Weaving is slow

Weaving can be a slow, sometimes very slow, business. I don’t mind this. As someone who favors two shuttle weaving structures, my daily weaving progress is often measured in inches, not feet or yards. For the last ten days or so, I’ve had the same warp on the loom:

In anticipation of the League of NH Craftmen’s 90th Annual Summer Fair, I’ve been working on pieces for this 9 day show. The Ostrander variation is a piece that tends to draw the eye of patrons. I’ve been weaving this using a few different pattern wefts, including navy blue, moss green (shown above), and garnet red. I put on a pretty long warp and plan to do a bit of experimental weaving after completing the table runners. I’ve been experimenting with “inclusions,” or inlay weaving. Here is a bit that I did recently:

I’m finding that I like seeing the pattern jump out of the middle of the surrounding plain cloth. It is unexpected, and I guess that working on a piece like this is satisfying because so much of what I work on for production is familiar – expected – in terms of symmetry and balance.

Shipments of recent work have been delivered to the League of NH Galleries in Nashua and Littleton, NH so if you’re in the vicinity of either of these locations, do stop in! I always find something interesting (and unexpected!) at these shops.

Winter is not quite finished here in the Monadnock Region and to keep things fresh and lively I have ordered a Schacht inkle loom for band weaving. I’m so excited! I love my big Nilus II loom as we’ve been together for so many years, but I do like being able to take my weaving on the road, so to speak (really, it’ll be nice to work in the next room or as the weather gets nicer, outside on the patio). Once I have the hang of it (string heddles do not scare me — I’ve made hundreds of them for the Nilus II to correct threading errors! Hahaha!) I’ll probably be sharing some of my inkle adventures here.

Mr. Darcy is doing quite well and has been enjoying his wild bird friends outside on the balcony. Here are a few of the visitors we’ve had this week:

Speaking of birds, I am very pleased to have finished the “Songbird Mittens” designed by Erica Heusser (found on Ravelry). I used Jamieson & Smith jumper weight yarn (spun in Shetland, Scotland) and I am very happy with them. Here is a photo:

Thanks for checking in. Stay warm and well,

Kate K.