So much went on in the April meeting, that it may take a while to put it all in blog posts. We did a fair amount of discussion about selvedges - weighting them, floating, doubling ends, etc. And, we talked about chenille - what to do about the fringe and how to protect it during wet finishing; using it in the warp - the weft, both warp and weft. Then, there were cures for scratchy wool (is there a cure?), tofu and shellfish yarn?? and what to do when you absolutely don't like the scarf you have just finished. Weaving outside of your comfort zone is our theme for the year and several of us took plunges. All will be told in good time.
Ingrid has been raiding her husband's t-shirt drawer and carefully replacing what she takes from a stash of new ones so that he won't notice the thefts. She cuts the tubular shirts into one long strip, one inch wide for weaving in a log cabin type design. Each t-shirt makes one large ball so there aren't many joins and the knit curls on itself making a nice tidy weft. The warp is white and purple and the idea was to make a bathroom rug to replace one that is worn out. (See her blog post
here). She miscalculated the length, and didn't get the first rug long enough; has resigned herself to having to go out and buy t shirts and start over with a new rug. One of our discussions was about how to cut the shirts into one long continuous piece. Her reference is
Rag Rug Handbook by Janet Meany and Paula Pfaff - page 18 "tube method". We were wondering if there is a source for tubular knit in yardage stores, so that t-shirts might not be needed.
Someone mentioned that t-shirts can be cut in rings and used like sock loopers. Just knot them together to weave. Some people didn't like the idea of the knot bumps, but it really sounded like an intriguing idea to me.
Jackie brought her copy of
Favorite Rag Rug: 45 Inspiring Weave Designs by Tina Ignell. Nice book and lots of great rag rug ideas.
Stay tuned for handwoven chenille for rugs in our next post.
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing what you learned at your weaving meeting. What a great idea to use old t-shirts to weave a bathroom rug. I've thought about going to thrift shops in the area and buying t-shirts to use.
I'm looking forward to hearing what you discussed about selvedges.
The scratchy wool is a challenge. Any good ideas on handling that?
Thanks for sharing the information,
Judy
Ooh, those are all discussions I would have loved to have been privy too - so wish I could have been there.
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