Red and White

I work a little, now and then, on the red and white weaving I dressed the loom with on New Years Eve. Progress is slow since I'm not really drawn to this one, or to weaving at all at the moment.

I dutifully go in and put in some time when I can though. This warp ticks so many boxes off of a "to do" list that I just can't completely neglect it.

This warp serves several purposes:

 +For the Chilliwack Spinners and Weavers Guild year end challenge to create a project in the colours of the flag of the country of our origin. In my case that would be red and white, for Canada, since I was born here as were my parents and 2 of my grandparents.

+To have the loom “dressed” with a new warp to greet the new year.

+To meet a guild challenge to create something to donate to guild sales to go toward the guild budget.

+To make Christmas stockings to sell next Christmas.

+To use up some of my extensive stash of “odds ‘n’ sods” of this and that and not much of any one thing.

+To use the red handspun I spun at a Canada Day celebration/demonstration two years ago.

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!

Stash Busting

As if I didn't have enough projects on the go! I'm next in line to use the guild loom for a Stash Busting Rug (aka "Twice Woven Rug"). I'm not a big stash hoarder so it's difficult for me to gather enough yarn up to do any sort of colour scheme.

This represents about half of my total stash. For the most part it's bits and pieces of leftovers from old projects, although there is a fair bit of handspun in there (wool that is too scratchy or in too short of supply to do much with). I think I'll go with a "lights, dull/darks, brights" division of the yarn. Hopefully it won't come off as too hideous in the final rug. With this type of rug it is really hard to guess what the end result will be.

Curious? Take a peek at my last one. ---> 1 2 3 4 5

The remainder of my stash is a bit of laceweight, enough handspun in large enough amounts for a few warm vests, and a basket of complete balls of sock yarn.