was easier to deal with.

Yesterday I wound the warp and got it on the loom. Here it is underway. I finished the long table runner and it's now sitting in the sink washing, then off on a towel on the deck to dry.  I like the effect although I still see distinct lines of color in the warp.  I've done this technique once before in silk for a scarf and loved it so much I kept the scarf for myself rather than sell it.  This ended up being a table runner because I just pulled a small cone of 5/2 perle cotton off the shelf to give to Verna to knit for me as a test.  I'm going to ask her to knit up some more blanks on her knitting machine but this time in silk and maybe tencel which I'll use for scarves.

Now off to walk Bailey and decide what to do with my day.........so many options........

Table runners ready to cut off the Gilmore Gem loom - I really cut it close - back bar all the way to the back of the heddles trying to eak out those last couple of inches.


I got many emails asking for more details on the Gem loom. As I've said - it's a well made, high quality, sturdy, compact, easily transported little loom.......it's just not the loom for me. I don't want to discourage anyone else from considering one until they give it a try - it might be perfect for someone else, just not perfect for me. Threading heddles gave my back fits and weaving gave my feet, ankles and legs fits.........I think I'm just a Macomber gal that loves a front beam that folds down, beater that comes out and treadles that push straight down with little effort.

 Latest handspun washed and out on the blocker.  This pvc pipe yarn blocker design came out of a very old issue of Spin-Off........I made a few changes but it's pretty much like the one in the magazine. I'm sorry I don't know which issue it was in - it was before I subscribed and a friend made me a copy of that page (no page number or issue on it)

 My little herb fairy garden is doing well so early in the spring

Mom, I'm here - did you say you needed some help???

Just not for me...........

Today I got the Gilmore Gem II loom warped up for some patriotic table runners. Theresa loaned me this loom so I could see if it was a loom I'd be interested in ordering for the beach cottage. Well, it's just not right for me. It's a quality made sturdy little loom but just doesn't work for me. I made myself a pros and cons list when I started today and the cons were overwhelming.  So, now I'm thinking of putting some money into fixing my 24" 8H Macomber that was 'dropped on it's head at birth'. I think I'm just a Macomber gal - I've had my 40" 10H Mac for 30 years - it had decades on it when I bought it and I will never give it up.

Yesterday was my guild hands-on program on bow weaving. I taught 30+ fellow guild members how to bow weave, most finished their beaded bracelets by the time the meeting was over, others well on their way to finishing. It was a bit overwhelming to teach that many but I had two friends, Linda and Margie, who kindly offered to be helpers - they were life savers. I think everyone enjoyed the process and had fun.

I'm done weaving for today, will pick it up again another day. So now I'm off to work on hemming a huge stack of towels while I watch the first episode of the new season of Outlander. I signed up for Starz on our satellite service just so I can watch this........and after I watch that I know I'll still have more towels to hem so I'll put on Thursday's dvr'd episode of The Vikings.........

Cheery tulip table runners

This past weekend I got the table runners hand hemmed. There are now two of each up for sale in my etsy shop. There eventually will be some coordinating striped towels but they're still on the loom in process.........

Yellow with lavender tulips

 

Peach/coral with coral tulips

 

White with yellow tulips

 

Pink with pink tulips