Weave me a tale…

I’m ready! Let’s weave!

A little TP to start!

First up, a bit of toilet paper to even out the yarns. It’s cheap and perforated, making it really easy to work with and costing very little – especially considering that it will be ripped out once the project is finished.

Here we go!

Chenille yarns give it a bit of fuzz!

I am not a huge fan of the fuzzy yarns, I’ll just lay it out there! But, I have collected a few chenille cones over the years. So, I figured, “What the heck!” – let’s throw it in there to see what happens! Because the weave is fairly tight, you can’t quite tell what’s going on. Some inches looks a bit fuzzy, while with others you don’t even notice. The moral of the story, kids, is if you want to weave using a chenille, be sure to spread your warp yarns far apart so you can make it worth your while!

Lots of options!

Part of the fun of a project like this is hauling out every possible colored cone of yarn I might even remotely want to use! Trust me when I say that I have PLENTY of yarn to choose from! It’s a bit like grocery shopping in your own home. Typically, I’ll yank out 40-60 different yarns – you know, just in case (as the caption says!)…

Just in case…

Right next to the loom!

For this project, I selected yarns that follow the colors in the warp (yarns wound on to the loom). So, browns, blues, reds/roses, greens, whites and blacks/grays were all yanked out the shelves and planted right next to the loom. This method makes for tricky traveling around the loom since I don’t usually leave much of an aisle. But, having all the yarns right there allows me to plan for the next shuttle-full and it just makes me happy! So there you have it! (This is part of the fun of being an artist – getting to do what makes you happy!)

Yum…

Blending, blending, blending!

It’s pretty rare for me to use all the same colored yarns together in the shuttle. Say I’m working with black –  I’ll throw in a bit of navy, maybe a dark plum, definitely a charcoal (love some charcoal!) and even a really thin white yarn to mix it up! It’s amazing how your eye will automatically read it as black! I like to compare it to pointillism – a painting with only 8 colors of paint will read as an entire spectrum of colors! It’s like magic!

Kind of like cooking – a bit of this and that!

And isn’t life better now that we are weaving? Admit it, you kind of like it! There will be much more weaving fun to follow! I wouldn’t lie to you about this… Talk to you soon…