Dish towels

I just finished my first dishtowels! They were woven on the same warp but with different weft patterns. I wove the entire width of my loom although I think I read somewhere not to use the outside holes in the reed. I'm not sure why, it seemed to work fine - I'll probably learn someday.  The first towel was woven a bit loose, when I followed the pattern for the second towel - with the green stripes, I realized I was not packing the weft tightly enough, the pattern called for 7 green stripes in 2 inches. My first set was 5, the rest were 6. I don't have the recommended cotton shuttle ( they have a thin edge used for packing the weft tightly) so I packed each row with a metal ruler.  There are several pieces of equipment I have not acquired yet, I'm trying to make some myself or find things that will serve the purpose.

My next project will be another scarf. I'm going to try and document the progress in a sort of stop motion.

Loom

My husband went with me to the Fiber Festival of New England in November since my usual fiber partner couldn't make it. (Very sweet of him, he seems to tolerate yarn stores as well!) We were checking out some spinning wheels when he noticed a loom, after a bit of discussion we came home with an Ashford Rigid Heddle.  I read the book that came with it, watched a video on Ashford's website and threaded on my first warp - with a little "help" from our cat.

I decided to just do random width stripes.

I wove it tight - beginner's mistake - but the scarf still drapes nicely

Last spring I bought some amazing fiber at the Connecticut Sheep and Wool Festival, a luscious grey silk alpaca blend, a purple batt with novelty fiber combed in and brilliant jewel tone tencel!  I used the silk alpaca blend with bits of the tencel to make this simple circle shrug (Threads magazine).

Fiber

Layout

Circle shrug

Return of the Sock Monkey- A special request for a musical friend of my husband's, this monkey is glammed up with some beads and a microphone. She's ready to rock and roll!

Cozys

I was given a plastic travel mug that would not keep my tea hot all the way to work (45 minutes) so I made a cozy! My first attempt yielded a very short cozy that now stays in my purse for when I grab a hot drink at a coffee shop - it makes a great insulator for those paper cups. The second one was sized better and now I have hot tea when I get to work.  Then I made one more - a bottle cozy to keep my cold bottles cold and my hands dry.

Mittens

Tired of really cold fingers driving to work in the morning and when I walk in the evening so I decided to felt some mittens. These are so warm I have to carry my thin gloves along on my walk - after about a mile my hands are sweating!  The thumb came out a bit short, if I do this project again I'll add some extra length there and overall. I used rabbit for the inside layer, very soft but the guard hairs were mixed in and they do not felt. I believe the guard hairs have since migrated out. I also need to research my fibers more, the friction of my trekking pole grips on the mitten pulls fibers out of the wool. Perhaps a more durable fiber or I'll need to add leather palms.

Felt Slippers

I started out to make a pair of slippers.  When I wore them they tended to wander around on my foot so I decided to add a sole (so the sole would stay on the bottom of my foot!). I deconstructed an old pair of sneakers leaving the suede trim attached to the sole. I then hand stitched the felt boots into the suede trim. Challenging and resulted in several finger punctures and aching hands.  It's difficult to find the holes from the previous stitching so a leather (glovers) needle is essential and make sure it's sturdy, I bent one trying to push it through the leather. I found needle nosed pliers helpful and the second shoe went much faster than the first.  I attached braided leather loops to the suede mid foot and put grommets on some suede "wings" at the heel. The loops and grommets enabled me to add lacing. They are very warm as I discovered when I wore them to the movies tonight.