The driver was weaving in and out…

Cracks me up every time I hear that in the news! I realize it is no laughing matter when a person drives while impaired. But, the visual that pops up in my head is hysterical! I just see someone sitting in the driver’s seat with a little loom in front of the steering wheel… sooo inappropriate, I know! I’ll accept all scolding now…

Last we chatted, the loom was fully dressed and ready for weaving! For this project, I’m using recycled neckties as a component of the fabric. Therefore, I spent some time chopping up ties prior to starting to weave.

First things first, I add a little toilet paper to the project. When starting the weaving process, you need to have a few rows of filler that spread out the yarns. TP is great for this! It’s a cheap resource that is perforated and easy to remove later. I can’t take any credit for this brilliant little nugget! But, you are welcome to steal it – ’cause it’s a good one!

I thought I’d start with the dark, silver ties right out of the gates! Because the warp yarns are purple and silver, I want to stay relatively in those color families. (Warp yarns are the yarns in the loom, versus weft yarns which are the yarns in the shuttle.)

When using neckties, I just overlap the ends. I don’t want the fabric to get too bulky. So, I stay away from knotting. And I’d rather personally yank out my eye teeth than have to sew anything! Overlapping, it is! Once the ties are trapped in between the yarns, it’s really difficult to pull them out. So, the process works just fine for what I need!

In the past when I’ve done this sort of project, I’ve used one shuttle to place a yarn in between each tie. Mostly, this guarantees the structure of the fabric will be secure. But, this time around, I want to use the in-between cotton yarns as more of a design element! I think the narrow purple and silver stripes act as a beautiful bit of “glue”, holding all the colors and patterns together!

What’s so interesting about using neckties is that you can’t always anticipate what the inside of the tie will look like! So, there are occasions when I’ve cracked open a tie and found that I like the inside better than the outside! For my recycled necktie fabric, I create a definite front and back to be sure the correct side shows up on the handbags!

I have to tell you, it’s tough to take accurately-colored images when there’s purple involved! Seems to me that purple and green are the tricky ones! So, forgive me if some of the photos look a little like they are glowing! I’ve tried to auto-correct them and in a few cases, the results aren’t great! Ah, technology…

And here we are… weaving away!… but not driving at the same time. Promise! I have plenty of ties left to incorporate into the fabric! Talk to you soon!!!