First Solo Weaving Project

I finally finished the Table Runner that I started 2.5 years ago. The loom had been warped and was ready to go, but at first I had it standing on its side in a closet. Then my husband put the stand together, and it stood in our Family Room for a few months, until I finally decided it was time to do something about it. So I moved it into the Dining Room, of all places, because that's where the light was best. I worked on it on and off  for a couple of months, undoing and redoing bits of it because I would discover that it had gotten a little too narrow. Finally, a week or so ago, I decided that enough was enough, and it was time to finish it. Once I made up my mind to do it, it was done in a couple of days.


Then I spent a few days trying to find out how best to wet finish it (the weaving equivalent of blocking). There's precious little information available on that subject, but luckily Cyd at Tucson Yarn Co. is knowledgeable about weaving, among other things, and was able to send me in the right direction. Because one of the two yarns used in this project doesn't respond to traditional  methods, there wasn't a lot I could do, but I did the best I could, and the results, actually, are pretty good. The runner looks quite nice on our Dining Room table.

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This weeks featured artisan is Phillippa Pinka - Court & Sparks.
Darling Creations that make perfect gifts! You can find Court & Sparks on:

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The Saga of the Breeze That Wasn't

Back in mid-June, Jane Thornley introduced a new pattern for a simple wrap she called The Breeze, partly because it was a breeze to make; large needles, lightweight yarn, simple stitches. It captured everyone's interest, mine included. I had the perfect yarn for it. 

My first attempt had to be frogged, because it got so wide, with no depth, that it would have been usable only as a long skinny scarf that one winds around the neck multiple times. Armed with some hints from one of the other Ravelers, I started again, and this time it seemed to progress rather smoothly. Until I got about half done. The cable came loose from the needle, and the stitches all started to unravel; the perils of using large needles on thin yarn. I was panicky at first, but decided to try and mend it all, no easy feat with a random lace pattern. Somehow, I pulled it off. 

Finally I added the edging around the top, and bound off. But I didn't cut off the yarn, I used it to picked up stitches around the bottom to add a matching edging When it was finished, I wasn't happy with the way it looked, and decided to redo it. So I frogged back to where I had picked up stitches to start again. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying enough attention, and ended up frogging part of the top edging. Enough of it that the whole thing started to unravel. Because of the nature of the yarn, it was almost impossible to stop the unravelling, and when I finally did, much of the top few inches was lost. I tried running a lifeline at what I thought was the lowermost edge of the unraveling, but it wasn't quite evenly threaded through, so I had to really work at it till I got the cable to go straight through on one row.  Again there were a few spots that I had to repair, actually a large area, but I faked it, and it worked. I just wouldn't want anyone looking too closely at it.

The problem at this point was that all that frogging had released a lot of yarn, which promptly got tangled up. I ended up spending a day and a half untangling and rewinding before I could proceed with finishing the bottom edge, which I decided to crochet instead of knit.

Crochet Edge

 Once it was done, I realized that it was really a little longer/wider than I wanted. So I gathered about half of the neckline edge, and now it's a much better length.

 The Random Lace

Monet's Lily Pond Kimono

I finished my Monet Lily Pond Kimono, but not without a few problems; it just didn't want to be done. Whenever I thought I was through, I found something that needed to be changed, and when I changed that, something else would not be right. I did the bottom of the back 3 times before I got it right, partly because I ran low on the medium green yarn I needed. It was where it was to be seamed to the front, which would really point out the difference. But I did find a good substitute, and got it done.

I originally wanted a short, little kimono, to fit the way it does in Jane Thornley’s Guide. And it started out that way, but it stretched as I worked on it, and ended up full size; as you can see in the photo.  I guess the shorter kimono will have to be another project. Anyway, it’s done. It's ridiculous that it took me so long; I was the first to start mine for the Knit A Masterpiece KAL, but far from the first to finish.

I also finished my Breeze Wrap, but that's a long story to be covered in another post.