PattyAnne's Place

I’ve taken Janet Dawson’s challenge…sorta…. I’m going to do a Scarf a Week. Janet is doing a Scarf a Day but with the Flip Loom placemats and Mighty Wolf dish towels… well, I just couldn’t keep up daily!!

Here, though, is my FIRST scarf in the challenge. I absolutely LOVE the “nubbly” textures. This scarf feels so soft and squishy!! LOVE IT.

Scarf #1

A fellow ‘Cricket-teer’ sent these photos to me (Thanks, Kim!!). Aren’t they purty!!

OH, notice the yellow scarf?? There is a story behind this BRIGHT, cheery scarf!! We (several of us have made them!) call these BRIGHT scarves our “happy scarves”. Whenever anyone of us Cricket-teers is feeling down in the dumps, we put on our ‘happy scarf and sing… “Gray skies are gonna clear up…. put on your happy scarf…. and spread sunshine all over the place, just put on your happy scarf!”

Yep, you feel like a idiot doing it but in no time at all, you’re smiling again!! Try it!! Weave yourself a WILD, cheery “happy scarf” and then when you’re down in the dumps… don that scarf and belt out the tune! LOL

Oh, I’d love to see pictures of YOUR happy scarf!! Heck, why not video yourself belting out your song!!! FUN!
email to pattyanne at pattyannesplace dot com (Put HAPPY SCARF in the subject line!)

I am soooo excited about these placemats. I wasn’t sure how well they were going to work at first because it was hard packing the cloth weft into the warp. I didn’t beat it really hard so there was space between the weft shots BUT when wet finished, the placemats turned out beautifully!!

Here are a few picts:

I used cotton batik fabric for the weft which I had torn into 3/4 inch strips. The warp is 8/2 cotton. Sett 10epi

Ann took my rigid heddle class 2 weeks ago. In the class we used 15″ Flip Looms and Crickets.

Since Ann absolutely LOVES scarves, she decided the Cricket is the perfect loom for her. WOW!! I have to agree!! Look at the scarves she’s already made. Ann said this about the scarf currently pictured on her loom, “I’m trying a microfiber for warp and varigated narrow ribbon for weft.” I LOVE it, Ann!!!

I taught a class a North Woods Farm Fiber and Yarn Shop this past weekend. We ALL had a GREAT time. ( Watch this site or Teri’s site at North Woods because we are planning to do another beginner workshop in the NEAR future and possibly an advanced class!)

As you can see in the photos, a variety of looms were used: Schacht Flips, Crickets, an Ashford, and a Bekka loom.
I wish I had gotten pictures of ALL of the scarves. Perhaps the ladies in the class will email me photos of their finished projects! **Fingers crossed**

I’m so excited!! I’m headed out of town on Saturday for a WEEK long weaving class. Janet Dawson and her mom Sue, are teaching a class that will be perfect for me (a brand new Mighty Wolf weaver)!

I have been watching Janet’s live show on JustinTV for a few months now and have learned so much from her! I can’t wait to see the tips I’ll learn next week. What’s that you say? You wonder what kind of tips I am learning? Well, just today Janet helped me figure out what I was doing wrong when I was winding my bobbins. I had NO tension on the thread that I was winding on. I was winding on VERY loosely and OFTEN, when weaving, my shuttle would bind up… it was MADDENING. Janet to the rescue… she simply told me to apply a bit of tension to the thread while winding it and, lo and behold…. it worked!!!!

So let’s see…. on to other news…..
I have several rigid heddle teaching classes coming up… One at North Woods Fiber and one for a class of home schoolers.
I’m really looking forward to both!

I took SIX… yep, SIX dish towels off The Wolf today and wet finished them. Tomorrow I will press and hem them. The towels are not perfect but look pretty darn good to me!!! My sister will be getting one of them soon!

First Dish Towel woven on 4 Now 4 Later Mighty Wolf

This is not one of those UGLY surprises, however. The dishtowels I’m weaving are lovely. The first one as seen here is a moss green and natural 8/2 cotton. The pattern comes from Handwoven Sept/Oct 2009 issue.

This shawl is plain tabby weave. I didn’t want to try a pattern as I thought it would be lost in all the pretty colors and textures of both the warp and weft.

Here’s a shot of the yarns I used:

Yarns used to make tabby weave shawl. The far left yarn is Noro.

Here is the finished shawl. I just LOVE it. The colors and textures are gorgeous.

Shawl - Tabby Weave

Shawl - Tabby Weave ( I LOVE the colors!!)

Today I’m warping my loom to make another Handwoven Magazine project. This one is from the Sept/Oct 2009 issue. It is for dish towels by Gunnel Oresjo. I’ve got to warp on 408 ends of STRING. Wish me luck!!

Over Christmas I was able to warp and weave a bit more on my Mighty Wolf. (Pretty exciting for me since I’m teaching myself from a book!)

I did have a few questions and want to thank Jeen from Ravelry for helping me out!!! Also, I’ve gotten a lot of GREAT tips from Janet Dawson – Thanks Janet!!

Anyway, the very first usable thing I wove was a lovely shawl called, “Budget Bamboo Shawl” in Handwoven magazine Sept/Oct 2009 issue. As mentioned, I had questions on getting STARTED. The first question that I had Jeen so quickly answered for me was how in the world did I warp my loom at 15epi when I only had 10 dent and 12 dent reeds. Jeen said, “To sley a 10 dent reed for 15 epi, thread this way: 1 – 2 (repeat).” This meant that I would put one ‘end’ in the first slot and two ‘ends’ in the second slot. (I bet there is a more appropriate was for me to say this but …… YAY, I can do this!! )

So I did it and ended up with a really pretty wonderfully ‘drapey’ shawl. I loved it…. I’m glad you didn’t see me dancing in the kitchen in it…. twirling around!!

Here it is in progress:

Charts I'm following while warping

Bamboo Shawl in Progress on Schacht Mighty Wolf

Me weaving FIRST shawl EVER on Mighty Wolf.

I never took a finished picture of it for show and tell. See my daughter and her hub came for Christmas and DD loved the shawl too …. so it is now in TN (several states away).
Oh, I know I’ve mentioned that I have dogs – if you’ve seen my videos, you’ve probably seen them. Well, when my daughter comes to visit she brings her two dogs. Sooo we had 3 big dogs and one medium dog in the house over Christmas. All in all it was FUN. The dogs get along very well. The only problem at all is that Libby (my 1.5 year old) LOVES to play a bit too much for the older doggies!

Here are two of dd’s dogs who had sneaked onto the couch while we weren’t looking.

Bowser and Madison

I warped my Schacht Mighty Wolf all by myself!! I did manage to twist a few warp threads which messed me up a little but I was still able to do the tabby weaving and the twill as instructed in the book, “Learning to Weave” by Debbie Redding. This book is FANTASTIC! The directions are very clear and super easy to follow!