My latest spiral, Colors of India, was inspired by a picture of a spice market in an old National Geographic magazine. The rug is almost finished; it needs a bit of neatening up and a wash and block, and it will be on the Rugs page in no time. The rug was on the corner…
Teal & Peach Nautilus Rag Rug, WIP
WIP = work in progress This is a quick post to show how a Nautilus rug is assembled. I will post a similar picture of a traditional spiral rug in progress so you can see how the parts are similar but the assembly is different. The pink strip wrapped around the black is how I…
Newly sharpened shears
Say THAT three times quickly! Newly sharpened shears newly sharpened shears newly sharpened shears! Oh, the joy of finding a new sharpening service! The little store where I used to take my good shears closed in the depth of the recession. It was sad; it was a convenient location I passed frequently on my way…
How to Make a Rag Rug Loom
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…
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,…