Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Project Mileage

Years ago, I was in charge of setting up the guild loom in our booth at the San Diego County Fair. It was so long ago that at that time, it was still called The Del Mar Fair. I was enamored of fibonacci stripes at the time, and using them to blend from one color to another, so I warped up the loom with some 10/2 mercerized cotton - blending from blue to green. Here's a shot of the fabric.
Now, these threads did not start out as blue and green. Being thrifty, I went through the guild cabinets and found some cones of 10/2 - in bubblegum pink and bright lime green. I'm not particularly fond of either color, so I overdyed both of them with blue, and voila - ended up with some nice oceanic colors that I think blend very well. There's a little variation in the dyeing, and I actually liked that effect, too.

After the fair was over, I wove off the rest of the warp, doing hemstitching on either end, plus some weft stripes of twill for accent. This was sett at 24 epi - a good sett for plain weave, but what I ended up with is something rather stiff for a scarf. It's never been worn - just sat in a box with all of the other marinating fabrics.

Recently, though, I mistakenly purchased a Kindle 2. Well, I did mean to purchase it, but I pre-ordered it, thinking they would come out in the summertime, thinking I would be gainfully employed by that time. Instead, they came out in February, and I didn't get the job I was interviewing for. However, I LOVE the Kindle. I decided to make a slipcover for it, and hmmmm, looking through the box of fabrics, this popped out. After relearning how to use my sewing machine, this is what I came up with.

Then I decided it would be cool to make a kumihimo handle to attach. Hmmmm..... do I still have the thrums? I looked in the thrum box, and YES, I do!

I carefully pulled off 8 threads for each of the 8 tama - 4 tama with green and 4 with blue. I'll post again when the handle is braided.So this is definitely a project I'm getting a lot of mileage out of. Your mileage may vary...

2 comments:

Life Looms Large said...

Wow - you definitely got your money's worth on that yarn....so much fiber enjoyment (dyeing, weaving, kumi-blah-blah-blah-ing - I can't spell!!)

Plus it turns into a useful item!! Good job!

Sue

Lynnette said...

Don't you just love repurposing your handwoven! I love the idea of mixing your weaving methods in one piece. I have made items mixing loom woven fabric and card woven bands....but never Kumihimo, what a great idea.