Beginning Weaving

Six weeks ago I began a weaving class at the Artful Ewe Annex in Port Gamble with Marcia Adams.  What a great experience!  This is a section of the first sampler.  It was so fun to actually weave these twill patterns once I finally got the loom warped.  That was very challenging but this cotton was much easier to work with than the wool that followed in the next project.

Here is the very beginning section of my final sampler.    The white at the bottom is toilet paper, used to keep the warp threads straight.  Any kind of filler can be used.  Both warp and weft are wool.  This sampler continued for almost two yards in length.  I learned five more twill patterns, each one more complicated.  Fortunately, weaving is easy to re-do when mistakes are caught!

This is the final section of that sampler.  It could be a small wall hanging or part of a bag or ???  ideas welcome.  The four middle sections were laundered in different ways to see how much shrinkage was involved, so I have two much smaller pieces that were felted, one by hand and one in the washing machine.  That one really fuzzed up.  Two other sections looks the same -- one was just steam pressed and the other washed in warm water (that one shrank about 7% in length only).

The table loom I was using took up a lot of room on our dining room table so if I continue with weaving, I'll take advantage of the opportunity to rent a floor loom at the weaving annex and go there on weekends and work under Marcia's expert eye.