My last warp was gasping for air. I took it to the very limit and could be termed extreme warping. Everytime I moved the warp on I had threads snapping all over the place. So I just **calmly** retied every one to push it to it’s last.

You can see in the first photo just how close the end of the warp is to the back of the heddles. In the second photo the snapped and repaired ends in their disarray. But it was really worth it to push this warp as I completely finished five full length scarves or rather scelts.

The main problem with loom weaving is you can’t sit with your family watching TV at night. So I knitted a so cute hat for a new baby in a couple of nights this week. It is so cute that I wish I could handle making a pair of baby socks to match.

I’ve also come across this amazing weaver site. Cathy Bolding’s Digital Atelier Her work is Jacquard woven using her own photographic images, manipulated in Photoshop and prepared in ArahWeave. Truly inspirational and amazing.

So cute knitted hat with hand dyed bamboo embroidered
flowers.

I had the greatest birthday…BOTH my daughters were home and I spent the day in the studio sharing ‘fibery’ pusuits with one of them. A weaver mum’s idea of nirvana.

Teresa is making a cot quilt for a new baby family member and I got to go with her to select the fabrics and see her cut and assemble the patchwork.Then we went to the quilting shop to buy the cotton batting. The owner took a step backwards when he discovered she was hand quilting it. He said ‘that is very unusual these days’. What has happened to hand quilting? I know a machine may be faster but that may be it’s only advantage.

Once again that idea of time and how to use it most effectively in our lives is raised. Craft and art by hand take time. Time to learn, analyse, develop skills, experiment, sample and create. If we spend time on something that can be easily created by machine, we ask ourselves, why?

Developing or ‘being’ a meaning for our work is essential. It contributes to our ability to use our time despite our fanciful calculations of an hourly monetary rate for ourselves and a sense of ‘wasting time’. I think many quilters enjoy using machines to quilt and this develops a new type of sensibility and purpose in the art. They can focus on other aspects of quilting design. However, there is still a reason to hand quilt..to enjoy and experience the time it takes, focusing on each and every stitch which eventually covers the whole quilt. It requires a discipline of the mind.

This is what I was doing on our ‘fibery’ day. A 16 shaft fancy twill. I plugged this pattern into the end of a warp I was weaving and was delighted with it. Sometimes looms just hand you a surprise.

I’ve always wanted to have a go at Tunisian crochet but somehow never have…I’m learning now on the Online Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. Crochet is the workshop of the month and it’s wonderful. Marja Heuvelman is the tutor.

I used a hand dyed bamboo for the plain Tunisian and a mixture of bamboo and Jo Sharp cotton for the wave Tunisian. It has a much nicer handle than I imagined Tunisian would have and I think it could be used for clothing.

Great fun and very relaxing to do, in between sitting at the loom and treadling away.

I’ve worked out how to weave at the loom for longer periods and enjoy it even more….podcasting and mp3 music.

As I have 11 metres of fabric to weave off I can’t really report anything new except that I loaded up my mp3 player with all of the Weavecast stories. They are brilliant. Syne Mitchell has developed this audio blog especially for weavers. I listened to all of them, then downloaded Audacity a free audio editor to see how it works.The voice and sound gives a new and exciting experience for weavers out there.After all, who’s ever heard of a radio station about handweaving and knitting! Syne’s broadcasts are professionally recorded with great music and interesting interviews, reviews and viewpoints.Can’t wait for her next podcast to appear!

After weaving for a few hours with Syne’s podcasts, I then started to listen to mp3 music and podcasts from The Philosophers Zone and now I’m hooked!