My first answer to the question, “How do you make a rag rug loom?” is, “Don’t. Buy one instead.” At least, buy your first loom. Buy, or trade, or borrow, or take a weaving class at your local community college or arts center. Big looms, with moving parts, are serious pieces of craft equipment. Look…
Category Archives: 746 Textiles
Crafts Made from Recycled Materials
If you’re looking for ideas for crafts to make from recycled materials, get this book: 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse, by Garth Johnson. It is simply the richest source of ideas, per book-dollar or per page, I have found. Read the comments and the reviews about the book; if you’re looking for step-by-step instructions,…
Dreaming of domestic colors
A few weeks ago, I started buying bed linens from the various thrift shops I frequent, thinking I would need a greater volume of fabric than I was able to obtain from my usual sources. If I buy leftover yardage when it’s useful colors and priced at $1/yard, sheets are an equivalent value at $2/twin…
Late March in Moncure WIP1: Color Sort
When I was finishing the first iteration of the Sunrise colorway, I thought it would be fun to weave a rug in the colors of spring. Around here in central NC, Spring is in full color in late March. Lots of overlap between the colors of Sunrise and Spring, although Spring has more green and…
Computers and weaving
It didn’t take long at all to convince me that I didn’t like warping a loom. It took at least four class sessions to get my first warp on the Incubator’s loom; I dropped six inches off the width of the project, and still had problems. Then, I put a 10 yard warp on my…
November
This is an informal image of one of my stock colorways, November, woven in a 2/2 twill hit-or-miss pattern. I picked the name because the colors remind me of the subtle richness of the woods after the last leaf has fallen for the year, except for the oaks and beeches. The world is full of…
Warping continues
Reed and heddles fully threaded; warp (a mix of pink and taupe) wound onto the sectional beam at the rear of the loom. This warp is only four yards long–all I had left on the cones after the first Log Cabin Rug class project–and a sectional beam, which can hold 100 yards, is overkill. However,…
Loom needed
Darn. I was pretty absolutely certain I didn’t like warp-faced rugs. I undertook to weave on in my first handweaving class, taught by Jean Vollrath of Hickory Mountain Weavery at the NC Arts Incubator in Siler City, because I didn’t want to cause trouble in a class full of beginners. If everyone else learned the…
Knitting Returns
December 26, 2003 Friday I am knitting again. It feels like I never stopped; my hands don’t miss a stitch. How could I have not been doing this for so long? I have been a knitter as long as I can remember and got very serious in 1986 in an attempt, eventually successful, to reduce…
Knitting Goddess
What a month! Knitting like a demon, finding the Knitting Goddess and Handpaint Country encouraging me to use even more color in my work. Writing a book about chainsaw carving that needs to be ready by the end of the month. Coming back to life after two month’s artistic hibernation and gestation. Fixing up my…