Tag Archives: weaving

My packing list

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On my walk last night, I started into a new audiobook — Tana French’s “Faithful Place.” (I’m in love with this series.) It starts out with our protagonist, a detective, picking up his 9-year-old daughter for the weekend, and waiting for her to get her things together. She can’t find her horse; you know the routine. It got me thinking about that phenomenon of kids — who don’t actually need to pack anything — always having a selection of things they simply can’t go anywhere without. And I laughed at myself realizing that, all that day, some small part of the back of my brain had been fretting over what I would pack for the trip I leave on tomorrow. Not what clothes, mind you, but which yarny projects and corresponding supplies.

These are the toys that I won’t be leaving home without:

  • My cardigan-in-progress (which hasn’t been touched since that picture was taken)
  • My Weave-It
  • 2 skeins tobacco-colored Blue Sky Alpacas Bulky and some fat DPNs, for simulating those Humanoid mitts
  • A few skeins of yarn that are earmarked for assorted small projects, easy to do while surrounded by family members coming and going
  • A pile of remnant ends for screwing around with weaving
  • A big handful of needles and hooks, for whatever I might get into, plus attempting to teach my sister to crochet and/or knit

Plus Tana French on Audible, of course. (We need to talk about audiobooks sometime.) Plus I ordered a pair of potholder looms and had them delivered to my destination — fun for the whole family!

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Scored a vintage Weave-It

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vintage weave-it loom

Can you believe I’ve never bought anything from eBay before? It’s always seemed like such an exceptionally slippery slope — I figured my best bet was to just stay completely clear of it. My resolve on this issue has been unwavering. Then the other day I clicked a link somewhere and found myself on a listing for a vintage Weave-It in pristine condition — “America’s Most Popular Hand Loom,” no longer in production — and I didn’t give it a moment’s thought. I clicked the buy button and voilà.

vintage weave-it hand loom

Ethel Mairet’s yarn specimens

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ethel mairet yarn samplesethel mairet yarn samplesethel mairet yarn samples

I spotted a couple of these on Pinterest this morning and had to dig deeper. Unfortunately, I can’t really dig very deep at the moment, but they are yarn samples saved by an early-20th-century weaver named Ethel Mairet. Images from the archives at VADS; yarns from R. Greg & Co., Stockport (UK). This may be perfectly typical and I just don’t know about it (having failed to study fiber arts) but the way she’s catalogued these — weaving them in simple but regimented fashion through slits in card stock, carefully annotating the specimens — makes me a little bit dizzy with love. I mean, it’s like art, design, library science and yarn all rolled into one!

As soon as I get a chance, I’ll be looking into this Ethel Mairet, maker of “hand woven stuffs”.

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Crafting in public

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I’m working on the first bona fide project on my little starter loom, which I intend to be a housewarming present for my friend Leigh. I was invited to a party at her loft Monday night with twenty-three other creative women, and everyone was supposed to bring a project. I brought this and let Leigh art direct it a little bit. We agreed it needs more brown and some orange, so I need to acquire a nice orange yarn. I didn’t ask her how she feels about fringe.

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Blog Crush: L.A. in Bloom

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heather taylor l.a. in bloom blogger marni for h&mIn my Evernote is one note that’s just a giant dumping ground of URLs I come across at busy moments that I want to come back to and dig around in. Wednesday night one of them leapt out at me: L.A. in Bloom. It took some scrolling through the blog for me to remember where I’d come across the link: It was a pin on Pinterest from what appeared to be a style blogger I’d not heard of before, about the Marni for H&M collection. And in the pinned image, she was sitting in a funky-cool armchair, dressed all in Marni, looking perfectly charming, and knitting. So obviously I wanted to know more.

It turns out Heather Taylor, the blogger in question, is a gallery owner and a knitter, and she’s recently taken up weaving — in a very ambitious way. From what I’ve seen so far, she blogs about food and books and flowers and art and fibery things, and she comes across in the blog just as charming as she did in that knitting-in-Marni image. I put her blog straight into my feed reader, and I’ll be digging deeper into the archives as soon as possible.

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Meanwhile, one of the posts that caught my eye was about a yarn store and weaving studio in L.A. by the name of Pets with Fez! Heather had just been there for the first time in January:

… a charmingly cluttered weaving studio Highland Park. Sadly for Angelenos, the shop is relocating to San Francisco this February and this is the last week to sort through the colorful selection of yarn, books and tchotchkes before they head north.

Wha-huh?! Anyone know anything about this? I need to go there if and when it reopens, but Google doesn’t seem to know anything. (Etsy at least has this video.)

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My starter loom

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weavette style hand loom

I finally did it. After a lot of Googling (“weavette plans”) and YouTube viewing and soul searching on Saturday afternoon, I decided to just make my first loom as simple as possible. Bob built the stretcher (two dollars’ worth of art-supply store supplies) and I hammered the nails in at 1/4-inch intervals along an 8-inch square. And maybe a half an hour later, thanks to this Hazel Rose video, I had finished my first “weavie”! As they apparently call them.

Eventually I’ll take the time the time to mark out another one with “multi-loom” pin placements — as detailed here and evidenced in this video (with some reconciliation between the two). But I’ll be able to do pretty much all I want to do with this one in the near term. I think — I really don’t know. I’ve ordered a long needle and a locker hook, which I’ll need to try my hand at the sort of weaving I think I’m interested in, and then I’ll discover more about what I can and can’t do with this loom and those accessories. But until they arrive, I’m essentially limited to the diagonal method seen above, which only requires a long crochet hook. But even that simple technique is pretty satisfying.

Thanks again to Jaime Rugh for the inspiration.

Projects for a holiday weekend

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memorial day holiday macrame crochet weaving projects

I’m going to finish my sweater this weekend and then I’m in the mood to do something small and completely different. Maybe some funky macramé jewelry à la Siamic, a crocheted bowl or bag, or maybe I’ll finally make that Jaime Rugh-inspired Weavette of my own.

What will you be up to?

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