First time dying

I tried my hand at dying the other day. My mother-in-law gave me some white yarn to try it out with. First I wound the yarn around a niddy noddy and made two skeins of yarn.

So after skeining the yarn I heated it up on the stove in some water as not up shock it (at the time I thought I had wool,and wool felts if the the temperature changes to quickly. I have since realized I have cotton).

I made the dye bath with used coffee grounds that I boiled for a hour. After straining the coffee grounds I put the skeins of yarn in to dye. I simmered them for a hour and then I pulled one of the skeins out and let the  other sit over night to see if I got a darker color.

The one that sat over night is slightly darker, but it's hard to tell.

Top is yarn in bath 1 hour, bottom is yarn over night, right is original color.

Missed Hole Card Weaving

 It's been a busy month so I haven't gotten much weaving done. I did finish the gold and brown ram's horn I was working on. I also got a new pattern strung on the inkle loom.

Here the pattern I used.
http://research.fibergeek.com/2012/11/14/red-yellow-missed-hole-spiral/

Not only do you not string one hole in most of the cards, so that the weft and peek through. I also get to practice turning some cards back and some cards forward at the same time.

The problem I had was I strung it inside out. It seems like a common problem for me. I going to see if next time if I can figure out why I'm consistently putting the pattern on the inside. I love to be able to see what I'm weaving as I do it.

New Loom

My husband built me a new box loom to weave on.  I first strung on the Ram's Horn piece that I had messed up just to see how it worked. It works pretty well especially when we figured how to wind the string on there and then we decided to glued leather to the rollers to give them more grip.

I also started a new project....another Ram's Horn. I figured practice makes prefect and I thought I had figured out the problems I was having the first time.

 

Well I was still having problems with this one too. I was getting close but the pattern wasn't emerging. I then decided to look on the underside and I discovered I had either strung my cards wrong or put it on the loom upside down, because the pattern was showing up on that side. I just flipped my weaving over (that's a nice thing about this loom) and TA DA the Ram's Horn pattern. It's so beautiful when it's right.

Maybe when I do this pattern next time it won't take me so long to figure it out.

Ram's Horn card weaving

I decided to make myself a make shift loom, until my husband has a chance to build me a box loom. 

I have an inkle loom to weave on but for some card weaving patterns where you just turn the cards forward, the string just gets to twisted. So I made a temporary loom so I could try my hand at a Ram's Horn pattern.

With the Ram's Horn pattern you turn the cards forward four time, flip the 3,4,5, 8, 9, & 10 card and then go forward four more time. Next flip the cards back that were flipped and go forward 4 more time. So basically turn 4 quarter turns forward, flip the cards turn 4 quarter turns forward flip the cards.

Sounds pretty easy.

My first attempt at the pattern seemed close, but it wasn't coming out right.  So I went back to my notes and figured out I was starting on the wrong side of the card. Basically I was starting with the D side up instead of the A.

 My next attemts seemed even worse, but then I discovered that when I had move my loom to a different table the cards got out of order. Makes a big difference in the patten.

I looked back at my pattern to make sure all the cards were in the order they were supposed to be and that I started on the right side, and finally the correct pattern emerged. I was so excited I wanted to jump up and down.

It's so beautiful when it's right.

After I had gotten it right a few time I needed to switch it to a different table again and it messed up again. I can't wait to get my box loom so the card shuffleing issue goes away.

At least I figured out the pattern and I think I can do it again.

Inkle

Since I've done a few card weaving projects I decided that I should know how to do some inkle weaving too. After doing card weaving, inkle is very relaxing (not that simple card weaving is hard).

I took some pictures, because when I was warping the loom I got it wrong and wanted a picture of it done right. I put all the string over the top dowel rod instead of half on and half under.

Half the string goes on top the other half goes under

My son is helping me in the background

Belt

Here is the belt I just finished card weaving. It's Wiesenfeuer colors and looks sort of flamey. It is made from worsted weight yarn that is 80% acrylic and 20% wool. Even with that little wool it start felting a bit when I turned the cards, so you can't really go back more than quarter turn if you make a mistake.

This was my first time to work with yarn and it was fun, and made the project go a lot faster. This was about my sixth card weaving project and I'm getting a lot more consistent with the tension and getting the width even.

My next project I'm doing on the loom is trying inkle weaving for the first time.

Unraveled Sweaters

Here are the two sweaters that I got at the thrift store the other day. I had already taken off the collar when I took this picture (I got ahead of myself). 

After I picked up the sweaters I did some more research on taking apart sweaters and decided I should have done more research before buying, not because I picked bad sweaters, but I could have without realizing it. 

Example: Make sure the sweater isn't felted anywhere, don't buy sweaters that have been serged on the sides, etc. 

I found some good suggestion online on what to pick out and how to take the sweaters apart.

The pile of yarn is unraveled from the collar, one sleeve and one of the front pieces, I still need to unravel the rest.  I've cleaned the yarn that I unraveled by soaking it in hot water with a little bit of hand soap. I then rinsed it in cold water. It took a whole day to dry in front of the fan, because yarn soaks up a lot of water, that was okay though, because I was at work while it was drying.

 

Above is the yarn all clean and dry. When I was unraveling the sweater I noticed that it was actually knitted with two thinner yarns instead of one thicker yarn. I wanted the two yarns separated, so as I pulled the yarns apart I wound the two yarns on two kitchen chairs side by side. I still ended up with a knotty mess, so I might roll it in a ball first before separating the yarns. I did end up getting it untangle and the pile I was working on in skeins.

 So of the yarn that I've unraveled from the sweater this is what I have left to put into skeins. Of course I still have a lot of sweater to unravel. I'm going to get a lot of yarn from a $4 sweater.

Rest of sweater, clean yarn and some of it in skeins.

One of the skeins