Tea towels - one down, 11 to go

I've finished my first tea towel! I decided to take it off the loom so I could see if I liked everything about it or not. Kind of like a sample, but it's on the warp with all the actual tea towels. Anyway, I'm glad I decided to take it off because there were a few things I noticed about the under side that I am going to change before moving on to the next one. Overall, I'm very happy with the result,just needs a bit of tweaking.

For those weavers in the crowd, I did a traditional Huck-a-back threading pattern, with a straight twill on the outside of the blue stripes. And did a plain weave type thing on the bottom and top (which wasn't a true plain weave because of the threading, but I really like the look)

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Tea towels round 2

I fixed my tea towels. I unwound the whole thing, pulled out 80 some threads and rewound it. It wasn't as bad as I thought. And I'm glad I did, because it definitely looks more like the size of a normal tea towel.

I also went to the school today to pick up my final projects and marks and such. The semester was definitely a success!

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Sorting through my stash

I brought a lot of stuff home from school - stuff that needed to find a place to live at home for the summer. In sorting through it all to find spots to put it, I discovered how much I actually have. There's a giant bag full of roving - some dyed and some white still. Plus a whole Icelandic Fleece that I've started spinning.

I was trying to figure out how much I should buy at school next week when I go to pick up the last of my marked assignments. I don't think I need to buy anything!  And I'm also going to be weaving this summer, so I think that I might buy a bit of yarn while I'm at school on Monday.

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Tea towels

I made a warp back in January, but I took forever getting the last scarf off that I am only now putting the tea towels on my 36" loom.

And now that I've put it on, I have a feeling I may have done a slight miscalculation. They are going to be bigger than I intended. I originally planned to seam all four sides of each towel, but I didn't account for that when I placed my blue threads. Argh. Oh well. I'm still learning I guess.

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School's out for the summer!

But still a year left. I cleaned out my lockers at school and now my living room is full of stuff. I sorted through my paper and have all my binders nicely labeled. I have a lot of work ahead of my trying to figure out where to put everything. It's a good thing I have a few more days to myself while K is away for work.

But I did do a bit of spinning last night. I bought an Icelandic fleece earlier in the year and finally started to make some progress on the spinning. I am not quite sure what I'm going to make with it yet, but hopefully I will be inspired soon.

I also got a snazzy cup holder to attach to my wheel. One of the teachers at school bought it and it didn't fit her wheel so instead of sending it back, she asked if I wanted it. Not too shabby!

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Screen printing

So school finishes up this week and I am almost ready to hand in my last assignment. A part of one of my classes, we learned how to screen print/silk screen. Our final project was to create a line of 3 of something. I chose to make cotton reuse able bags. I feel so ahead of the game because they aren't due for a week and I have them finished! I just have to wash them tomorrow and pass them in.

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Rug

The last assignment in my weaving class for the semester was to weave a rug. But first we had to make a sample. We did 5" samples of different patterns and set ups. It's really neat actually.

And I ended up having a bunch of warp left over, and made this awesome little rug. I think I might make a carpet bag type thing out of it. We'll see. I've been so busy with actual school work that I haven't sewn in all the ends or the fringe yet.

Then I designed my rug. I really liked the look of flamepoint, so that is what I chose for my larger blanket. It's about 30"x48".

The stripes were kind of a fluke, but I really like them. The store at school was about to do inventory, so their stock was lower than usual. There was a lot of the light grey, so I decided I'd incorporate stripes in to the pattern. I think I like it better than if I had done a solid pattern.

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Spinning

School is almost done for the year.  Hard to believe it's gone by so fast. I've met so many great people and the next four months are going to be weird, not seeing these people. Hopefully I will be making some trips to Fredericton and Shediac to see these people.

Last night a bunch of girls got together and spun. It's the second time we've done this and it was a lot of fun. I wish I didn't live so far away because I feel like the summer would be a good time to continue meeting up and spinning.  Last night I made a beautiful two-ply grey and white merino yarn.

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The ladies!

Weaving

Here are some woven items I've completed this year at NBCCD. Weaving is definitely something I really enjoy. I've got two looms in my house already. One is currently warped with some scarves (that I really need to finish - when school is done, that is going to happen). The other is warped too but I can't say right now what it is. Wouldn't want to give away the surprise.

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Colour and Weave Gamp

Twill scarf and matching hat knit on the knitting machine

Woven scarves 

Hand-dyed silk woven scarf

My blanket and I

Close up of my 60x90" blanket