The end is in sight!

Hello friends! Let’s wrap this up today, shall we?

The knots are coming up quickly, signaling the end of the fabric! I started the project with lots of blues, moved into some purples and now am solidly living in magenta-land! (I know many folks who could live quite happily in magenta-land without complaints!)

I’m still incorporating a strip of necktie every so often to give it a beautiful change in texture. I love the subtlety! But, I may make the ties more prominent next time. We’ll see…

If you remember from the beginning of the project, I wound in a number of yardsticks to keep the yarns even. Now, all the yardsticks have fallen out of the back and they’ve been moved to the front, keeping the fabric consistent. What would the world do without yardsticks? Honestly, most folks wouldn’t miss them. But, I’d like to think weavers everywhere would! (Or, it could just be me. I’m OK with that!)

Time to begin cutting! I like to start in the middle and work my way out to the edges, knotting as I go. I had a friend who asked me about using toilet paper at the project end since I use it at the beginning. And what I’ve discovered is that I’ll need to remove it before I transfer it to my seamstress anyways. So, at the end of the project, I don’t bother. You certainly could use some sort of spacer between the fabric and the knots. But for this type of project, it’s not critical. (In my humble opinion, of course!)

Once all the yarn has been cut and knotted, the fabric flops itself down towards the floor and with the help of gravity, begins unwinding itself! It’s so fun to see the colorful fabric mixed in with a mess of sticks!

Once everything is completely off the loom, I just remove the TP from the beginning of the project (remember when everything was blue?). Then, it’s ready to travel on to the magic seamstress! I don’t have photos handy of the entire bolt of fabric, but I’ll include a few next time so you can see the progression from start to finish! And then, something new! What is better than that? Starting and finishing – they are the best! Talk to you soon…