Stashbuster In Progress

Remember when I wove that chenille last fall? I had to wait until the guild loom was ready before I could begin weaving the second stage.



It was quite a wait, but it's my turn now!

Wee Vest

This project went so quickly from speculation to finished project that I never even took WIP pictures, or mentioned it here on the blog.

Kristy wanted a few warm vests for Kaylen to wear in the winter months. Using the measurements from Kaylen's store bought vest I quickly whipped up a pattern on Sweater Wizard and Kristy went home and knit one up in just a couple of days. It looked so cute that I couldn't resist adding to Kaylen's wardrobe myself.

I dug through my stash and found some pretty chenille given to me by a friend. A day and a half later the custom fit vest was off the needles and taking a test trip through the washer and dryer. Chenille can be a little finicky and if the vest was going to fall apart when subjected to the normal care a baby's clothing must go through then I wanted to find out about before it was given as a gift.

It survived. It fits. And I think it looks darn cute --- even when delivered late at night and tried on over pajamas.

Chenille Done

Another two and a half yard run of chenille came off the guild's loom today.

Here's one end:

And the other:

Now to cut it up.

Cut a Rug

I got a bit of the cutting done last night, and finished the remainder today. Boy is that hard on the hands. And probably on the scissors too!

All of the balls of handwoven chenille bagged up and ready for the next step --- weaving it into a pile rug. Don't hold your breath though, the guild loom won't be ready for the next stage for quite some time. First all interested weavers must do this step, then the loom needs to be rewarped for the next step, and that will not likely be until after Christmas.

Not too many guild members are interested in weaving one of these at this busy time of the year. I've offered to help use up the existing warp by weaving another run of chenille as I still have a fair bit of "stash" left. Tricky hey? I'll tackle that some time next week.

Step One

I've got the first step of the Stash Buster Rug done. Two days (about 7 - 8 hours total) at the loom and I have two and a half yards of heavy, woven fabric ready to cut into strips of chenille.



In the beginning I had definite ideas of how I was going to do this, but ended up doing something totally different. I thought I would weave it off in a rather bland blend of darks/dulls, whites/creams, with small shots of bright colour to jazz it up a bit.

I started off that way --- the light coloured portion at the beginning (right hand side of the next picture) --- but when I got going on what was meant to be a short "dash" of blue, I LOVED the colour and realized I had quite a bit of it in my stash, so I just kept right on weaving with it until the various blues were getting in short supply.



I had a nice variegated yarn that had both blues and a wine colour. That led to gradually transitioning into the vibrant pinks that I also had in an abundant supply.



When the pinks showed signs of depleting I reached for the pinky reds, then the deep plumy reds, and on into the black.



I wanted to pull the colours full circle, back to the cream again so I gradually changed out the blacks, into greys, and then creams and whites.



I'm glad I abandoned my original plan. I think this will look quite pretty in the finished rug. My only regret is that it leaves the sharp colour change between the cream colour and the bright blue. I'm not worried though. The second stage of the weaving throws the colours all about and there won't be just one abrupt change of colour. The blue/cream break will happen frequently throughout the rug.

Here is a peek back at the last Stash Buster Rug yardage before it was cut up and rewoven:



And what it looked like with the second stage being woven.



So you see, there is hope yet!