After

My craft room is mostly set up and I love it! I got a desk from Ikea that fits in the corner. It's hard to see, but in the back corner of the desk I have my swift set up with the ball winder on the edge behind the chair. I am also able to keep my sewing machine out. It used to live on the top shelf of a closet which means I never used it. Maybe now that it's more accessible I will actually sew once in a while.

Behind the desk is my bookshelf/yarn shelf. On top of this I have my drum carder, drop spindle and all of the knitting needles that I got from my grandma last time I visited.

The closet has the majority of my yarn. The black container to the left of the closet holds all of my spinning fiber.

It's great having so much room for all my crafting stuff. I could pretty much hang out in this room all the time. :)

My New Baby

For a long time I tried to stay away from weaving. I mean, I have plenty to keep me busy between knitting, crocheting and spinning. Eventually though, after reading all about looms and checking out pictures of other people's weaving I just couldn't help but ask for a loom for my birthday. I was so excited to receive my new 15" Schacht Cricket rigid heddle loom!  

I have already finished 2 scarves since I got the loom on Thursday. Weaving goes so much faster than knitting! The way it works is that every other piece of yarn goes through a slot or a hole (see pictures below). This way, when the heddle is in the up position the strands of yarn through the holes go up while the strands in the slot stay down. When the heddle is in the down position the exact opposite happens. Then you can just pass your horizontal strands (weft yarn) through the triangle (shed) that is made.

 

The first scarf I finished was with the yarn that came with the loom. The warp (long yarn) yarn was green and the weft (horizontal yarn) was purple.

  

The second one was with some left over acrylic yarn. The warp was both green and yellow and the weft was green.

 

The hardest part is trying to get the edges just right. If it's too loose you get a loop of yarn hanging off the edge and if it's too tight the edge of the scarf pulls in.

I think that this afternoon I'll start on a baby blanket. The plan is to make 2-3 panels and sew them together. Hopefully it turns out well!