Random thoughts of a fiber enthusiast - mostly fiber related, sometimes coherent

Category: Weave Page 1 of 34

Zoom Zoom

ZoomSquareBlanks

If after my last post, you thought that I had been Zooming along, you would be correct. This is just a portion of the squares that I’ve woven.

What are those tags, you ask? These squares have been mordanted (in 10% alum solution) and ready for a natural dye workshop later this month. We will be working with Osage Orange and Cochineal.

No worries. I will be approaching the dye workshop with my usual AR/scientific approach, hence the number of squares for just 2 dye materials.

Why squares? I just wasn’t into dyeing lots of little tiny skeins of yarn that I have no idea what to do with after the workshop is over. I thought long and hard about what I can do with small bits of yarn and Zoom Loom squares came to mind. Rather than dyeing yarn and, gasp! cut the yarn and throw away bits, I thought I would weave them into squares first.

The idea is that I would piece the squares into a gamp-like lap blanket. This means a whole lot more plain white squares need to be woven up.

Yarn — unknown 2 ply white wool yarn from my workshop bits bin. I won’t have enough yarn to weave the number of squares I need for a lap blanket. I’ll have to figure out what type of wool this so I can try and make more yarn to match. I know it is a sturdy wool. This princess doesn’t have much “sturdy” wool stashed. Hopefully, there are enough workshop fiber that I can figure something out.

Zoom!

20160714

Miracle Fabric

I love my easy chair. It’s comfy. It’s made with microsuede that cleans up with a damp cloth or baby wipe. It’s lovely. Cat hair wipes right off. Stains? Baby wipe or a damp cloth with a bit of diluted dish soap. Lovely.

So what’s the problem? It doesn’t breathe in 100F weather. Sitting in the easy chair in shorts for any duration of time and I feel like I’m suffocating. I start to sweat. At least, I don’t stick to it like I would with leather. But it’s still not comfortable in the heat.

As the weather climbed into the 90s again this weekend, I looked around for something to put under it. I thought about a cotton towel but eyed a piece of fabric that I wove 18 months ago* for a bag to put into the CNCH 2014 gallery. It never screamed bag to me so I never did anything with it.

SeatCover

Yup. It’s fabulous as a seat cover. I was really surprised. The wool and alpaca weft were not itchy in the head at all! Wool really is the original miracle fabric!

I will line the fabric so it looks a bit more finished but I have found a winner! I may even decide to put a bit of batting in for use as a meditation cushion.

* This was supposed to be part of a guild project/display for CNCH 2014. Each stripe of the fabric consists of yarn spun by a guild member and dyed during one of the guild’s natural dye baths (save one commercially purchased yarn). For the most part, these were indigo dyed. There is a bit of walnut in there too. The orange separating stripes were dyed in madder that we dug out of Phyllis’ yard. Each guild member would bring their own weft. My warp was from some grey alpaca roving I had (dyed with logwood grey, I believe).

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